Blah,Blah,Blahg

THE LITTLE THINGS...

I've been wanting to do this for some time.  Nope, not take a pic of a fern leaf but to find one and put it in an apothecary jar in my little manse. I imagined it would thrill me to no end (it has!).  I love that touch of green in my hospital white apartment and the crazy modern art shape the leaves make, like an abstract drawing of a feather. I have been finding lot's of little things on our walks and bringing them home.  They aren't permanent collections more like 'revolving mini exhibits'. They make me happy.  It's free.  It's fun. You?  Do you do any collecting on your walks? If so what? I love feathers but I am too afraid to touch feathers, nope not going to happen. There's no 'good' feathers in my parts anyway...

FREE ART! JENNIFER SQUIRES

{elviage trees by jennifer squires}

Jennifer Squires is one of my Flickr contacts, I am always delighted to see a new upload from her, she has quite the eye.  I love simple, clean and above all great light.  She always hits the mark. When I clicked on this image I noticed she blogged about it as well and wouldn't you know she is giving copies of these away FREE?  Yes, FREE.  There's rules of course, she can't give a copy to everyone but if you think that this beautiful capture would have a nice spot in your home than go over and check out the deets here. Good luck!

I HEART FACES FIX IT FRIDAY #38

I almost forgot I will be over here today doing a fix-it Friday!  Please visit me and my fellow contributors to learn how we edit the same photo, this was a good one!

I will be back later with some downloads:)  It's Friday, yea!

::NATURAL HISTORY::

On Friday I went to the Natural History Museum for the first time in my life.  My life folks. I am old(er), this is incomprehensible to me.  How could I have missed this?  Why did we never go on field trips there?  I am flabbergasted. The night before I watched a marathon series on the genius of photography, it was hours upon hours from the very first attempts to modern day. I was what can only be described as 'full on' inspired.  I knew when I was shooting at the museum the next day what I had in mind for the 'darkroom'.  Each image was chosen with the idea of how it would be processed.  I really loved during the television special viewing all the salt processes, the liths, gum bichromate, the tintypes, the Daguerreotypes, oh I could go on and on.  I really would love to re-create all these techniques when I finally finish my Photoshop textures + actions sets.  Of course I would be in heaven if I could one day try the real deal. This hobby really satisfies my inner scientist and my desire to be creative. I wish I would have started this sooner but it's never too late to be what you were going to be, right?

If you want to try to process your analog photo's (film) at home LisaLikes wrote a very cool post on her experience, she made it seem practically easy. If my apartment wasn't the size of a postage stamp I really would be buying the supplies and trying this out...Any of you ever try to develop your own film at home lately?  Tried any alternative photo processes?  BTW, our museum had zilch in the way of butterflies, isn't that odd?  They had one butterfly with one wing in a case in the back.  So sad.

MY PARENTS WERE AWESOME...

Okay, not technically my parents, but these other folk.  I found this site called 'My parents were awesome' by Eliot Glazier.  It's images submitted of [your] parents before they were uh, parents.  I happen to be addicted to looking at vintage photo's of strangers.  I just love to see how people used to dress and even how the photo's were printed, just an instant jaunt through time.

Okay if my dad, grandpa or even an estranged uncle could get a pigeon to hang out on his dapper shoulder I would be quite smitten with my lineage.  Alas, no one in my immediate family can pull this off.

These were some of my faves:

Yup you would be correct, that is Mick Jagger with somebody's parents...

Look at this tan! AND the eyeliner. Very good lookin' sassy 70's couple.

I think I will be submitting because I have some seriously sa-weet images of my parents.  You?  Do you think you will be adding to the archive? if you enjoy perusing photo's of strangers like myself there's a book that I just LOVED called Couples, it's all vintage snapshots, very well curated and so, so, so sweet.  I bought my copy for $2 on Amazon and it was worth every penny and then some, just a very cool book.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON...

Why, oh why did I not think of this?  Sorry another dog post, too cute no?  Tomorrow we are done with dogs (until next week) and on to dictionaries!  AND another giveaway. Get outta town!

 

 

{all photo's by the obviously talented christine edwards}

Gosh darn I LOVE the internet!  Okay, it's going to be really hard to beat this post in cuteness but please do try!  Add your link to the post here to try to win a copy of Glamour Dogs!

DIANA F+ ADAPTERS FOR SLRS

As you might know from the creation of The Souvenir Foto School that I have been bitten by the photography bug--badly.  All I wanted for my b-day was lenses.  I mentioned this to Marie (mi madre) and she asked, "Contact lenses?"  No, not contact lenses.  Luckily, Ace knows what kind of lenses to get me and he found something that made me darn giddy!  Lomo just introduced an adapter for my SLR (and perhaps yours as well), that allows you to use a variety of their Diana F+ toy camera lenses on you digital SLR. 

He got me the close-up and wide angle versions they haven't arrived in the post yet but I CAN NOT WAIT!!!!  Why would you want this?  Because anyone that has the pleasure of shooting through a toy camera can attest to the dreamy magic that is inherent with these models.  I own a vintage Holga and the Edelweiss Diana F+ and I am sorry to say that if these adapters are as good as I think they will be I will be retiring these beauties and they will be up for grabs on my Etsy. 

