MomShots

I received an email from my cousin this afternoon.  Ok, to get technical, she’s actually my cousin-in-law; she’s my husband’s cousin.  But whatever, that isn’t important to this great story.

Anyway, she is really creative and artistic.  She’s one of those people that just comes up with amazing stuff.  They just pop out of her like some really great artistic poppy thing (insert great metaphor here, my mind is blank).  She had this brilliant idea that would be fantastic for so many things, including Holiday cards. 

I am going to just copy part of her email here for you and you can judge the brilliance.  I’m sure you’ll agree. 

I decided to take a series of them (her dogs) racing around the backyard and then put them all on one pic. I crouched in one corner, holding as still as I possibly could, (a tripod would help this with more planning) and snapped every couple seconds for about a minute. Then I snatched bits of them from each photo and dragged them onto one in photoshop. It may seem like a collage, but its all totally realistic– more like a bunch of pictures in one! 

I did this with my pups because I don’t HAVE any kids, but it occurred to me that it would be even more fun with your kids because you can yell a bit of direction their way… they could be making a Gar sandwich in a pile on one end of the yard, holding hands red-rover style running away from the frame on the other end, lying on their stomachs with their hands propping their chins up in the foreground… or just racing around like the hooligans they are like mine did. The photoshop part is seriously simple because if the camera is being held still, copying from one and dropping it into the other should match the pieces up perfectly. I did a bit of overlapping which took a light eraser brush only. 

Anyway, I thought that it might capture the sentiment (which I have at times), that I really have 12 dogs, not 2. I think you probably know what I mean.

Here is the adorable picture she sent me:  

So that is Kelty’s fantastic idea.  I L-O-V-E it.  It’s wonderful.  I am totally going to attempt this one of these days.  I think it would be so much fun.  In further correspondence she mentions a few ideas that you might enjoy:

You could even do little costume changes in between shots! Or simpler, put a ton of layers on the boys and then have them peel one of two off each shot! End up in their undies! Ha!

Doesn’t this sound fun?  I am so going to do this.  There are so many possibilities and you would end up with such a fun photo.  You could use this idea for a really creative holiday card.  You could use it for so many things.  Go crazy!!!

I was driving around with my boys today running errands when I drove past the teal blue warehouse.  I love that color and I still hadn’t actually stopped and shot my own photos there.  So I screeched to a halt and grabbed Gar to stand in front and pose for a few Momshots.  

I’m obsessed.

My kids are used to it.

I took a few and I realized that I seem to be in the mindset of feet as a perspective today.  Here’s my favorite from our little impromptu shoot.  I enhanced the colors a little bit in photoshop but not a lot.  That warehouse is really vivid.

Have you thought anymore about perspective?  You don’t have to shoot feet if you don’t want to.  But it is fun to mix it up and shoot from a different point of view than you usually do.

I’m a little slow.  

Seriously, I can’t believe it is Wednesday already.  Are you sure it isn’t Monday still?

The illustrious winners of our Pay it Forward contest are:

• Kath at Two-Oh-Oh-Eight Project(ion)s
• Mandi at {Mandi Speaks}
• Shelle at Blok Thoughts

Yay and congratulations!  When you receive your package, it will be your turn to Pay it Forward on your blog.  I’m excited to see this continue and move on forward.

I want to show you what I made them (hint* you can find it on the Momshots Flickr photostream) but I’m not going to post a photo of it here until after they have received it.  I don’t want to ruin the surprise (too much).

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and left a comment.  You are all such a talented and fun bunch!

to The Pioneer Woman’s website for a chance to win a Canon Powershot SD880 IS.  She is picking three lucky winners so you could be one!  Wouldn’t that be cool?!?  Yeah, I think so…

Go here. 

Be sure to enter before 8pm PST today.  That’s the cut off.

I’ll be back later today or tomorrow with a real post…  I have been really busy lately and haven’t had a second to sit down and write.  I’ll get something to you soon - including my thoughts on a point and shoot. 

Plus…  I got a new lens!!!  Ok, so maybe that’s the reason I haven’t been able to tether myself to my laptop lately…  The truth is out.

Check out this link.  What do you think?  It is a series of free online photography lessons that cover the basics and then tie it all up.  There is a forum where the people taking the class can discuss their thoughts on the lessons.  Is anyone up to doing this with me?  I am very interested in doing this.  I think I will learn so much!

I think I am going to start this the first week of January in 2009.  I was all gangbusters about starting it right this minute and then I realized that I would be totally overwhelmed since we are packing up our house to move in early December.  Not to mention that Christmas is just next month.  I’m sure we all have a lot on our plate.

If anyone is interested in working on these lessons together, I would love the company.  It will be really fun!

*****

On another completely different note…

Canon Powershot Commercial

Have you seen this Canon Powershot commercial?  While her dog Dulce is obviously adorable, is anyone else really bothered by this commercial???  

I mean no disrespect to the Canon Powershot or its users.  I’ve heard it’s a great little point and shoot camera.  But what about this commercial makes me want to buy one?  Nothing!!!

I guess when buying a camera, I want much more information than “it’s great for taking pictures of cute little fuzzy dogs.”  I want to know details!  What features does it have?  Why is this camera better than XYZ camera?

While I think many people will love this commercial because of its cuteness factor, I think it does a disservice to camera consumers.  This kind of advertising is not helpful at all in figuring out the facts about why I would ever buy this camera.

Some facts that I would love to know about, that I found on the Canon website are: 28mm f/2.8-5.8 lens, 4x optical zoom, 10.0 megapixels, Shutter speeds of 15 to 1/1600 seconds, Auto ISO settings, the list goes on.  Plus the nice 3 inch LCD screen makes it nice for viewing your photos.  

It sounds like a nifty little pocket camera now!  I would like to know more.  If there is anyone out there in Internet Land who would like to send me a Canon Powershot, I would LOVE to play with it and write up a real review.  I would even send it back!  hehehe

Anyway, that’s my consumer musings for the day…  

I was asked by a Momshots reader what point and shoots I would recommend.  After reading up about the Canon Powershot, I would say that it sounds like a good camera.  I have been thinking about and will write up a post sometime this week.  I would like to look at all the major brands and see how they compare.  If anyone has any experience with a new point and shoot, I would love to know your thoughts.  

As always, I love your comments.  Thanks for your positive words and insight.  Your thoughts make writing Momshots that much more fun for me and I’m sure for our readers.

There is a great blog that I read daily called Random Tips from Karen.  She puts up a new tip each day that could range from a sale on children’s toys to a restaurant walk or cool websites she has found.  Karen always has great tips and I have to say that Thursday’s tip was not to dissapoint.  The featured tip was…  take a minute to gues…  You got it, it was Momshots!!!  

I was very surprised and excited when I saw her post.  Thanks for the post Karen!  You made my Thursday.

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!  

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