It’s Contest Time People!!

I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile now, and heck a new year is a great opportunity to try new things right?

The Prize!

It has to be something that I would like to win too, and while naturally I’d like to offer a 24″ iMac as a prize, I’m starting small, who knows where we will be in a years time!?

So! Everyone takes photos right? But how often do you get around to printing them? Seriously? This is why I love these people…

So today’s bounty is a a cool $10 gift card from Shutterfly!

So whether you want prints, posters, cards or calendars or photobooks or many, many other great products this will help you on your way. They ship worldwide people!  You can upload and store your photos for free!

What do you have to do to enter?

Simple!

I want you to look at the photograph below, think up a name for the photo (not a long winded caption please), and leave your entry in my comments box before midnight Eastern Standard Time tonight! (That’s 7am Monday morning Central Africa Time) or 02h00am Monday Morning GMT. One entry per person please!

Now here’s the biggeee, if you blog about this contest on your blog or link to it, and draw more commenters here that are not regular readers of this blog (they must say “found you via X’s Blog” in their entry), the person that brings me the most commenters will ALSO receive a $10 gift card from Shutterfly! So even if you don’t win the best title, you still stand a shot to win if you can bring in da peeps okay!?

So these are the prizes:

A $10 Shutterfly Gift Card for your super snazzy title to the photograph below…

A $10 Shutterfly Gift Card if your blog post about this contest brings in the most new commenters…

These are the Rules:

One entry per person in English, for the title contest. (Sorry sp@mmers, you don’t count).

Commenters sent via your blog MUST SAY IN THEIR COMMENT “found you via X’s blog” of course they need to replace ‘X’ with your blogname etc.

So here we go…

GIVE THIS PHOTO A NAME!

Isn’t it just itching to be named/titled/captioned?

…and….GO!

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Do you suffer from heel pain in the mornings? It could be Plantar Fasciitis

I really am quite serious about taking my photography seriously this year. Even if I do still have one baby on the hip, and a 3.5 year old home from 12 noon daily. (In fact it’s school holidays right now, so I have both of them 24/7 until the 21st of January.)

I started today, sifting through everything from my equestrian photos (horse shows), to portraits I’ve done, to architectural stuff, to food photos, in order to finally put together a proper online portfolio over at my official photography site. I will post a link when it’s all fine and dandy okay?

Part of what I’m doing is writing photoshop actions to try and speed up my post production process. This includes creating a watermark on my images so that people don’t steal them. It’s a sad fact that even folks with loads of money, will steal stuff that I stood like 8 hours in the beating sun working on.

Anyway, with horse shows in particular, because I take about 600-800 images in a day, I need to be able to batch edit these files, with an action that I’m working on, which not only reduces the image so that it’s web friendly, but puts my watermark on it, so that the pond scum bottom feeders don’t feel the need to right click save as if you know what I mean.

Anyway, it means that I really need to focus on developing the site so that when people look at it, I get new business, and since I’m not going to be employing some designer to do it all for me for colossal sums of money, it means that I’m learning new things everyday, and really feel like I’m getting somewhere. If I’m faced with a problem, I turn to graphic/web design forums because *I* have got to sort it out.

So because I feel like sharing, here’s my to do list for today:

• Complete selecting images for online portfolio
• Complete photoshop action to reduce image size/resolution
• Complete photoshop action to apply watermark
• Combine these two actions into one.
• Test actions by running them on selected portfolio photographs
• Upload these photographs to my official online gallery
• Test online gallery to see if it’s user friendly and make adjustments

This weekend:

• Revamp front end of official photography site (install new blog template and tweak widgets)
• Design 125 x125 buttons for each of my portfolio sections i.e. equestiran, portraits, travel, wildlife, landscape etc

This month:

• Sit down for 5 minutes and actually plan the direction and content for my 4 different websites going forward.
  This will improve my keyword selection and page ranking, and will mean good things all around for those people interested in reading stuff they’re interested in. It will also mean good things for potential advertising opportunities as the individual sites will be more focused and less ‘everything goes’.
• Plan ahead with my blog posts, carry around a notebook and pen and jot down ideas instead of forgetting them the moment something else happens.
• Write helpful, interesting posts.
• Try not to run out of freakin’ bandwidth half way through the month, finish investigating wimax options.

The Next 3 Months:

• Investigate how to move 3 of my sites (currently hosted locally)  onto the same unlimited package that I have with Startlogic, so that I can manage all my goodies together.
• Work consistently on SEO and keyword selection.

So that’s the bells and whistles of it all, everything but the kitchen sink with the Delta faucet’s on it. Nothing like setting goals for myself that I *MUST* stick to.  Plus, I need to stop feeling guilty that I’m not entertaining the kids 24/7. Yes it’s important to spend quality time with them, but it doesn’t help them, if I spend so much time with them, that I suffer, and my photography suffers because then nobody wins.

