Sad Day

This breaks my heart. 

Rest in Peace Frankie..I'll never forget you. 

Can we end war now? 

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” - Chuck Palahniuk

One thing I did over Spring Break

I didn't get to go anywhere fun over Spring Break (I blame having broke friends) but I did get to catch up on some sleep. I also participated in an awesome event for the American Lung Association. The event was called, the Fight for Air Climb. It was in Hartford and it involved climbing up 686 stairs! There were 34 flights of stairs all together. I finished in 7 minutes and 17 seconds! Not too bad for my first climb.. :)

There were over 400 participants who raised money and climbed, many of them firefighters who climbed the stairs in their complete uniforms.

It was an awesome event and was for such a great cause! I lost someone very important to me to lung cancer, so I really loved helping the organization.

I took a few pictures with my little digital camera that I wanted to share.

I can't wait to do it again next year!!!

Stories of those people lost & stories of those who overcame cancer 

Reasons for climbing (mine's in there) 

A group of the firefighters getting ready to climb...so amazing. 

My group :) After we climbed 

It was the building to the right ^ so huge!! 

Mom & Me...always my biggest supporter!

Now I have to start getting ready for my breast cancer 5k in June!!

A Lakeside Wedding

I had to post this find because it is about a place very close to my heart: Lakeside, Ohio.  I spend every summer here visiting my family and we all meet up at my grandma's house, right on Lake Erie.

I found these images of a wedding that took place in Lakeside & I absolutely love them! It was comforting to see the bride in an area I am so familiar with, especially one that I would love to be in right now.

Someday I hope to have my wedding here and would love for it to be very similar to this one!

The photographers who shot this have such fabulous work besides this one.


Happy Monday everyone..
xo

Stumbling instead of doing my homework ;)

And I found this gem.

Hipstamatic

In a previous post, I mentioned a Hipstamatic iPhone app I am currently obsessed with.

The camera on this phone is already pretty awesome for a phone, but this app makes the images look like old shots from the plastic toy cameras from years ago. The app comes with different lens, flashes, and films to use. More are available for purchase as well. The images appear to be vintage and the overall affect is pretty impressive. Here are some pictures I have taken with this app:

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Tweet on

Phocused is now on Twitter! 

Newport, Rhode Island

I went to Newport today and it was a great trip! I took a lot of pictures which I will eventually share, but I wanted to show a panorama I made. It's super easy to do in Photoshop as long as you take the pictures correctly. With each frame, you need to overlap the new frame with the previous frame so Photoshop can almost "stitch" the images together. To create in Photoshop, simply open each image, resize accordingly, go to file>automate>photomerge, and then add open files.

Click to view my picture larger!

Great Music Site

Just wanted to share this site with all of you. 8 Tracks is a great place to find new music and listen to playlists made by users. You can either search for music by artists or by particular playlists.

 I find myself listening to anything labeled "Summer Music," or any that have to do with waking you up in the morning.

It is very similar to Pandora radio but cooler because users of the site create the music to listen to. It contains a lot more Indie music too.

Check it out & happy weekend :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Saturday Afternoon, Gap of Dunloe

And for your listening pleasure, Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys: 

Have fun everyone! Be safe!

Example of Photoshop Tutorial

So a previous post mentioned a link to Photoshop tutorials, and I wanted to actually show one I had completed.

The tutorial was to create a fantasy like, self portrait. This actually took me quite some time but the end result is pretty awesome. It involved downloading various brushes and using many overlapping layers to give it that illustrated look. Even the eyelashes on this are brushes that you simply "paint" on your image!

It really is amazing all that Photoshop can do and without these tutorials I wouldn't know half of the functions available. So here's my version:

I wish I would have used an image of myself not smiling but instead looking up at what was going on with my head. However I am impressed with how this came out!

I'll post more once I finish them.. :) 

Midterm Mania

I have this awesome app on my iPhone that's called "Hipstamatic." It's a camera app that is set up to make digital images appear vintage through different lenses, film, and flashes. It can make anything look way cooler than it is, even studying for midterms in the library... ;)

Three more days guys..we can do this! 

Photoshop Tutorials

Here is another link to excellent Photoshop Tutorials. I actually go to the site quite a bit to get ideas or to actually follow the tutorials.

The site is constantly being updated; they actually pay artists for tutorials! Every tutorial I have used has been easy to follow and teaches me new things about Photoshop. Also included are interviews with graphic designers and tips for taking photographs as well as editing them.

Overall, this is just a very informational site that is easy to use.

Be sure to check it out if you are looking for new ways of using Photoshop.

Stop Motion Awesomeness

Stop Motion & The Postal Service? Doesn't get any better than this!
One day when I have some time, I want to create one of these.

And this one is just AMAZING! This is actually a music video.

I would love to know how many individual frames this took...must have taken forever.

Photographer of the Week: Elliott Erwitt

This week's photographer is Elliot Erwitt. His quirky style of catching people in their everyday environment has always drawn me to him. He was originally from France but ended up settling in New York City. He began his photography career printing pictures of stars and eventually took on the task of creating advertisements and even created a television series. His photographs sometimes incorporate humor and are many candid shots. All captions under the images are the links to where the image is originally from.

Elliott Erwitt

Paris, 1989

Mask

California Kiss

New York City, 1977

Paris, France 1989

Jacqueline Kennedy, Arlington, Virginia, 1963

New York City, 1953

Self Portrait

These are of course only a fraction of his work. Check out more here.

“ Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times…I just shoot at what interests me at that moment." – Elliott Erwitt

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/photography-quotes#ixzz1GWoVKSxT

Amazing, Amazing Wedding& Engagement Pictures

Wild Flowers Photos

I found this site using Stumble Upon and I absolutely LOVE the way Joy takes pictures of the various couples. This one really caught my eye. This shoot recreated Disney's "Up!" which has go to be one of the best animated movies of all time. The first part of this shoot can be found here.

I adore her work.

Photoshop Tutorials- Poster Designs

In my Graphics Design class this week, we focused on using Photoshop to recreate various poster tutorials.

Photoshop Poster Tutorials

It is amazing how much you can do with Photoshop! I still consider myself an amateur with this program and by doing some of this tutorials I learned about new tools. There are so many websites that provide you with free brushes which can really alter the way your final piece looks likes. I decided to recreate the "Vintage Collage Design." Since I was just trying this out, I used images I found on Flickr in the Creative Commons section. The tutorial created a piece that was suppose to look like the woman was getting abducted by aliens.

I took a different approach and made my vintage collage feature a singer, the spotlight on her, and a nice crowd of gentlemen watching the performances.

Here's what I created:

I want to try some of the other tutorials. They are actually a lot of fun and the final product is pretty awesome. My goal is to eventually create an image I can use for this blog.

Pictures of people taking pictures of people.....People pictures by me

I pictured us at the end of time, holding up a camera to our eyes. I took a picture of you took a picture of me, in the background of the picture was water running to the sea... 

-Jack Johnson 

 

I love pictures of  people. Not only are they memories, but snapshots of time being frozen. I love candid shots that capture the subjects in their environment. I also love pictures when the subject is staring directly at the camera and the person viewing the image. Anyways, here are some of mine. Some are digital images and some are film that I have scanned to my computer:

True Talent

Erik Lamb

Glass House, Ohio

"Seaglass Spot"

Old Sturbridge Village

"The Old Hippie"

The last one isn't exactly a portrait but I love it. These were two great friends and fishermen waiting for the catch of the day from Lake Erie.

Hope you enjoyed these!

Hallie Kay