Going (chroma key) green

Work is getting all kinds of hectic lately and it's everything all at once.  So - I have to find new ways to entertain myself or else I'll go crazy.





Tuesday was a VERY LONG day since we shot only half of our education pieces for our OCT12 release and there was some fun on-set like keeping the studio so hot that the wasp that had flown in fainted. And we experimented with lighting/shooting on chroma key green. What better guinea pig than Tiago, right? He's always up for anything!





Had my second day of physical therapy and icing my knee is always the best part. I'm moving along pretty well since my injury isn't that bad. I have my final therapy session next week and I see the sports doctor after that. He will determine if I can get back to working out in the near future...



After releasing Cherry Pop into the wild, I started another Hatchi - Cherry Fizz. I obviously thought it was going to be a girl but I got another boy. Oh well! Either way, it's growing up wicked fast! I thought the sun-looking one was the teenage phase but the actually the squid-looking one is the teenage phase! Now I know he's going to grow up to be a cute little octopus! Hooray!

Weekend Snaps

Here's a progress shot of my bruise today.  It's feeling a lot better but it's still very sore.



After seeing this cute lil photo on my fave Tumblr-er's Instagram feed:


I decided I'd download the app and see if I liked having a Tamagotchi now as much as I did when I was a kid.

SPOILER ALERT:

I LOVE IT





After raising them for 7 days, you can release them into the Hatchi Forest Sanctuary and I did just that with my little boy Cherry Pop just last night. Aww. I was so devastated that he had grown up so fast that I started a new little brother - Cherry Fizz. You can tell by the names that I really want a female Hatchi but oh well. I have enough coins saved up to change genders but I think I'll keep them just the way they are. Aww!

Project 366 going stong!

I feel like I sound as if I've abandoned my 366 project since I haven't been posting weekly photos!  Worry not - I haven't abandoned it, I've just fallen behind on posting weekly round-ups!  Oops!
To make up for it, here is a mini round-up of some photos that you haven't seen (unless you've been to my set)

















I've been noticing I'm shooting with the iPhone camera a lot more than the Hipstamatic app (because it's faster to load) and because of that, I'm using the Cross Process app a lot more.  I've also been playing around with other apps but I keep that mostly to my mash-ups - which I've fallen a little behind on because now that I have NMSbB's #4 and #5, I'm trying to shoot my shots accordingly. 
But I'm remaining diligent on my 366 project even though I haven't really been finding too many crazy things.  That just gives me all the more reason to go on more trips!

Draw Something!

Like most of the world's population, I've started playing Draw Something.  I held off from joining because I already play Charadium but by comparison, Charadium isn't as fun....Sorry!  I like Charadium's layout better but Draw Something is more accessible, I guess because of the FB Connect feature.  And on the Ping Pong feature on Charadium, I've been getting a lot of creeps lately.  Not good.  With Draw Something at least I know I'm playing with my friends.  And because I'm playing on my iPad, I feel like I have quite the advantage.  I don't think I could ever play on my phone!  That's way too small for my fat fingers!  And I have an extra advantage of playing using my stylus.  Double win.
I'm not the greatest artist.  I left that to my brother (who I would LOVE to play with but he doesn't have the app).  But over the course of playing, I feel as though I'm getting a little better each time!  That depends on the word of course.  Sometimes I get shitty words and have to settle.  Other times I luck out and get great words.  Here are some of my "best" works:

               

My Twilight section, apparently
  

Not gonna lie, this is where I started feeling a little more confident with my abilities.  I mean, my Aladdin and Jasmine are pretty on point < sarcasm / >
          
I was really proud of the Woody I drew for my old man (yeah, that sounds terrible) but he guessed it before I even started drawing the details of the hat!  Lame.  But it is kind of boring to sit through the whole process if you already know what it is, right?  I guess.  I'm definitely not as good as the people featured here but I'm not as terrible as I was!

Are you on Draw Something?  Send me your username!

Photo Mash-up #2

Remember how I told you I was doing photo mash-ups with one of my Flickr friends? Well, after many days of lamenting at my own lack of creativity and trying to brush off my monthly (it might be turning into weekly) existential crisis, I was able to decide on which photos would be my #2 for No More Sideburn Bob.

NMSbB sent me his #2 (and #3) forever ago and I felt bad for not sending him one back. I sent him this pathetic sounding email saying "I'm trying to think of better shots for this project since I feel like most of my surrounding are a little boring..." Typical me. But that's part of my existential crisis - I'm thinking I want new surrounding. You know, like a new skyline perhaps??? We'll see.

ANYWAYS - NMSbB was nice enough to message me back with very kind words reminding me that he's not used to my surroundings and what I may think is boring, he will think is interesting.

Back to reality.  I thought about it and decided I'd send him shots from my photo walk last weekend.

Here was his #2 shot 


And here's mine


Here's my finished product


Here's NMSbB's finished product


I realized after I had processed this one, that this would've been so much better for the postcard effect than the last one. Don't get me wrong, the effect was pretty on the last one but I would have preferred to use it for this one. But you know, that's the beauty of this project: we can't get ideas for the photo until both photos have come in and we start processing them.

I used Image Blender, Cross Process and PicFx.  The effects turned out nice!  When I sent the photo, I had forgotten he had also done a facade so when I went to blend them, the bikes magically placed themselves on the grass.  How serendipitous!  And how weird are those phantom facades?  There's a road by my house that's been under construction FOREVER and I'm guessing these were demos for some development companies or something.  I'm not sure but they're weird and kind of pretty in their own way.

Here's a link to my set - which features the original and processed photos
Here's a link to NMSbB's set

Enjoy!

Photo mash-ups!

Sorry for the lack of updates!  Work has got me really busy with last-minute video preps for our team building weekend starting tomorrow so...I've been stuck.

On another note - I've been making some pretty cool friends via Flickr and one of my favourite collaborators, No More Sideburn Bob, has invited me to do this awesome photo mash-up collab with him.  The idea is we each take a photo, label it with corresponding numbers, email them to each other and see how we mash them up!

Example:

    PLUS    

EQUALS


By No More Sideburn Bob


By me.  I took a cue from his and decided to run it through a few more apps so it wouldn't look like too much of the same thing - since we are using the same blender app.

I brought both photos in to Image Blender (which he told me about), ran the mash-up through Swanko Lab, Lo Mob and finally, through Pic Grunger.  With his street shot and my flowers, I thought it would make a nice post card looking photo so I messed with the colours in Swanko Lab, added the border with Lo Mob and the creases with Pic Grunger.  I think they both turned out really well!
He sent me his #2 & #3 photos (which are totally awesome shots btw) and now I have to think of something that will mash-up nicely with them...