Okay. So who else has big plans for January?

Here’s a sample of one of my equestrian porfolio shots. What do you guys think of my logo/watermark? I just designed it.  I’m going to create an embossed, transparent version to place at various points on the photographs by the time I’m done.

Dressage Rider

When asked what I want for Christmas, I usually respond with something sensible. Or totally unrealistic (as a joke). As in, the hubby says, “What can I get you?” on the 23rd of December, I say, “Um…some blank cd’s and dvd’s would be helpful, oh and a 24″ iMac.” Just in case he’s desperate enough while shopping in the ridiculous crowds to actually get it!

My mom always had this knack of getting us to talk about what we ‘wanted’, and then pretending that there was NO WAY that we could afford it, or it wasn’t right, or any other excuse under the sun. By Christmas eve, we’d be convinced we were getting socks and undies, and were *so* grateful for it.

Coming downstairs on Christmas morning however, we’d always be BLOWN AWAY by how incredible the huge stack of presents were.  I swear I had that ability to size up each present electronically with my eyeballs (think Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2 sizing up bikers for their clothes) and just *know* that my mom had gotten me most if not all of what I had wished for.

Man, did she leave my husband with hee—yooo-uge shoes to fill in the Christmas present surpirse department.  So while I know I’m just joking with him when I say “24″ iMac”, on Christmas morning, I do a totally unpremeditated electronic eyeball scan, and register, that no, sadly there is no box likely to hold a 24″ iMac. Just in case he’d won the lottery and hadn’t told me. Bah hahaha!

Of course I’m old enough to not be disappointed by this, and I know I’ll get my iMac, when I’ve earned the money, and saved it up. How much better wouldn’t it be doing this for myself? (sings theme song from Charlies Angels by Beyonce…all the mama’s brought the dollars, show your hands up at me)

Anyway, this Christmas, hubby really, really surprised me (no not with a 24″ iMac), and no, not with sexy lingerie either. But he had been as thoughtful as any guy could have been.

He’d gotten me a)what I’d asked for - the blank cd’s and dvd’s (I’d asked him for stuff that I use, that I loathe spending money on for myself because I use them constantly, making cd’s for the car, and the dvd’s I use for photography clients), then he’d gone and gotten me a Wii Game (Sim City Creator) that I’d looked at, on Amazon a couple of times, (I LOVE simulations and city building games), he got me a set of new ear phones (he’d broken my old ones) - the really funky kind that hook over your ears, that I’ve always wanted and never bought. Lastly, he got me Warcraft III for my Mac. He’d actually taken the initiative to check out the specs on my Mac and make sure that it would run. He knows how much I loved the original Warcraft years ago (still running on like Windows 95), and the subsequent Starcraft series.   *He thought about what to get me*. I mean seriously, thats like a better gift, than the gifts themselves!

Subsequently, I felt, like I felt all those years before, like a child, when I’d opened all my presents, surveyed my loot, and then sat there in all that stuff with the most overwhelming excited feeling, what should I play with first!???

I told my husband as much, and I could see that he was pleased by my reactions. He even went overboard on kid duty, so that I could have like a whole 2 hours to myself, opening a can of whoop ass on the Orcs, using my new earphones, actually on BOTH ears, so that I was not sitting as usual with one ear on the kids.

It was the best Christmas we’ve had in the 9 years we’ve been together.

Oh, and what did I get him? A 1 terrabyte storage drive, and Tombraider Underworld for the Wii.  Storage and cyber-eye-booty. He was happy too.

Men, so easy to please.

So what did you guys get? What did you get your men?

Have you ever noticed how photos discolor like this?  Many of my childhood photos that were in albums that were *not* acid free have yellowed like this.  Though, this clearly being a close up of Skippy taken less than a week ago, is not the case here.

So while we may scan and correct the color on our childhood photos - and believe me, I’m all for saving the memories - sometimes, this effect is desirable. It’s a fresh look.  A change.

Whenever I get the desire to see a photo in a new way, I go off in all sorts of directions, desaturating, colorizing, adjusting.  Of course I always save the original file untouched in case I look back in a few months and decide to change my mind!  At the moment, I’m rather taken with this 70’s look. Maybe it’s because I’ve been editing so many crystal blue pool shots, that I’m just looking for something interesting.   I’m using the action from The Pioneer Woman’s Action Set 2.

What do you guys think?

So anybody planning on taking a new view on life in this new year? My horoscope says that this is my year for going big. Apparently.  That would be great for my career for sure.

One thing I have been meaning to do, and it might have been a good idea to do it last year to use up those medical benefits, is to get my eyes tested.  You’d think as the daughter of an optometrist I’d get tested pretty much every year, but heck no. I haven’t had my eyes tested since 1997!!

