Saturday, October 31, 2009

Halloween Cake 09'


HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY !

Friday, October 30, 2009

I ♥ Faces - #34

Here we go again... it's FRIDAY! Do you know what that means ??? Another fun "Fix it Fridays" from our friends at " I ♥ Faces ". I loved this one, I had fun editing it. I hope you like it too. :-)

AFTER


Black & White



BEFORE


Piper Halloween

Here is my joy... my puppy.... my loyal pet who lets me torturer her... if only for a few minutes at a time. See.. Piper knows my camera now, and as soon as it goes up in front of my face she will look away. BUT if you taunt her with her favorite treats she will look, if only for a moment... then come tearing right at you to attack you for the treat.... But she's a good girl... if only a few moments at a time :-)



Halloween 09 Cake toppers Pt 1

FINALLY... here is a photo of one part of my cake toppers for the 09' Halloween cake... Mind you... I have no lights on in the room and it's only lit by the light of my monitor. More pics to come soon!


Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Halloween Cake

I spent a good few hours making my Halloween Cake Toppers yesterday. And guess what? I totally didn't photograph a moment of it !!! What? Who? Where? Yeah I was shocked as well. But not to fret, the cake isn't made yet, so I will photo document it from now on. Oy... Where was my head yesterday?

Anyway... Back to work....

Monday, October 26, 2009

Fall

I love the Fall, don't get me wrong. All the beautiful colors, all the wonderful smells, the cool crisp air..... the leaves... ugh the LEAVES.... I love the leaves... on the tress... not on my lawn. "Half of these leaves are not even mine !!!!" Yeah Yeah we've all said it, but in my case it's true.... at least for the front lawn.... As for the back... OY! Just imagine maple tress and oak trees all over a 1/4 of an acre. ugh... Beautiful yes... but if you had to rake "this" (pictured below) 2 to 3 times a season... you too would run away run away.....


Sunday, October 25, 2009

Thirsty Puppy

Creating Actions

I finally learned how to create my own "Sharp Eyes" and "Soft Skin" Actions in Photoshop.... one more step closer to being self reliant in photo editing and a huge leap farther away from relying on other people's actions or tutorials ! More on this later..... Right now I'm off to rake the leaves...

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Chocolate Truffles


Textures - Vintage / Rounded Edges

Today, thanks to "The Pioneer Woman" I learned how to do a quick "rounded edges" effect on photographs. I Love this effect. Here I used one of my go to photos for editing. I added 4 (home made) texture layers and then rounded the edges. I like it, and I hope you do too.

AFTER


BEFORE

Friday, October 23, 2009

Fix It Fridays = Little Boy

Here is my attempt to "Fix it Fridays" latest photo. I like this fix, it's subtle. I found the grainy parts to be a bit of a challenge, and so I used a few pre made actions from other sites..... I used a "darken this" to calm down the bright spots. I used Pioneer Women's "lovely". I softened the skin a tad. I brightened up some of the hair and his shirt. Over all I think it came out well. I may try some other styles like, vintage or B&W. But I like how this one came out.

AFTER
BEFORE

Fall Leaves

With all the beautiful fall leaves out there who could resist. I will be on a hunt for more leaves... oh yes I will... I hope you enjoy. :-)








Monday, October 19, 2009

Textures - Tree Eye

Here is another way textures add to the transformation of an every day object. I found the tree bark on a textures site... I believe it was free, there was no comments to say otherwise... The eye on the other hand is a found image from the web. I do not have the link to the site... But I'm not using this for sale or for any other purpose then for my leaning how to use textures.

I think it came out kind of cool... I need to work on adding eye lashes and maybe defining the brow above the eye... but still it's pretty cool in my book.



I ♥ Faces - Pink Week


Here is an old photo of me and my best friend Timarra. I believe this was at one of our "girls nights out in". We all met up at one of our mutual friend's house for some good food and good drink and good laughs. Timarra and I have been friends for 12 years, we met in college at Seton Hall University. My.... time does fly. The next day after our girls night I was scanning through all the photos taken the night before and I came across this one. I played with it a bit and absolutely loved it! I then decided to play with the tint... I have to say, this pink version is my favorite. I hope you like it !


Sunday, October 18, 2009

Textures

Well, This weekend I did not give myself an assignment to shoot. So... in keeping with my theme this week, I will be photographing textures. I like working with textures and I want to build my own stock pile of them. I like that there are lots of "free" ones on the web that I can use for personal or commercial use. But who knows where your getting these images from, and who knows if these "Free" ones were stolen from someone who requested acknowledgement for it's use. Ugh... who wants to get caught up in all that mess. So... I'll be toting my camera around all day (and all week) on a mission to collect my very own textures.

