365 day Project, March 2013

Another month begins and I'm all set with my new theme.  This one will require more work so I'm going to ask that you be patient with my uploads.  I promise to take a picture everyday but because the theme is composites, I may not take more than one picture to create the composite.  I may look for the other pic(s) in my vast array of past pictures to create the composite. I may also post every second or third day depending on time constrictions.  It has been quite a journey so far.  I'm learning so much.  This month, I'll also be teaching the art of composites so you can follow along.  Remember, this is a new craft for me so I'm no expert by any means, but I'll share what I know.  I hope you all enjoy.  Contact me or comment if you have ideas, questions, or intuitions you'd like to share.  Love what you shoot!

The month in calendar mode.  Some may be out of order.  It got complicated to say the least. 

March 31
Last day of March!  Never thought I'd see this month end...not because of the theme but because of the snow...even thought of hibernating but after a couple of hours, I got hungry....
For the last day, I'm offering two composites.  I have loved doing this project.  It has improved my imagery, my presentation and has even set me off on re-branding my business.  I hope you've all enjoyed them too. I wonder if you've had the opportunity to try your hand at composites?  Once you try it, you'll be hooked.
See you in April.
Love what you shoot!

March 30
This is Charlie...she's a cutie So I thought I'd surround her with hearts.  I used a paper I had made previously, created another with dark red hearts, then when I blended the two, I chose a blend mode that made the hearts pink. 
One more day to go and then it's on to April...what shall I do...what shall I do???

Love what you shoot!

March 29
I was trying to bring in a little fairie feel to this one.  I took a picture of one of the trees in my backyard, made some lights in photoshop, added Scotia and blended the whole thing together.  I then created this mat board to surround the whole thing...
Love what you shoot!

March 27
Dozer...one of my favorite pups...I don't know if you can see it but the picture of the leaves in the back ground is the same picture as the one I used in the mat of the picture below.  I layered Dozer on top of the leaves and on top of the red mat.  All blended together...yippee!  love the look.

Love what you shoot!

March 26
It was a beautiful day outside so I went out and took a few pictures in my back yard.  I then added it to the light red mat, reduced the opacity and blended it to overlay and voila!  another very neat mat, blended, and different. 

Love what you shoot!

March 25
Aw! love this baby...Corey is a sweetie...he's 7 months old already...I need to take more pics of him soon.  I created the paper in photoshop, and took a picture of some plastic flowers I have in the house, brought the piture into photoshop and changed it to make the flowers look swirly.  When I put the mat around the picture, I was able to use the new paper as a covering for the mat.  I really like the effect! do you???

Love what you shoot!

March 24
This was a series of pictures I took during our ring days at school for our graduating seniors.  I thought a collage of them would be a nice souvenir.  The frame was a really cool new idea I had...probably not mine but it feels like it because I discovered it all on my own...hahaha! I created a gray mat around the picture.  I then brought a paper I made (kind of grungy), laid it on top of the gray mat and blended the two with the multiply blend to make it darker. By putting everything on separate layers, I was able to put the green paper just on the mat and not over the whole picture...another cool day!
Love what you shoot!

March 23
This is a blend of a new paper I just designed with a picture of a plant shoot in my laundry room.  Added the young lady to the top of them and blended them together.  I then created  simple mat to keep it soft.
I love this designing paper idea.  I'm getting better at them too.  I'm also building a library of them.  If anyone is interested, let me know...I'll send you one to try!
Love what you shoot!

March 22

Decided to keep this one very simple.   Since I'm laid up with a sore foot today, I decided to blend a pictures of a car ride we took last Sunday and a picture of a sweet little girl named Grace and combine them to make this beauitful picture.  The only thing I did today was to change the colors, blend them and post it...I feel bad!
Love what you shoot!

March 21
This mat is done with the texture provided by Photoshop just to show you the similarity.  But I did create the gray background inside the picture where I then brought in the girls.  This is all one photo shoot in the summer of last year...lots of blending, lots of opacity changes, removing and adding. 
Love what you shoot!

March 20
Believe or not, today I took a picture of an orange.  This took me a while to do.  Had to replicate the orange a million times(almost).  I brought together 3 pictures of my daughter and blended them on a simple background, changed the color to a teal and created a mat with those oranges and changed the opacity so they didn't stand out so much.  Then I realized that Photoshop has a very similar texture and I thought I wasted a lot of time on this.  Oh well...I'll try cherries in the summer.
Love what you shoot!

March 19
I blended a oak wood floor with a scenic picture of open water I took on Sunday.  Kind of gave it a woodsy feeling.  I decided to use the blending only on the frame.
Love what you shoot!

