Picturetelling!

P + S: Cropping Creates Impact

You may realize that lately my posts, however spread apart and inconsistently published, have been interpretive reposts of columns from Scrapgirls.com.  That's because a goal of Scrapgirls, as I see it, is to help crafters and family storytellers document history as it happens, in enduring images with a little bit of explanation to document the image's impact--the moment, the emotion, the heritage--you can finish the list for yourself.  Scrapgirls' technical and anecdotal columns dovetail with my mission so perfectly--helping you, my reader, see how stories tell your pictures so the images are understood for generations to come.  

I found this column by Janine Buckles  to be a compelling argument for thoughtful cropping of your photos to illustrate your enduring family stories.   

THE SETUP

If you look back at my old blog posts, (and most of them are old--I've been absent from the blogosphere, again), you'll see that I write about the emotion connected with our experiences, and that even a bad picture may be the only picture that adequately preserves a moment we want to remember.  Well, Jeanine Buckles addresses the  value of visually targeting your journal subject, your caption, your memory in your scrapbook page or your storybook page.

She says, "When I am looking for photos to add to my digital scrapbook layouts, I look at several things. Does the picture or series of pictures tell a story? Or even more basically... are the pictures in focus? Is the main subject obvious?  For me, cropping the photo, either as I'm taking a picture or as part of the process of creating my layout, can make all the difference in whether or not the story is told."  Read more here...

I recently cropped the heck out of a picture from my daughter's wedding for a 20x20 Heritage Makers canvas  that I made to celebrate her special surprise gift to me.  I relive this moment every time I enter the bedroom and see this personalized home decor, and it brings a smile to my lips, and a flood of good feelings toward my daughter!

THE PHOTO

It's a nice picture, the subject targeted in the photograph, taken by my niece, Tay Carmel.  I love the warm glow of this picture.

   But for the purposes of my canvas, I wanted to focus on Allie and me.  I left her dad in the picture, and her husband is part of the story, but I cropped out part of the scenery and Grandpa and Grandma's profiles.   

 

 

THE PICTALE

Here's the story that I attached to the back of the canvas:

"One of my favorite photos from the wedding--it's the moment after Allison and Anthony gave me a rose, and she let me give her a kiss, even though Anthony had her hand and was leading her toward his mother, to present her rose." ~Donna Raagas

March 18, 2011 at Emerald at Queensridge, Las Vegas.

 

 

 

GIFT: YOU CAN MAKE ONE TOO!

If you'd like to have this free template I'd be glad to send it to you.  Contact me at donna@sharefamilystories.com.  Put WEDDING CANVAS TEMPLATE in the message line.  You basically drag and drop your picture into the photo placeholder--you can actually crop your picture there!--that's it!  I can show you how to change digital artwork elements and colors, customizing it as you like before you have it published. 

Stay tuned: I have some more of Heidi Dillon's wisdom to pass along in my next post.

P+S is best!

~Donna

P + S: Keep on Organizin'!

WOW!  How'd I let this get away from me again?

Heidi Dillon of Scrapgirls.com has already posted 3 more steps to getting your pictures organized, and I've left you hanging!

Now that you're importing your pictures into your dated folders it's time to start giving your photos tags to identify them by a keyword.  After you do that, they will be easier to retrieve from all the folders they're in, when you want to use them.  Heidi explains the concept and the process so well in Part 3 of her series.

If you're taking the next step and uploading the pictures from your computer into online photo storage, you can use the same tags to identify your pictures in your online system.  I know that when you tag people in Picasa, you can recall all the pictures that have a person in them.  In Heritage Makers, I create folders for broad content--people and dates, and albums for events or projects--more specific tags.

As Heidi says, you'll develop your own system for tagging pictures in a significant way.  It may take refinement as you get the hang of it.  I'm learning this from Heidi right along with you!  One thing I'm sold on--meaningful organization allows me to make sense of the mish-mash of photo collections I have stored on my computer and online, and that makes it easier to get the pictures I want, and related pictures that I've forgotten about, for the projects I make, such as storybooks, cards, and canvases.

I hope you're discovering that, too.

