i ♥ faces - week 8 - "Hands On" Fun

This week's challenge has to do with hands and is one of the few weeks that we can go without faces in our photos.

I had one hand photo that I have to share because it has a very touching story behind it.  A number of ladies on a photography board that I frequent wanted to do something special for Anissa Mayhew.  Anissa is a mom that suffered a fairly catastrophic stroke (two actually) and has a very long road to recovery.  Her amazing husband has been asking for help and the ladies of the photography board thought that we'd give her a hand - literally!

52 women joined in and took pictures of hands with words of encouragement on them.  This pic is my hand - self shot.

You can see the whole montage here if you like: http://davidandtracie.com/2010/01/04/the-give-anissa-a-hand-project/

You can also read more about Anissa and her family at  http://www.hope4peyton.org/

See the other hand photos at  i ♥ faces (you may even see more Anissa hands!)

i ♥ faces week 6 - "We ♥ kisses"

The theme this weeks i ♥ faces challenge, in preparation for Valentines Day, is "We ♥ Kisses".  I had three images pulled for this and it took me forever to decide on one.  I'm going with this one because it's more your traditional "kisses" expectation.

This is K and E, Mark's cousins at their wedding last summer.  K was the most beautiful bride and E's a lucky man having caught such a lovely lady!

See more kissing over at i ♥ faces!

i ♥ faces - week 5 - "Places I Love"

This weeks i ♥ faces challenge is to highlight the most romantic places you've been and then tell the story of why.

I started looking back thru our photos as we've definitely been to some very romantic places - sunsets on the coast in California (a favorite weekend past time of ours the 5 years we lived in Northern Cali), secluded beaches in Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii, remote back country lakes and mountain ranges.  We've definitely had our share so of course I can't pick just one! I'll highlight a few and provide a bit of back story for each....

The first shot is from San Diego.  Mark and I had a wonderful hike around the shoreline and were waiting for the sun to set for our typical sunset pictures and relaxation.

The next two are from a trip to Colorado that we took last year.  We went up at the height of the wild flower season and spent the night at a place called the Ice Lakes basin. The upper lake was just above 12k feet and just spectacular!  We had most of the place to our selves once the day hikers headed out and spent a very nice evening cooking dinner and watching the sun set (you'll sense a theme soon:) )

The next 3 are from our trip to Germany and Switzerland.  These were all from the Switzerland part of our trip and actually happen to be from one specific hike (amazing huh??).  The first is obviously the Matterhorn - how can you mistake that?  The second is from the Rifflberg Hotel area.  We were there off season so there was no one up there which made it even more beautiful.   The last one is from the end of our hike - the Gornergrat Glacier.  These areas are particularly romantic for us for a few reasons.  First, it was our first trip together overseas.  Second, it was just the two of us out on the slope hiking.   Third, it was the last trip before we found out we were expecting our first child (so we probably weren't alone on that hike:) ).

The last set is from our most recent trip to California when I was 18 weeks pregnant.  It was the most amazing trip - 3 days, 2 nights out in the back country of Yosemite National Park.  Yosemite is special to use because we went on some of the our first backpack trips together in the back country there.  Now that we don't live there we relish any trip that we get that gives us the opportunity to shoulder our packs again and get lost for while - this time with baby in tow (well, in utero at least..).

i ♥ faces - fix-it friday

I've always wanted to do the i ♥ faces fix-it friday challenge but never had time to do it. This time they wanted to focus on textures and I'm happy to oblige and make time because I need more practice on this stuff...

Here's the original:

 

Here's my first edit.  I adjusted recovery, fill, blacks, brightness, and constrast in LightRoom and applied the LR preset called PH Soft & Dreamy.  I also cropped it a bit - out of aspect ratio but a neat crop none the less.

 

I then took that first edit and dropped it into GIMP and added a texture.  I found the texture on Flickr, set it to 30% opacity and set the blend to multiply.  I also added a blue background to change the color of the texture.

 The third edit is simply another texture I found on Flickr ( really need to write down who the author of those are..).  Set the opacity to 30%, blend to multiply, and use the eraser on 50% opacity to remove some of the color from her face and the snowman.

  

 Last one is just a LR Preset called "brighten up drab and dreary"...funny name but it works well:)

 

So, what do you think? That was fun!!:)

i heart faces week 4 - "Texture"

This weeks challenge at i ♥ faces is all about Texture!  I tried and tried to put in a texture to an image using Gimp but I'm afraid I'm just not that good yet so I thought I'd look thru my pics and see what ones I had that represented texture well...it was tricky.  The topic is obviously up for interpretation and I'm not positive what they were looking for.

I had a few shots that I really liked - one with little K playing in the leaves and what not where the leaves would be the texture in the image but in the end the image itself was just too soft.  It was taken before I really understood focus etc...(or at least got better with it out of our camera).  Then I ran across this one...a little creative cropping to enhance the water dropplets and I think we can call this "texture"!

The focus is still a little soft on his face but you can't help but smile and laugh at little at how much fun he was having here!

Check out the other great images over at i ♥ faces!

i heart face week 3- "We are family"

This weeks challenge at i ♥ faces is "we are family" and while I had a few to choose from, this one taken with a timer was the most fitting for us! 

i heart faces week 2 - "Best face photo"

This weeks i ♥ faces photo challenge is all about your best face photo taken in the last few weeks. I had two that I really liked but you can never go wrong with kids so I present to you - Little B! 

Head on over to i ♥ faces to check out the other entries!!

i heart faces week 1 - "I ♥ Faces"

This is my first "I ♥ Faces" content entry and the theme was "I ♥ Faces" in honor of their 1 year birthday. I stumbled upon their website via another blogger (who, unfortunately I can't remember now) and was instantly hooked! Take a look for yourself and see some of the other entries for this theme - I ♥ Faces

They run a different theme each week and often times you can only submit one image. However, in this contest you can have up to 5 images entered so here are my shots:

This one was an attempt at a maternity shot!  Hubs had a few great ideas and we had alot of fun trying to get it right.  The lighting was tricky!

Little M was having a ball this summer with her ice cream cone.  You'll have to play "where's waldo" to find the logo:)

Little B was bouncing around the computer room singing "oh yea baby...".  I think my mother in law has a similar shot of my husband at this age.   

I took this shot of little A during a baby shower this past summer.  She was just a month or two old I think  and was just the sweetest thing in the whole world. 

Little K was so busy playing in the mud and dirt that she failed to notice the cake that had been set out on the table!  The rest in this series a full of watermelon, sticky finger, dirt and bugs.  All the best makings for happy kids!

Some of these are more subtle than others and I tried to work the logo into the image best I could.  I welcome the feedback!:)

I am submitting this photo into the I Heart Faces logo photo contest. By entering, I am granting I Heart Faces LLC permission to consider my photo for use in the marketing and promotion of their website.