MomShots

Tye has made a new Tip of the Week. I think many people will find this helpful. It is about removing a color cast on your photo. Say you forget to change your white balance mode on your camera and you are snapping away all day long. When you upload your photos you realize that all your photos have a blue or a yellow tint to them, now you can make this simple adjustment to help eleminate that color cast.

Great tip! Thanks, Tye!!!

I am writing this post from my mother’s dining room table. We drove up to their house in Bellingham, Washington for a quick visit. We had some errands to run and some people to see. Plus it is one of my sister’s birthday. As usual, we are trying to cram a million things into a very short time. I think we’re going to go pick black berries in a few minutes.

Keep those cameras out and your trigger finger happy!

The above photo doesn’t have anything to do with the new Tip of the Week. It is of my one year old son who fell asleep in the swing at the park. He’s just cute, isn’t he?

Shealyn Camera Strap Covers

You know how I L-O-V-E these things.  I do seriously.  Isn’t this like the third time that I’ve talked about them?  I have decided that they are like earring or other pretty jewelry - you can never have too many.  

I actually took off the camera strap cover that I made and it is sitting in my desk drawer.  I took it off because my husband needed to use the camera for a day of walking in downtown Salt Lake, taking architectural photos.  It was a bit “girly” and so I took it off so he could continue being “manly”.  He didn’t ask me to; he wouldn’t.  But I know that man and knew he’d rather just have boring old Nikon strap showing. 

That’s what happens when you are sharing a camera.  One day when I have my very own camera I will put girly-girl camera straps on it to my hearts content.  One day…  *sigh*  Oh!  But until then, I am just so happy to have a camera to use, I couldn’t be more thankful.  I will also continue to put camera strap covers on the camera.

Anyway…  this morning I was blog hopping.  I get stuck in these blog hopping moments going from one cute blog to another.  Getting enamored by all the cute projects the people are making.  I found this site and saw the giveaway for a cute camera strap cover.  I can’t pass that up!  You know how I L-O-V-E them (seriously, I wrote that twice in the same post - it must be true love)!!!  The giveaway ends today so jump on over there and enter. It would be so cool if a Momshots reader won!

Let me tell you something about myself…  I am a pretty artistic person.  Or at least I like to think of myself as such.  I have a wide range of interests and feel really comfortable behind the sewing machine, with jewelry findings on the table or with glue or paint on my hands and under my nails.  I may not be what you call “an accomplished artist” but I am pretty comfortable tackling most creative-type projects.  

Reading that you might think that I have many pieces of artwork around my home…  

I don’t.

Up until a few days ago, I only had this one piece of artwork on the walls of my home.  It is a photo by an extremely talented photographer named Sharon Grainger.  She took this photo of my then fiancé and now husband Ben and myself way back in 1997.  

It is the only thing hanging on our walls.  The only thing.  I’m seriously not kidding.  I wish I was.  But I am not…  There are many reasons for that, which I am sure could all be fully analyzed by a shrink.  I won’t really go into it.  It could take days.

I have mentioned in earlier posts that I have decided to get over that hang up and hang up (bad pun totally intended…) some more photos and artwork.  

I had some photos printed by Snapfish and I was really happy with the quality of the prints.  They also got them to me fairly quickly - that’s always a plus!  The only thing I was slightly unhappy with is that I chose to have a white border around each print.  I was thinking that it would look kind of cool.  Maybe it would have if I used different frames but the ones I chose (from Ikea) didn’t work quite like that.  Maybe all frames are like that.  I have limited experience with frames, as you can tell from my lack of artwork on my walls…

I painted the frames red and hung them in my boys’ bathroom.  I kind of went hay wire with the spray paint because it so much fun painting the frames.  I painted a wooden step stool red and also a basket that I keep the boys’ toothpaste and brushes in.  I decided I’m going to get a red bath mat and go with a red accessory theme in that room.  Basic but I like how it looks.

So here’s my final grouping.  It was kind of a hilarious situation; me trying to get a photo of this grouping.  The bathroom is so small and my lens is not a very wide angle so I had to try a few things before I could get them all in the frame.  One was taken while I stood in the hall and took a photo of the reflection in the mirror and the other was taken with me crouching down in the bathtub.  If you had been there you would have been laughing at me.  Come on, laugh anyway!  

Photos using Levels.  Tye Durbin has done it again!  She is sharing her knowledge and helping us learn how to fine tune our black and white momshots using Levels in Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS3.

Check out our Tip of the Week section for the details of how to do this.  Plus, her niece is so darn cute, you know you want to just nibble on her cheeks!!!

This photo was entered in the 5 MInutes for Mom Summer Fun photo contest.

It’s familiar, I know.  It’s the same photo I used for the Sepia posts.  I tried to find one that was a bit more “summery” but I think I’m going to stick with this one for now.