March 18
This one turned out so beautifully.  Hubby and I went for a car ride.  I took a few pictures of interesting trees.  I then brought Scotia into it and blended the picture as well reduced the opacity.  I also thought it more interesting to go beyond the borders.  Very Cool!
Love what you shoot!

March 17
I took this picture a couple of years ago, Today I took a picture of a piece of cork.  I turned both into black and White, layered them one on top of the other and blended them.  Once I completed the blending process, I then played with the contrast and finally managed getting it to someplace I liked.  Hope you do too!
Love what you shoot!

March 16, 2013
This is a 4x6 card I created as a postcard and as a mailout. These are geered to senior graduates from High Schools, Colleges and Universities as graduation pictures with a twist to add to the cap and gown pictures they have taken at school.  I can either do it as postcard where they would call for pricing or as as card which includes the pricing inside.  My thought is that if they're interested, they'll call or email for pricing giving me the opportunity to talk to them.  What do you think?

Love what you shoot!

March 15, 2013
For the past few days now, I've been working on updating and upgrading my marketing material.  I would like to be a little more cohesive with my brand....I guess I have to get a brand first..right!  This is the first piece....my business card.  The way I designed the card would give me the opportunity to keep everything the same execpt for the picture.  I can change the picture depending on need.  So if I'm giving out business cards to potential brides, the pic could easily be changed to a wedding style picture...get the idea?  I'll also try to add some of this to the website...not sure if my service provider will grant that.  This design would grace all of my written material, including letters, thank you cards, events, etc....I'm putting this here because everything you see here, I designed myself and is considered a composite.  I tore up some white paper napkins I had, one with a lacy design...(it wasn't easy to tear up the paper). I took 3 pictures and blended them together in photoshop, changed the color up and created the circle in photoshop...that part was the easiest.  I used ribbon I had, took lots of pictures and gave the bow and ribbon a painterly HDR look in photoshop (that was harder).  I changed the colors of everything to give it a style and voila...hope it works.  Now, I really need some feedback.  Do you like it? Do you hate it?  Can I improve it somehow.  Should I add something to it.  Is it too busy.....you know...feedback.  I'm going to re-do the contest page at the front of the website in the same coloring and see if it starts the tie-in....
Wow...too long....thanks everyone for looking, for the support. I really appreciate it.

Love what you shoot!

March 14
Meet Scotia...she's a little cutie!  I love photographing her.  This is a picture I took of her last summer.  First I created the frame in all gray, beveled a mat and then added the picture of a brown blanket with not too much in the way of desings on it...just a little texture, turned it to purple.  I then had a painting of a large hibiscus poster flower and took a picture of it.  I cut it out in photoshop, beveled it, enlarged it and added it to the the framed picture.  I then added Scotia. It took me about 15 minutes to create.
Love what you shoot!

March 13, 2013
Well, she might be angry with me for posting this, but she's beautiful and I'm taking the liberty as it is for the purpose of learning.  right???
This paper is one that I created in photoshop by using different blues, whites and black.  I used different size brushes at different opacities to create a blur, added a mat, bevelled it and gave it a little texture....you like? 
Love what you shoot!

March 12, 2013
This composite is a little different.  I took a regular colored photo I took of this little girl, changed the photo to black and white, applied a light gray/brown tone to it, set it on a different background and erased a lot of the surrounding clutter.  I really wanted to just see an outline and bring out the most important parts. then I taught myself a new matting technique.  hope you like it. 
Love what you shoot!

March 11
This is more of a collage...and not so much a composite but they are similar in style and the fact that I had to make the paper by taking pictures of stuff around my house makes it worthwhile to put this here.  Most of the stuff I photograph is either flooring (like the mat around the pictures), or blankets(like the gold frame). I created a couple of drop in frames so that I could just plop the pictures inside the fame...easy peasy! 

Love what you shoot!

March 10, 2013
This is Motley...sweetest dog.  He's a great big Newfoundlander and he steals hearts.  In order to complete this composite, I took a picture of my new tiles uploaded the same tile picture twice and blended them one on top of the other  to get a darker background.  I then put Montley on top ad blended him inside the picture.  At this point I had to add a mask and paint away some of the background to show the layer of the dog more clearly.  So not quite a black and white but very desaturated.  Added the text and there you go....another composite.  I love these.

Love what you shoot!

March 9
Today's composite is not about a blending mode.  It's about adding pictures to a blended background.  The first two pictures underneath the main one are the first parts of the pic.  A flower blanket and icicles outside were blended together to make the backround.  I then used the background to add the pictures of the girls on top and framed the whole thing.  So the pictures are now matted with a colorful background.  Ready for framing! Ghandi's words were added for impact. How cool!
Love what you shoot!

