Shortly after we explored Flickr in this class, my husband came in from his photography club meeting and asked me if I knew about Picasa. I was able to say yes, having learned about it as one of the Web 2.0 tools. Thus we proceeded to access some pictures a fellow photo club member posted and I helped him post several of his pictures. Now he thinks he has invented a new way to slice bread.
He thought that was so great that he decided he would share a large group of photos with some family members. Technology is not his expertise. He has learned how to use IPhoto successfully, but new platforms remain a challenge.
I won’t go into all the details, but let’s just say that my training as teacher and my DPa degree (Doctorate in Patience) were fully tested. I finally convinced him to use Flickr because his version of IPhoto has a built in interface for Flickr. We set up his account and he is now off and publishing. Everyone at the Thanksgiving gathering had to hear about Flickr.
I get a chuckle listening to him tell his story. It gives me another reason to be excited about all I have learned in this class.

One interesting arts we have today is Photography. It is not just capturing and printing photos but it is more of capturing every single moment of our lives. Exploring photography is not difficult as one would have thought it would be. To those whose photography became their passion, they did several ways to improve their profession as the years gone by.

Now, we have several websites with several features related to photography. One of which is ImageCoffer.com. This website is popularly known to exercise various photo related features including face detection technology, photo effects, photo sharing all comes in one easy to navigate website.

Exploring photography has been made easy and simple with ImageCoffer.com. Once you have registered as a member, you will enjoy various features they offer for free. If you are bored and tired of looking at your own photo, you can put a spice in it by creating photo effects even without having much knowledge on complex photo editing software. ImageCoffer.com is working hard to give to its members a free and user friendly website to add color to your dull looking photos.

Another thing to do with this website is their photo sharing features which allow members to store their photos and share them with all their friends online. You can also put a comment to other photos and you have the right t make your album public or private defending on what you want it to be. With these cool and exciting features, exploring photography will not anymore be difficult. In a glimpse, your once old looking photo can turn into a funny photo which you can have as a collection perfectly suits for your scrapbook and albums.

How do you share your photographs?

Years ago we used albums, carousels, shoeboxes, and picture cubes (do you remember those?) to share our photos. Now that the digital era has arrived we are faced with finding good ways to share our photos. Instead of photos being stashed away in shoeboxes, now they are stashed away in hard drives.

I like to share my photos on web galleries. This way people can view them at their convenience. Baseball players and parents can see the sports photographs after a weekend tournament. Wildlife enthusiasts can similarly view photos when they get a chance. Galleries are convenient, easy to set up, and one great way to share photos.

There are plenty of other ways, too. PowerPoint presentations, iPods, PDAs, Flicker, and picture frames are just a few.

How do you share your photos?

I happened to glance over someones list of friends today in the midst of viewing a couple of recently posted pictures I

Sexy Pic....or something else? You decide

was asked to take a peek at and I immediately noticed a pattern.  There were a number of scantily clad women who filled the screen. So many breast prominently displayed for the camera, not just a enough to make a man think “hmmm, I wonder” but more like “Look at all that!”.  There were pictures devoid of faces, yet full of half naked bodies or the profile was taken from the back to announce “I have BOOTY!”

Now, I am all about being sexy….embracing your sexuality, being confident and comfortable in your skin, being proud of all that is yours….working what you have and I still can’t help but to wonder what these ladies want the world to know when they see these pictures.  What is it that they are seeking and will they get it?

If it is simply to gain attention and admiration, to be complimented or to generate some heat in the loins then….mission accomplished, I am sure. However; if there is an underlying hope to have meaningful conversations, develop authentic friendships built on mutual respect or to find a special someone, I am not so sure the strategy will work.  I would venture to say that the first reaction when viewing these pics isn’t “Wow, I wonder what kind of person she is. Is she intelligent, down to earth, fun to be with? What are her interest? Her likes/dislikes?”  It probably sounds more like “I sure wouldn’t mind taking her out for a test drive!” (well, lame line but you know what I mean, LOL)

I think you can be sexy, even a little seductive…without giving away the farm. When does sexy cross the line to slutty? I wonder.  The bottom line is that no matter how incredible you look in a pic, there comes a moment when you need to consider the message it may send when you have the picture prominently displayed in the virtual world where an unknown number of individuals could see it, tag it and forward it, save it and manipulate it.   There is appeal in the unknown..the curiosity..the mystery.

