So it's another challenge on Iheartfaces...pink and props!

I love this photo of Isabella, she was so hungry and it was the first day her mommy had been gone for a little bit so when she got back she was in no mood for picture taking!  But we were all excited to try the birds nest I had made of a smaller grapevine wreath supporting a larger wreath with some natural mosses, grasses and wildflowers woven in.  There is a soft comfy round pillow in the middle under the blanket.  The bird's nest prop makes this photo so perfect, her mood was like a baby bird that needed feeding NOW!  She was quiet and fine as we were settling her in and trying to figure out how to pose her.  Then she let loose and here she is, the delicate fragile beginnings of female life.
  

The challenge for this week includes pink to remind women to think about their breast health and breast cancer prevention.  With all the public education and awareness month, marathons, mammograms, fundraisers,...the statistics for breast cancer has not improved.  It is important that women educate themselves on their health and that we as women educate our daughters on how to live the best life possible to prevent cancer of all kinds...by our lifestyle, by our diet, by our choices.

I am now watching women my age who took birth control long term face breast cancer and other hormone driven cancers.  Do you know the difference between a synthetic hormone and a natural one?  Do you realize the profit in pharmacueticals for women and that drives a lot of our health care today?  This is my photography blog, but it is Breast Cancer awareness month.  Make choices so that you and the women in your life can live long enough to have many photographs taken.

My sister is an herbalist who works with holistic doctors in treating cancer patients to build their immune systems even while undergoing traditional cancer therapies.  You might enjoy this article on preventing cancer... http://www.botanicawest.com/understanding-cancer-prevention-and-treatment-part-1/

So I am trying to stretch my creativity and improve my artistic Photoshop skills...

Click on the image to see the credits to the artists of the textures used

There are some really artistic people on flickr who create amazing photo manipulations that don't look...well...manipulated.  I admire the work as art I want to see, own and create as well.  I have been entering challenges in texture groups on Flickr like this one and Ghostworks  Not only am I learning but I am inspired by the textures available from the group which has inspired me to create my own textures you can see on my Flickr for you to use...these are some of my favorites:

       

One of my favorite artists is Jamie Heldon who creates imaginative, whimsical digital illustrations with Photoshop.  Here are 2 samples of her work, she also has a website...J Heiden Photo   You just have to look at her work, it is amazing!  The picture I made above for a textures challenge was inspired by her work.

  

The first artist in this type of work that I saw on Flickr has a wonderful old masters painterly quality to her work.  I wish I could show you a sample but it is not available to share so you will have to follow the link HERE  Believe me when I tell you it is a must see!

Now because of her work I was introduced to another generous creative talent whose textures are used by many Photoshop artists...Jerry Jones.  Once I saw his work, I saw that he was recommended by some of the bloggers I love like Rita at the Coffeeshop.  He has some wonderful work of his own but his true talent is creating textures that he offers for FREE! for other people to use in their own works as well as tutorials on how to use them.  You will be inspired by his website as well that also has other fun goodies you will want to learn and use!  Find his website HERE

 

Here is one of his works that inspired one of mine for a Flickr texture group competition.  I suppose I love doing these because I cannot paint without making a muddy mess or getting impatient and I can create these, print them on canvas or make greeting cards and other fun things with them.  

  

The last image I created is of my daughter who always wanted to be a princess (especially after finding out that's what her name means)!  Now I am thinking of illustrating a story for her baby about his mama wanting to be a princess but finding out that being a mother to a little prince is better. 

Making these helps me learn skills to use on any kind of photo editing as well as stretches my imagination as well as seeing the world around me in a more creative way.  I hope it affects my photography and the way I will take pictures.  There are many more inspiring artists I hope to share with you in the future.  Who and what hat inspires you?

So this weeks challenge on Iheartfaces is pets.

I don't know if you agree with me but I think that terrier's have old men faces so I wanted Osita's photo to look like an old chiarusco painting (like the paintings of the artist Caravaggio I once saw at the Smithsonian) with dark shadows and light shining on the face.  Osita is backlit slightly by the late afternoon sun above and behind her with a reflector on my right side only on her face (not her body).  

I would love to take this kind of portrait of an old man.  It's hard to ask old men, they are so self conscious about their age and what they can't do anymore.  I love them for the things they can do, like encouraging my children and loving them no matter what, for their stories, for loving their wives so dearly and for knowing how to do all kinds of things (today my dad told me how to make a baby bottle out of a coke bottle and a rubber glove...I lost all my grandpup's bottles and he was hungry!)  In case you didn't notice, I tend to digress alot...Hey!  Give me a break cuz' I'm an old mama dog!

See more cute pet photos from others trying out this challenge at Iheartfaces


Photography Terms to Learn from this Photo - Shallow Depth of Field (DOF)
Depth of Field or the acronym DOF is a description of how much of your photograph is in focus. A shallow depth of field simply means that one specific area of your photo is sharp while other elements are blurred.  A great use of DOF is to single out your subject while at the same time reducing the effect of distracting background.

So I like to use textures...