Looking at frames online, is a fun pasttime to be honest, and I’m really impressed with the great selection  of Holiday frames (and prices) that Zenni Optical have!

Going to a New Years Eve fancy dress party as Harry Potter? Try these!

Parties aside, they have a really huge selection entitled holiday frames, which range from pretty standard metal frames, to really funky colorful plastic frames. They’re able to cater for all prescriptions and bifocal, trifocal, multifocal prescriptions too, and seriously, to be able to order frames online? Heaven.

I’m glad to see that they also offer anti-reflex coating, which I always notice on somebody’s spectacles. If you don’t know what it is, look at someone wearing glasses. If you can see their eyes clearly, and there is no glare on the glasses, the chances are they have ARC.  ARC can also help combat eye strain if you spend many hours at the computer.

So for anyone taking a fresh view on the world in 2009 don’t forget to check them out!

That is, ergo, the lengths I will go to, to get internet access. Right now I’m sitting in the hospital parking lot (about to visit my dad) when I discovered I’m in a wifi hotspot. I’m sitting with the Macbook on my lap against the steering wheel. It’s hilarious.

Oh I’ll catch you all again when I have half a minute, and a DECENT Connection. This is driving me nuts. (Get it. Driving. Me nuts.)

Yes, alas friends, here I sit enjoying hazelnut latte once again, and free wifi minutes.

Have I told you how much I LOATHE internet services in this country for being SO expensive. Worse than expensive they lock you into horrible 24 month contracts so once you’re on, you’re bloody STUCK. Ours is up in July, and of course we’re not signing up for anything new while we’re stuck on one, plus we’re certainly not still going to be here in 24 months time, so blech. Not sure where I was going with this, but anyway.

Here are some Christmassy photo edits to keep amused with. At least I amused myself with them, hope you enjoy them.

Here’s a pretty ordinary, if slightly out of focus shot of Skippy, holding Barney, in front of the Christmas Tree.  So let’s work with it a little.

Whoa Christmas Tree Explosion! Sharpened up Skippy and Barney. But hmmm, that green blanket behind Skipmeister is annoying me…let’s just fiddle with that till it’s a little less obvious.

Okay, not the cleanest scoop out and remove I’ve ever done, but it’s do for now. Just looks like Skip has a toga of some sort on. Oh well. Kids. But…that Christmas tree thing. Somehow it’s not feeling right.

So I told Skippy he didn’t have to keep holding so still and could go off and play, and I hauled out my tri-pod and started experimenting.

I did the ‘very popular right now Christmas tree light bokeh’ thing that everyone is into right now.

So what the heck is Bokeh?

Well, you know when you focus on someone up close (usually with a very open aperture - anything below F4.0 is quite open) it gives you a nice blurry background? (That’s called bokeh)

Well that works a treat with Christmas tree lights. So I focussed my camera on something up close (my fingernails in this case) and remember my camera was on my tripod so I could do this easily.

Then you press your focus button down halfway, and now I can go absolutely wild and actually take my fingers out of the picture completely and I’m left with a full frame shot of beautiful blurry Christmas tree lights.

Taking these two shots into Photoshop, I simply cloned (copied) the big colourful bokeh into the background behind Skippy. Now while I admit it’s not the most realistic shot, it’s not meant to be, it’s just some Christmas time fun!

I just think that Skip looks like he’s posing for one of those royal portraits. Barney should just be a greyhound, and Skip just needs like one of those Shakespearean ruffle things around his neck and voila. Yes I’m an aquarian and my imagination is *way* into overdrive most of the time. If you don’t see what I’m saying, just go back to your chess game

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Well, there may be major job losses out there in the market place, but geeks are destined to inherit the earth, because there seem to be no shortage of programmer jobs out there. At least that’s what I’m seeing when the hubby and I do our job searches overseas.

Anyhoo, hope everyone else out there is not having internet problems!

As many of you know, I’ve been on this awesome internet quest to find ways to make money online.

Now if there’s one thing I absolutely LOATHE with a passion, it’s the type of thing you find all the time, where people promise you instant cash, or buy this and it’s our secret programme which is guaranteed to work etc. Hate it. Hate it. HATE IT. Why? Because it’s usually a load of CRAPOLA.

I have literally evaluated nearly 100’s marketing programmes and well, there are actually some pretty good ones out there.

I found one this morning that I really like.  Now what does it have to be, in order for me to like it?

Well for starters it’s free. It’s available to South Africans, and it’s easy to use.

It’s also incentivises you to monetize your site, and if you make your first goal, they reward you with either cold hard cash, or a Canon DSLR, or say, an iPhone. HELLO MAMMA.  Take a little look see at my cluster ads top right. There should be a 125×125 button advertising ringtones. That’s one of their ads. So if anyone in the US clicks that, and signs up for some awesome ring tones, it counts towards my total, and I get paid for it.  They even have ads targeted at South Africa.  LIke this one, for example.

