love that shot and a (leather) giveaway!

 

Happy last day of August everyone!

Many of you have already sent children off for a new school year, are still preparing to or, perhaps, you are homeschooling! 

As most of you know, my babes are all grown up now and my youngest, twins, turned 21 last month.  One of the twins, Luke, has just started his first year at our local junior college and he is SO excited! I am equally as excited for him!

Luke stopped by after work yesterday, late afternoon, to share the good news with us.  I knew that he was enrolling (I filed FASFA apps for both Luke and John last Spring), but did not know that he would be attending his first class quite so soon! (climbing out from beneath the proverbial rock!)

My oldest son, Matt and Luke share a house together. Luke is in the beginning stages of trying to manage college classes, a full-time job as well as keeping house! Luke has been known to be the “mom” around his home! This not only entails his looking out after anyone who enters through the front door, but also keeping the household running as smoothly as humanly possible when occupied with ALL boys. Uhm, I mean ... MEN! LOL!

Until recently, there had been four or five young men living under the same roof. Needless to say, things were a bit chaotic most of the time and Luke was giving serious thought to relocating himself for he knew he could not go to school and deal with traffic in-and-out of the house at any given moment, 24/7. Well, as it turns out, two of the roomies decided to move on the end of July. I could hear the sign of relief in Luke’s voice as he was thinking that things would now be “all good” with just he and his brother sharing space! He, he ... okay, I’ll be nice, but y’all know how brothers can be at times too, eh? ROFL!

Anyhoo, Luke’s visit yesterday naturally led this Mama to snap a few shots to encapsulate this special and most wondrous occasion, as well as marking my first project as a new CT for an incredibly wonderful site I joined several months ago, Love that Shot! 

As a digital designer, I love working with textures, so the first tutorial that caught my eye was, “How to Apply a Texture to a Photo” by the lovely and talented Misti Tracy, co-owner of Love that Shot. I have tried playing around with this on my own a few times in the past, however, I struggled with the fine art of using the lasso tool to achieve the result that I was looking for.  Misti’s tutorial was the key to unlocking the magic of the lasso tool for me in loosely outlining my subject and using a bit more feathering than I had been working with prior!  Thanks again Misti! *wink*

Now, as with any tutorial, you learn the basics of how to accomplish the meat of it and then, of course, you experiment! That is what I did with the photo of Luke above. The background was very busy and distracting and Luke got lost amongst the bookcase full of books here in my little office space, so I worked on cropping, angling and blurring out the distracting background as well as applying textures to my photo!  And, I even decided to keep some texture on Luke’s face!

I am not thrilled about only having my cell phone camera to snap with at the present time (5 MP), but have risen above the disappointment with my use of post-production tools to give me an end result that I can live with!  Although, I am still looking to replace my camera which started having some issues while I was in Washington in, hopefully, the very near future!

I am thankful to have found Misti and her sister, Michelle at Love that Shot and am looking forward to improving my skills in photography as well as some post-production in Photoshop!

If you are looking for some fun and unique ways to improve upon your photos, whether from behind the camera or via some manipulation in your photo editing program, come and check out what the girls have been up to at Love that Shot!  Misti and Michelle offer up some cool free stuff, but they also offer a monthly membership which gives members access to all of their tutorials, including supplies to work on each one with! There is a forum where you can ask questions, share your work, etc. too!

Oh, and while you are checking out the Love that Shot site, Misti and Michelle are having a new giveaway this week! Do y’all like leather? You’ll love what their talented brother has to offer us! Details can be found HERE!

Now, y’all know what tomorrow is, right? Well, besides being the first day of September! The September Blog Train, departs! WOOT, WOOT ... TOOT, TOOT ... stay-tuned! It is going to be a Fall Carnival for sure!

Until we meet again ...

Love and hugs,

Linda XOXO