I love how textures can take a boring photo and give it dimension and interest.  It's also an easy way to "scrapbook" a photo for giving away to the grandma's, aunties and friends.  Today on I heart faces, it's Fix-It Friday where we can edit a photo they give us however we like to make it a better photo.  It's so interesting to see how lots of people come up with different ways of editing.  Of course, many people crop the photo...they may give it a totally different angle and play around with the color or make it black and white. 

before editing 

Because I knew I wanted to add a texture and lettering, I cropped it with those in mind.  (I am using Photoshop CS4 by the way)...I always make a couple duplicate layers and those are the ones I change so I always have the original to work with.  My daughter taught me a cool way to sharpen a photo and bring out the color, I just go to "filter" on a duplicate layer choose other/high pass usually set to around 30 and after that's done choose overlay/softlight/hardlight and decrease the opacity if needed.  I add the texture by making it a layer (copy/paste from a texture image) and choosing the overlay/softlight/hardlight thing the same as the filter I just described.  I then added the lettering.  On this photo I wanted the backround color to be more intense so I made another layer and erased the boy out of the photo (which was easy because of the light halo around him).  Then I just saturated the color and changed the hue a little.  It took me 10 or 15 minutes to do and it's lots of fun.

I have a collection of textures on flickr you might like to try (I used one from the Guadalajara textures I made from a trip to Mexico) and you can see them here:  Guadalajara Textures on flickr or another collection here:  Fine Art Textures on Flickr   Please feel free to download them and use them, I would just appreciate a credit for the texture and that they don't get posted online anywhere without the credit/link or offered for sale.  You can learn alot about textures from a great blog by a very generous artist called Shadowhouse Creations and you can see his latest post from my blog list to the left.  It's also great fun to see the artistic efforts people create by posting them under the texture that gets used.  I've learned much seeing how others see things differently just like I am learning with this Fix-It Friday challenge that you can view here.

Here are a few photos I have posted on flickr with textures, sometimes I am inspired by old faded postcards and photos, sometimes a style of painting or art medium and it's fun to play around with.  Have you used textures?

   

So I went on this Iheartfaces photowalk...

I really like the Iheartfaces blog and everything they offer to improve my photography so when they announced their first Photowalk across America...it sounded like fun and I wanted to go.  I wanted to meet some of the people behind the photography I'd seen on Iheartfaces AND an added bonus was an outing to Dana Point Harbor.  One of my first dates with my husband was a restaurant called "The Jolly Roger" overlooking the harbour...sigh, good memories.  I hadn't been that way in years since I moved inland to the  country.  I signed up and my friend Trish  who loves photography more than I do (without telling her - SUPRISE!)

Trish and ME!

taken by Amy Nguyen, click on the image to see her flickr photostream!

Although we had been on flickr photowalks (the guys mostly ignored us) before, we were looking forward to this one hoping we could learn a few things and meet some supportive photographers in all ranges of ability.  There was a group leader (professional photographder Susan Keller) but she had to leave early for a wedding shoot.  That was a little disappointing but "we go with the flow where ever we go".  She starts us off with the opportunity for headshots of each other since we often don't photograph ourselves and it was a good idea for our personal blogging profiles.

the group leader, angry julie who has a cute blog & unknown
http://angryjuliemonday.com/


Then we headed off to a jetty to take a group photo and any shots we wanted on the way.

Right off the bat we met a couple of young moms that were like a version of us 20 years ago (except they knew way more about photography than we did).  I feel bad I could not remember both their names...one was Sharon and she gave us pointers on manual settings, her friend had this cool loupe around her neck that fit over the lcd screen and enlarged the view of the photos taken.  We LOVED that and must have one!  She sent me the link to buy it here... bhphotovideo.com Another photographer had a white balance ring for over the lens hanging around her neck, she said it really helped and was easy to use.  It seemed handy to have helpful tools hanging around your neck but I would need a personal instructor hanging there too and that might be a little much.  

 

Sharon and Shannon (after looking at almost 5000 photowalk images...figured out her name)

Sharon's beautiful photo was taken by Shannon Flores, click on the photo to see more.

I had a hard time leaving the beach.  It was so peaceful and beautiful but this was a PhotoWALK not a PhotoSitonyerbuttatthebeach.  I love the photos I got there.  By this time the crowd was headed through the dock area to the lunch restaurant.  We were straggling in back with Sharon and Shannon having a good old time.  By the time we got there the group leader was long gone, there were only a few people left and the lunch was ...meh.  Actually my lunch was terrible but the manager came out and replaced it with a pound of unbelievably flavorful just out of the smoker smoked salmon to take home.  I wish it wasn't a 2 hour drive to go back and get some more!  After lunch those cutiepies Sharon and Shannon gave us more tips and then we said goodbye.

Trish and I walked around a took a few shots of interesting things and people on the way back to the car and ate a wonderful lunch she packed of fresh spring greens with poached fish and greek yoghurt with fresh blueberries.

On the way back to the car a woman was searching the trash for recyclables.  I am always still moved by the resourcefulness of those with less to provide for themselves in such a well to do area.  If I was in a really bad predicament, would I be humble enough to do such work?  Hmm

Over all it was worth the 4 hours of driving we did that day to go.  There is another photowalk hosted by Scott Kelby in July.  I might try that one even with all the real professionals and "dudes" that will be attending...Will you be going?  Did you go on this one?  Link your blog in the comments!

photo by the group leader, Susan Keller (a REAL and talented professional)...click to see this and her other photos on flickr


Check out my blogs on pretty places, things, people at:
http://thevintageeclecticlife.blogspot.com/
and recipes
http://vintagerecipesmith.blogspot.com