Sunday, July 29, 2007

Negative Space

I'm going through a bunch of older photos that I hadn't processed yet to look for some negative space examples. I was surprised to come across quite a few!

This photo of the duck was taken at about 3pm, it was daylight, but for some reason the water came out really dark, so I processed it for the water to be completely blacked out, it looks to me like the duck is staring off into the unknown. EXIF: 126mm, 1/320 @ f/4, ISO 200, no flash.
Seagull in flight, taken in the south of England last summer. This photo was actually extremely underexposed. I managed to save it for the most part, thank goodness for RAW! I wont share the EXIF since it wasn't correct for conditions.
Seagull in the sand, same beach. 113mm, 1/500 @ f/8.0 ISO 200, no flash.
This is my brother Shawn at Corfe Castle in England. There was a steep grassy hill with ledges that the kids were jumping and rolling down. Shawn took his turn jumping and it looks like he's about 40 feet in the air as he jumped off each ledge particularly with the first one because you can't really see his shadow. These were a lot of fun. He made it down safely. EXIF for both photos: 78mm, 1/250 @ f/8. ISO 100, No Flash.
Coming in for the landing.

Frame in Frame

I'm a little late for this photo challenge, but thought I would upload it anyway. It's a shot from when we went to Scotland. A canons eye view!
17mm, 1/320 @ f/10, ISO 200, No Flash

Thursday, July 19, 2007

More cards today.

I'm still sick today, but I managed to drag myself off the couch long enough to make a few cards. Drew and I celebrate our 3rd Anniversary on Monday, so I made this card for him. I hope it's not too girly looking! I used Doodle That, and the sentiment is from the new Hugs and Wishes set.
I have a ton of scraps lying around so I tried to use some of them in cards. I could probably make 100 cards using patterned paper and STILL have scraps left! It's a never ending pile! The first is using the new In Color: Sky Blue, and Double Line Doodles!

The following was for SCS challenges SC133 and CC122. I loved these colors together and the sketch was lots of fun! Again I used a Hugs and Wishes sentiment along with Love It behind the sentiment. This is some of the new chipboard as well!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Fill The Frame

I looked through my photos and picked some older ones for the Fill the Frame challenge. The first is my DH in Cambridge last summer. I love his smile!


This is my friends daughter. She has the biggest dimples I've ever seen on a kid when she has her full smile on. This pic has a few hot spots as it was a bright sunny day last summer. I was across the street shooting with my 70-200 f/4L.
This is my bass guitar, I was experimenting with shallow DOF after I got my 50mm f/1.8 lens last year.
Ahh, baby Dominik! This is the same kid that's in the BDU cap for the childhood challenge! He was 2 months old in this photo.

Riley is Dominik's big brother. His head is being held at a funny angle here, but his big eyes captivate me, making it one of my favorite photos of him. I can't wait until my munchkin' is born so I have a "model" to take lots of pics of! :)

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

I was Blog Tagged!

Kristy at The Stamp Garage tagged me, I feel so special! Thanks for thinking of me to tag! The rules say I have to share 7 things about myself and tag 7 other bloggers. So here goes:

1. I'm a California native, currently stationed in England with my hubby Drew, for the USAF.
2. I'm 15 weeks pregnant with our first child, due Jan 7th, 2008!
3. I have a spoiled rotten Great Dane named Cosworth, and a Munchkin Cat named Eibach.
4. I love to modify and work on cars.
5. I can play flute, piano, oboe, bass guitar, and mallets (xylophone, marimba, etc.).
6. I want to be a Veterinarian when I grow up.
7. I'm 83lbs lighter than I was 2 years ago, 61lbs lighter than last September.

Alright, that was fun!! Now if I can only find another 7 people that haven't been tagged yet. Sorry if you have been already!

Cherie @ Capture The Memory
Lynn @ Lynn's Random Ramblings
Heather @ Heather Taylor Photography
Michelle @ Just A Thought
Jamie @ Photos By DJ
Monica @ Evan's Daily Journal
Michelle @ Confessions of a Scrapoholic

Monday, July 16, 2007

I made stuff!

I've been slacking in the craft department lately.. so I finally sat down with some of my new stuff and made some things! I just LOVE the Baroque Motifs set and matching paper . It's gorgeous!
So bummed they got rid of the organdy ribbon, but that's okay. I still have a lot left to use, for my own pleasure of course!
I made this clipboard to keep tabs of consumables I need to order. I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten to order Barely Banana cardstock!

I made this for a color challenge on SCS, and I can't for the life of me find which number it was now. I also cant believe Roses in Winter is gone, it's one of my favorite sets ever. I don't think you can make a bad card with it!
I saw the idea of using the flower punches to create faux primas on SCS. I have a friend/customer who buys a lot from me, so I try and give her little gifts of appreciation with each order. This jar came from Ikea and I filled it with flowers punched with the threes for you punch, daisy punch, and spring flower bouquet punch out of my rich regals scraps. Good way to thin out the scrap pile!

