More 10 year old artwork

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Suzanne

My sister sent Joe and Will her old video camera. I promptly forgot about it, but this week, Mark mentioned it, and of course the boys wanted it. They haven’t done much in the way of movies, but they’ve taken a bunch of stills. After I taught them how to import the photos onto the computer, one of them remembered that I had let them play with Photoshop one time. I think he was particularly taken by the distortion effects. I showed them how to get the photo open in Photoshop, told them not to save over their original file and pretty much walked away.

Here’s Cocoa straight out of the camera, contemplating the great outdoors:

And here’s Cocoa, contemplating a black hole:

Here’s a picture that Will took of the McD’s toy he got Thursday night:

And here’s Joe’s version, that he titled Dragon Slayer:

As I said, I walked away, he figured out all of that on his own. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with as he continues to play.

Today’s Photoshop/Photoshop Elements/Any photo editing software tip:

As long as you don’t save over your original image file, you really can’t mess it up. Use the undo, use the history feature to back up, use layers if appropriate, and just CLICK on the buttons and try them out. Don’t be afraid to dive in and try things out.

How long has it been?

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Suzanne

You haven’t had to listen to me whine about the weather in WEEKS!

This snowstorm has been predicted for days (It’s going to be the biggest one of the season!), which makes me roll my eyes and think “I’ll believe it when I see it…”

Well, last night, they said 2-6 total accumulation. THen, this morning, they said 1 inch total. Tonight? The forecast is back up to 2-5 total. It came down FAST.

While I was trying to get pictures, Joe came up to talk to me, so I snapped a few of him, I was sitting on the floor, looking up at him. He was kind of fidgety (too much sugar at the school Valentine’s Day Party…), so most were slightly blurry.

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Talking with Will

Posted on January 29, 2009 by Suzanne

Will wanted to tell me about something that happened at school. I asked him if I could take some pictures of him while he talked. He said no, but I did it anyway.
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Overworked and underpaid

Posted on January 26, 2009 by Suzanne

Poor guy. That darned dishwasher always needs to be unloaded.

I’ve told that them that if they want to stop eating, the dishes won’t get so dirty all the time.

Unforgettable

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Suzanne

We had an appointment with our financial advisor this evening, it was our annual “how are we doing” meeting.

Oy vey.

The poor guy. I asked him how many times he has said the phrase “stay the course” over the last few months. I think he’s glad to see 2008 gone, and he tried to sound hopeful about 2009.

After the meeting, we ate supper and then I went and did my part to stimulate the economy, because we needed groceries, bad.

One of the things I bought was new bath rugs for our bathrooms. Our old bath rugs were wedding gifts, and we’ll be celebrating our 13th anniversary this year. The rubber backing on the old ones is disintegrating, leaving messes allover the bathroom floors. Yuck.

I also bought new towels and cannot wait to use them in the morning!

The boys and I arrived at our appointment early, and the only thing I had with me was my camera, so I played a bit with camera settings, while taking pictures of the Visitors Only Parking sign, my checkbook, and the steering wheel. Really fascinating stuff. In truth, I learned a few things I didn’t know before, but the resulting photos are nothing to write home about.

I also took a bunch of quilt photos earlier, but I’m running out of energy (and desire) to do anything about them. Tomorrow.

In the meantime, I leave you with today’s photo. Will sits directly behind me in the car, and it’s hard to turn around and take a picture of him. I kind of stuck the camera behind me, and just randomly snapped, and got this one. It’s slightly out of focus, but I still thought it was sort of cool in a totally “I’m not a real photographer” kind of way.

And then, I played with it in Photoshop and ran an action from Pioneer Woman called “Seventies” and made it even a bit stranger. Plus, I spot-healed a weird red spot on his nose.

So, yeah. Here’s the photo SOOC (straight out of camera):

And the retouched photo with frame:

I think it’s got kind of a cool, funky feel to it. I’m not entirely sure about the caption I gave this one. I was trying to be clever, playing on the fact that it is Will in the picture.

I can see that I need to learn how to smooth out his poor chapped lips a bit. Of course, I could always give the poor kid some Chapstick or Blistex or something.

Speaking of which, DANG IT. Blistex was on Mark’s shopping list and I just now remembered that I forgot it.

It was even written down for me. As you can imagine, he won’t be surprised that I forgot it. I got everything else on the list. I think.

Except. I returned a gift that needed to be returned, but didn’t manage to go look for a replacement gift. Oops.

I think I’d better quit rambling and go hit the sack, so I can wake up refreshed and sort through the quilt pictures I took.

Suzanne

p.s. speaking of unforgettable, you should check out the pictures my mom posted on her blog today. she’s been digging out some more doozies. wow.