Back in mid December, one of my girlfriends called me to ask for help. It seems her buddy C wanted some pictures of his Christmas lights to send to his dying mother. Apparently, when he was a boy, his mother insisted on decorating the tree with blue lights. The story goes that the blue lights had some reference to the Virgin Mary for her. I didn’t quite understand that part. When C was a boy, some of his most vivid Christmas memories involved going to the store and picking out the strands of colored lights. Apparently, the two of them would sit on the floor in the aisle and pull all the blue lights from all the other strands and put them in the strand they intended to purchase while taking all other colors from the strand to be purchased and putting them in the other strands for sale. Since his mother was dying, he thought he would honor this memory by decorating the outside of his house with blue lights. Then he thought he should take a picture to send to his mother since she couldn’t travel anymore. Both C and my girlfriend attempted to take pictures of the lights on their own but were not satisfied with the result. So, she called me.
After all this leading up to it, you’d be expecting a house decked out in blue Christmas lights, right? Nope. It was a strand that ran along the fence on the side of the house ending with a bush covered in larger blue lights. Still, it was a chance for me to practice photographing something else so I took it.
Here is what I got.
Just to give you the full effect of what we were dealing with here… I offer you the picture below. Complete with porch light on that I was trying to work around.
I tried to see outside the box and change my perspective and all that. But there is only so much you can do with a strand of blue lights! Still, girlfriend and C where quite happy with the result and he wrote a poem and framed one of the pictures and mailed it to his mother. I hope she liked it.
Guess what I did last night… I got my very own domain name! Since I don’t plan to run a website on it yet… I bought the most basic thing I could find. I also signed up with Typepad to bump my blog to the next level – which means I only pay $2.70 more a month (I found a lifetime 15% off coupon) and I get three blogs and I can customize them more. Being small time right now… one of the other blogs will be strictly business related portfolio stuff that I’d put on a website if I had one. That will be the blog that is tied to my domain name. Cool, eh? If you are considering getting your own domain name for your blog or website, I found Netfirms to be the cheapest thing going. It was $5.95 a year to own the name. Naturally, they offer upgrades but I’m not in a position to need any of that now. I’m psyched! One step closer to seeing this thing happen.
My new laptop came with very basic photo editing software on it. Although it’s great for what it does, I decided that if I could find Photoshop Elements for less than $100 anywhere, I’d buy it. I stopped in to Costco today and found PhotoShop Elements 6 for $80. I snapped that puppy up on the spot! I know that real photographers would scoff at using Elements instead of the real PhotoShop deal… but I’ve had PhotoShop CS on my old computer for months along with a book all about it sitting on my shelf and I haven’t touched it. It overwhelms me. It’s not user friendly. I figure I’ll get familiar in Elements and work my way up to the real deal someday when a) I actually need it b) I can afford it and c) I can get the latest version for the time in question.
I can’t load it up now but I’m planning to have a good time with it tonight! I hope your plans for this evening inspire you as much as mine do for me!
Would you like to see our Christmas card this year? On a total whim, I grabbed the three kids, plopped them in front of the Christmas tree and started snapping away secretly thinking in the back of my head that if I got anything good, I’d use it for the card. Take a look at it. It’s obviously just a whim with NO preplanning! One kid is in his PJs, one in a dress with a cute bow on her head and the other is wearing sweatpants! Can you get anymore unmatched than that? I wasn’t going for some spectacular portrait or anything. I just wanted everyone smiling at me. As is usually the case… it didn’t work out that way. When I pulled them up on the screen I laughed out loud. I decided I HAD to use these for the sake of every parent at home who has attempted the forsaken home portrait for the card session. Here ya go. This is my reality.
Let’s see… it’s that day of the year when I should think over the past year and take inventory. Time to make a plan for the new year. I’m pretty pleased with how much I learned about taking better pictures. I’m delighted that in all the experiments, I managed to take a few that really are treasures to me. I’ve come a long way. What you’ve seen here is a lot more documentation of experiments. An online journal of my test shots. I’m glad I didn’t hold myself to only publishing the best of the best. If I had, this blog would be even more bare! LOL.
