This was my first Monday back to work since the week before Thanksgiving, I believe. (I had vacation time to burn before the end of 2011, so I’d taken every Monday off through the end of the year!) It felt weird to be back at my desk, but I also felt extra-productive today.
I had the best weekend … on Saturday I went to a bridal expo with my mom (more about that on Wedding Wednesday) and tried on a few gowns. I didn’t find “THE” gown, but I did see some very pretty ones.
Sunday I went to a new church and actually really liked it. (*Gasp* I know – ME – church!? Sorry if this makes me responsible for bringing on the end of the world in 2012. Heh.)
Is anyone else doing #JANphotoaday? I’ve been posting mine to Instagram/Twitter. I started on Day 5 but I’m thinking I’m going to backtrack and post the days that I missed. Here are some recent snapshots for that:
And yes, I am aware I look just like my mother. ;)
P.S. If you want to follow me on Instagram, my username is mandi224 and if you’re not following me on Twitter – well – where the heck have you been!? I’m @mandi there.
I was recently contacted by Easy Canvas Prints about reviewing one of their products. I love decorating our home with photos of family and loved-ones (don’t you!?), so I jumped at the opportunity to transform one of my favorite family photos into a canvas print! It took me a while to choose a favorite photo to use. Thankfully, their website offers a great Idea Gallery to inspire your design. I eventually decided on a favorite photo of Mike and Ben that I took back on New Year’s Eve.
The Easy Canvas Prints website is SO FUN to use. They have an easy 4-step “wizard” that helps you design your very own work of art. You can choose from standard canvas sizes from 8″x8″ all the way up to a whopping 30″x40″! Their designer even displays your chosen canvas on the wall in a “virtual living room” so you can get an idea of what it will look like…
I chose an 8″x10″ canvas with a .75″ standard wrap, with the edges of the image wrapped around the sides of the canvas. The level of customization they allow is really remarkable. The Easy Canvas Prints website even offers photo retouching and conversion to black and white or sepia-tone, so you don’t have to be a Photoshop-guru to get fantastic results!
And our results?
I think that face speaks for itself! Benny loved seeing a big picture of he and his Daddy displayed in our living room. Mike commented that it almost looks like an oil painting because of the beautiful texture of the canvas.
I love the way it looks hanging in our living room! I’m looking forward to showing it off when we have friends over too.
I have to send a big thank you to Megan and Easy Canvas Prints!
I can highly recommend their service — their website easy to use, their shipping is fast, and the finished product is truly a work of art! I’m already planning to order more prints for gifts!!
Make your own canvas print at EasyCanvasPrints.com
And be sure to check out Easy Canvas Prints on Facebook and Twitter!
I have always found portrait photography to be extremely intimidating, and because of that, I’ve avoided it. In the past, I have gravitated toward photographing architecture more than anything. It’s not hard to make an inanimate building look good (or at a minimum, interesting).
People are entirely different. Every individual has their own unique angles and expressions and poses that do and don’t work for them. A talented photographer can find those angles almost instantly, and work the rest out in post-production. A hobbyist or amateur, like myself, can only hope to get lucky and learn along the way.
I was thinking the other day … not only is portrait photography challenging, but portraits of men are especially difficult to shoot. Making a pretty girl look cute in a glamour shot isn’t nearly so difficult, in my opinion, as photographing a man and not having it come out looking overly posed, girly, or just plain hokey.
I’ve been looking for inspiration all over. I love some of the classic photography on The Impossible Cool (specifically, see examples of Marlon Brando, Carey Grant, Dean Martin and Sean Connery … epitome of cool). Of course there’s also the amazing Annie Leibovitz and David LaChapelle. I love their work, because not only are they portraits, they are also works of art in that they illicit an emotion or convey a story more-so than just capturing a pretty face.
So I’ve decided to make it my mission to learn how to photograph people, specifically men. Lucky for me, I have a willing victim guinea pig to experiment with. More accurately, I have four willing models, because Mike’s band, Casting Shadows, needs promotional photos.
I’ve been out with Mike, giving myself a bit of a crash course. We have come up with some fantastic ideas that I hope to execute at some point, when we have the time and money to gather a few props and costume items. But for now, we’re working with whatever interesting settings we stumble upon, and I’m learning a lot along the way already.
Mike playing at the Casting Shadows concert, 4/24/2010.
(More Wordless Wednesday posts)
