Jeff and Kristen O'Brien's Wedding

Oakland CItyscape!

This image was done with two photos. The first I took on my roof of the cityscape of downtown Oakland. I made a diy heart brokeh lens hood from diyphotography.com (http://www.diyphotography.net/diy_create_your_own_bokeh). The second image I took was also on the roof as well with a flash, wearing black (that rhymes!) and me balancing on a chair in order to get as much black background as I could (which means less postprocessing work which I find to be a pain).

I used gimp and since I forgot to bring my mouse while visiting my friends and family, I painstakingly did it moving my finger very slowly on the laptop pad. Lots of undoing and redoing here.

Really, the reason why I wanted to do this image was so I could have an excuse to use the brokeh lens hood and see what it's all about. It was simple to make and created some cool results, although I thought all the lights were going to be hearts. All well, at least the majority of them are.


SO works about to start again which = more effective time management = more photos = more posts on flickr(http://www.flickr.com/photos/89337456@N00/) and hopefully here as well. :)

Rumors

Yesterday I had time to shoot and edit. I'm really happy with the results, but I know I can do better. I just feel like there's only so much I can do on Gimp and so much more I can do on photoshop. Soon... loans first, laptop second, then I'll have to start saving for that.

Here's what it ended up looking like:


I took three pictures and lassoed each figure into one image. I had to extend the wall and get rid of a door on the right side of the photo which was a major pain. One thing that bothers me with gimp is I can make convincing shadows and they're such a big part of how real something looks.

The Happiness Project

I recently stumbled upon a book at a bookstore written by Gretchen Rubin called The Happiness Project. . I didn't have a lot of time to look at the book, but I saw that she had a website. I looked it up later, hoping to find more information on what she did in her search for happiness for a year. It didn't, but it did have a great way to make your own happiness project.

Although I still don't know how to use a lot of the items, it gives you a way to connect with other people and see what they are doing.

I decided to start with three goals: Stretch everyday, Take my vitamins everyday, dance once a week. For some reason, having them down and knowing people can see them is keeping me really accountable. I've missed a day here and there, but I've been doing those things more consistently than I have in the past. Hopefully by the end of the month, they'll become habit and I can come up with new goals.

No Shampoo for You!

I read this article about how for women with curly hair, not shampooing is the way to go. I have wavy hair, but I figured that was close enough. (I wish I saved the article. I can't seem to find it.)

So, I tried it out... I lasted 4 days. There was no bad odor (I was still using conditioner because I have pretty long hair) but the issue I had was it looked sooo oily. Today I gave in and ended up using shampoo. I will try it again soon and try the baking soda shampooing method. That might work better for me.