Project 366

I took a photo yesterday, but didn't get around to posting it on here. I was too busy watching a River Monsters marathon. I officially have 1 photo of 366 taken! If you're interested in keeping up with all of them, I'm going to be posting them on my facebook page. I won't always be posting my photo of the day here since sometimes I don't post on the weekends& sometimes they just aren't interesting enough.

Not to mention, I have some photos that I haven't shown you guys yet that I think deserve some blog exposure ;) For example, I took a photo 2 days ago of my pup. Remember how I kept saying I wanted a floating photo of Squirt with balloons? Well, I searched high& low for a place that would fill balloons with helium. It took some time but I found one! Then I had a photo shoot with the pup. He hates my soul but in my defense he did have about 3 weeks free of any photos. I held up my end of the bargain! Plus, I kept it short& sweet so he didn't get too bitter.

Not to mention, he plays the look-how-pathetic-I-am-floating-away dog perfectly! Well, now it's 11:13AM& my boyfriend is waiting for me to get to his house. I need to shower before I leave ..so I guess I should really hop to it. I hope everyone has had a lovely start to their new year! Anyone else out there doing Project 366? Leave me a link to where& I'll be sure to check it out ..I need motivation people! I only made it to day 90 last year!

Hunting

Jerry Seinfeld was awesome. If you need further proof, go watch an episode of Seinfeld. Then come back to read& comment on the blog! My father& I laughed until we cried. Then we did at all again!

So, what is the reason for the name of this particular post? I finally managed to get all the items for Scavenger Hunt Sunday! Go check out all the other entries since some pretty awesome photographers submit photos to this link up! I feel oddly proud of myself for managing to accomplish this. I know, big deal. Five whole photos. Such an accomplishment ..I'm rolling my own eyes at myself! Onward to the photos..

1. Portrait- taken last evening! Garret came over to help me decorate my downstairs tree& also got sucked into moving an incredibly heavy couch from the upstairs to the basement. After all that, I figured we needed a portrait on the newly moved couch. So I scooped up the pup, grabbed my tripod& used a sneaky trick for the built-in flash to bounce. End result?

Linked to Simple Things!

2. Nostalgic- I didn't take this photo within the last week. It's a photo of my favorite gray pony, Shyann! It's an outtake from the sale photos we took of her. It always cracks me up because it captures her personality perfectly! I am missing my girl like crazy lately so I figured I'd use this word to give a shout out to the best pony in the world! Miss you, flea-bitten gray. I even miss those monstrous ears!

Time- I thought this was vague. I think most prompts are vague so no different really! I took a photo of my favorite clock in the house because I decided to take the prompt literally. Time is told on a clock. If I was into sentimental quotes, I'd include one here now. But I'm not so here's the photo!

Full of Light- Normally, this would be really hard for me& probably be the prompt that would be the reason I didn't have a complete scavenger hunt list. Thankfully, last night we set up our Christmas tree! I was unsure whether to include a photo of our lime green tree's lights done as a bokeh shot or to include my tree. I decided to get with a photo of my tree. I'm partial to it& I figured lots of people would be rockin' the bokeh.

Motion- And lastly it's been awhile since I've posted a floating photo, so I figured what kind of photo shows motion better than someone floating away?! I assume absolutely no other kind. Or at the very least, this one is a pretty cool way to show motion! Here is a photo of my momma floating up to the light fixture to change a bulb. Easy as pie when you can fly!

Mr. Winter

I don't like winter. In fact, I prefer to pretend that it just isn't happening. I wear autumn clothes for as long as possible, refuse to put snow tires on my car until the ground is buried in snow and look at places in the world who escape the tragedies of winter. Today it is bitter out! I mean I had plans to take a photo of my dog outside ..until I actually stepped outside. No thanks. I think we'll wait until the spring (or at least a mild winter day) has returned instead! I am looking forward to that.

My photo of the dog was going to be one with him floating away. Now, I have to ask you guys a question. My household is obsessed with 2 things- Bubble Witch Saga& levitation photos. Are you guys okay with being flooded with photos of people/ things floating away? I'm thinking of doing at least one a week as long as people aren't groaning over more of them. I think they are absolutely the coolest things ever but I recognize not everyone shares my awesome tastes ;) I would hate to drive you away from reading because you're bored of watching people in the air. I promise there will be lots of variation on them!

Okay, so now that my question period is out of the way, I guess I should show you guys the photo I opted to post instead of a levitating one (because yes, even though I didn't do one of the dog, I do have others that I haven't posted here for fear of driving you all away)! I took my mom's glass coffee cup& filled it 1/3 of the way with liquor flavored Jelly Bellies because I'm not very creative but also because I really didn't want to go outdoors. I am the queen of lazy!

Linking with

Favorite Photo& Creative Exchange!

I love this cup. It is so much fun ..the next time it is filled with coffee, I'll get a better snapshot of it. Something about the floating effect ;) I hope everyone is having as enjoyable of a Monday as possible! I am curled up on the couch watching Ellen (who still isn't subscribed to my blog ..come on, Ellen. What else can I do)& waiting for Mom to bring home the rice so I can eat. All I've had all day was 3 little pieces of chocolate. I would eat my dog if only I didn't have so many photos planned that require him being in them! How about you?