In the movie “Ace Ventura- When Nature Calls”;  Ace says “Just enough, but not to much…. of much too much“.  I think that is a great way to consider which pics to share online.

On Tuesday, April 21st we kicked off our four part Picasa Photo Series.  If you don’t already know, Picasa is a free photo editing software from Google that allows you to make your pictures look great and share them with friends & family through Picasa Web Albums.  You can still join us for our 3 upcoming classes: Editing Photos in Picasa, Sharing Photos in Picasa and Creating Collages in Picasa. Click on the links to register online. 

You know all of those photos still sitting in your camera?  Make them beautiful & share them with your friends!

My sister librarian, Jennifer, forwarded to me the March 2009 issue of the Florida Library Youth Program Forward (FLYP).  This is a great issue from the State Library that focuses on Youth Programming.  What caught my interest was the article about Web Tools for photo sharing, creating, and editing.  I thought this would interest many of you who are interested in creative gift ideas, designing photo albums, and/or sharing your photos.  These tools are awesome and I can’t wait to make a Stained Glass Collage.

             screenshot from FLYP.

Stop by the West Palm Beach Public Library’s KidSpace for some cool books for ideas on being creative with your digital photos.

Until we meet again,

~Remember, Reading is Awesome.

Monday, Monday…ay, ay, ay, yay! Yesterday was a lazy day. I napped quite a bit, so it took a while before I had a photo idea. With all the digi scrapping I’ve been doing, I decided it’s time to update my avatar. And this time I decided to take a tip from one of my favorite designers. Tina Chambers has had this type of pose as her avatar for a while. I was too tired to grab my tripod from the car, so it’s not as shake-free as I would have liked…

Today I was very busy working on gathering my supplies, etc. for a 48-hour crop this coming weekend. As much as I love digital scrapping, my roots lie in the traditional paper scrapping. I like to get creative with paper & cutting tools, so I still keep making albums for fun. I have a Creative Memories consultant who generously offers part of her discount to her customer base so we can all benefit when we refer new folks to her.

The biggest task I will have this weekend is the Disney vacation album. Rick & I spent six days at Walt Disney World over Spring Break 2008. After reviewing all the photos, I cut my selections down to about 520. Most of those will likely be in the album. It helps to print images wallet-sized! The paper & sticker supply was sorted last night…

Yep, it’s still a very busy year!! On Friday I had a full day of work. After tending to things at home, I went to visit my boyfriend. Suddenly I remembered that it’s the day of the “9 on the 9th” challenge over at DSP! I scrambled to come up with a theme and wound up deciding on Christmas Treats, recognizing fun Christmas gifts and such. Here are a couple:

The second photo shows my progress on the sweater I’m knitting as a Christmas gift to myself. I’m working on the back at the moment, and it’s stitching up pretty quickly. I hope to have it completed by Easter!

Saturday, today, was a long one – and it’s still early afternoon here. My son’s school is hosting a wrestling tournament. I volunteered to take an early shift so that I’d be able to watch his matches. I can’t really watch him wrestle, though. The sport is just too darn intense! So instead I go to provide moral support, and I also document his performance photographically. Now that I have my new Nikon, I just held down the shutter and let it rip. That made for a very full memory card – and in my not-yet-awake state when I arrived this morning, I forgot to bring extra cards! So I deleted a bunch of less-than-stellar shots of other boys, and lowered my image quality a bit. That was enough so I could snap away for his longer second match. This image was taken shortly before he was pinned. The expression on his face (the guy in red & black)  is exactly what I can’t see while I’m in the room! My BABY!!

There will be more photo ops tonight as my office Christmas party is being held this evening. Now I’m off to go find a suitable outfit…

Looks like I’m in the habit of posting on alternating days. I guess that works for now. And my subject matter may seem to be duller every day because I’m so busy with the mundane work stuff. Still, I’m staying busy and trying to photojournal along the way. Right now I’m working on a knitting project. I made a number of shawls and scarves in late 2008 as Christmas gifts, so now this is something for me. The sweater is a very ambitious project only because of the time investment required given the details. There are a number of cable patterns in this design. Here is the yoke – the piece to go across the shoulders. This is the first section I’ve completed, and now I am working on the back.

And this morning during my commute, I was amazed at the sunrise. It took me some time to get to where I could stop to snap a photo, so the clouds had shifted dramatically in that time. Still, the light shining upward on the clouds was an incredible site. Awesome, eh?