Surfing @ HB Cliff's

Surf was good today. A quick shoot with new lens; 70-200 at the cliffs.

The above photo is one of Sam's buddies.

Loving this lens. So is Sam. He's so happy I have it.

He's been bugging me to get one for such a long time. OK Sam, get in the green room!

Santa Ana Winds=Our December Snow

Took a break for an hour and grabbed my camera for a quick shoot at the beach. We have been having Santa Ana winds which bring the wind off shore. It gave the waves better form and a great spray. I would say that this is as close to snow as we get.

 Did several photo shoots this week. Five to be exact. Here is one young boy who loved this rock and was such a great model. He loved to pose and was very focused. I can see him as a magazine model and I sure hope someone hires him! Can you believe he is only four?

I'll post more on what I have been doing this week very soon!

Holiday Gifts

Here is a sampling of some holiday gifts that I made for my client's to give to their clients. Easy to do, just several steps and I work in a scattered way so I work a bit, go to something else, come back, get a muffin, give one to a moose, come back... you get the picture.

The first photo is one of the completed bottles. You can see I used m&m's. The plain fit perfectly in the large bottles, however took three ( 3!) pounds of candy. Whooa. Let's see, 3 lbs. x 1,680 per lb. = 5,040 calories per bottle! Of which, I could consume in a day if left to my own devices.

I made the tags via photoshop, found a saying that I liked, layered many layers and painted textures, all unnecessary if you create small tags. Yes, I learn ALWAYS the hard way. Remember, less is more. Another lesson I seem to forget.

Some of the bottles were from the grocery store through out the years. I would buy the gourmet lemonade for the kids and would save the bottles. I also found wider ones at Ikea. The short jars, also from Ikea, held one pound each. I used m&m's and Cadbury milk chocolates. I liked that they were a nice size and reusable. Q-tips anyone?

Attached a label, painted on gloss finish, tied on ribbon with a bow, put on a tag with jute and done!

This card is being used for a 16th birthday party that I am shooting tonight. It's for two kids that are celebrating their birthday together. Winter Wonderland is the theme, white on white, silver, light blue and more white are the colors. My job is to take photos of the kids in a wonderland setting, take the photo card to a quick2print store and glue the photo into the card so they can be handed out as the kids leave the party. 

What I love about this card is that it is my sister's illustration.

The next photo is of the original artwork.

I really wanted to use the dog and cat, but figured the sixteen year old's would bark at that.

I used the sky & snow and added the verbiage & the 16s. I printed them on a heavy textured linen 12x12 piece of paper and cut down to a 6x5 card. I backed it with a plain blue and tied jute through to hold together. 

 I made one card that was a slip in pocket type, folded and glued on each side.

Cute, but too time consuming.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for chillin'!

From Photo to Van'Goto: Computerized Art

Today I decided to play for a bit. I stumbled onto a site called Vangobot

aka: PopArtMachine, Modern Arts Midwest.

They have an interactive section whereby you upload your own photo and it will re-work it into art. Now in as much as photoshop can and will do this, I found that some of the styles were different from the click-and-see photoshop filters. 

Here is my original photo. 

Click on Interactive (or here) to begin your own creations.

 Next I took one of the re-worked pictures, saved it on my computer, re-uploaded it and began working with that one. This next photo is the one used. I took it from the original to "plasma field". There were many variations of colors in plasma field. I just kept re-clicking til I came to one I liked. The teal caught my interest the most. From here I took it to each of the styles.

This next one is "graph". I think it is one of my favorites.

Reminds me of my Pee-Chee folders after a year of boredom in school.

Here is where I figured I was in a therapist's office. What do You See??

Now go play outside your computer.