Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Images that Speak with Words...

[Day Twelve]

Kim blessed us with a brush set with quotes for inspiration day twelve, so I though I would just try my best to interpret each quote with an image from my archives. I HEART brushes too ... thank you Kim.


follow your bliss ~ my love of baking and food photography gives me the perfect mixture to give me the bliss I feel when I see my final results ...



hold a true friend in both your hands ~ you don't need many friends just a few that matter ... when you do find them hold them with all your might ...



we need never be afraid of our tears ~ crying tears of joy or sorrow is a way for us to release that joy or sorrow, if it is left brew inside us we will never feel joy to it's extent and never put that sorrow to rest...



wherever you go ... go with all your heart ~ if you never do, you will never know how far you can go.



there is no remedy for love, but to love more ~ what can I say, love is a complicated emotion, don't think many people have or ever will know how to grasp it properly ... for the ones that have, consider yourself lucky ...



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Monday, February 20, 2012

Painted Tall Grass


[Day Ten]

Our lesson and task today is to create an image with textures to create a painting effect.  Some tall grass by a pond I took during my short stroll in the park last weekend.


Mouse over to see original image.

The boring bits ~

Layer 1 ~ "extremegrunge" @ 40% multiply mode ~ masked out top edge with 50% opacity brush.
Layer 2 ~ "autumnburst" @ 50% overlay mode - also masked out top edge with 50% opacity brush.
Layer 3 ~ "canvasmagic" @ 60% screen mode.
Layer 4 ~ black & white gradient map @ 50% soft light mode.
Layer 5 ~ white colour fill @ 35% softlight mode [to lighten up the image a little].
Layer 6 ~ my watermark.


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Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Fallen

[Day Eight]

Today's inspiration is about light, how we setup our shots and kim's vintage red gradient.  I haven't taken any photos for a few days and mention this to my husband, since today's weather was glorious [but ended in a storm], we went to our local park [my usual photography haunt] for a stroll, while I get down low and up close to al the gorgeous flowers, my husband and daughter found shady spots to wait patiently for me [note to self: do your photo walks solo next time].  Anyway back to what's at hand, on the way back to the car I collected a pine cone, which are always so photogenic, here is the result ~


Mouse over to see original image.

The boring bits ~

Layer 1 ~ "kimklassenlove" @ 50% softlight mode.
Layer 2 ~ "kk_scriptededges" @ 100% screen mode.
Layer 3 ~ "kk vintagered gradient" @50% normal mode.
Layer 4 ~ "the fallen" using "Remington Noiseless"in white & "Little Bliss Bold" for "ll" in black then used softlight mode.
Layer 5 ~ my watermark in black @30% normal mode.


This is my usual setup when I want a white finish with loads of awesome back light ~

This is my back door leading down to my garden, the wood panels you see outside used
to be just varnished so was quite dark.  After years of neglect it needed a coat of new
 paint so my husband gave it some tlc and a coat of white paint, to my delight.


Today's outtake ~ I tried a bit of macro, as the textures and different angles should make an interesting shot, so here it is ~




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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

My {creative} Story ~ Part 1

[Day One]

Our first assignment from Kim was to write our own story creatively, well I've been sitting on this for almost a month now and I think I know where to start.  This is my story of how my creative journey started and the three women who played and still plays a very important part in my journey so far. 

This story begins with the letter 'K"...


I have used Flickr to share my photos publicly for a few years now, on and off.  About 19 months ago I came across Kathy's flickr stream, she was in the middle of her Project 365. Her images appealed to me in that they were soft and full of light.  I spent 2010 following her project, through her ups and downs, typical of someone going through the stress of having to get that shot in by the end of each and every 365 days.  She inspired me with her beautiful images, occasionally portraits and of course her amazing food photography shots.  I was so inspired by her that I decided to embark on my own journey through Project 365 in 2011, a decision that totally changed me, my view of photography and the direction I would take.  Thank you Kathy Marciante.




At around the same time I became Kathy's contact, I stumbled across Kim's website, where my journey into photo editing and texturising began.  I'm forever grateful to Kim for being such a generous person in giving and also in sharing her amazing amazing talent to allow me and I'm sure a lot of you to see our photos in a totally different light, to be able to see something amazing out of something quite simple or ordinary in things like wildflowers or what some people might call "weeds" by the roadside or even a simple cup of tea. My eyes have been opened like they have never been before.  Thank you Kim Klassen.




Lastly but not least, the third woman, she has played an integral part in my journey... her name is Karyn, she became my contact and dear friend 9 months ago.  She is such an amazing person, everytime she visits my photos her comments are not just comments, they are personal messages, the incredible thing is that's how she conveys her thoughts to every one of her contacts.  Her talent in conveying her beautiful images is enviable, her collages are something to be admired and she inspires me everytime I pop over to visit her stream.  Through the nine months we've known each other our photography has grown together.  We have a strange connection in that a couple of times we have uploaded the same subject in the image on the same day unknowingly, the last just yesterday.  Thank you Karyn Mitchell.




And my creative journey continues and so does this story...where it will lead to, I don't know yet, when will it end, I don't know yet...guess all I can say for now is stayed tuned, maybe at the end of these 52 weeks of Beyond Layers you will be able to read Part 2 of my story with an ending I am happy to write about.

Postscript ~ I have to mention there are many inspirational people whom I can call a contact and a friend that I have met during this journey, I will leave them unnamed in fear I will leave somebody out... if you would like to meet some of them just simply pop into my flickr stream and you will no doubt see them leaving awesome messages for me.

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Tuesday, February 7, 2012

things that make me happy ...

day seven

Today Kim asked me "What makes you happy?", thought for a while and came up with this list and of course my list is never complete without a few pictures, so here goes :


Days in the sun on the beach with my children, writing on the sand ...




Simple daisies on a wooden bench ...



Baking and food ...



Autumn and it's leaves ...



Love of books and sweethearts ...



and of course photography but as yet have not created an image I think that represents it well so taking a raincheck on this one.

... so these are just some of my favourite things!


Postscript: these images were shot and created in the past 18 months.

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Friday, February 3, 2012

My Ordinary Day

[Day Six]

... as inspired by Xanthe Berkeley, yesterday I shot my first time capsule, six images that represent a typical day in my life during 2012 and today I have easily arranged it as a story board collage [thank you Kim Klassen... the images and resulting collage is not spectacular or beautiful but I think it captures the current essence of my daily life, simple and ordinary ...


A rundown of my day, starting with top left ~
  • Top Left - first things first, my dreaded chore of a school morning - the lunchbox - two to be done...it is dreaded not because of the actual act but the mindboggling choice of what to put in it.
  • Top Centre - then off to work for my mandatory flat white in my snoopy cup from the cafe.
  • Top Right - work day over, drove home in the pouring rain ... just some weather news for you, this Summer has been the coolest and wettest in a lot of years.
  • Bottom Left - some fresh corn to be used for my work day quickie meal "Curry Corn Beef with peas and corn".
  • Bottom Centre - *sigh* Jodi Picoult my trusted and favourite author, I have tried to read other books but she is an author I know who will make me turn every page and not want to put it down ... I would like to read every night but it is not always the case as I now have my photography to occupy my time.
  • Bottom Right - finally down to the very last chore of the day ... think the image is pretty much self explanatory [don't really want to get into the gory bits of life]
Guess that about sums it up ... if you're still reading, thank you, for sharing in my simple and ordinary day.

Oh and maybe just share the technical bits to the collage ~ not much was done to each image except applied a vintage action to them all then placed them where they needed to go and that's about it.

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