Falling in love with Tilt-shift Photography

Have you discovered Tilt-shift photography yet? I'm not really sure about the ins and outs of it, but true Tilt-shift photography uses a special lens that affects the depth of field. The truly amazing TiltShiftMaker will transform your photos so that they look like a set in miniature.

I discovered TiltShiftMaker about a month ago and immediately started playing around with my various photos. Since then, I have started seeing the world in "tilt-shift" i.e., I see scenes that I think would be candidates for the tilt-shift treatment. Such is true of the above photo, taken from the European side of Istanbul, Turkey overlooking the Bosphorus Strait.

TiltShiftMaker enhances the colors a bit as part of the process, but I also tweaked the above picture a bit more in Picnik (which is a wonderful free photo editing site). Here is the original:



By the way, I'm developing a love affair with the Bosphorus. It is so beautiful and I feel incredibly blessed to gaze upon its shimmering waters every day. I'd post a Bosphorus collage, but I have no patience for the s-l-o-w internet connection here.

Until next time,

XOXO,

Snowflake Collage

I spent the evening at home making virtual snowflakes at the Make-a-Flake website. I don't know what I like about cutting these little flakes out-- especially since it is online, and I don't even get to keep the results of my hard work (except in a virtual way).

I also really enjoy the photo editing site, Picnik. If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should. I could spend hours playing with my photos on their free website, and now they've added a feature where you can organize your photos in a collage. I made a collage of my hard work tonight:

Swing of things

My first weekend back in the city has been jam-packed-- it certainly has not taken me any time to get back into the swing of things.

Corrie and I passed Saturday taking fun pictures around the city. I used Picnik to adjust the look of our photos. That night we went to Megu and Beatrice, two nightspots. We had a blast dancing until 4am and then sleeping in late today. Here are some highlights from the weekend:

Part of the subway art. I can't remember what stop this is on the metro.

Christmas in the city

Corrie models some cool vintage glasses

Outside Bopkat Vintage in Brooklyn-- my new favorite vintage shop

"Playing" with the subway poster.

Goofing around at Beatrice Inn, where, incidentally, you're not supposed to take pictures.

Meet the Internet

I'm quite proud of myself these days: Firstly, I started my own blog on blogger (I also have two travel blogs here), and have actually managed to stick with it since March.  Secondly, I've now gotten the hang of adding pictures, utilizing programs such as Flickr, to add some panache to my pages, and, as of a couple of days ago, I've learned how to imbed videos into my pages.  Add to that the use of Google's web tools such as Google Analytics, and even some tinkering around on Blogrolling, Feedblitz, and Feedburner, and I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring these things out.  For today's trick, I'd like to upload my first Picasa web album-- I made it last night as a web portfolio of my modeling pictures to send to potential agencies when looking for representation.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is me with a lotta makeup on, retouching, and good lighting.  Oh yeah, let's not forget photographers that know what they're doing.

Without further ado, I present my first Picasa Web Album:  (Yeah!)

And, while I'm on the subject of cool websites, my niece turned me on to this one: Picnik.  It's a free online picture editing website-- great for those of us who like to play with our pictures but don't have ready access to Photoshop.  Definitely check it out!