Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream.  I too have a dream, it involves moving into the house where this Frenchie resides gnawing on it’s jowls whilst gloating over how well my fawn Frenchie coordinate’s with my natural linen covered furniture. Miss Andree of On Linden Way sent this to me. She obviously has heck of great taste in cute, this image looks like it was made to be on the Besotted Brand blog, no? I worship it.  Thank you to both Miss Andree and Miss Aubrey Rose for sharing this with the world.

This was actually taken today with my Iphone.  I almost never upload or edit my Iphone photo’s, they are even more neglected than the photo’s that make it to the ‘attic’ on my computer. I figured maybe I should start transfering the photo’s each day from my phone to the computer so the phone images can  commiserate with the photo’s that are just laying there in wait on my hard drive.  I didn’t process it with any apps prior, I just brought it into my digital darkroom and started fiddling. I am a big fiddler.  I edited it two ways, here’s the other version. For those that want to gloat here’s my ‘before’.  I mentioned on Flickr that showing my ‘before’s’ is going to give me an ulcer.  This seems like the psychic equivalent of showing up to school in your pajamas (remember that dream when you were a kid?)  Humiliating.  I am just going to work through this hurdle of showing my photo’s without any make-up on.  I am hoping that it will force me to just shoot better ‘before’ photo’s. What a novel idea…

If you would like to join me on this wild and woolly photo editing adventure I would welcome the company.  I set up a Flickr group here and it’s open to anyone who has decided to take a bite of the crazy cake.  This project is not for everyone, in fact probably not for most but if you want to dedicate yourself to a photo project and feel like you just leave your photo’s on your hard drive or gasp the card reader and they just sit there wishing they were adopted and didn’t have you as a parent than come join me.  I am feeling more creative already.

 

I have been wanting to do an on going photo project for a while now.  I considered the 365, wherein you take a photo a day.  I considered this for about oh, 3 seconds before I realized that I would fail miserably and then have to carry around a horrible sense of guilt for the rest of year.  Failure and myself don’t play well together.  I would rather stay away than risk having Failure do the Rocky Balboa fist in the air dance in front of me.  That Failure sure can be smug sometimes.  I considered a 52 project, wherein I would take a photo once a week, this sounded realistic but Failure whispered something in my ear and instead of getting bent out of shape, I decided that Failure was actually right.  I don’t have a problem with taking photo’s or coming up with ideas, my problem lies in editing the darn images and is even worse when it comes to printing them out and not leaving them on the hard drive to marinate for eternity. I decided that my project would focus on what I needed the most motivation in doing–editing.  My daring feat will be to try to edit a photo a day for the remainder 351 days of the year.  Since I have left thousands of unedited images on my hard drive thus far, I don’t know how I will bode with such an Everest type endeavor.  The only thing I can do is try.

Now fine friends, do not try this at home unless you have a serious amount of time on your hands and the dedication necessary to complete this performance.  If you do decide to follow in my precarious foot steps, do so with caution and know that I too will be agonizing over my photo’s not knowing how far to take them or if they will be ‘worthy’ for your eyeballs.  I am going to use the Roman numeral conversion of 2011::MMXI to designate this project–keep it simple. The first photo is my before, it is grossly underexposed, but please note if I mess up on my exposure (which unfortunately happens more than not) I would rather have it underexposed than overexposed.  You can still save detail with an underexposed image, but really don’t do as I do, just try to get your exposure correct in camera. This is my after photo, all trussed up with a bucket load of Photoshop layers and a heaping amount of indecision thrown in. My goal was to create a dreamy, Marie Antoinette Court or Paris flea market feel. Day one down, only 350 more to go….

One of my goals this year is to explore more, which in a perfect world would mean I would be shipping myself off to a faraway locale, wandering aimlessly around new cities, reveling in unique cultures and taking in as much as my brain would allow.  In my current world that means making myself get out of my zipcode.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel and I have been half way around the globe by myself on several occasions, it just seems like my adult self is not so into the bohemian lifestyle as my once youthful counterpart.  Something about not being able to take a hot shower everyday or sleep in clean sheets doesn’t bode well with me anymore.  I need some creature comforts and would rather stay put than not know where my next meal will be coming from–call me crazy.   I am more of an arm chair traveler now, planning dream vacations that include food, shelter and not sleeping standing up.  I have not given up my desire to explore, I made good on my goal to explore more by taking a little trip this weekend to some antique shops three or four zipcodes away, it doesn’t compare to eating a baguette in Paris but it is an improvement over sitting in front of my computer.  I found this wonderful old globe that had just the perfect amount of wear and shot a few photo’s of places I would like to visit. I can’t regale you with tales of exotic lands (yet) but I do plan to continue exploring and documenting my little trips be they as minute as a trip down the way.  I hope you join me on my journey and find time to do some ‘exploring’ on your own.  You never know what you may discover.