Archive for May, 2010
Wordless Wednesday #48
As always with all Wordless Wednesdays, please leave a comment with the title or description that you would give this picture. On Thursday I’ll reveal the name I chose as well as the top 3 contributions.
Thursday Reveal #47
Wordless Wednesday #47 was taken at a friend’s house during a rousing afternoon of sidewalk chalk, bubbles, balls, and sprinkler fun. I actually ended up doing LOTS to this pic, some of which you may be able to guess. On picnik.com I first used the boost tool (faded), then the black and white tool (faded), with paintbrush option to bring back the chalk colors on Cee’s shorts, leg, and shoe. After all that I put lomo-ish with extra blur around edges over everything. My last effect was to use the tint effect (reversed) to put the pink color onto the chalk piece, which was actually white, but I wanted it to match the shorts.
I had such a fun time with this editing!
The name I picked was: The Shorts Meet a Chalky End (bottom end, that is)
My top three contributions of the week were:
- Amber with: The Evidence is in the Chalk
- Jay with: Caught Red Handed (well sort of)
- Proud Grandpa with: Honest Mom, I never even saw the lipstick.
Thanks for playing along!
Wordless Wednesday #47
As always with all Wordless Wednesdays, please leave a comment with the title or description that you would give this picture. On Thursday I’ll reveal the name I chose as well as the top 3 contributions.
Thursday Reveal #46 w/ Photo Challenge
Wordless Wednesday #46 is a series of pics taken across a series of locations. Since I was wrapped up in Black and White this last week as I worked on my collage project, I thought I’d share some of my pics and ideas on this particular topic.
My name for this photo series was: The Young, The Old, and The Ancient
My top contributions for the week were:
1 – Mama D with: How Sparky would see things if he were still here. 
Not that he would be very interested or even focus on these things, but if you threw a tennis ball into the picture, that would get his attention. (Maybe this isn’t the most fitting, but it had me laughing so hard thinking about my old dog that I had to give it the top spot.)
2 – Proud Grandpa with: The Beauty is in the Details (Very Fitting)
3 – Sara N with: A Sea of Rock Soldiers
For a great black and white pic I do things backwards from a normal picture. I start first with the black and white filter on picnik.com, then I go back to the edit tab, and use the exposure button to slide the contrast until I have a very strong black and a very sharp white. The contrast is what makes black and white great instead of flat.
Here’s my canyon pic, in black and white, but without any contrast work:
Now here it is, after having been adjusted for contrast:
The added texture and depth is really what makes this pic real and important even without it’s colors.
The same principle works well for people too:
It’s important to remember as you adjust contrast, that all you need is a good deep black in the shadow areas, and clean, crisp white in the highlight places. Pushing the contrast too far will make you lose details, like the texture in Cee’s shirt.
PHOTO CHALLENGE: Pick a picture that you love, with great colors, lights and darks, and turn it into a B/W masterpiece. It won’t take long, but it will be fun! I’d love to see what you come up with if you’d like to share. : )
Wordless Wednesday #46
As always with all Wordless Wednesdays, please leave a comment with the title or description that you would give this picture series. On Thursday I’ll reveal the name I chose as well as the top 3 contributions.
My Collage Project
This week I set out to finish a project that I’ve been thinking of for almost 10 years.
Holy cow, I’m getting old.
In HS, I loved black and white photography and tried to follow in the footsteps of Ansel Adams. As a college freshman, I bought a desk calendar of his photos and planned to make a collage out of my favs when the calendar expired.
Winter 2000 to Spring 2010 and I finally did it. I made two frames into collages of his work and some of my own with red accent papers and plan to hang them stacked above my bed. Can you tell which pics are his and which are mine? Some you may recognize from my blog, but some date back to my HS darkroom over 10 years ago.
The frames were on an amazing deal, so I got this as my Mother’s Day gift to me. I know it seems silly to be making my own Mother’s Day present, but it’s something that I’ll enjoy everyday and I love that they are MINE. (And at this point the only things Caleb can make for me are messes and poopy diapers.)
