A Cookout Excursion

Today's story takes place in every college student's dream setting: Cookout. With its endless milkshake flavors, huge portions, low prices, and late night hours, Cookout has inevitably become one my friends' favorite dining experiences in Lexington. Documenting one of our mid-semester meet ups there was a no brainer.

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I'll Be There For You

Technique(s) Used: Image Adjustments and Text

I snapped this picture as my roommates and I left our dorm to meet everyone else at Cookout. The quote rings true for me. Even though Cookout is one of our favorite places to meet up, these ladies could be headed anywhere in this photo and I would still follow them. I choose this quote to emphasize the heartwarming feelings I get whenever I'm around my friends. To emphasize the meaning of the quote, I used masks to make my friends stand out among their surroundings.

On the background layer I used a levels adjustment to make the brightness, tonal range and contrast in the photo look the best it could. Then, I applied hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, and vibrance adjustment layers to make the colors look duller and darker, and therefore less interesting, than my friends. Plus, the hue/saturation adjustment layer also helped to make the sky bluer, which makes the quote stand out better.

Using the vibrance, and brightness/contrast adjustments on layers where the background was masked, I turned up the brightness, saturation, and vibrance to create contrast between my friends and the background. I used a warming Photo Filter on my friends so they would be associated with more warm, fuzzy feelings than the dark, cool background surrounding them.

You've Got a Friend in Me

Technique(s) Used: Text

Once everyone got to Cookout and ordered their food, we all headed out to our favorite table on the outside patio! I wanted to show this photo next because it gives you a better view of all my friends together in their natural habitat.

I found this definition for friends on Urban Dictionary and I think it gives perfect insight to this photo. We're not doing anything special, but whenever someone needs a Cookout run, we're all there! No one asks if anyone wants to go anymore because we all already know that the answer is yes. I formatted the quote like a dictionary entry and used the American Typewriter font to make the photo look more official. To me, this picture could be under the definition for 'friend' in the official Webster Dictionary because it perfectly exemplifies the word.

Thank You For Being a Friend

Technique(s) Used: Editing

This is my friend Kat, just enjoying our time together. I almost never get to see her because she's in nursing school and has a crazy busy schedule, but whenever we do get a chance to sit down and catch up, she just lights up.

I wanted Kat to literally light up the screen so, once again, I used a mask to separate her from the background. Then, I used the black and white adjustment layer to make the background black and white. I also a applied a levels and brightness/contrast adjustment layer to the photo in order to make Kat really pop as the focal point. These adjustments also helped to balance the contrast between white, black, and grey in the background.

Gotta Get With My Friends

Technique(s) Used: Editing

When everyone finally realized I was not going to stop taking pictures, they decided to start posing for them. None of us are really great about taking pictures together and we actually don't have that many photos together. So after I showed my friends how good this picture turned out, they started to really get into it!

I kept the photo edits simple in this scene because I wanted my friend's faces and expressions to be the main focus. I used a hue/saturation adjustment layer to give the photo a little more color to liven it up. Because the photo was taken at night, I applied an exposure adjustment layer to help brighten it up a little. Finally, I used a levels adjustment layer to just level out all the tones and highlights in the photo to make it look as clear and vibrant as possible.

When You're Not Strong

Technique(s) Used: Editing and Text

Like I said, they really got into it. At this point, my friends decided they wanted to capture their dramatic, emo spirit from middle school. While this photo may not look like it fits into the story at first glance, it really does show how much fun we all were having just goofing around with each other. My friends and I all decided on the quote together and we chose this one because we couldn't stop laughing at how overly dramatic it made the picture look.

I used a levels adjustment layer to even out the contrast and tones of the photo. But I wanted to give it an intense, dark vibe to match the angle and expression on my friend Madison's face. So, I used brightness/contrast adjustment layer to increase the contrast and lower the brightness. Next, I intensified the photo by using a hue/saturation adjustment layer to increase the red colors in the photo. This gives the picture a dramatic red overlay to draw your eye down to the railing and the quote. I chose the Clip font with a highlighted red glow to give the text a neon style. This helps to emphasize the angsty nature of the quote. The wild typeface also plays up the melodramatic irony of the entire scene.

Cause You're There For Me Too

Technique(s) Used: Text

Ironically enough, this was the last photo of the night! In addition, it was unanimously the favorite photo of the night! As I mentioned before, my friends and I are notorious for not having enough pictures of us together, so everyone was thrilled with this picture and it was the one that they all chose for their instagram posts!

I used the same script from the first photo to help round out the story visually. I used this quote on the shot of all my friends together because I know I can always count on them to head out to Cookout and grab a milkshake whenever life gets tough. I added an oval behind the text and then lowered the opacity to help the quote really pop. The decorative border gives the photo a little more personality and ties the text and its circle into the rest of the scene.

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Did you catch the easter eggs I snuck into the titles of my photos? If you did, I'll bet you sang through every song line until you got to the next photo! I just couldn't help but use some fun and funky titles to help you get in to groove of the friendship theme!