P + S is best! ~Donna

P + S: After Creating Organized Photo Storage--Import

So you've set up your organization for your digital photos the way Heidi told us to in the first part of her series for Scrapgirls.com.  You're ready for the pictures.  It's time to import them into your new system.  Yea!  Organized photo storage is underway!  Check out this musing by Heidi Dillon of Scrapgirls.com as she explains the second part of her series.

And while you're importing your pictures to your computer, don't forget that all of your pictures can, and should be, backed up with online photo storage.  There are many companies who offer this; I use Heritage Makers photo storage.  The advantages to using Heritage Makers are

• Your photos are stored at their original resolution, so you can retrieve a picture at any time to use or print at the size it was when you took the picture.  You will not be retrieving a thumbnail!  And that's important!
• You can store up to 2G of photos free at Heritage Makers. 
• If you're a member of Club HM, you have UNLIMITED photo storage!
• When you store your pictures with Heritage Makers, you have a live consultant who can help you when you have questions.


I hope you're having fun organizing your photo storage!  My next post will share the third installment of Heidi's series.

P + S is best! ~Donna

 

P + S: 3 Steps to Organizing Your Photos

Have you ever known the disappointment of a lost memory card or camera?  It's heartbreaking!  But if we transfer our pictures to the computer as soon as possible after an event or excursion, we can feel confident that they won't be lost.

Now finding the picture that you want from your saved photos--that's a different animal altogether!  When I read this article I was elated!  Heidi Dillon, columnist at Scrapgirls.com shares her system for photo organization with us.  It makes incredible sense, and it's so simple!  And what makes me happy is that she's already worked the bugs out.  Check out this musing by Heidi Dillon of Scrapgirls.com, and resolve to put your photos into a meaningful system of organization for rapid retrieval.

 P + S is best! ~Donna

(This post was inadvertently overwritten; that's why I've reposted it.)

P + S: Is it Dishonest?

I read the story of the New York Nets game program with interest.  In case you don't follow pro basketball or celebrity travel to Russia, apparently the picture of the team was altered to erase players no longer with the team, and to include new guard Sasha Vujacic--by pasting his head on the body of former Net, Terrence Williams.

What do you think about that? 

It brought to my mind the current commercial where the mom of kids roughhousing during a family photo decides to paste smiling faces on each child before distributing the picture to friends and family.  That fabrication bothers me, even if it is just to advertise the availability of such a photo-fixing capability.  Yet I didn't mind the old commercial that showed how easy it was to transform a girl's head shot into an angel; that was sweet, and most important, not an attempt to deceive.

Of course there's been much written about altered beauty magazine covers; another practice I disdain.  Jamie Lee Curtis is my hero for exposing the reality behind the glamorous photo spreads, in More magazine.

But back to the basketball program.  What do you think about the photo?  Was it dishonest, or just practical, from a p.r. standpoint?  And would you alter family pictures to "perfect" the image of your family?

From my point of view, In the TV commercial about The Cloud, the original family picture has a story to go with it.  The description of sibling inattention, boredom, and rivalry is the more interesting and candid impression to share with others IF it's accompanied by a clever caption that doesn't embarrass.  I feel the same about the basketball program.  The original picture has a history.  The new alteration is just fake, so it's an empty depiction of a team that may as well be lifeless paper dolls.

As you know, I think P + S is best!  ~Donna

 

 P + S is best! ~Donna

 

P + S: The People Matter

Have you ever made a family tree for a scrapbook?  Pictures are fun, but who are these people?

Check out this musing by Rozanne Paxman of Scrapgirls.com.

Of course, I agree, P + S is best! ~Donna

P+S: Obsession is bad

Sorry I've been absent.

I haven't been blogging lately.

I still believe in spreading my passion about the power of telling your pictures--that stories enhance your pictures and preserve your history. However, I was spending a disproportionate amount of time on the computer, and I needed to step back.

But I read this post today, and I think it's worth sharing:
http://www.copyblogger.com/stories-change-the-world/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Copyblogger+%28Copyblogger%29

Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about!

P+S is Best ~Donna

P + S: The Basics of P + S. Bloggers Who "Get It"

 

THE SETUP

Pictures and Story.  P and S.  They're both key to preserving your memories for generations to come.  Today I'm featuring some other bloggers that "get it".

