Angels

This week's theme for I Heart Face's photo challenge is "angels." I have to admit, when I saw it I was originally at a loss for what to do. But then I remembered that one of the moves in aerial silks is called the angel and I remembered that Photoshop can make anything fun.

That's what I would have written if the challenge this week had been about ANGELS and not ANGLES.  Oh well- here's the photo I created to make an ANGELS photo challenge post.

Here's where I started: A picture of Julie in our silks class performing the angel and a picture of a stop we made while LK and I were Ireland.

First I took out the background of Julie's picture,

and then I added it on top of the Ireland picture.

Next I covered up the lake which I didn't feel looked right with this photo-creation

and extended the left side of the screen so Julie was situated more over the light in the background and so her finger wouldn't then be squished on the left side of the screen.

Then it was time to play with some sliders.  First I took the saturation of the background down

and, since I wanted the blue in the silks to pop more, I took the hue of Julie's layer up

And then, before the last step of the filter, I burned Julie's arms a bit because in my test run the arms washed out in the filter and burning them corrected that.

And finally- the filter

So there you go.  I had the category been ANGELS, I so would have been ready.  As it is, hopefully you've at least enjoyed it.

Angles!

Oh my goodness! I think I'm more than slightly illiterate! When I saw I Heart Faces upcoming challenge for this week this on the side of the blog I read it as A-N-G-E-L-S. "Funny topic," I thought. "I'm interested to see how everyone interprets this category."  I wondered how I myself might interpret the category. And I came up with a way- a very creative (and possibly borderline sacrilegious) way to have an I Heart Faces photo of an angel. So imagine my surprise when I read this last night:

We think most of us realize by now that taking a straight-on photo of someone is usually not the best choice for portrait photography. Boring! :)

Unusual angles are fun and cool...and they make your photo stand out from the rest of the pack.

For this week's photo challenge, we are focusing on unusual angles. Stand higher than your subject, lay on the ground, move to the side, tilt your camera while you are shooting...do what you need to do to give your photo a uniqueness of it's own. A unique angle is what this week is all about.

And (of course!) make sure at least one face is clearly showing in your photo entry as well.

So here's my entry for the angles photo challenge, tomorrow I'll let you see what an angels post would have looked like (I mean why not- I spent so much time making it happen right).

Laughing at myself,

Black and White Photo Challenge

This week Mandy's photo challenge is black and white or sepia. And since I'm such a huge fan of black and white and antiqued photos this one was hard. But here's my choice for this week.  I took this picture at an old abbey LK and I stumble upon during our visit last summer to Ireland.  In a few weeks I Heart Faces will be doing the theme "Drama in Black and White" so I'm saving one of my other favorites (that has people's faces visible) for that one.  You'll have to come back then to see it.

Taken by,

SoCoS: Snow

Today's SoCoS is about snow because despite the 70 degree weather we had yesterday. it's snowing today! Go figure.

Snow, snow, snow, snow!  I use to watch White Christmas with my sister at Christmas time.  We loved the singing and dancing.  What I'm not loving today is the snow.  It was 70 yesterday!  AND I had previously declared it to be spring already.  But that's what I get (frustration) for thinking I can control the Oklahoma weather.  Hit a road block.  We still need to get out there and play snow pool- like on the Drew Carey Show.  But we don't live in Cleveland (thankfully).  I mean, there's not anything wrong with it if you happen to live there, it's just not for me.  My friend Anne mentioned that she let the kids spray the snow with colored water when it finally snowed in Michigan- maybe we'll try that today (large gust of wind outside) and maybe not.  I wish my fireplace was finished- perfect day for a fire.  I left a message for Cooltiles.com who have charged my card but have sent no tiles- but that was at 5pm CST on a Friday and they are Eastern time, so I don't expect to hear from them before Monday.

Now it's your turn. If you'd like to participate in a little SoCoS action, your topic is "Vacation." Guidelines: Write for 3:37 without stopping. If you can't think of what to write, write "hit a road block" over and over again until something comes to mind. When you're done- post a link to your SoCoS writing as a comment to this post.

Looking forward to see what you all have to say.

Parting Comments on St Louis

To the shop owners at the Arch and Western Expansion Museum bookstore - I'm going to go out on a limb here and just say it: I don't see how this works as a children's book.

Or is it just me?

Congratulations Dr_EAM

Derm at Vanderbilt- you never fail to impress!

Congratulations on your Match Day match!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the trip I took with LK to Ireland.

While I loved (loved !!!) Ireland - it's scenery and people- being in Ireland did not bring me luck.

Not only did the stewardesses on our United Airlines flight strike because they had been on the clock too long as a result of a major storm in Denver, and not only did we then miss our connection in Denver causing us to loose a night of our reservations in Ireland and our pond-jumping flight over from Heathrow to Dublin, and not only did my suitcase- the suitcase I had so carefully packed because I was not going to be the European-backpacker-hostel-staying girl on this trip, no I was going to be the cutely-dressed-30-something-on-a-lovely-vacation-with-her-husband girl- not come until the second to last day of our 9 day trip; but! while staying in the Dingle peninsula I was told by a priest who was well versed in Gaelic history, that my family name is not even really Irish!  He informed me (with slightly veiled distain) that we are Scot-Irish and then I think he went and washed his mouth out for having uttered such words.

Oh well, I hope today brings you luck and that these pictures can at least make you happy.

And least you think it wasn't fun-- it was an amazing trip-- "adventures" and all.