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Edinburgh, Scotland


Last weekend we took our trip to Edinburgh, Scotland! I got around to processing some of the photos last night so here they are! I'll try to explain a little bit about each of them as I go. The above photo was taken at the England/Scotland border. We were there at the same time as another American family, so we traded taking photos for eachother.I loved this picture of DH above, except that he wasn't smiling! We had stopped at a pub called The Filling Station for some drinks. He had an ice cold Guinness (below) and I splurged on a cherry coke! Both of these photos were taken with the natural light from the window. The pub was really dark, but there might have been a little bit of light fall off from the adjoining room, so I can't say for certain it's COMPLETELY natural light, but mostly.
After we checked into our hotel, and then went off to explore. As we turned the corner, we came face to face with this monument, called the Scott Monument, after Sir Walter Scott. You could climb to the top, but by the time we actually decided to do it (and it wasn't raining), we were both exhausted and our legs hurt from all the hill walking and changed our minds.

We also came across several statues and artworks in random places. We saw this huge foot, and were joking about how we didn't see Nessie, but we saw Big Foot! (Har Har Har). Here's me posing with said foot.

We found our way to a place called Camera Obscura, sounds like just the place for me!! It was full of visual effects, lighting tricks and all sorts of cool stuff! It was really dark in most places, so only a few photos came out (these are all handheld with no flash). This first photo was actually a ghosting effect. Drew and I were sitting on opposite sides of a plexiglass type screen, and the lights were raised and dimmed to the desired effect, so while it looks like we're sitting next to each other, he was facing me, and I was facing him taking the photo. Cool huh!
We've all seen these things I think! This one was really huge! I tried to get a photo of Drew with his hands on it, but it was too dark to see him, so I took a separate one with just the ball.
I thought this one came out cool too! It was like an inverted ball with lighting that you stuck your hand (or face, etc.) into and it beamed the reflection on the opposite side. This isn't a photoshop trick, the photo is straight out of the camera, just edited to bring out the details a little bit!This is a star room, with the stars changing color. It was mirrored all around creating the look of never ending stars.
I just thought this photo was cool, but it really just changed from color to color , red being the most bold of them.
At the top of Camera Obscura you had just about a 360 view of the city. They were setting up for the Edinburgh Tattoo in August, so the stadium was blocking the view of the castle, so we took photos from the other directions. Here's the view of the Royal Mile from the top of Camera Obscura.


We also got a nice view of the National Monument (a partial replica of the Acropolis in Greece). We tried to find it later, but somehow managed to walk completely around this huge hill, missing it entirely! Our map wasn't very clear.
Speaking of the Royal Mile, it runs from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood House. I'll cover those a bit more later. The following photos are just shots from the Royal Mile.

St. Giles Cathedral was on the Royal Mile as well. We went in it on Saturday afternoon to check it out. It was really dark inside, so we didn't get a lot of photos, but I did get this gorgeous photo of the cathedral tall Organ (taken with natural light from the stained glass windows).

We finally made it up to Edinburgh Castle, which was really cool! You can read all about it here.

We took a guided tour through the castle and learned all about the different sections and the history. We climbed the winding trail all the way to the top where we stopped to take some photos. Here's one from the top. You can see just below people are starting to gather for the One O'clock Gun.
Speaking of the One O'Clock Gun, our tour guide was telling us how it used to be the 12 O'clock Gun, but since the "Scottish are so thrifty" that they changed it to the One O'clock gun so they could save 11 bullets per day! They shoot the gun every day at One, except on Sundays, and we were lucky enough to catch it in action! Here's the photo in the seconds leading up to the shot. The gunner has a small watch in that he held up to wait for it to be exactly One.

I had the better spot with only a few people in front of me, but unfortunately when the gun went off, I jumped so bad that the picture turned in to a blurry crooked mass! Luckily Drew got the shot of the gun going off with the P&S, but had a ton of people in front of him. I was still glad that we got it, so here it is!
Down below the castle (I mean WAY below) there was a beautiful garden where Drew and I went to relax on our last evening in Scotland. We took a few photos of the sides of the hill in which we had to climb up to get to the Royal Mile. First, we have the Bank of Scotland which is now a museum, then Edinburgh Castle. The last two was of some buildings on the side of the hill that I thought were neat (you can see the top of Camera Obscura on the left behind the white building), and Drew snapped a shot of me taking my photo. There were a lot more photos, but for the sake of time and space, I whittled it down to these to post. Thanks for looking!

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Happy 4th of July!

We went to RAF Feltwell to watch the fireworks tonight. Unfortunately it was still fairly light out, they were REALLY low in the sky, and right behind the fair they had set up, so it wasn't the ideal spot for picture taking! I had to crop out a lot, and mess with them in photoshop to make them stand out. Better luck next year! Happy 4th everybody!

Monday, July 2, 2007

Patriotic Theme

I went to the American Military Cemetery in Cambridge today. I had never been there and I thought it might be a great place to get some patriotic photos. I had so many that I liked, I thought I'd compile them into one board. The statement in the middle is what is written along the top of the wall that is inscribed with 5,126 names of the soldiers of World War II, who were either Missing in Action, lost or buried at sea, or "unknowns" who could not be identified prior to their burials. The full pdf file about the cemetery can be found here.

Click on the photo to view larger.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

"Model" Photography

I read about this fantastic tutorial on how to make faux model photos and had to give it a try! Here's a link to the tutorial if anybody is interested: Fake Model Photography . The only problem I found with it was that I needed to keep the foreground black, and the background white. These were a lot of fun! Click on the photo for full effect!

"Little" Big Ben - LondonBarcelona, Spain


Florence, Italy

Roman Forum - Rome, Italy
St. Peters Piazza - Rome, Italy