POTD – January 31, 2010

iheartfaces is hosting a photo challenge called “Girlfriends”…they want to see pictures of girls hanging out together is honor of this week’s upcoming Blissdom in Nashville!  Boy, I wish I could go…maybe someday!  The photo that I am entering at the flickr group isn’t one of my best.  I contemplated trying to take new photos for this challenge because the prize is so amazing [a new Tamron lens]…but, I kept coming back to this photo because of it’s story!  Essentially, it is a backyard snapshot taken at night…I didn’t even have my good flash…just used the on camera flash because I didn’t want to miss the moment by going inside to find the flash.  I hate the on camera flash…I hardly ever use it…I usually cringe when I see the photo.  But this one…I was just so happy to have it.

That’s my little girl and the daughter of one of my childhood friends…one of my childhood best friends.  We lost touch after high school.  We both graduated, went to college, started our lives.  We didn’t stay in touch.  Now, almost 20 years later, we reconnected because of Facebook!  It’s amazing what the cyber-ness of our world can do!  Sometimes, we think all this technology is too much.  We think…Gosh, we seemed to survive our own childhoods without all this techy stuff.  But then we look at it from another side…we have been given amazing opportunities through all of this technology stuff! 

One amazing opportunity was handed to me through Facebook and reconnecting with this amazing friend.  I had looked for her but never had any luck…names change…logarithms don’t match…whatever the reason, it did not  look like I would find her.  Then, she found me!  We picked up right where we left off.  We talked on the phone many times.  Turns out she retuned to our hometown…same town where my parents still live…same town I visit often.  Turns out, our lives were more parallel then we even imagined.  Our daughters…our first born girls…were born less than 2 months apart.  Turns out, we shared one of the most special moments of our adult lives at the same time and didn’t know it.  Turns out…our daughter get along famously!  They are 2…2 yr. olds typically so the whole parallel play thing…not these two!  They actually play together…they laugh, hold hands, run, jumps…and hug!  I love seeing them together…and as my dear friend Carolina says…”it’s history in the making!”

POTD – January 30, 2010

Ferland Family Preview

What cutie patooties!  And there are so many more coming.  I just love the chocolate conversion on this one!

 

Fix-It Friday

POTD – January 29, 2010

It’s Fix-It Friday over at iheartfaces and this week’s photo is simply gorgeous all by itself…but it lends itself well to texture.  So here goes…

This is the original…simple and beautiful.  There really isn’t much to fix.

But, in the interest of Fix-It Friday, here is my very basic fix.  Not much…just a little more depth and a color pop.  I used the Perfect Portrait action from Coffee Shop for a fast and easy adjustment.

And since it has been texture week, here are two with textures added and a crop.

  And finally, here is the B&W conversion without texture.

All edit were done in PSE 5.0…nothing fancy.  All edits took less than 10 minutes total!   Make sure you hop on over to iheartfaces to check out all the other creative renditions of this one photo…it always amazes me how many possibilities one photo has to offer!

POTD – January 28, 2010

POTD – January 27, 2010

I am going to keep the texture thing going for a few more days…

POTD – January 26, 2010

In the interest of playing with texture a little bit more…

I can’t take credit for actually taking the photo…but I did the crop and edits. And added two textures.

POTD – January 25, 2010

It’s TEXTURE week over at iheartfaces.  I struggled with this one simply because I am not all that great at the whole texture thing…but I really like how this one turned out.  I even had to redo it completely because I noticed an area that I neglected to erase [the texture] after I flattened, saved, and closed the image.  Talk about frustrated…I should know better!

I played with many photos and many textures until I had one that worked…one that I liked! This one gave me some issue because I didn’t want the brick to be huge…so I had to overlay the texture a few times and piece it together to keep them somewhat realistic in size.  Since the original architecture in the shot is oversized, I also needed them to be big enough.  I also used Picnik this week to add a final touch…I used the Focal Soften feature.  I liked what it did to soften the texture while still focusing on the little boys face.  And this is what I ended up with.  Make sure you check out all the other entries this week…some of these people are seriously talented with TEXTURES!

POTD – January 24, 2010

POTD – January 23, 2010

Fix-It Friday – January 22, 2010

Meet the Zwart Family!  When I first read about them over on Angie’s site, it broke my heart.  I can not even imagine what this family is facing in the very near future and my heart is breaking for these children.  I would never [and I imagine most of us feel the same way] want to walk down the path they are walking down right now.  I think about my own daughter and family, and can’t even fathom the possibility of losing her or [even worse] her losing one of us!

If you have a moment, check out their websites and leave a comment if you feel so inclined.  I am sure they can use as many kind words as possible right now.  Wouldn’t it be cool if they were inundated with thoughts and prayers from [distant and unknown] internet family!

Adrienne’s Blog

Caring Bridge

Anyway, the Fix-It Friday photo for this week is of the Zwart Family!

Here is the original image downloaded from Flickr:

It’s not bad, but I knew I wanted to make it pop.  I wanted richer color and less “haze” [I know that’s not the technical word, but the best I can come up with right now].

Here is Fix 1: Basic fix…even used the Auto Fix feature in PSE 5.0.  Then I added a Soft Light layer with opacity at 50%.

Better…but still not what I was going for…

Fix 2 – For this one, I applied the Moody Pop Action from Coffee Shop and lowered the opacity quite a bit. 

Fix 3 – I used Coffee Shop Strawberry Glaze for this one.  I like the effect, but it still didn’t have the “WOW” factor for me.

Fix 4 – Creamy Chocolate Action from Coffee Shop.  I bumped the brown tones up and increased opacity to 85%.  I think this is one of my favorite Actions.

Fix 5 – Back to my own edits…no Actions to help out.  I still wanted more pop.  So I created a layer and applied the Equalize filter.  This is what I was going for…

Fix 6 – And finally, a crop! And I added a vignette with Picnik.

Make sure to check out the other fixes over at iheartfaces!  And please add this family to your prayer list!

POTD – January 22, 2010

Dahmer/Whipple Family

POTD – January 21, 2010

I had the opportunity to work with this awesome family several weeks ago.  It was a rare moment for the to all be in the same place at the same time.  In fact, we were not sure part of the family was going to make it since they got stuck out west with major flight delays!  But, alas, everyone made it…some were a little tired, but the pics don’t show it!

I can’t wait until they see the rest!  I had so much fun working with them…there’s nothing like getting your toes in the sand while you do one of your favorite things!  Thanks Dahmer’s and Whipple’s!

POTD – January 20, 2010

I had a totally different picture in mind for today…but while out on our afternoon walk, we came across this cat.  It followed us for the entire walk…Including a little climb up the tree while I was trying to take pictures of “A” before she noticed how high up she was.

Tomorrow will be a multi-photo day…Portraits from a beach shoot are ready to go up…and this family was not only fun…but absolutely adorable!

POTD – January 19, 2010

POTD – January 18, 2010

Week 3 – We Are Family

This week’s challenge over at iheartfaces is all about family!  I had so many to choose from and my personal favorite was a photo of siblings…but the rules state that there must be at least one adult!  So that one got scrapped!  So I went back to my top 5 that I had in mind for this theme and chose this one.

What do you think?

Make sure to head over to iheartfaces and check out some of the other entries for this week.  There is a lot of talent and some amazingly creative shots!  I have to admit, I get tons of inspiration and ideas from many of the photographers that post there!  Truly incredible!  I can’t even imagine what the judges must go through every.single.week!  There are hundreds of entries…and to narrow that down to 10 must be quite a challenge.  One of these weeks maybe one of mine will make it into the top 10!!!