Who needs a DSLR when there are stock photos? :O

I bet the title of my post will strike a chord to the majority of photographers around the world. haha! I love to annoy you. :D

Apparently time is my friend and I have plenty of it. Too much in fact to the extent where I can spend all day just in front of this computer editing photos. I've been struggling on how I should set my camera processing. I've got no problems choosing the settings for nature, animals and such but when it comes to people shots i find that my D40's colors always seem to disappoint me.

I'm not blaming my camera but it's just so hard to get the proper skin tone!! arrgghh!! Anyway, I'm gonna try to get it right this weekend. Something good on the camera LCD doesn't really mean a thing. Cuz it always comes out differently on the computer monitor. Especially with skin tones!! aarrgghhh!!

You might be asking, why now? After all I've been taking people shots for a while now. I know, but today or earlier tonight I decided to check out stock photos. Cuz I've run out of photos to play with. And it was then that I realized that I could already create stuff like these. And it's always been what I wanted to produce only I never really managed to with my shots. So I was thinking it could either be my camera or my subjects. or most probably the dude behind the lens.... ME!

I will now have to re-study my camera. This is not cool. I gotta find the right settings and the right lighting and the right angles and the right locations from now on. But it's good to know that my post process was headed the right way all this time. At least it's something that I could be happy about cuz I learned it all from scratch without any help. Which is kinda awesome in it's own way. :P

So here are a coupla stock photos that I've pimped. I'm gonna practice more on these stock photos until my siblings get back from college and then I can try to get the same results with them as the reluctant models and with my D40. XD I have faith in my camera.

Here's a shot that first caught my eye. I love action shots. So I downloaded this one and souped it up and it turned out gooooooodddd.

Here's the original

This one is pretty typical of one of those usual outdoor model shoots that's pretty rampant in and around the photography world. Had to give it a try. :P and yeah, it worked but she ended up looking a wee bit "ganas" from the original photo.

Here's the original.

Props to the photographers who shot these. And hopefully I'll be able to steal their skills soon. :P