See? A local alternative!  I’m so sick of programmes that are only targeted overseas. I mean heck, SA has bloggers too right?

The cool thing with this one particular programme, is that not only do they pay you for advertising for them (there are varying degrees of what is required - ie sometimes it’s a pay per click (on ad) or sometimes the ‘clicker’ is required to sign up for an offer etc.

Of course any internet marketing offer would not be complete without it’s own affiliate programme. For example, I’m advertising their services to you - as well as displaying ads from their huge pool of available offers, if any of YOU wish to sign up to display ads (remember it’s totally free, easy to use, and all you have to do is copy and paste code from their website into yours) you are in complete control of what you display and when.

I mean how hard would it be to stick a small button at the end of a post? I mean seriously? If it could make you some money? Really? Why would you NOT do it? The buttons can be as small as…

There are even options for each advertising opportunity, for the appearance of the button, so you can pick one to match the look and feel of your blog.

If you’re interested in a truly great opportunity to monetize your blog then this is one not to be missed.

Go and check out NET PARTNER and don’t forget to tell them I sent you!

Hey there everyone. Can you tell I’ve been trying to post more photographs?  I just decided that my blog would actually be more interesting to folks if I had something for them to look at, as well as read. Because, well gosh darn it, my writing skills can’t be *that* gripping all the time!

This was a photo I took about two weeks ago, when it was MIL and FIL’s last day and we visited that Wine Estate. This was Skippy standing in the river, at that point checking out his feet under water, but we’d gone down to the waters edge to check out the ducks. At least the ducks that were swimming serenely on the waters, and not the aggressive ones, raiding the peaceful picnickers!

Hubby was standing just out of my shot (to the left of the photo) having just been admonished by me to “Make sure you stay close by! You need to grab him in case there’s a flash flood! Watch out make sure he doesn’t trip and fall into deeper, faster moving water!! But Keep your arm out of my shot!”

I’m helpful like that.

It was also a great opportunity to play with my new polarizing filter.  FIL bought it for me just before they came out from the UK, and frankly I’ve always wanted one, and just never ’splurged’.  They’re best utilized with water shots, and cloudy, sky shots.  Amazingly, this may well have been the first well and truly thoughtful gifts that MIL and FIL have ever bought. They are *notoriously* bizarre gift givers.

Look mom! A duck!

Honestly, having never used one before I can’t describe the effects of opening and closing it - but I can show you!  I’ll still look at it more in depth, and do a proper post on (use mega voice) “THE MERITS OF THE POLARIZING FILTER”, but for now, I’m happy just to share photos.  See just by reading that you already know that polarizing filters can be adjusted to ‘more’ or ‘less’. (OO!) - Awed reverence.

Shot number one - with the filter turned all the way one way (see I can’t even tell you which way yet because with 2 kid under three in my house, I don’t get to do *any* kind of research on topics that interest ME.

Here ducky ducky ducky.

Hey is that a goose?

IS THERE AN ORNITHOLOGIST IN THE HOUSE?

…and shot number two…

Clearly we can see that the filter has the greatest effect on the water, or rather the appearance of the water, the level of glare and reflection.  Which one you prefer, naturally is up to you.

I reckon that this filter would be absolutely ACE in capturing a beautiful sunset over the sea - with out getting that nasty glare blaring out your shot. Or a shot of some beautiful thunderclouds, with the sun behind it - so that you get that incredible silver lining effect.  As you know - I’m all about the silver linings!

Lastly, I thought I’d mention that I’ve added a basic edge burn to all these photos. There seems to be some controversy raging (pfft, I just said ‘raging’ whilst referring to a photographic technique) in photography circles about the use of the ‘edge burn’ or the ‘vignette’ as it is sometimes called.  The reason for this is that the purists say it is merely reproducing a technique that was considered a fault in older cameras, and that unless a shot is actually taken with an older camera it is to be considered undesirable.  BAH! (I say in the style of Dogbert!)

I personally can’t get enough of it. I feel like it helps to frame my compositions beautifully.  It doesn’t have to be heavy handed, sometimes it can be done so subtly that you hardly notice it’s there.  Maybe in a year I’ll look back and say to myself, “Hee hee, look how my photography as developed, and (snigger) - oh yes there was that time I was *so* into edge burns! Then laugh it off the way I do when I look back at photographs of myself taken during the 80’s.

Hmmm, this post was fun!  I think I’ll make a point of actually trying to post marginally helpful photographic stuff now and then, because gosh darn it (haven’t stopped saying stuff like that since I became acquainted with a certain politician called Sarah Palin) I like to share!

Okay, now I’m off to down some Slimquick Cleanse before another days eating commences - and then I’m going to swim in our sparkling blue pool, at 8h10am because it’s already Africa hot!