Taking Baby Steps In Creativity

I have grand plans and schemes where my creativity and photography are concerned.  This past week, though, I've realized - despite having been a shutterbug for most of my life - how much I don't know, but want to know.  And looking at all of it rather sends me into overwhelm...

In the past, this would have likely caused me to choke, paralyzed me with doubt.  Instead, I'm looking at it as a grand adventure.  More to learn, which has my inner techie jumping with joy.

Still... I look at the things I've proposed to undertake/participate in, and... I have to admit that I'm a bit intimidated.  That, too, would have paralyzed me into inactivity in the past.  Not this time...

I want to become more skilled where my photography is concerned, and the only way to do that is to actually DO it, right?  Practice, practice, PRACTICE.  That's what I've been reading.  That's the only way I'm going to accomplish it.  So, that's what I'm doing.

Instead of participating in the Hops and Carnivals as I had planned, I'm going to take a baby step toward them... I'm going to start my week out by posting a picture that I took this past weekend. This will be my "before".  I'll do a bit of editing on it in the next couple of days (beyond the watermark) and post the "after" on Thursday.  It's a definite start, at least. *grin*

Our Beagle puppy, Lugh...  He loves sitting outside and watching the world move around him.

This one won't take too much work.  I think it came out pretty good SOOC.  The colors could pop a little bit more, I'm thinkin'.

So, there it is... I shall be back on Thursday with the final "product" and an explanation (in Gimp) of what I did.

See you then!

Brilliantly Slow To Go...

Today, I'm joining everyone over at Kind Over Matter for...

This week's theme...  Looking Up...


I took this photo this morning... I wasn't sure what subject matter to use at first.  Indeed, the sky is a bright, brilliant blue today, but that just didn't seem enough.  So, I took this one...

This is the tree behind our house.  It's budding, but like so many trees here in the North Country, it's still quite bare.  That, mixed with the brilliance of the sky and sun, illustrates what spring is like here.  Brilliantly slow to go. lol

To all of you dropping by today... WELCOME!  Welcome to my newest spot on the web.  My creative spot.  It's still a little sparse, but it, like my personal/life blog Hiccups In Time, will grow with care and time.

For the time being, though...  If you are a visual artist, crafter, writer... I hope you'll consider linking up to the Kreatives Kafe, a budding new directory for creatives to connect with one another.  Feel free to link up your blog/website, Etsy page, Twitter account, and Facebook Fan Page.  One or ALL, it is all great!  Please help me to make it one of the biggest resources on the net for finding and connecting with other creatives.  There's even a button you can grab to share with others.  Thank you!

And thank you for dropping by today!  I truly look forward to seeing you again, hopefully, soon!

Playing Around With Gimp

So, one of the things that I'm working on is something of a combination pack, I guess you could say.  I'm working on my photographic skills...  Admittedly, I could be working harder on it, but it will come in time. And the other thing is my photo editing skills.

I've really enjoyed graphics manipulation...  Ever since I first started learning how to do it.  Never became too much of an expert, really, but I enjoyed making icons and avatars when I used to hang out on Live Journal, Greatest Journal, and Insane Journal a lot.  (At different periods of time, of course.)

So, this was something of a natural progression, I suppose...

Now, I have a Mac these days.  When I had a PC, I used to use PSP.  When I switched to the Mac, I had to find something that I could use, but that wouldn't cost me an arm and a couple of legs.  I found Gimp, but had to figure the program out and became rather discouraged at times, but used it for a project or two.  Last night, though, I decided to really begin to learn how to use it...  So, I went tutorial hunting.  I found several things, but the one that I decided to give a go was a selective colorization tutorial over on Gimp.org written by Eric R. Jeschke.

This was my original photo...

This was my finished photo...  

I love it!  Will definitely have to do more in the future...