Now that we’re starting a new year, I’m looking forward to getting back to my studies. I plan to watch more of my videos, read more of my books and take more pictures. I plan to do another 365 blog. It will be more private this year. The reason for it being private is that I found I had a lot of people coming to see it last year that would offer me encouragement and comments. This lead to me wanting to return the favor and visit their blog to see what they are up to and leave them comments and encouragement. This got very time consuming and frankly overwhelmed me. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate comments and encouragement but I don’t have the time to devote to the 365 blog like I’d like to focus here. My point here is to grow and learn… That is the focus of this blog. The other one is just a photo journal of my daily life. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes there are pictures I just want to have for my private enjoyment but I want them in a journal that is easy for me to review – like a blog.
Another thing I’ve discovered recently is that there have been times that I’ve resisted bringing out the camera because there was just too much clutter in the background and I didn’t want it in my photograph but it was more than I could remove quickly for the photo. This brings me to my next goal… to PURGE, PURGE, PURGE all this crap in my house. I’ve been a packrat my entire life and only in adulthood have I learned to release things from my life. They frequently require more of a price than I’m willing to pay for owning them. My husband gave me a wonderful book by Peter Walsh for Christmas (that I asked for) called It’s all too much. This is a battle I’ve been waging for some time. Between Flylady (flylady.net), shows like Clean Sweep (on TLC) and books like this one, I’ve come a long way toward a more peaceful home with less junk in it. This is the year I’m going to get to a platau in my life where I can do my daily battle with the influx of clutter without it requiring a massive and overwhelming undertaking when I can’t take the condition of my home anymore. (Can you tell that I get overwhelmed a lot when I find myself unequiped to handle something?!)
One final thing I have to admit. My children have been introduced to Webkinz this past year – back in August. I hate to admit it, but I find it to be a guilty pleasure for me too. I find myself playing it much more than I should. Now there is nothing really wrong with Webkinz, but it has the possibility to distract me from my real goals. SO, I find myself in a position where I must limit my consumption of that guilty pleasure.
So… I guess those are my three goals – as of 11AM on New Year’s Eve.
1) More photographic learning, experimenting, growth, risk. Two methods to document this – my I Wish blog and my 365 blog.
2) Purge, purge, purge my house. Ruthless elimination of clutter and all objects that do not bring usefulness or beauty to my home.
3) Limit my Webkinz addiction.
Can I just take a moment to tell you how happy I am that Christmas is done? I know. That sounds terrible to type out. But it’s still true. Now, I love Christmas with the best of them. I love the real reason for Christmas. Still, it’s freakin’ exhausting to be the one who has to "create the magic" for three little kids. Making sure that all the elements are in place for each of our family traditions. Making sure everyone has the same general amount under the tree without resorting to buy junk just for the sake of making it even. Trying to come up with something good for the man-who-needs-nothing-that-is-under-$400. It’s so serious that I have a binder where I keep it all straight. Everything from who sent us a Christmas card which year to planning every detail of the birthday parties. It’s a full on sprint from November 1 until December 25. I start with two kids birthdays in November complete with parties, Thanksgiving, Advent boxes, an elf who visits on December 1 with an ornament for each member of the family, crafting for the kids, visits to Santa, enormous family gatherings, the Elf visits again on the 24th with new pjs for everyone in the family and then finish it all up with Christmas morning. Exhausting. My poor husband has a birthday at the beginning of January but I just don’t have the energy to do it up for him! Poor guy. I guess all of this explains why I got into my new pjs on Christmas Eve and I’m still in them 3 days later. Sad, but true. And let me tell you, it feels GREAT!
It’s been a lovely Christmas for me though. Even with the flu hitting our house in a mean way. Two kids got it Christmas day!! Even with that, it was still wonderful. And I’m still glad it’s done.
Now I hope to sift through my pictures and start posting some stuff again. Maybe not full on excitement but at least something. I’m looking forward to having some time to pick up my books in January and see if I can’t learn a few more things.
I got Me Ra Koh’s second DVD back in November and finally sat down to watch it the other night. I thought it was great. It was a fresh spin on a couple basic elements that were escaping me. I plan to watch it again and share with you some of my favorite highlights.
