Pondering a New Thought. What do you think?

On another website a therapist who works with photography to help people make changes in their life wrote "Your photos are actually "self-portraits" even if you are not in them". WOW, I mean Whoa! that caught my attention, made me feel a little bit uncomfortable so I knew I was in the learning mode with God at that moment and I had to think about that statement. Especially since I have been a little less than satisfied with some of my work. Her belief is that we take pictures of things that move us, people we want to spend time with, actions that amaze us. These snap shots can give us an idea or our mood, our journey through time, our future.

So I began thinking about what was bothering me about the pictures. They were too blurry, they weren't crisp or as "Pretty" as some of the other professional photos I see, I can't get the f stop, ISO, aperture correct, etc, etc, etc. And in this self analysis I realized a few things. 1) I am in too much of a hurry to be perfect 2) Because I am in too much of a hurry, I am taking pictures just to have a picture, but not really to learn the process and 3) Like everything in my life I rush, look for quick, fast easy ways, and don't enjoy the experience. And so, what do I get? Blurry photos. It is self portrait of my hurried, fast paced existence. The beauty comes from slowing down, looking for the best shot, perhaps not always taking the photo, but just enjoying that quiet solitude, those moments when no one is around and you are seeing it all take place around you.

I am challenging myself to make the time to slow down. To no be so worried about getting a shot, but to spend more time with the learning, more time with relaxing and enjoying the visuals. Finding composition through my own life interpretation.

I love to learn new things about myself, about processes, about people. Its no surprise to me that this new revelation about myself has come up "once again". It just is. I hurry. I move fast. A lesson to learn is the slowing down. Perhaps we will begin to see a change in the way we take photos as we slow down and enjoy the process.

This also translates itself to photo editing. Photoshop should not be used to just slap on some layers and call it a day. It should be another slow process where we feel the photo and find ways to translate the moods into a finer print. Textures, words, layers can all be useful in expressing what we saw during those quiet moments but it can only be done if we took the time during the shot to feel the experience, to relish and enjoy the shot. What do you think?

Frustrating Photos

Okay, I went out this past Friday (I had the day off) and headed over to a reserve at 8:00am to capture some shots of the Eagles they just let loose from rehabilitation. The day was perfect, it was very early in the morning, and not a soul was in site. The lake was calm and everything was coming to life. Butterflies, geese, birds, dragonflys, eagles, osprey, blue heron. I was in wildlife heaven, shooting photo after photo, after photo. Two hours later I headed home with some beautiful shots. You could see birds preparing to descent to catch fish, an osprey grabbing a fish from the water, a blue heron skimming the lake inches about the water. It was amazing and I was so proud that I had captured it all on film.

Coming home I was so excited, and tired. But I immediately began to download my shots. Photo after photo was blurry, out of focus. I was so upset and so frustrated. I just couldn't believe it. So I began to research the problem. And in a nut shell, here is what I learned.

1) Taking good shots is going to take time, patience and study. You can't rely soley on Automatic Focus. There are too many variables when it comes to capturing movement. In fact, there are three things that come in to play: Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO. I could go into detail about it, but I recommend that you head over to this site: digital photography school read up! They are a wealth of information. They give good tips on all sorts of subjects. Photography at night, photographing kids, photography for children...and more.

2) Blurry photos can be fixed. I found this plug in FOCUS MAGIC that works as a plug in with Photoshop elements and while it looks easy, my first day of practicing its use was a little daunting. I will post more on it as I practice. It costs $45 so seemed reasonable enough. They let you have 8 free edits to try before you buy, but since I didn't read the instructions prior to trying, I didn't have much success. I broke down and registered for it, so I now have alot of practice time. I will keep you posted.

The great thing about Digital photography is that you can keep going back and taking more pictures and trying again. Its frustrating when you think you got the perfect shot, and you want to see it, frame it, send it out to all your friends!

As you can see, they are quite blurry, but they are very clear in my mind. Here's the thing, no matter how many times I go back and take that picture it will never come out right if I don't take the time to slow down, learn something new, and take a few risks.

And with digital, I can do it again, and again and again! Wish me luck! If I master the blurry corrections on these photos, I will post them to show you the differences. Are you learning something new? If so, please share it with us. This is what its all about!

Practice, Practice...

I have been practicing and this week has been about adding digital word art to photos. I have found so many sites that allow use of their digital word art for personal use. This is great as I create photo and note cards for friends and family but a little limiting for those cards and photos I want to create for my own cottage business. The rules for commercial use are very difficult to find and when you do, they aren't always so clear. So for me, if you are planning to sell it, make your own digital word art. I am going to tackle that challenge next week. I am pretty sure its rather easy, using different fonts, you create a layer for each word, or set of words is how I think it would work. This would allow you to create depth, change font sizes, change font color. weave fonts into one another.