An interesting note: Some of these pictorials are made by professional photographers, but in most of these blogs, the photographer is just like me (and maybe you)--a nonprofessional who wants to save the daily moments that may SEEM insignificant, but that add up to a life really lived.  Lived, not only through big events, but through observation; a child's discovery, a pet's expression, the colors and scenes of a landscape, the pleasure of a finished craft, the visual memory of a tranquil walk with a loved one.

 

THE PICTURES

Ah...the pictures are embedded today--you'll have to click on the links, but you won't be disappointed!

 

THE BLOGGERS (and their blogs)

A popular theme on the internet right now is 365 days of photos.  These women have the right idea: they're documenting the moments in their photos, and not just reiterating what we can see. 

http://jennielyse.com/project-365-week-4/

http://www.ayearofhappy.com/

http://pencilshavings.typepad.com/pencil_shavings/

http://jlangeimages.blogspot.com/

Though not strictly a daily photo-log, Tracy posts remembrances of little moments we can all relate to (or wish we could) almost daily at http://www.pinkpurl.typepad.com/slant_of_light/

 

How-to's scream for both P and S--we need to see how something is made (pictures do it best), and what it's going to look like, but we also need to have it explained to us; probably have the materials identified, thus the story.  I enjoy these blogs because I know there's enough information available to copy the craft.

http://pinkpurl.typepad.com/pink_purl/2010/05/summer-breeze-quilt.html

http://paperimagerydesigns.blogspot.com/2010/04/fabric-atcs-by-arlene-mobley.html

http://nikkishell.typepad.com/wardroberefashion/

http://jonag.typepad.com/stop_staring_and_start_se/2008/07/a-little-bias-is-a-good-thing.html

 

THE BASICS OF P+S

As I wrote in my very first post, in July, 2009:

    Pictures are good.

    They capture a moment; freeze an image in time.  But not only can the memory be lost, it can be reconstructed...inaccurately...

    Pictures + Story are better.  Story doesn't just explain a long forgotten picture, but it can help us relive a whole event, day, even season.

P and S is best!

~Donna

P + S: New Craft Idea (for me)--ATC's

 

THE SETUP

Have you ever heard of ATC's?  Well, I hadn't until this week.  They're an intriguing art form that I was introduced to in a blog post at Altered By Me.  Apparently, there's a whole community of multi-media artists and crafters who make these little Artist Trading Cards using a variety of fine art techniques.  I say little, because they are restricted to 2.5 X 3.5 in size.  They're traded among members of the ATC community.  Arlene Mobley offers instructions for making them out of fabric embellished with transferred images.

 

THE STORY

Are you like me?  Do you love a challenge?  Do you love creating NEW artwork or writing?  I'm not one to produce repeats of the same project.  Oh, I'll create multiples of the same Heritage Makers storybook so all the interested people in my family can have a copy, but then I'll move on to a new, novel project.

So, reading about ATC's sparked my imagination, (I'm not alone--read Jessica Torres' blog, Life, Love, Yarn), and I wondered if I could create some artworthy ATC's in the same vein as Arlene Mobley's using Heritage Makers' online Studio. 

THE PICTALE

I tried my hand at creating paper trading cards with Heritage Makers' Premier collection of digital art.  (The photo below is a digital rendition of downloaded previews of the four separated artist trading cards, which is why the resolution is not as sharp as the actual cards will be.)

Also, in the Heritage Makers Online Studio, previews can be downloaded and printed onto fabric or transfer sheets to make fabric ATC's and book covers the way Arlene Mobley does.

I truly welcome comments and critique from artists who trade ATC's.  I may have broken all kinds of rules by making up designs without thoroughly researching the art form.  What do you think?

 

A PARTIAL HOW-TO WITH AN OFFER

I can tell you how to make 4 ATC's on one 5 x 7 digital postcard.  The dimensions fit perfectly. 

    1.  In the online program I use, there's a ruler on the Studio Toolbar that helped me create boxes that are 2.5" x 3.5".

  

   2.  I swapped out the boxes for background papers.

 
  

   3.  Then I embellished each card with photos and digital artwork.  (Some of you will recognize my granddaughters.)

 

If you're trying to make your ATC's online, would you like to eliminate the first step where you create the template?  If you said "YES", then you're in luck--I'll give you the 4-piece template so you can start creating your ATC's immediately!

Just respond to my email, and write ATC Template in the subject line; I'll send you the template as a jpeg.  Do you want to use the program I use? Click here to start creating! Just go to "Start a new account" at the top of the website's home page.