I will close by sharing a picture of my Christmas gift and the receipt for the new leather chair we gave my husband for Christmas. Schweet! I’m a lucky girl!
Happy New Year!
Remember when I mentioned Tamron’s Photo Contest? I showed you the pictures that I entered? Well… one of the made it to the top 20 favorites! Can you believe that?! I’m so excited! This is the picture they selected.
Tamron is apparently having it printed to include it in an upcoming show next year too.
A special thank you to my friend Sharon who encouraged me to enter the contest.
Hope to be back to blogging faithfully soon. I’m surprised by how I miss it.
edited to add link to the TAMRON site to see the winners. Mine is the 7th one down on the right side.
Are you a child of the eighties too? Then you surely remember the Bon Jovi song…. sing it with me now… "Shot through the heart and you’re too blame. You give love a bad name, bad name." Got the tune in your head?
Okay, I recently put this song on my Ipod because I, too, am a child of the eighties. I love a good eighties classic so I’ve been collecting them lately. My children have picked this song out as a favorite and I will frequently hear these lyrics around my house…
"Shaba da hart. You’re in love. With Bandaid, Bandaid."
Makes me chuckle everytime.
I had a session with my pal to take pictures of her new baby girl. Oh is she a sweet baby! I learned that when you read that you can do "anything" with a newborn and they will sleep through it – yeah, that’s not always true. This little one made us WORK for the pictures! It’s worth it though. Here are some of my favorites.
I had to use my Lightsphere for that shot above. When she faced away from the window there were just too many shadows. I think the look of surprise is cute though.
The rest include big brother. I love the expression on his face in the first one.
All of these are ROOC. I really need to take a class on editing because I think these could be really good if I knew how to edit properly! Eventually….
Ta-Ta For Now!
Perhaps you’ve noticed that I like to take pictures of sleeping children. Yesterday my son was napping in my bed and he just looked so angelic that I couldn’t resist. I took many pictures from every angle I could think of. The light was so nice. This one is my favorite.
It was fun having the opportunity to play with aperture and ISO and such with a subject that was actually stationary! In hindsight while reviewing the pictures afterward, I wish I’d played a little more and tilted the camera some. I find that I’m very orderly so tilting is out of the box for me. I need to remember that as an option next time.
Happy Halloween everyone!
Recently a friend of mine was telling me about digital scrapbooking with her company, Topline Creations. I have been ignoring all the digital scrapbook material out there because I have SO much paper, stickers and general paper supplies. Finally, my friend convinced me to try it. I got the software, loaded it up and I love the fact that when I’m in a hurry, I can drop pictures in and go. I also love that when I’m feeling creative but am not able to go into my scrapbook room, I can still create a page at my computer. Here is my first attempt at a creation from scratch.
I used portions of a free kit I got at ShabbyPrincess.com called Shabby Mommy and 2 elements from the Lifetimez software. Here is a snapshot of my daughter’s fifth birthday party.
I think this has real possibilities for my future. It’s so easy but to me it’s also very pricey. To recreate this page with paper probably would have cost me about $1.50 or less to have the pictures professionally developed, all the paper and embellishments. Since I don’t go for particularly expensive designer scrapbook supplies, I believe that estimate to be on the higher side of what it would likely cost me. However, to do it digitally, it will cost me $3 to get that page printed in a 12×12 format if I go to Costco. I don’t know of a cheaper place that will print quality 12×12 prints. That $3 doesn’t include the cost of the software or any future kits I would buy to use with the software. I’m not sure that I’m willing to fork over that much money to have anything but a special page printed but it’s a nice option to have at my disposal. Perhaps as more people go digital the price will come down, but for now I’m just too cheap to do this all the time. I’d rather buy camera equipment!
I’m still on the fence about the whole digi scrapbook revolution but I see that it has real possibilities. Christmas cards, invitations, mini projects, etc. If I were to go completely digital and have all my pages printed in books by a company like TLC or Snapfish or Winkflash, I could see that it would probably equal the price I spend on a traditional scrapbook when it’s all said and done. However, I’m so far into the paper side of things I can’t justify abandoning it all together. I do love the end result of the digital scrapbooking so we’ll see where this road leads me.
