365 Project - Day 60

The picture today, is for Mirko!!

365 Project - Day 59: I ♥ Faces week 38 "blue" Photo Challenge

Today's picture is the picture I'm entering in the
"Blue" Photo Challenge at I ♥ Faces:

WEEK 38 - September 28th - "Blue"

All photos entered this week have to have some shade of the color blue featured in them (the color should be featured strongly.) If you'd like to incorporate a "blue" expression on the face, that would awesome as well, but please make sure that the color blue is a strong feature of your photo as well.

The above picture was taken aproximately a year ago and I think it fits the description for this weeks challenge. My husband is going to be operated on tomorrow and since I'm feeling blue myself today, this picture matches my mood as well.

Take a look at some of the other entries at:

http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/

365 Project - Day 57 and Day 58

I didn't get a chance to upload the pictures I took for yesterday so here is Day 57:

Niklas got a haircut!



Cutting a toddler's hair is not the easiest task in the world! I darted in with my scissors and he would whisk his head back and forth to try to see what I was doing.

When Harry Had a Haircut

When Harry had a haircut,
he thrashed about the chair
to try to keep the barber
from removing any hair.

He kicked in agitation.
He bellyached and bawled.
He screeched and squawked and squabbled
and he cried and caterwauled.

He whined and wailed and whimpered,
He sniveled and complained.
He groused and griped and grumbled,
as he struggled and he strained.

His mother had to hold him.
The barber said a prayer,
then swiftly snipped and scissored
as he trimmed up Harry's hair.

The barber finished cutting.
He put his comb away
then got his little mirror out
to hear what Harry'd say.

When Harry saw the mirror,
he gave a little huff,
and said the thing he always says:
"You didn't cut enough!"

--Kenn Nesbitt

365 Project- Day 58

For today, the picture is going to be my newest fantasy picture, fresh out of photoshop:


this manipulation consists of 3 main pictures (background, car, little boy). After each picture was edited, they were placed, positioned and new shadows were added.

365 Project - Day 56

(click on the picture to see it EXTRA big)

nuttella chocolate spread
nuttella chocolate spread
it goes on bread
and its yummy in my tummy
and it goes on bread
we all love our
nuttella chocolate spread
(Frankie C)

T’was a while ago back in 1944.
You see quite a few people were dreadfully poor.
There happened to be a talented young chap,
Name of Ferrero. How convient was that?
No cocoa to farm, no place for his hat,
He lay down by the road and took a long nap.
While in a wild and wonderful dream,
He walked across a long narrow beam.
This beam of his life gave a path which was clear,
Either chocolaty spread, or foaming malt beer.
The chocolaty spread was the obvious choice,
As the money he made would buy a Rolls Royce.

So now the decision was made,
He visited a plantation of nuts, which soon he would raid.
In his innovative way,
As some people may say,
He used a resource that was abundant and plentiful,
To create a chocolatey spread, that some people now consider sinful.
Outlawing chocolate at a sixth of the price,
The children of Italy found it to be rather quite nice.
Now sold in a variety of countries,
It is to us, as carbon dioxide is to trees.
“Nutella is now more common than peanut butter”,
I once heard a young child utter.
This rumor I can confirm,
As it gives us energy to live and learn.
(Sarah)

both poems from: http://www.bebo.com/BlogView.jsp?MemberId=4511763246&BlogId=4956337330

small note: technically, Niklas was not eating nutella, but rather a cheaper copy of nutella. To us, it's the same thing, BUT I officially apologise to all die hard nutella fans for including nutella poems to pictures without "nutella" in them. :D

I ♥ Faces! Fix-It Friday

My second "fix-it friday" at I ♥ Faces!

Here is the original picture:

this is the text that accompanied the picture:
"This is my little boy whom I usually refer to as 'Wee Man' on my blog. We had just finished up at the beach and we were hot and dirty (thus the dirt and sand on his face and arms). We had been out in the bright sun and moved to inside the pavilion on the pier when I took this shot. Needless to say, I didn't alter my settings on my camera accordingly ... resulting in this completely under exposed photo. Shooting in manual is not for those of us with 'Mommy Brain'! LOL"

and here is my idea to "fix-it":

I used photoshop 7 and worked on a number of different layers. I adjusted the curves and tried to brighten it up and then used color balance to get rid of some of the red tones that came into the picture after brightening. I also copied just his head, flipped it horizontally and then did a layer mask on it and painted the skin tones from the lighter side of his face onto the darker side. I blurred the background a bit and did a sepia layer on it. Then added the text. I chose the word "trust" because that is the feeling that shines out when I look at this picture.

A little boy holding his daddy's hand as he walks
trustingly through the forest of legs in the semi-dark.

Be sure to check out the other entries at I ♥ Faces Fix-It Friday : http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ !!

365 Project - Day 55

INDIAN SUMMER.

These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, --
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!
(by Emily Dickinson)

*************************************************************************

*Manimal Bonus*

yesterday I posted two manimal pictures. They were part of a family set of manimals. Today I finished Mom (leopard) and Dad (rhino):

365 Project - Day 54

Today I was working on two manimal pictures and I will be featuring them instead of a picture taken today (I had no time to take a picture anyways!)

Giraffe Manimal:

pictures used as basis:

Squirrel Monkey Manimal:

pictures used as basis:













To do a manimal picture, I take the two basis pictures and try to blend them in with each other so that the end result is not too human and not too animal, thus "manimal". I do this in Photoshop using a number of different layers in different modes and opacities. When making the choice to distort the animal or the human to make them fit together, I do distort and play with the animal because I want the human subject to be at least a tiny bit recognisable underneath their animal disguise. I usually need about 3 hours to complete a manimal picture.