Well then

Today it is no longer extremely mild out and we're getting snow tomorrow. Hello, winter. Since I didn't take any photos today, I figured I'd show my before shots. Not that that many people were impressed with my floating photo ..I actually lost a follower LOL!

Tada. Easy-peasy. I just opened them in photoshop with the bottom photo as the 'background' layer& the photo with me in it as 'Layer 1'. Then I added a mask layer to Layer 1 and masked out the stool. Then I flattened the image. Since I forgot to stand on my tippy toes (there is a lot to remember here folks!) I had to copy my leg from the knee down, add it as a new layer (which I called 'Leg' ..so creative) and then move it so it looked more like I was floating away rather than standing on thin air. I couldn't get the focus right because I was doing this completely alone with a tripod and, obviously, there was nothing to focus on where my head ended up being. That looks like a lot typed out but it really only took about ten minutes. And it was my first time ever doing it. Here is the same photo, only in black& white. Because I can't decide which version I like better& one end result is in this post, just below the one you're reading now! Which do you prefer?

Linked with Photo Story, Fabulous Friday, Photo Friday, 
snapped, SES& Favorite Friday
Also Photo Tip

Still floating..

My love of levitating photos has survived yet another day! I spent yesterday afternoon with a tripod, an umbrella and a stool. Yeah, I'm that cool. One of my neighbors stopped chopping wood to watch me and then mentioned until he realized who I was he thought I was stealing stuff. Secretly I think he wanted to say something about questioning my very bizarre behavior. Here's a snapshot of the scene he was seeing-

Girl sets up tripod. Snaps a photo of the empty space. Runs out& puts down a stool. Runs back to camera to see where the stool is placed. Sets timer. Runs back to the stool while unhooking the umbrella. Climbs on stool and poses. Then hops off the stool once the camera clicks& runs back to check. Repeat multiple times.

I'll be honest ..I can see why he was intrigued/ concerned! In the end, I sort of got the shot. It started to rain (thanks, umbrella) so I had to end it with a semi-decent photo. I just wish the focus was on my face instead of my Uggs.. but regardless, I love it! I am officially in love with levitating portraits. It was good to get some practice to make sure I could even do the whole Photoshop steps needed to make a really cool floating photo. It is also super easy to do ..I have the before photos& can pretty easily explain it if anyone is interested! I have decided Photoshop magic is the best kind of magic ;)

Linking up with Wordless, Daily Wyatt, 

Wordful, Wild Wednesday& Project Alicia

 Next up? My dog. He's so excited already ..I can tell from the look on his face when I mentioned it to him! You'll notice there is absolutely a 100% lack of Squirt in the above photo. I tried to get him to come out with me but he was enjoying a mid-afternoon nap& wouldn't hear tell of my shenanigans. What a jerk.

So what do you think? Am I inspiring anyone out there to try to get a cool levitating photo of their own?! Have you already taken photos like these? If the answer to that is yes ..please leave me a link so I can see them! I am promising to probably flood you guys with these photos for the next, oh .. forever. When I'm not doing self-portraits, it will probably work out a little better in terms of where the focus is!

Levitation

I'm not really into magic or anything. I used to want to be Harry Potter but that phase is definitely over now. I'm content to be completely human (or muggle, if you must). I have no magical powers at all, especially not levitation. I did, however, watch a video today on youtube about how appear to be levitating in photos. It seemed like a really fun idea. So I started to set up my tripod, only to realize I was missing the connector piece to it. Darn it. It took an hour& my mother but in the end, I managed to find it! By then all motivation to actually set up a shot& make myself appear to be levitating had vanished. Just call me only sort-of motivated. Instead, I made my mom attempt it. Thanks to sucky kitchen light, I got some leg blur (The ss was at 1/80 ..her legs must really move with some speed!) but otherwise we laughed a lot while taking this photo. It was mostly just an attempt to see what the finished product would look like.

Linking to Communal Global, Simplicity, 

Happiness& Photo Tip!

It makes me laugh. Looks like she'll have to get a new blog name as she's traded in her Mini for a more fuel efficient travel method! I think this house needs to stop playing Bubble Witch Saga- it appears to be taking over our thought processes and decision making skills! Oh, and maybe stop buying shoes too ..since those are the shoes that don't fit in our corridor of shoes/ on our shoe rack. This house has many problems ;)

I can't wait until Sunday when I have another chance to try to perfect this method a little more ..it should be exciting! Especially since I have a functioning tripod again. It is definitely a fun project ..has anyone else ever tried this before?! Any tips or suggestions before I head out to expand on this project Sunday? So far the only advice I have is to get a willing subject who will have a good time laughing and isn't embarrassed to make themselves look silly for the perfect photo! I have so many fun ideas swirling around in my head for Sunday ..let me know if you have any you want to see!