Gorgeous and Fun

News!

I am changing blog homes as of this week. I am changing blog homes for a variety of reasons but the main one being that I want to separate out the content. 

Stop by at:

http://gorgeousandfun.tumblr.com/ for my photography.

http://bitsandjewels.tumblr.com/ for the jewelry that I make.

There's possibly a third one I might want (it will have something to do with Photoshop) but I am not quite ready to talk about that yet.

 

When I started this blog 3 years back my intention was to share images that inspired me. Hence the name "Gorgeous and Fun Things".

 

But in the process of blogging a few things happened to me:

- I fell in love with photography. I had never expected that! If someone had told me 5 years back that I would have found my way to the camera, I wouldn't have believed them. But that's how life works. While you are looking for something you find something else.

- I found out that I adore making jewelry especially working with PMC (silver clay).

- I think Photoshop is magic and I develop software so I can guess how much work this piece of software takes.

- I discovered that I love sharing images but not talking that much on the blog. My best pal who has known me since sixth grade is hooting with laughter as she reads this. I am known to be a chatty person. In school I was punished over the years for being "chatty". I do like chatting face-to-face or on the phone. But on the blog I like focusing on images.

In the next couple of weeks this blog with be released back into the ether. I was inspired to do photography because of blogging, I wanted to learn Photoshop because of blogging and I made friends in far flung places because of this blog.

Thank you to my friends for your encouragement and I hope you stop by at my new blog homes. 

 

The Road Ahead

This photo was manipulated with two Kim Klassen textures  - 'mona' and 'just blush'. It is a picture of the Minuteman trail in early November. This year Fall came in late.

Check out more texture love at Kim Klassen's.

Want to see the original ?

Notice the missing people - I erased them with the "spot healing tool" with the foreground color set to black.

 

Ferrari

A Ferrari seen on the streets of Boston. Picture shot with Lensbaby and enhanced with Radlab. Given that we were all stuck in a traffic jam, I doubt the driver of the Ferrari had a chance to exercise the speed this car is capable of.

 

Photo with texture #1

This is my first time taking part in Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday blog party .

This picture of Fall Leaves was taken with a Lensbaby lens, aperture 5.6. Then I used Kim's Phoebe texture.

Here's the recipe:

Layer 0: The fall leaves photo

Layer 1:  Phoebe texture, blending mode set to "darken"

Layer 2: Layer 0 duplicated, blending mode "linear dodge(add)" + layer mask with a black grungy brush to remove some of this layer.

Layer 3: Layer duplicated, blending mode set to "darken". Added a curves layer and clipped it to this layer. Played with the RGB curve.

Clouds and Confessions

Clouds. Thick, fluffy, grey clouds, seen through a Lensbaby. It makes the sky look stormy.

 

A tiny little confession that I have been meaning to make. When I first started this blog I knew I wanted to blog about things that inspire me. And it has been a creative journey for me. I've done all kinds of creative things ......paint watercolors, paint silk scarves, paint acrylics, mixed media, among other things.

Who knew that all that time I was gravitating towards photography. I wanted to create images. I have ogled at beautiful images, marvelled at how people enhanced their photos with Photoshop and wondered about the techniques.

I have found my way to the camera and Photoshop. Someone had once told me that it is a journey to figure out what kind of creativity you are drawn to. It is so true. When I travelled and saw beautiful landscapes I wanted to be able to paint them. But I couldn't quite translate what I saw into paintings. And then I discovered the art of photography. 

My heart has settled on the camera. The idea of images that tell stories is thrilling. I have been drawn to stories since forever. As a kid my summers were filled with "story books", as I called fiction then.

This blog was always about images. Now this blog is about the images I capture. More images, less words.

It is nice to have done so many different things and to know that this is what I want to do - now. 

 

 

 

Photoshop Magic and Totally Rad's Radlab

I used Totally Rad's Radlab plugin for Photoshop to play with some of the photos I took of the historical fair.

Now if I hadn't told you about the Photoshopping, you might have thought that I had found vintage pictures. I think the chain link fence behind her might have given it away :-). I don't think they had chain link fences back then.

The black and white pics:

And here's the original.....

Pretty cool, right?

Time Travel

Time travel... or almost time travel. A few weeks back I was on the minuteman trail and found something very unexpected!

People in old fashioned clothes, with completely home-made food like home-made butter and home-made honey meade and honey wine! It was a living history exhibit. The people participating had even stitched their own clothes with materials as possibly authentic to the period of the first tea party :-).

This lovely lady had even hand stitched the shift that is to be worn under the clothes!

Day of the Dead

Here in New England Halloween has been postponed. Thanks to a freak snowstorm on Saturday that left loads of people without electricity.

But my friend had a Halloween party on Saturday afternoon before the storm hit. And she had made these awesome party favors. Take a look at the details she worked in and she must have made at least 15 of these. And I thought that the subject befit the "Day of the Dead" as well so here's commemorating "Día de los Muertos".

She made each of these hats!

 

And the tag.....

 

And glittered those eye sockets....... 

Diwali and Colors and Fall

It is Diwali today. It is like Christmas for Hindus. It is a major festival in India and some other parts of the world. Happy Diwali or Happy Deepavali!

It is a festival of lights and colors and lanterns and presents and sweets and new clothes. To see some images of this colorful festival lights see the pictures on Washington Post and to read about it check out the Wiki on Diwali page.

I don't have any traditional images to share so I am going to share some Fall/autumn colors from the Minuteman trail in Lexington, MA.

New England looks beautiful in Fall. But they are predicting snow on Friday already!

And in case you are wondering what made this picture blurry at the edges - I used the Lensbaby Composer lens to take this picture.

 

 

Twilight in Cambridge

Twilight and city lights in Cambridge (the town in Massachussetts). Twilight in September and October is so beautiful.