The above image is from www.IHeartFaces.com, I'm only using it as my example of the use of textures... I do not claim the rights to the original photo, and I'm only using it for learning purposes.
I will post a few here as I collect them.

HAPPY SHOOTING EVERY ONE !


Saturday, October 17, 2009

I ♥ Faces = Fix It Fridays = Beautiful

Here we go again... I really liked this one, and I didn't use any pre made actions !!!! But I do wish I knew how to create my very own "burned edges" but here it is.

BEFORE

AFTER



Here is my 2nd favorite edit that I did. Here I did use the "Pioneer Women" "Burned Edges", I really need to learn how to do this myself.



I ♥ Faces = Fix It Fridays = Tutu

Ok I'm a bit hooked on this new site I was introduced to by a friend of mine. It's the "I "Heart" Faces" website. Tonight I felt a little inspired to play with "fixes" of lights and darks... this was a perfect photo to practice it. Looks good to me, but I may need more tweaking... what do you think?

BEFORE

AFTER


Thursday, October 15, 2009

Textures

Today I was reading one of my favorite photo blogs. They posted about textures... so yes to copy them... I will post about textures now too. Only because I finally learned how to do simple texture effects, and well I think I did a pretty good job. There are so many ideas running around my head now for creative works later on down the line, but here is my very VERY first try at using textures.

BEFORE


AFTER



BEFORE


AFTER

Monday, October 12, 2009

I ♥ Faces - Excited !


I hope this post is counted, I think I messed up on my first try. But here it is anyway. A friend of mine mentioned the "I Heart Faces" photo challenge to me the other day, and suggested I enter this photo. I think it fits in just perfectly.

You can't get any more excited over a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch then this !


Halloween CUPCAKE

Today one of the ladies in my office brought in Halloween cupcakes... or should I say CUPCAKES. These things are MONSTER size, pun intended! But they are oh so yummy. I decided to grab a quick shot of the cupcake to show you the size but the photo does not do it justice. For scale, it's about 5" across it's diameter. YUM ! Here is a long awaited new addition to "What's on My Desk" The Holiday addition.




Sunday, October 11, 2009

A. Burge

Here is the sweetest little boy of my friends Micah and Cory. We went pumpkin picking and grabbed a few shots. What sweet heart he was... I think he wanted to take home all the pumpkins that were bigger then he was !




Thursday, October 8, 2009

Wild Things



I'm not a big fan of the "Scary Movies" in fact, I run away, run I tell ya! With the same fear and speed as I do from Santa, and the Easter Bunny, or any other over stuffed, over fluffed, over "clowned" holiday character who dares to come near me. I could go on and on... but I won't... for now.

Yeah... this pretty much sums up how I feel inside when I used to think about this book, or the Mall Santa, or the Mall Easter Bunny, or clowns.... ugh I hate clowns.

So you see, one day....when I was a little girl I received this book, I believe from a teacher. It was called "Where the Wild Things Are". I read this book, nervously, all the way to the end. I put the book down. Looked around my room. And freaked out. EVERYTHING scared me. My mirror, my bed, the basement... well...every part of my house that was dark... I blamed it on the book for many years. The "wild things" were always in my mind, and they always ruffled my feathers. I really don't remember the story all that much, other then the little boy in the white footy PJ's and the crown, and then the "wild things". I don't remember if the story had a happy ending, or if there was really a lesson to learn.... All I know is that I did not want anything to do with it ever again.

Many years had gone by and I had since forgotten about this book, the unsettling images, and the scary dark places in my house. I was happy, care free, almost out of my "afraid of the dark" feelings until a month ago. Wouldn't you know it.... someone had to go and make a movie out of that very book. As I sat there watching the movie trailer all those old feelings came rushing back.

But now that I'm older, and I do know it's a children's story, I fell that I need to do something about this. I think the most perfect therapy for me and my fear of this book is to go see the movie. Yeah, call me crazy, a little weird, which ever, but I feel that this could be the best therapy (on the cheap) I need to get over a lot of little things that plagued me as a child. Those little things like this fear of this book, which I locked up in a little box, threw away the key, and stored far far far in to the back of my memories. But now that I'm an adult I feel I need to face these fears and get it done and over with.



And that's my little story about that. :-)

Movie Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcBPzqxBnRU

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

NJ Barns, more

Here are a few more shots from my North Jersey Barn photographic outing.


no your not seeing double... I just couldn't decided which one i liked... one reminds me of the "drive by shooting" but the other is less... jarring....