Did you know that Sepia tones were introduced to photography in the 1880’s? The addition of a pigment from the cuttlefish reacted with any remaining silver and converted it to a sulphide which resulted in photographs that would not fade over time. The Sepia tones that we are familiar with, and which define an era of photography, were designed to give photographs a longer life. That is why the only photos that have lasted from that time frame are ones that are Sepia toned.

Since the onslaught of color photography and modern printing methods, this isn’t a process that we do anymore except for the visual effect. And that effect isn’t done by adding pigment from the cuttlefish!

Our Tip of the Week, brought to you by Durbin Digital, is about changing your color photos into Sepia tones using Photoshop Elements (Version 4.0 and later) and Photoshop CS3. Try your hand at a few of your own photos and post them up. We’d love to see your results!

So I’m basically stealing this post idea from Pioneer Woman.  If you haven’t checked her out yet, she’s great.  I read this recent post and got inspired to try my own hand at painting with the Photoshop Artistic effects.  I took a photo of this flower, a delphinium I believe, growing in my mom’s lush and beautiful garden in July of this year.  My mother is a woman of many, many talents and one of those many talents is to grow beautiful things - not just flowers.  

So I thought I’d try the watercolor effect.  I’ve always dreamed of being able to paint but I haven’t yet been able to train my hands to cooperate, so in the mean time, I’ll experiment with manipulating photos.  Besides, I think it might help me be a bit more familiar with Photoshop if I’m actually practicing things.

So here is the before:

Here is the after:

My original photo had some out of focus areas - I used a pretty large aperture (f/3.3) so the background is blurred but so is part of the flower.  I think the blurred areas actually help the watercolor to look better.  I think it would look really cool printed on knobby, thick watercolor paper and then attached to a greeting card.  In fact, I am toying with the idea of setting a goal to make a set of greeting cards.  I think that might be a really fun project.

So, back to photographing children…  You could totally do this with photos of your kids or anything that you would like to see like that.  Studios charge lots of money for prints that just have this simple effect on them.  Who needs those stinking studios, anyway?!?  OK, maybe we do, but not today!

I would love to see any photos that you have played with and added an artistic effect.  Post them to the Momshots Flickr Group.  It will be fun to see what you’ve done!

Oh man!  That’s a bad title isn’t it?  hehehe…   Someone help me, please?  :)

Title aside, my bright, hot sunny sky has taken a small reprieve and given us rain and grey clouds the last few days.  I love days like that, not only because I grew up in Washington State and so overcast skies pull at my heart strings, but because the lighting is much, much softer.  I can take my kids outside and get some Momshots without those pesky harsh shadows that the afternoon sun brings.

Trying to find good lighting is a challenge every photographer (I’m including every person who picks up a camera in this category so don’t feel intimidated) faces.  But as a mother, my photographing schedule is often dictated by nap times and the moods of my three boys.  I often find myself trying to capture Momshots in harsh sunny light.  Overcast days offer many more natural light situations.

My big plan for the day was to take my kids up to a nearby waterfall and take some photos, utilizing the overcast light.  That plan was scrubbed because of the whole nap time thing.  I guess my guys didn’t sleep last night because my two older boys are grumpier than a jack rabbit with a burr in its fur.  My youngest is still sleeping off his nap.  It looks like we’re not going to the waterfall.  Well, at least the intent was there.  I get a couple points for that, right?

Maybe I can get a few photos from the back yard…  I’m kind of sick of photos from the back yard.  I need to try harder, I guess.

The photo here is of my youngest son.  He is sitting in the stroller (Phil & Ted’s - the best stroller in the world, in my opinion) with a blanket pulled up around him.  This was taken over our 4th of July vacation up to my parent’s house in beautiful Bellingham, Washington.  We had many an overcast day.  I kind of went nuts taking photos.  I surprised myself by how many I took.  That reminds me… I still need to burn copies of all the photos for my siblings.

A fellow Momshot Flickr group member is missing her grandpa.  He went missing a few days ago and has not been found.  I encourage each of you to help spread the word about him in hopes that he will be found quickly and brought home safe and sound.

The link to this image is:  http://flickr.com/photos/ladyhawker/2744359968/

Black & White Personal Challenge Status Report:  

Well, I did take a handful of Momshots yesterday, but I don’t feel that any of them really lend theirselves to being converted to B&W.  My boys were painting on easels and we made homemade doughnuts.  We also had a torrential summer shower and Uly and Gar went out and ran in rain with the rest of the neighborhood children.  I took a handful of shots.  I’m not really happy with any of them.  There is nothing really special about any of them.

I do like this picture of the paint brush.  I think it could be post processes some to bring out the blue more.  That’s something I’m still very much learning.  

So anyway, I’m going to try again today.  Did you have any luck with your B&W photos?