Hanging with my gal pals

From a "DailyOm" that I can relate to at present:

"Releasing our attachment to specific outcomes gives the universe the opportunity to create more blessings in our lives. By opening to the flow of abundance and goodness the universe has to offer us, we open the door to allow this abundance to enter our lives. Rather than feeling fearful that we are not in control, we learn to see the goodness in every situation and put forth positive energy that will attract even more beneficial circumstances into our lives. We then realize that our attempts to control events only blocked us from the blessings the universe already had in store for us. If you surrender to the natural flow of abundance and joy the universe has to offer today, you may end up with better circumstances than you could have created on your own..."


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Hanging with my gal pals:

I was invited to hang with my gal pals, at Tammy’s place. Here are shots of us taken on Tammy's porch :)







The trip did us good and reminded me of a timely article that said "Our best friends are a warm refuge in which we feel free to be fully ourselves, to share our deepest secrets, to rest when we are tired, to celebrate when we are happy—a place in which we feel utterly welcome to give and receive that most precious of all gifts, love ... We allow each other to be exactly as we are at a given moment, even as we allow each other to change over time. In this way, best friends sometimes feel like family. We know we will stick together regardless of where our individual paths lead.."

Tammy made a simple dinner that both Em and I took notes on making and it comprised of hormone free hens, sweet potatoes and green beans. She also had cookies in the oven when we arrived, which was supplemented by the sweets Em and I brought.







Being the photo geek that I am, I of course had to capture memories.

Here's a fun shot of Tammy as we prepared to go out:



Unfortunately, Em couldn’t stay long, so the pics taken at the pool hall only comprised of Tammy and I. I didn’t realize just how much I liked pool until I played again, and I hadn’t played in a very long time – perhaps a decade or so ago. The operative word being play. And I so love to play and frolic, as each are qualities I favor in myself and appreciate and relate to in others.

On our way to the pool hall, we came across a very talented belly dancer:

Blogging with more consistency

I recently perused my blog archives and was tickled to see how far I’ve progressed in photography. The image of me posted above was shot by my Flickr contact, Scott.

My interest in photography bloomed New Year’s day, 2008. I remember happily strolling along a local park with my new DSLR camera in hand and vividly recall how excited and proud I was to get a fairly decent shot of an anhinga sharing a branch with an iguana in the middle of a lake, while they basked in the sun. However, intimidated by the intricacy of my camera, I worked in automatic settings.

Determined to work with more proficiency, I attended a workshop at the place that sold me the camera, and on 1/13/08, I was taught the significance of shutter speed, aperture and white balance. I remember how Greek it sounded to me at the time.

I had decided to connect with others of like mind and to surround myself with those more knowledgeable, so I joined a local wildlife photography group, and found it so fun to read what I wrote about my experience at the first meetup that was held in Sanibel Island on 2/10/08.

Now, almost 2 years later, I’m in a phase where I rarely take photos. Perhaps it’s because I’ve recently been engrossed in experimenting with photo manipulation and digital art. But getting back into photography is on my to do list.

I used to blog a lot about my goals and aspirations but because they lacked consistency, it became hard to keep up. I’ve noticed a pattern in my interests and pursuits. My level of interest in something is in proportion my level of learning, novelty/diversity of subjects. Unfortunately, my Gemini tendency of becoming easily bored is a big factor and impediment.

I could resist my nature, but it would be pointless. Once my heart is no longer into an endeavor, it unfortunately loses it’s authenticity.

My newest love is Crossfit! Joined up early September and although I haven’t been as consistent as I’d like, I’ve loved how it empowers me. My journey toward fitness will also become a regular journal entry.

Anyway, my new year’s resolution is to keep up with my blog and post accompanying pictures. I look forward to the challenge.

Libra's impending full moon

Libra rules Karma (action) and it is Libra’s job to give us the ability to pursue “right action”.

What is this principle of right action?

