before and after

i love photography

i also love paintings

combining the two loves is an art all in itself

i now love painted photography :)

for this image, i first opened it in snapseed to straighten the horizon and sharpen the details.

then i brought it into Photoshop (elements 9) and cloned out some distracting grass in the bottom corner 

and a branch in the top right. 

i added a layer of Kim Klassen's texture (KK_99) at 35% soft light and saved that image. 

 i again went into snapseed, added some drama and grunge, and saved again :)

Finally, back in photoshop, i added a texture layer from Melissa Gallo's Painted Texture (Confetti Canvas). 

i kept that in normal mode, then painted some of the texture layer off.   

i loved the way it changed the image, and gave it such a vintage feel :)

here is the original image...

hummingbird :)

i spent $3.99 on a plastic hummingbird feeder two days ago.

i hung it where i could see it easily from my couch. 

this morning, my $4 investment paid off :)

31 days...

november is coming...

the time of year where work takes over every minute. 

awake or asleep, there is no escape. 

so for the next 31 days, i plan to absorb, appreciate and

embrace AUTUMN...

 

I am going to enjoy the flowers while they are still here.

and i am going to watch nature in all its glory as the world turns to

orange and yellow and reds...

it's gonna be a blast :)

 

 

i am going to play with the pictures

in photoshop and snapseed and picmonkey and whatever else i can find...

and then, at the end of the month,

i am going to be all filled up with color :)

 

and that should help when it comes time

to face november...

 

 

 

bring it on,

october,

i am ready for you

 

 

taking pictures...

in march 2010, i started a picture project with my sister where each day i picked a word for us to photograph that day. i thought we'd do it for a few weeks and then move on to something new.  i ended up photographing a word-of-the-day for a year. i posted the word on facebook in the morning, shot the pics throughout the day and posted the images on facebook at the end of the day.

it changed my life.

i've been a photographer since i was a teenager - that's about 40 years now. i started getting paid for it in my twenties, in retail portraiture and have done that for over thirty years. but i don't think i thought of myself as a 'photographer' until i did my photo hunt word of the day.

i always thought of myself as a visual person. but i saw the entire world with new eyes. every day. 

if i drove the same roads day after day,

i saw different things because there was a different word-of-the-day.

i grew as a photographer and it felt like i learned new things daily.

 

many facebook friends joined in, well over 100 people joined the photo hunt page.

we supported each other, kept ourselves going and had a ball.

then it ended.

i was lost for a while.

i think i wandered for a year, growing, but nowhere near as much as i had with the daily quest to take a good picture. in that wandering year, i followed different blogs and was fascinated by the amount of sharing that was happening online. it was a whole new world and i was addicted.

one blog leads to another and i spent hours following them all.

i was inspired!

but i wasn't shooting as much. i was bored with the same places, tired of photographing birds and squirrels, flowers and sunsets. i didn't know what to do to get back the joy that i'd found in the word-of-the-day.

finally, i signed on for kim klassen's 'beyond layers' online class. 

it has been a blessing.

i am learning so much about photoshop, which has been great fun.

but i'm also learning things photographically and that has been fantastic. 

and this week, the challenge involved a color of the day. 

omg, i felt like me again. 

 

go green :) on monday

tuesday's mellow yellow...

 pretty in pink on wednesday...

thursday is blue day :)

 

and coincidentally, the facebook photo hunt group came back to life this week too!

we had a word of the day again. and it was making me see things again. i was actually overwhelmed with it all, and didn't get to post all the assignments.

but i shot them :)

it was great to be inspired AND then to do something with the inspiration!

thank you, kim klassen and xanthe

and all the photo hunt friends! 

tuesday - window

wednesday - peace

 

thursday - spring

today's word is RED -

both the color of the day and the word of the day.

i am looking forward to a day of SEEING RED...

in a good way :)