There are several videos and tutorials on the website I use and on You Tube to help you create.  And then, of course, I can help you, too.

ATC ARTISTS...

I meant what I said when I asked for criticism of my first foray into making ATC's.  Just venture on down to the red word COMMENTS, or possibly an open comment box at the bottom of THIS post.  I'd love to know if I'm on the right path, or way off, with my digital designs.  I'd also be interested in knowing what the most satisfying or motivating factor for making ATC's is.

Arlene, (I think) I'd love to know what you think... 

I ordered publishing of my postcard today, so I can trade my cards in a week or so.  Does anyone want to trade with me?

P + S IS BEST! ~Donna

 

P + S: What Tennis Can Lead To

THE SETUP

Do you have a favorite sport that you play often?

• Do your friends say you personify the sport?
• How does playing it make you feel? 
• What is your history of involvement with the game? 
• What special moments do you associate with your sport?

Any of these topics offer opportunities for entertaining and illuminating p + s.  People want to know these things about you.  Details about you add so much to a scrapbook or a photo album and draw people to it--they enjoy learning exclusive tidbits about you.  Combining a picture or pictures with a story is one of the most compact ways to leak a little bit of your uniqueness.  You can succinctly tell your pictures with appropriate emotion.

Captions and narratives are traditional, but rhymes, haiku, limericks, repetition, and acrostics are a few alternative writing forms that can connect seemingly unrelated photos with modest or gutsy, earth-shattering or lightweight, self-exposure.

 

THE (SEEMINGLY UNRELATED) PICTURES

 
 
  
THE STORY

With apologies to Fleetwood Mac (Hear their song Monday Morning)

MONDAY (TENNIS) MORNING (or what tennis can lead to)

Monday morning you sure look fine.

All weekend I've had tennis on my mind

7:30, Craig and I are on Court 3

He's slowly pacing practice balls to me.

When Gib gets there, I'm on my own.

The ball machine is looming like a throne.

Forehands/ backhands/missed volleys/ steady feed.

My strokes are crap!

whoa... they're just crap...damn!  I’ll drill

every day if you want me to, skip

exercise I could choose to do,

Got to get some skill in my game.

9:30, you sure look fine.

It seems to me Court 7 can be mine.

My percentage of decent serves is good.

I’d keep this up in Flights if I could.

When Craig joins me to hit some more

We volley, ‘cause my skill with them is poor.

Hits me forehands, and I hit them down the line--

I feel alive! Yeah...

10:45! (so soon) So I  

hit with Craig just 5 minutes more,

I'm "practiced-out"; been all over this floor

Gotta get my butt to that side.

Women’s Flights, just my second time;

Everyone’s polite when I miss mine.

I make new friends, even though I rarely score

At Noon I’m really ready for the door.

All this tennis in just one day

Has wrecked my feet in such a painful way.

Need a rubdown, and those hot towels ‘round my legs

A pedicure! Oh, man!

10 dollars more --for hands, so….

Feet get soaked in soapy pails,

Tennis leads to painted nails!

Got to treat myself this way, more!

 

THE PICTALE

 

These pictures, cropped and positioned with lined and decorative paper backgrounds, make a fun spread accompanied by the song lyrics, across two pages of an 8.5 x 11.5   Heritage Makers book. 

 

 

Does it seem like a funny topic to put into a book?  The detail is what makes it entertaining!  A story like this tells us how the subject spends leisure time, and how she feels about it.  This spread will give her grandkids more insight into her background and personality than just a statement that, "Craig and I loved to play tennis."  Could you answer these questions? 

• Is she a skilled tennis player?
• Does she play outdoors? Indoors? At a tennis club?
• How long does she play on Monday mornings?
• Why does she stop playing with her husband? (2 different times)
• Is she happy with the way she plays? What is her best stroke?
• Does she have endless stamina?
• What's her favorite remedy for pain?

 

DO SHARE!

What's one interesting fact or story you would want others to know (or would let others find out) about your involvement with sports? If you send your story in an email with a picture to donna@sharefamilystories.com, I'll put it in a future blog post.  Otherwise, we can be content with a posted comment--I think you have to click on the word "comment" at the end of this post. 

P + S IS BEST! ~Donna