365 Project - Day 53

I am a frog

Waiting for my fairmaiden
I know when she kisses me
I return again to myself
Prince Charming

*

I am a frog
Waiting for the magic kiss
That will set me free
That will lift the evil curse from my head
And let me live again

I am a frog
But with her sweet kiss
I can say 'goodbye' to this wet life
And start my romantic wanderings with her
On the golden lily pads of our future

(http://allpoetry.com/poem/1233514)

original picture:

365 Project - Day 52

More pictures for the "manuel" challenge in my BG thread. I finally figured out a bit more how to adjust things (like focus and ISO) when I shoot in manuel with my point & shoot camara!

I ♥ Faces! Week 37: “Completely Candid” Photo Challenge!

This week’s photo challenge theme is: "Completely Candid": a spur-of-the-moment, completely candid, non-posed capture.

Since few of my pictures are actually posed, I had a bit of a problem deciding which picture I should enter. The one I decided on, took place at the playground. He was playing on the train and I took my eyes off of him for a second and he was gone. I knew he was in the train somewhere and was surprised that I couldn't see him right aways. I had the camara in my hand as I walked around the train peering through the open wood windows. Suddenly his bright eyes popped up and looked at me through the slats. Without even really thinking, I just raised the camara and snapped.

Be sure to check out the other entries at I ♥ Faces:
http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/

365 Project - Day 51

I am so happy to be on the photography thread on Baby Gaga. Those ladies are so great with sharing tips and tricks! I learn new things everyday!

Yesterday someone shared how to do a black and white conversion using the gradient map and someone else shared how to pop the eyes over a curve adjustment layer. I had to try both these things out!!

Here are my results:

and then to also practiced something else, I was interested in practicing, I put them together in a storyboard:
(remember: by clicking on any of the pictures, you can see them in extra big size. Just click the "back" arrow to get back to the blog)

365 Project - Day 50

Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.
~The Koran

365 Project - Day 49

A couple of pictures of my sweet little Niklas today!

I ♥ Faces! Fix-It Friday

On Monday I entered my first challenge at I ♥ Faces and today is "fix-it friday" so I thought I would jump right in and try this for the first time as well.

Here is the original picture submitted for us to "fix":

and here are my edits:
I used Photoshop 7 to adjust the curves and brighten the picture up a bit, added a bit of contrast and sharpening to her eyes, took the color streak in her face/hair out with cloning and used a couple of filters from virtualPhotographer on different levels and set at different opacities to give the picture a finish that I was happy with.

Here I used my second edit and then did a "rough pastels" filter only on the background and then did a partial vintage action on top of it, brushed on a few sparkles and butterflies and added the text.

For the third edit, I started with my second edit (without the sparkles and butterflies) and then used the attic vintage action from CoffeeShop to finish it off.

Be sure to check out the other entries at I ♥ Faces Fix-It Friday : http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ !!

365 Project - Day 48

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

words and music by freddie mercury

I go to work on monday morning
Tuesday I go off to honeymoon
I'll be back again before it's time for sunnydown
I'll be lazing on a sunday afternoon
Bicycling on every wednesday evening
Thursday I go waltzing to the zoo
I come from london town
I'm just an ordinary guy
Fridays I go paintingin the louvre
I'm bound to be proposing on a saturday night
There he goes again
I'll be lazing on a sunday lazing on a sunday
Lazing on a sunday afternoon

These pictures were taken Thursday evening, but I still, I thought the text to Freddy Mercury's song fit the look of the pictures. I've been practicing a bit with the lens flare filter in photoshop. It was a cloudy evening and about to rain, but I tried to give the pictures a bit sun!

365 Project - Day 47

We love our evening walks. I can't resist bringing my camara with and snapping shots as we go along. Yesterday our neighbour rode by on her horse. Niklas loves horses (well he loves all animals).


















We thought Niklas might like to have a ride on the horse, but he decided he'd rather not today and instead gave her a kiss:

(click on any of the pictures to see them bigger)

NEW: I've made a new flickr album with photography from me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fantasiaphotos/sets/72157622270412505/

365 Project - Day 47

Yesterday, I was able to take a picture of Christopher that didn't have his "usual" look when I try to take pictures of him.

examples of his usual look when the camara points in his direction:














Yesterday, I actually got a picture of how he usually looks when the camara isn't pointing at him:

Thank you, Christopher for letting me get a nice picture of you
at least once in awhile!
xo

365 Project - Day 46

Rain rain go away,

Come again another day.
Little Johnny wants to play;
Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Never show your face again!

hmmmm maybe "little Johnny" should take a lesson from Niklas and just put some rubber boots and a rain jacket on and go outside and ENJOY the rain!!

365 Project - Day 45

Youth
by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind,
it is a temper of the will,
a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions,
a predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.
People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
Years wrinkle the skin,
but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, doubt, self-distrust,
fear and despair - these are the long,
long years that bow the head and
turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether they are sixteen or seventy,
there is in every being's heart
the love of wonder,
the sweet amazement at the stars
and starlike things and thoughts,
the undaunted challenge of events,
the unfailing childlike appetite
for what is to come next,
and the joy and the game of life.

You are as young as your faith,
as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence,
as old as your fear,
as young as your hope,
as old as your despair.
When the wires are all down
and all the innermost core of your heart
is covered with the snows of pessimism
and the ice of cynicism,
then you are grown old indeed.

But so long as your heart receives messages
of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur
and power from the earth,
from man and from the Infinite,
so long you are young.