Twiddling my thumbs, waiting for a verdict, playing with textures, sigh.

All are a mish mash of Kim Klassen and Florabella textures.

This is with Kim Klassen’s new texture, Autumn.

Yesterday, I was gobbling pizza, today, Nyquil.

Yes, the flu has morphed into a full blown cold – achu!  But, I feel ok, and the trial is moving along smoothly, and we should wrap it up by Thursday.

So, while this photo isn’t exciting or particularly inspiring (although it is a very accurate representation of tonight’s dessert), one of my 365 goals is not only to find my creative vision, and who I am as a photographer, but to really learn the nitty gritty of my camera, and how it works, so that I can work it at will.  One of my biggest problems is indoor lighting and white balance.  I just can’t seem to get it right.  All of my indoor photos, albeit, in not very attractive light, have an orange/red cast to them, and while I tinker with it in Photoshop, I’d like to do better.  So what looks like a boring shot, is really a learning shot, and hopefully, I’ll find my white balance.

In the meantime, I’m off to take my nighttime formula, watch a bad movie on HBO, and do some knitting.

Day 1 of trial has begun.  We have 14 people in the box, and I’m going to open tomorrow.  No time to make dinner, time for pizza!

How’s that for a Macro Monday - a closeup of all of that grease, and cheese, and more cheese . . . yum!  Too bad my suits aren’t going to fit by the end of the trial.

Luckily, I am feeling better – thank you for your well wishes!  And, I’m so excited — for company – lots of company as I continue on in my 365 day path of photo learning.  Maegan from Madeleine Bea/Life Set to Words is embarking on her second year of 365 days, and has asked for fellow travelers to join her in her quest for vision, knowledge, and growth in the art of photography.  I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned in just 66 days, and I urge you, if you’ve been on the fence, or hesitating – take the plunge.  There are no rules – they are your 365 days – however you want to do them.  It’s a big commitment, but it’s a commitment to yourself - and you deserve it! 

The view from my sickbed -

 I’m not feeling so hot today.  I’m fighting a cold, and feeling kind of blah.  Good thing its SOOC day, because I really didn’t feel like taking these, let alone editing them.  Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!

And, one straight out of the new iphone app, Pudding Camera -

And since there doesn’t seem to be a Saturday linky – SOOC Sunday -

Hmmm, somedays, maybe, you just have to use a flash . . . or convert to B&W.  My mom and my niece, Danielle, suprised me today and came into Philly for lunch.  Lovely way to end the week!

Outside – perfect!

I finally got around to processing the boardwalk photos I took in Ocean City on Sunday night.

And, of course a crazy textured creation:

This has textures from Kim Klassen, Paree Erica, and Darkwood 57 (from the Textures for Layers pool on Flickr).

And, can’t not post my daily photo – sigh, Lemon again – outside on the deck -

Now hop on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry, and enjoy the outdoors!

Today was one of those days.

My alarm didn’t go off.

Even though I was late, I still couldn’t find anything satisfying to wear.

Once I found something to wear, an illfitting but so comfortable black dress, I smeared Lemon’s chalky white medicine on the front of it.

I got to court, did what I had to do, walked back to the office, and found I had to turn around and go back to court.

And now, I’m at the yarn store, unknitting the six rows (over 200 stitches per row) of lace knitting that I bitched up last night, sigh.

What’s a girl to do?

Take a picture of her sweet doggie for Black and White Wednesday.

Taking a picture of our sweet girl is like eating comfort food – a meatloaf sandwich with a side of Mac & Cheese, followed by a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream.  Oh, and throw a cold beer in there too.

This was processed with Nelly Nero’s Time Capsule Set – Growing Old Gracefully, and finished off with this texture by Laura.

Check out the other B&W’s!

So here’s my rather boring, SOOC tree image.  Looking at it, I knew I wanted something vintage, something postcardy, and I wanted to try Kim Klassen’s new Scratched texture.  I fiddled, and played, and sighed, and fretted, and this is the final edit -

And just how did this craziness happen?

First, I used Nelly Nero’s Rankin Bleacher action to desaturate the photo:

Nelly Nero's Rankin Bleacher

Then, I added a few Florabella textures, and a Skeletalmess Texture, and it looked like this (to do the next steps, I had to flatten the image, and I forgot to save an unflattened version – so, just guessing, I think I used Elysium cool from Florabella and some old paper texture from Skeletalmess/Shadowhouse Creations):

And then it was time to scratch it up with Kim’s new texture, Gratitude Scratched.  And, here’s how it went:

To get the scratches to show up on the photo, I applied the texture three times – 1st – at Screen, 100%, next at Multiply, 100%, and then screen again at 15%.  At this point, you could see the scratches, but you couldn’t see the street.  So, I duplicated the background layer three times, all applied at 100% soft light, and then I desaturated the whole thing a bit.  Voila!

And, here’s another tree image just for good measure:

This was processed using Nelly Nero’s new set, Time Capsule – Growing Old Gracefully B&W.

So, go check out the rest of the forest and the touch ups!