Week 12 "Focusing on Angles"

 

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of my son and my husband.  I love zooming in and looking at the little hand grasping his fathers finger!  The camera was practically on the ground for this picture.  I took it angled up from the ground so that all you saw in the background were the clouds!

check out all the other great entries here.

 

Week 8 "Hands On" fun

This week over at iheartfaces.com they are featuring hands. You should check out all the entries as they are always very amazing!  This picture is one of my all time favorites!  I love the effect that color filtering adds to the picture as it makes it look like my brother is bleeding orange!  It reminded me of those gatorade commercials from way back when?!?!  These pictures were taken during Halloween time.  I thought my two year old son would be in to carving pumpkins, but he wouldn't have anything to do with it!

Week 2 Best Face Photo

The following picture was taken December 30, 2009. 

I love blue eyed babies - their eyes just seem to naturally pop!

Check all the other great entries here.

 

Week 1 An "I Heart Faces" Photo Challenge

It is official, i ♥ faces has turned one year old!  I have really enjoyed the weekly photo contest, but I have to say I love the photo challenge idea.  The options are wide open as to what you can do.

The first picture I have is a picture of our dog, Piper.  She LOVES the camera, although I must say getting this picture to look the way that I wanted it to...well, it took a little bit of time!  I should have taken a picture of her as she peered into her water bowl and saw the i ♥ faces floating around in her water...of course I had to keep flavoring the water, to keep her drinking the water to get the logo just right on her tongue!  (right about now you have to be thinking 'are you serious?'...no I'm not serious ;)

The next picture is one of my favorites of my little boy - reaching for a bubble.  He has recently re-discovered his love of bubbles!  We had my husbands father in from Egypt and he recently got married, and by marriage now has a step-son.  His step-son came to live with them from China, and at the age of 13 he had never seen bubbles before...amazing.  This picture to me captures the wonder and innocene of youth, and of course the fact that he is reaching for the i ♥ faces bubble makes me wonder if he'll participate in these challenges one day!

The following picture is of my two sisters - I love the way the light is hitting my once sister on the face and the other sister on the top of her head...picks up so many colors in her hair!  It took me quite some time to carve i ♥ faces into the tree...then went through a few red and black crayons to add color! You'll probably have to click on this picture to make it bigger and see it better! (And again, I am not serious!)

The final two pictures are my initial idea upon seeing the challenge back in the beginning of December.  I really enjoyed print making in school where you have a piece of lenoleum and you heat it up and carve a picture...you then make your first print...carve out some more and print on to of that - to see the finished print with all the colors.  I had a piece of easy cut lenoleum that I had bought on sale a while back...when I read about the challenge I knew what I was going to do.  I figured I would make the i ♥ faces 'custom stamp'!!! To add the face I figured I would include my little boy in the picture somehow. I knew what was in my 'minds eye'...making that happen is sometimes a little tricky!  I am satisfied with how it turned out! If you want to see step by step pictures of each process for this picture you can read about it here. (Yes I needed an entire separate blog post just to go over what it took to create the following pictures!)  I had a lot of fun with these pictures.  All the other ones were photoshopped, this one was all natural!

“I am submitting these photos into the I Heart Faces logo photo contest. By entering, I am granting I Heart Faces LLC permission to consider my photo for use in the marketing and promotion of their website.”

Check out all the other great entries at i ♥ faces

 

What goes into taking a picture?

Have you ever wondered how somebody reaches the finished product of a good picture?  I never really thought about it until I became intrigued by photography and started reading about what other photographers have done and also started looking into all the photo effects out there. 

I have learned that I produce the best photos when I am challenged.  I guess in the end I rise to the challenge.  This Christmas with help-portrait I finalized what I feel has been my greatest picture thus far, tieing in taking the picture, editing the picture, printing the picture and framing it. 

i ♥ faces recently turned one, and to celebrate they had a challenge - take a picture that has the i ♥ faces logo in it - either via photoshop or actually part of the picture.  I knew what I wanted to do but knew it would take some work.  I thought blogging the steps would be cool for you to see.

Step 1 - Gather Lenoleum

Step 2 - Print logo, to use to transfer to lenoleum.  Once printed, use a toothpick to poke the image into the lenoleum...making an outline for you to carve.

Step 3 - Carve it

Step 4 - Now if I was doing this the 'right' way I would make as many prints as I wanted to have with this print in all red, because I want the heart red and the letters black and red is lighter than black.  Then I would carve away the heart and print over top the previous print with black to make the letters black....Since I thought about doing this a month before it was 'due' but didn't get around to it until the week it was 'due,' I had to improvise and use a paintbrush to do red and black for each print. 

While I was at it, I thought a shirt might be cute for him to wear while I was taking his pictures! The first picture is of the front of the shirt and the second picture is of the back of the shirt!

                           

SO.....all of that went into creating these: (of course there were a lot more - oh about 150 more but for the sake for getting this blog done I am uploading my two favorites!

To see my entry click here.

Week 49 - Pets Only!

 Week 49 - Pets Only! We happen to have a very photogenic dog - when the camera comes out she literally will sit at my feet until I start taking pictures of her.  This isone of my favorites - don't like the glow in her eyes but any edits I do just don't quite look right. Check out the other i heart faces entries.
 

Week 48 "Sweet Dreams"

Week 48 "Sweet Dreams"

This is a picture of my little guy napping before his 2nd birthday celebration!

Check out all the other great entries at i heart faces.

Week 45 "Autumn Beauty"

Week 45 "Autumn Beauty"

When I think about Autumn I think about leaves changing colors.  Living in Florida we pretty much see brown or green...somehow we miss that 'in between' phase!  I thought this one of my little one standing on his pumpkin might work....

Check out all the other entries over at I Heart Faces.

Fix-It Friday #30

This is my first attempt at 'fix-it friday' - I figured I would give it a try!


The original:



First edit- ligthened it up a bit and cropped it.



Second edit - lightened, cropped and ghosted.

Third edit - I am love pictures that lend themself to capturing the moment...weather it be the moment he picks up a handful of sand and you snap a picture of his hands full of sand, or the moment he is holding hands...I love the little hand/big hand picture!

Week 37 "Completely Candid" Photo Challenge

Week 37 "Completely Candid" Photo Challenge

I love all the pictures of my little one, but this one has become one of my favorites!

Check out the other entries at iHeartFaces.

Week 36 "Contemplative"

Week 36 Contemplative

Our little boy is starting to think that playing in the sand might just be ok! I love this picture I took of him, it was one of many thoughtful looks as he studies the sand!

Check out the other entries on the I heart faces website.

Week 29 "Funny, Silly Faces" and "Pets"

Week 29 "Funny, Silly Faces" and "Pets"

"Silly, Funny Faces" Entry:

I chose the following picture of my little boy. It was taken December of 2008. I think he might have gotten a taste of the candy cane and didn't like it!

"Pets" Entry:

This was a tough decision to make...so many pictures...choosing one was difficult. I chose one of me hand feeding a seagull...it was really quite the site to see - camera in one hand, piece of bread extended in the other - and about a million seagulls all trying to get that piece of bread!

You should go check out the other entries at www.iheartfaces.com

Week 28 Feet Week

This week over at http://www.iheartfaces.com/ they are taking a break from faces and focusing on feet! You should check out all the entries!

I actually just took this picture today...we had a lot of fun snapping a lot of pictures!