Wow, would you believe that I'm caught up with my kid's photos! So this week, for my Jessica Sprague mid-week assignment, I'm having to resort to going back and scrapping photos of me as a kid. I plan to do all those photos digitally and put them into a Heritage Makers book.
Anyhow, the assignment was to use white paper and I combined it with another challenge to use an advertisement as inspiration. The ad I used is here and the layout is below.
Ahhh, Tara tagged me again! I'm gonna have to start tagging her before she gets a chance to tag me.
So here it is: 5 things in my refrigerator: 1. cranberry juice 2. pepperoni sticks 3. butter 4. monterey jack cheese 5. honey mustard
5 things in my car: 1. garbage 2. baby stroller 3. sunglasses 4. loose change 5. baby wipes
5 things in my purse or backpack: 1. phone 2. wallet 3. brag book 4. glasses 5. kleenex
5 things in my closet: 1. clothes 2. shoes 3. dirty laundry 4. purses 5. camera bag
5 things in the world I want to see before I die: 1. my kids grow up 2. italy (rome, florence, venice) 3. egypt 4. the mediterrean (again) 5. new york city
I hadn't planned to get up for the lunar eclipse but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) one of my kids crawled into my bed at 4:30 waking me up.
I could see the moon right out of my window while lying in bed and I thought, darn, now I've gotta get up to get a shot :)
Shot taken using Nikon spot metering, no noise reduction, tripod and remote shutter release.
On the advice of Scott Kelby, I purchased David Ziser's Digital Wakeup Call DVD. David Ziser is a well known and successful wedding photographer who teaches techniques at various seminars across the States. The DVD was fairly inexpensive $69 and I figured I'd easily spend that on a local photography course should one be available (which it isn't) and while the DVDs are wedding oriented, I figured that weddings mostly consist of portraits and group shots which is what I am interested in.
Anyway, the DVDs are very informative. You get around 4 1/2 hours of instruction (David talks with a powerpoint presentation but also demonstrates with his camera on screen) and I made 21 pages (these are small page, mind you) of notes.
David starts by talking about the wedding photography industry in general but quickly moves on to a discussion of different views of the face, basic lighting, composition, various techniques such as speeding/dragging the shutter and why you'd do this, on and off camera flash lighting as well as multi strobe, lens selection. He continues the DVDs with a discussion/demo of several software programs including his own photoshop dashboard, Fotofusion Pro. Finally he concludes with a discussion of how to market yourself in the wedding photography business.
The DVDs are well done, he is a good presenter that makes the subject matter interesting. There are plenty of diagrams and sample photos to illustrate his points. Also included in the package is a CD with several photoshop training videos (that I haven't watched yet).
I would give Digital Wakeup Call 10/10 for training and information about wedding photography (and portrait/group photography) and recommend these DVDs to an intermediate/advanced photographer (they are not beginner level). Great value for money!
David's blog can be found here You can purchase the DVDs here
Here is my digital layout for Jessica Sprague's Midweek Assignment. It uses a quick page from the Beautiful You digital kit that was FREE on the CK website earlier this year and has been made available to all students of Jessica's course.
This Summer book is my first bind it all project. The book is made from cardstock covered with papers from Scenic Route. The spine is wire bound with my bind it all and the fibres are from Basic Grey. I also used a Stampin' Up alphabet and tab punch.
I am writing this post to share my concern over a Canadian Tire ad that is presently running on Sympatico. The ad shows a college roommate with a red crosshair on his chest with the words "hit your new roommate". The ad is entitled Dorm Dodgeball and can be seen here http://sympatico.msn.ca/
In light of the recent school shooting at Virigina Tech, as well as similar shootings over the past few years (Taber, Montreal, Columbine) I find this ad disturbing and offensive as it is not only making light of a serious crime, it also seems to be encouraging others to "shoot" students.
I have email Canadian Tire explaining my feelings and asking them to withdraw it. If this ad disturbs you, I ask you to please email the following individuals and let them know.
A fire has been burning 8km East of Big White ski resort this afternoon. The Mars bomber has been flying directly over Gallaghers Canyon since mid-afternoon on runs between Lake Okanagan and Big White.
Here are some shots taken directly outside my house.
K, who is 3, wanted to go to the store to buy lipstick yesterday. I was so shocked (I don't even wear lipstick myself except rare occasions) that I told her that she wasn't allowed to wear lipstick until she was 15!
Photo: K (lipstick-less), using the Lightroom, New Mexico Road split tone filter. 2 August 2007.
I just found a great pastel forum on Wet Canvas and each month they have a challenge to create a pastel painting from a photo.
This is my first time doing the challenge. Here is my painting: Painted with NuPastels, Rembrandts and Sennelier on Canson mi-teintes 9x12 paper (dark grey).
If you are a regular reader you'll know that I tried and gave up on Photoshop Lightroom shortly after its release, mainly as it didn't support multiple computers (I use both a laptop and a desktop). Anyway, now that version 1.1 has been released there is some support for multiple computers, namely the ability to export and import/sync you catalogs (i.e. export laptop catalog and import to desktop catalog, repeating this process will keep the two in sync).
But while I was at it I stumbled across some free Lightroom Presets that are worth downloading if you are a Lightroom user. You can pick them up here.
For those of you that aren't familiar with the presets, you will find some basic ones available in the Develop module. A preset is a set of instructions that tell Lightroom how to "develop" that photo. Examples include black and white/sepia conversions as well as white balance, tone, contrast, exposure, curves etc. A preset can have a single or many associated instructions to provide infinite effects. You can create your own presets or import ones that you find online and you can apply them individually or on a group of photos during an import.
Basically you preview the preset by hovering over its name (don't click or you'll apply it) and viewing the preview window. If you like the preset effect then select it and your photo will change (you can always undo if you don't like it).
Hmmm, I'm gonna get a rep' for either disliking Photoshop or the beauty/cosmetics industry, but I am continously amazed at the lengths some people go to edit images of beautiful women to try to sell cosmetics and beauty products.
Mother of 3 and workaholic IT Project Manager, I am dedicated to telling life's stories using words, photos and art. I hope it inspires you to capture a piece of your life. ♥
Photo: K (lipstick-less), using the Lightroom, New Mexico Road split tone filter. 2 August 2007.