March 8, 2013
My daughter Julia babysat this beauty for a weekend and I took the opportunity to take a few pics.  Today I took a very bland picture of a blank wall in my house.  This gave me the beginnings of a new background paper that I created in photoshop.  I layered the picture with red, yellow and black and blended them together.  The textured picture I took gave the whole picture a neat look.  When I blended Dozer's picture inside the texture, it all just came together.  Hope you enjoy!
Love what you shoot!

March 7,
Good morning everyone...spring is in the air! lovin' it...
This is my beautiful daughter Julia.  She agreed to sit for me while I took pictures of her playing her guitar.  This picture is one from a couple of months ago.  The background is a series of pitures I took yesterday of a combination of blankets and napkins I have in the house.  The blanket was covered in red and blue flowers, the napkins had swirls and other patterns and nothing was the right color.  Before doing anything else, I changed the colors of the background photos, blended 3 photos together to create a new background then created the circle frame and put the picture of Julia inside.  I then changed the opacity level to 60% and let the background seep through so that ii softened the picture and let the swirls come through.  I know this is quick and I'm not able to explain the process so well but if you already play with photoshop, you will be able to do this.  It's actually quite simple.  Let me know if you have questions or if I can help.
Love what you shoot!

March 6
I loved the look of this old barn in the snow but the background was really busy and I wanted to smooth out the look a bit, soften it and make the barn the centre of attention.  I took another picture of a wall of studs that had some texture...you can see it below the picture.  When I blended the barn with the studs, the small branches that cluttered the picture disappeared.   It cleaned up the picture, gave it a lot of texture and kept some of the feeling of snow and winter.  hope you enjoy.
Love what you shoot.

March 5, 2013
This turned out so much better than I anticipated.  I took a picture of a summer fan that I have and a statue. I first created the fan paper by laying another picture of my floor over top and blending the two together.  I then put that new paper on top of the statue and blended those two together.  I then made a hole in the top layer of the paper to reveal the statue to some extent.  There's so many opportunities with this type of photography.  Pretty soon, I'll be doing my self portrait....bet you can't wait for that!  haha!
Love what you shoot!

March 4, 2013
It's 2am and I can't sleep...so I thought I should get this pic up as I had some time.  This composite is of a plant in front of a very frozen window.  You can actually see the screen popping through at some spots.  I created a block of colored squares, took a picture of that and layed it on top of the picture in photoshop.  I blended the layer until I found one that removed a lot of the colors...check the second pictures...you can see the squares of color.  When I flattened the image, I played with the contrast and other settings to bring out a more stylized effect.  Oh well, it's different!
Love what you shoot!

March 3, 2013
In honor of my daughter Julia's 25th birthday today, I thought I'd create a composite of her.  I'm still keeping this very simple but the pictures will get more complicated as the month goes on. 
1. picture of oak floor in my bedroom
2. picture of bubbles of soap I took pictures of with colored water.
3. picture of Julia (4x6)
I know it seems odd to think that these two textured layers could possibly achieve the background that is now the finished product but by blending them together and reducing the opacity and saturation, I was able to get a marble type effect to the background. I put the plank wood on top of the bubbles keeping the browny color on top.   I then added a big black circle and then another, gray above it.  This became the frame for the picture.  I then layered Julia's picture on top of the circle and kept the porportions the same.  The last step was to put the picture inside the circle by creating a clipping mask and blending the circles and her together.  I then just did a blend and added a canvas to add the matting and frame. That's about it  Questions???
Love what you shoot!

1. oak floor top layer

2. Bubbles, bottom layer

Julia, the final result.

March 2, 2013
This picture is done much like the first one.  The only difference is that I left the top layer (the framed paper) at 100% opacity.  I chose the blend mode I liked the best for the resulting photo and used an erasor tool to erase some of the top layer (over the icicle) to reveal the icicle in its entirety as well as a small portion of the house.  This method gives an artistic, painterly effect to the photo.  Hope you like!
Love what you shoot!

The first picture (underneath)

The paper covering the picture ( I turned it on its vertical side.)

The final image.

March 1, 2013
First pic of the month.  I hope you like it.  Scroll down as there are 3 pictures to see.
1. I took a picture of my kitchen backsplash. (see pic)
2. I then took a picture of a favorite, very old, bowl I have. (see pic)
3. In photoshop, I brought both pictures in the same layout. The bowl first, the backsplash on top.
4. I then chose a blend mode that suited the picture and reduced the opacity to 60%.
Voila, the picture is so different from the original yet I barely touched either picture.  The blending makes all the difference.  Hope you enjoy.  I'm assuming you have some knowledge of photoshop.  If you have questions, please feel free to ask. 
Love what you shoot.

The backsplash with a dab of light top right

The old bowl

The final product