{Photograph Challenge}

Brought to you by Rachel Brooke Photography

"Here's the challenge: Rumage through your own portfolio and find a boring old picture and see what you can do to make it look more visually interesting. Link it on here if you feel inclined, I'd love to see your newfound perspective."

and here is my result: SOOC

Now here it is revised: I used "Boost" in PW's action set 1 and her "Seventies" in the action set 2.

Did I mention these actions are all FREE from Pioneer Woman. For anyone one who does not know her, check her out here, she's awesome and gives great tips in photography as well as photoshop.

This was fun, I just might be doing more of these "conversions" in the future.

{christmas templates}

Merry Christmas Eve!

{stacked frames} w/more freebies!

I found this link from Carin for this vintage stacked frame which was a freebie from Melany and it is totally awesome! To process this picture I ran a defog action that I learned from a photog friend of mine (also free), thanks Julie! Then I ran an action called "Grungy" by Mulletgod's Action-A-Plenty which happened to be free. I reduced the opacity to where I liked it, then I ran another vintage action that I just love aptly titled "Vintage Love" by Autumn Love Actions, you can find her flicker group here, did I mention this action was free and finally I ran Totally Rad's, Demo TRA2-The Revenge "Slice Like A Ninja-(Sharpen)" which happened to be..., yep you guessed it, FREE. It was part of a sampling to entice me to buy the rest of The Revenge series, which I am totally tempted. Must save up for those though! Anyway, it pays to search for free actions on flickr and photoshop tutorials on the web. I've already learned a ton and hope to learn so much more. Enjoy!

{christmas photo shoot} an attempt anyway

This is a duplicate post from my family blog so if you visit both then sorry for the repeat. I originally wanted to post pictures that I tried really hard to make look good on this blog, but I decided that since I am new to photography and have much yet to learn I could share my feeble attempts at capturing the poetry of my family life here also.



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Well, I am still learning alot about my old camera and it's settings, but it can be very frustrating at times. Like when you want to take your own family photo for Christmas cards which includes trying to get 7 people to look forward and smile without blinking or making silly faces. Not to mention trying to get the right settings on the camera in a low light setting and then having to use flash while trying to not over expose our faces or cause a glare from Jack's glasses. All the while running back and forth from the tripod to where I am supposed to sit after pressing the timer being careful to not knock over the camera in the process of getting into position after quickly making sure everyone is looking ahead and not at me and then brushing my hair out of my eyes before the camera "clicks". WOW, that is a challenge.


So....here are a few tries and the last one is the one we ended up going with even though Dan was alittle off to the side atleast we are ALL looking ahead, smiling and there is no glare from Jack's glasses. I only realized after I ordered the Christmas cards that I'd forgotten to change back into my red shirt I had picked out especially for the picture. Oh well, you can't have everything perfect.
These first two shots are SOOC, but the last one was sharpened over PW's fresh and colorful action.

{shining star}

This little beauty is not mine but belongs to a friend of mine. The star which happens to be the focal point of this picture (which was intended) does belong to me. It is actually the star that belongs on top of our christmas tree. We were having fun taking christmas pictures of her beautiful girls for christmas presents. More christmas pictures to come, it's my favorite time of the year!

{ring and water jug}

Just playing around with processing again.

{tagged}

Well, I've been tagged by Mindy over at Ladybug Farm. I'm not good at tagging people and since I don't think there are 7 people who read my blog I will just leave it open to whomever would like to play. If you do just leave me a comment and I'll check out the random book facts about you.

So here goes...I'm to leave 7 random or odd things about me relating to books.

1. I love the way books smell. I could literally stand in a bookstore and fan the pages before my nose and be in heaven.


2. I also love the way glossy book pages feel. I tend to rub the pages between my fingers while I'm reading.


3. I'm somewhat of a fast reader


4. I like fiction better then non-fiction


5. I'm a sucker for romantic books, but not the cheesy love affair kind


6. I got hooked on the recent best seller Twilight saga and am actually going to see the movie tomorrow night with my sister and a friend


7. I love the author Francine Rivers and would probably read anything from her

Well that's that...and since this is my photo blog I will leave you with a sunflare shot taken about a month or two ago before the snow hit.