Saturday, April 16, 2011

|{ Glasses }|

On Monday I got my first pair of glasses.  I was pretty sad to find out that I needed them and was really picky in finding ones that were stylish.  I think these will do, and at least now I can see better, which I definitely enjoy.

It took me a while to take a picture.  I don't liking taking cell phone pictures since my phone doesn't take good pics.  I'm spoiled with my camera I guess.  Haha!


This is an unedited SOOC picture.  Don't you just love the camera's shadow on my chest?!? haha!


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

|{ Selfie Saturday- Magic Tricks }|

First of all, I am SUPER proud of myself because not only did I DO this challenge but I also did on MONDAY instead of putting it off until last minute! Yay!!

I don't really know what made me think of the photo I wanted to take, it just sort of popped into my head I guess.  I wanted to do levitation but I wanted it to have a story behind, a reason, so the one that came into my head first?!??! Alien abduction!! I think it turned out pretty cool, I am still trying to figure out if that is people think of when they first see or not, but that's okay if they don't.  I made some mistakes in editing, but for my first try I don't think it's too bad and I learned a lot just getting down and dirty and doing it! :)

So, here is my final product!! :) **Click to see full size! **


I posted this on Facebook and got tons of 'How did you do that?!?!' questions so I thought I would actually show you my steps into how I did this one.

It's all about layers!!

First I started off with my background:



Then I had to make all the floating objects:  





Then I wanted to make it even more dramatic so I grabbed my fan to make the curtains blow:



And last but not least.. me! It took me a while to figure out how I was going to do it.  I knew I had to find something to hold me up, so I grabbed some rolled up sleeping bags at first. I originally was going to wear some fairly tight pajama looking clothes so that it wouldn't look weird when I laid on the sleeping bags, however, the sleeping bags did not get the height I wanted.  I went looking for something else and found a couple of folding chairs.  It was perfect.  So I put on a flowy dress (too bad I didn't have the perfect white nightgown) since I now had the space between the two chairs to let it fall.  It was SO HARD to try to stay balanced on a couple of chairs sitting on my mattress AND try to take the picture AND make it look like I wasn't falling off the chairs. Haha.  But I did get a few good shots.  



Then I put them all together and did all the rest of my edits, like making it look more like night, changing the clock from 7 to 1, and adding a more obvious light coming through the window.  Ta-da!! 

It was a really fun challenge! I had a blast doing it!

I am so glad the weather is warming up because I really want to do next week's Jump Shot outside! 

  

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

|{ Baby Names }|

A few days ago we were hanging out with some friends and the subject of baby names came up. They asked us if we had any ideas for names for when we have kids and I ended up pulling out my list. I always keep it in my purse because we usually think of names when we aren't home and I don't want to forget them. I had not looked over the list in a while and we ended up eliminating some names while I was reading through them. As I was nearing the end I realized something funny, 3 of the names on our list were the names of our friends new babies, named after we had made the list. The names were Conner, Ashlyn, and Lydia. Another funny thing was that the names all came from people who are our friends that we worked with through Pinnacle. So those names are pretty much are off the list now, haha! :)

Also, speaking of babies, I'm going to be an AUNT!! This will be my first niece/nephew and I'm pretty excited!

Saturday, April 09, 2011

|{ Selfie Saturday- Model Eyes + Arms Length}|

This weeks selfie challenge is actually My Friend the Fan, but I have really short hair and it really is kind of challenge for more of the long haired variety.  So while my current plan is to start growing it out again, I think I'll wait for that challenge when it gets to more to a movable length.

So, I didn't want to just skip a week, especially after I didn't get a photo in last week so I tried to focus on the challenge from a few weeks ago, Model Eyes.

I did this in the evening and the lighting is awful.  I also JUST took them and finished editing them, seriously like half an hour ago.  I also decided to attempt to do the challenge for Arms Length Selfies.

So all you lovely people out there, especially the ones who have done this challenge and know what to look for, what do you think?  Do my eyes look right or are they just weird?  Do they actually look like they are taken at arms length like they aren't supposed to?  Let me know, I need the constructive criticism in order to learn! :)

P.S.  I LOVED going through all of your Fan photos this week! You guys are so talented!! :)






  
I am SO SO SO excited for this coming weeks challenge, Magic Tricks, it's going to be A BLAST!! I am hoping to do it either tomorrow or Monday since they are my days off work.  I also can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!!! :)

Saturday, April 02, 2011

|{ Selfie Saturday- Focus (Bokeh) }|

Sigh, I am so disappointed.  I was so looking forwards to this week's Selfie.  The theme was focus with a more specific goal of 'bokeh'.  To quote lovely Elena, "For those not up on the lingo, Bokeh is the blur we get shooting at large apertures, specifically those beautiful light spots as a background that gather in clusters and give any photo a magical feel."

I am one of those 'not up on the lingo' people and I was excited to try this one! I even had planned out what I wanted to do, part of which included also practicing my model eyes from a few weeks ago.

However, the first few days of the week I kept putting if off because it was a little cold and I had plenty of time, right? Well wrong.  It started to get cloudy and even colder and my husband needed the tripod for a project at school so I didn't have it towards the end of the week, so I couldn't (easily anyway) do the outside shoot I had hoped for.  I also didn't really know how to go about shooting a bokeh photo.

I am NOT a total slacker though, just almost.  I DID pull out my camera and play around with the settings to try to figure out how to get those adorable light balls and when I finally figured it out I realized why exactly this challenge was placed into the focus theme! Because you need to focus on something in the foreground in order to get the little blurred balls in the background.

Anyway, long story short, hubby still has the tripod at school and I never got around to taking a picture, FAIL! BUT, I will STILL be doing this one, just a little late! :)

I also have been coming up with a lot of other selfie photo shoots that I would like to do so I'm excited for those too! :)

Here are the pictures I took trying to figure out how to use bokeh.  I was in the car waiting to pick hubby up from school one day.


Well that did nothing at all...



Sunspots, but not quite the same thing...


Blurry, but still not it....



There we go!! There are some bokeh spots! 

Now I just need to take some with me in it and hope they work out! I'm excited!!

Also, when I saw Elena's picture of her feet by the pool in her focus tutorial it reminded of a very similar picture I took about  2 years ago, so I went and dug it out and guess what! It has a little bokeh in it in the bush in the background! Sweet!