In any event, here are some really interesting sites that I think you might find fun to work with in developing your own photos. Be careful and make sure you use them for your own personal use, or get permission. In many cases, the artist or creator asks you to give them recognition for their work.

I am posting a few photos that I have created for you review. If you are looking for resources here are some. Let me know if I can help you with any other additional information.

Oh, and you can purchase all kinds of frames, masks, word art, etc. But many of these also specify they are for personal use only as well. Make sure you check.

This one is free for both personal and commercial: This site www.LostandTaken.com provides textures, papers and they can be used for both commercial and personal use. Read the creator's profile. I like his willingness to help others.

Here is one for fonts: www.1001fonts.com..

I stumbled up this site www.jenzworld.wordpress.com and so far all of what I find here seems to be limited to Personal use only. This woman Elegant Word Art 2 has beautiful work and again, her word art is for personal use ONLY. If you want to use it for commercial use you need to contact her directly. I haven't heard back from her regarding my request yet. Her site is well organized and categorized and there is a lot to choose from.

The interesting thing about word art is that if you aren't creating your own then you are limited by the thoughts and ideas of others. Quotes are everywhere, and its not the quote that is protected, its the style, layout and fonts used. If you are learning photoshop you will learn quickly that you can and should do this yourself so that you can create and use your own thoughts and ideas freely.

I have posted one of the new ones I have done for my family. Please link to your sites and let me see what you are creating! In this photo I used the paper texture from Lost and Taken and Bethany's word art from ElegantArt2.blogspot.com

Check them out!

Free Photoshop Classes! Registration Begins on Monday!

Hey everyone, join me at Jessica Sprague for her 2 year Birthday Bash. She is offering free Photoshop classes, giveaways and tips from other designers all on her site. Registration begins this Monday! Don't miss out. Its a great way to get your feet wet in Photoshop and if you are a scrapbooker a great way to learn digital scrapbooking techniques. I plan to attend and take all the classes. Can't attend? Jessica Sprague offers on line courses all year round. Costs vary, but once you order the course, you own it for life and can always go back and practice what you learned. I think this is the best training on Photoshop I have ever seen! Let me know how you do and what you thing!

Registration opens this Monday for the free class Photo Editing: Frame-Ups & Special Effects. In this brand-new class, you'll soak up dozens of awesome techniques to add effects to your photos, including brushes, frames, masks, textures, blending modes, filters and more! Don't worry about the class filling up-they've got plenty of space for you and your friends. But you have to register between June 22 - 28! So spread the word with our blog badges or by tweeting, posting on Facebook or emailing your friends and family.

Selling Photography and other good things...

There is something fulfilling about determining your own destiny, believing in yourself and your abilities and being confident enough to think that somewhere out there, someone wants what you have to sell. There is something awfully humbling about listing your items for sale, seeing people visit, but not having any purchases. This is the time that those less confident give up. This is the time when I begin to do some research and take a few risks. The marketing person in me, says that in order to reach the masses you have to be more visible. Yes, we can post our offering on ETSY, and they do a fantastic job of promoting crafters, but ultimately we are responsible for our own successes. I have been reading, reading, reading how people became successful and here are a few things I have learned:

1) You have to keep listing items. Shoot for a minimum of 100 listings. Work hard at developing your key words, tagging your items, and your photos. Photos of your product have to be crisp and clean. Mine, not always so good, but I decided to work at the 100 listings first then put in better pictures. About 80% of my photos are crisp, some a little blurry, but the blurry ones are not as important to me as the photos of my photo cards and photographs.

2) Get out more. Blog, meet fellow bloggers, go to craft fairs, use your items to promote yourself. I just began sending some sample cards out to unique card shops to gauge their interest.

3) Give your buyers more. I was selling just photos and then I started to look at other shops. They sell a variety of sizes, frames, etc. Many sell photos as art at 8 x 8 and larger art prints. These can be ordered on line and I have found the price to be about $12.50 per print. I haven't done it yet, because I haven't determined which photos are these that I want to focus on. I think if I start that I would create some that could be framed as a set.

4) Find out how others are getting their products printed. I just read a huge article about VISTA Print and how they are ripping off their customers with hidden credit card fees. You can find the article on the ETSY site. I will try to link it here later. I have now switched to Overnight Printers at www.overnightprints.com. I will let you know how they do.

Check out my ETSY site and see the new photo cards I am offering. By Friday, I plan to have over 100 items listed.

5) I was told that listing on Friday seems to be the time when you get the most people viewing your products. I don't agree with this completely. What you get on Friday is all the people who have nothing to do on Friday nights, and spend their time shopping. Which is a good thing, but do you really think that there isn't an opportunity 7 days a week? I am trying to list at least three times a week. It keeps me consistent, develops discipline, and keeps me looking for the best shot.

What are you learning as you build your business? Please come in a talk!