{the gorgeous diana f+ edelweiss edition}

We are in such short storage supply in our tiny abode that every inch of extra space is coveted and if that means making more room so be it. Plus he bought me another camera (yikes!  I will share that in another post, I am SOOOO lucky!)  The new camera is film and weighs about a metric ton less than the last film camera he gave me which is made out of steel and cement blocks or something. I need to take a dose of steroids before I use. I digress.  Back to the adapters...I am excited about them because it may prove to be an excellent alternative to my Lensbaby which I am addicted to.  So addicted I want to upgrade but can't justify the price of an upgrade (I mean it really is just a hobby and all).  The adapter and lenses for the Diana F+ ran Ace about $60 USD with shipping and well the Lensbaby can have you brown bagging it for lunch for the next year or so. Don't get me wrong, I am IN LOVE, like want to marry my Lensbaby (I have a super soft spot for the double glass optic) but I am itching to have a wee bit more control with the upgrade, until that mystical, magical day arrives I am hoping I can get some serious enjoyment out of my new Diana lenses.  And you? Any new photo secrets I should know about? I must feed this growing obsession...

P.S. Speaking of obsession, I have been asked to be a contributor at one of my fave little spots on the information super highway--I heart faces.  Hopefully if all goes well I should be up this Friday or next with some super talented individuals willing to spill their guts on how to post process your photo's.  If you haven't visited yet and love photography it should become one of your regular haunts...

P.P.S. I just found out that you can pull the lens off your Diana F+, duh?! (seriously I am really slow sometimes) So, I can use the lens from my Edelweiss (above) with the adapters which means I will have THREE lenses to play with,yea!

SLOAN PHOTOGRAPHERS

These images made me gasp, so lovely and nostalgic.  They are by the very talented husband + wife photography duo Sloan Photographers. The cute couple?  Geoff + Stacy. So sweet...

The above great find was due to the new to me Impressed, inc.

SKIPPY DESIGNS LAUNCHES!

{visit skippy designs here}

I am a baaaaad Blahger, really.  There are so many things that I find that I want to keep to myself as if you wouldn't find them eventually or some other blogger wouldn't spill the beans on "my" treasure.  I really, really wanted to keep Skippy Designs by Mandy Lynne to myself.  I don't know why.  I suppose I wanted to keep it special for just a little while longer, my little secret.  But you know how I feel about you, I know you do, so I am letting this little cat out of the bag.  I love Mandy's work and it is a new shop launch and all and I would like to see Skippy Designs be a huge success. So here's the little tease, I want you to go over to her shop and give her a big fat heart and let her know that you love her work as much as I do.  If I was closer to Springfield I would (in 2 secs flat) have set up a photo shoot with this bike and my G.G..  I heart you Mandy Lynne, in a totally platonic but obsessed way...

TEXTURE TUTORIAL ::KINDA + FREE TEXTURE DOWNLOAD

I say this is kinda of a tutorial because I kinda suck at writing tutorials and well, explaining things in general. With the upcoming launch of our creative tool kit for digital post processing your images I think it might be necessary (or at the very least nice) to have some how-to on well how to use the tools in the kit.  I want to make it clear here that there's only a bajillion and one ways to work in Photoshop, this is one way.  I am open to feedback and requests and any pointers and of course if you would like to write a tutorial for the Blahg I am pretty sure that I won't object.  Our kit will have larger size textures of course, I made these as free 5" x 5" squares because I thought it would be easy if you just wanted to do a quickie on a blog image or just to play around with.  When we launch I also promise to have perfected my tute skills so you may actually be able to follow me.

I found the 'original' image on a free photo stock site.  It's cute but well it's nothing to write home about. I am sure you, like myself have collected a lot of snaps that are just sort of hanging out on your hard drive because they bring happy memories but aren't 'hey mom look what I did worthy'.  Right? I think I have a bunch just like this. The sky is sort of not a real special blue but not too dark or light.  I really wanted to show you the type of photo and colors that work best with the 'grass' colored textured square to achieve a nice, vintage aqua sky.  That's where I am pulling my hair out with other texture sets, PLEASE tell me what kind of images will look good with your texture, give me large enough examples that I don't have to take out the Hubble or whatever to see. I really would love to see MORE 'before and afters' if you are selling textures (or actions/presets) because I am so easily persuaded that I probably would buy.  Okay, enough of my rant. This 'tute' (using the term loosely) assumes you are familiar with Photoshop/Photoshop Elements.

This type of photo (color wise, with lot's of blue sky) looks fab when paired with the Souvenir Foto textured square in 'grass'.

• In Photoshop/PSE place the texture above the photo in the layers palette.
• Once you have the texture on top of the image go to the layer blending modes and choose "overlay'.  I set this to 100% opacity, you could lower this setting of course but I wanted a beautiful aqua sky a sort of cross processed look. I added a layer mask to take the texture off the birds but I don't wanna go into masks here today that's a whole 'nother can of worms/tute but because I love you here's a tute from someone more competent than myself.
  
• I liked the look so I stopped there and cmd 'e' (Mac) ctrl 'e' on PC to merge layers and I was done with that one.

For the second sample I did the first two steps as outlined above, once I got to the super saturated aqua:

• I added a hue/saturation adjustment layer above the texture (it's that half black/white circle at the bottom of your layers palette, here's a shot from another tute)
• I slid the saturation layer to the left about mid way to take away some of that crazy color.
• I then added another adjustment layer but this one was called 'photo filter', I chose 'deep yellow. As you can see from the last image it made the blues more green and the yellow on the birdies is a little more pronounced.  The color is very muted because of that nice slide to the left on the saturation slider. It makes for a totally different look than the first sample and I like them both ways and probably could keep going if I didn't need to get back to work.

Here's a color chart for the texture download, I hope this makes sense and you can have fun right away!

 {SOUVENIR FOTO TEXTURED SQUARES DOWNLOAD}