1. Seek justice with fairness and balance.

2. Embrace your differences without being attached to them.

3. Work to understand viewpoints other than your own.

4. Remember “the truth” is relative and based upon one’s perception.

5. Initiate compromise, the basic building block of all solutions.

6. When we give a little we get a lot. When we give a lot, we get more than we can imagine.

7. Negotiation can always be the first and last response to conflict.

8. Violence is not a viable way to bring peace. Violence only begets more violence.

9. Insist on peace and non-violence.

10. When you cause pain and suffering to others, you destroy yourself in equal measure.

11. Saying and doing everything with love, compassion and respect is the only way to win.

Taken from: http://www.astrowisdom.com/thisfullmoon.htm

Letting go of resistance

From today's Daily Motivator:

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

No more resistance

Allowing the best of life involves nothing more than becoming aware of your resistance to it. Shine the light of awareness on your resistance, and that resistance dissolves into nothing.

Allow life's richness to be, and it flows freely into your experience. See your pain and frustration for the resistance that they are, and suddenly they are no more.

If you focus on the concerns of your ego, the resistance builds up. Realize that you are not your ego, and suddenly the resistance has no basis.

Resisting the limitless abundance of life is your own choice. As soon as you understand you've made that choice, you can quickly let it go.

Imagine what will happen when you simply stop judging, criticizing, and resenting yourself and others. You open yourself to a whole new world of beautiful possibilities.

Feel the resistance that you've created within your own life, and know that you can choose to peacefully let it go. Let it go, and come fully to life.

-- Ralph Marston

Pandora's Box

This is in conjunction with mine and Laura's photoshoot of a month ago, where we posed as mermaids. She started it off using her astrological sign as her theme, and mine was based on the wonders of Photoshop.

I used 5 images total, 2 of which were Laura and I posed separately. The other 3 (the cave, treasure box, and octopus were stock images).

Refresher and technical notes for how I achieved the image:

The cave was once brown, and I converted it to the color you see above mostly using "colorize," under the hue/saturation. But it was also attained by experimenting with duplicate layering and changing the blending modes, such as "multiply" and "luminosity."

I made the octopus image deeper with duplicate layering under the "multiply" blending mode.

I changed the box color from a brownish color to green, with Layer Style Blending Options "Color overlay," "Inner Shadow" and "Gradient overlay."

The contents escaping the box and the fishes were done with brushes, mostly set to light blue, but I did use a "pattern" for one of them under Layer Style Blending Options, and it was a pattern I created sometime ago in the Faerie-reading image.

Lastly, the mermaids were Laura and I posed individually with our hair in buns and garbed in undergarments. We took turns balancing horizontally on a footstool. I covered each of us using a "pattern" taken from fish scales. I changed the colors using color overlay and masked the scales from our arms, head and neck. I tweaked under the transformation option, using "rotate," "scales" and "warp."

For the hair, I used a hair brush for mine, and cut and pasted shots of Laura's hair for hers, using the "scales" and "warp" options from the transformation menu. The waves in our hair were achieved using "liquify" which is an option I learned to use from one of my photoshop books.

And that's it :)

from the Daily Motivator

I like this from today's Daily Motivator

Friday, December 5, 2008

Your thoughts show

Thoughts can feel like they are private and hidden deep inside of you. Yet they have an influence that extends far beyond you.

What if others could know what you were thinking? Would it change the content of your thoughts?

In many ways, other people can and do know what you are thinking. Because your thoughts are faithfully expressed by the life you lead.

If you're constantly thinking negative, limiting thoughts, people will be able to tell just by looking at you and your life's conditions. In the same way, when you fill your mind with positive, empowering thoughts, that will be wonderfully obvious.

You might be able to hide the specific details of your thoughts. Yet you cannot hide the true nature of those thoughts.

Your thoughts, whatever they may be, are expressed in every aspect of your life. Continually guide those thoughts to positive places, and your whole world will follow.

-- Ralph Marston

Clashing worlds

As I stated in Flickr, "When I took my SP, my vision was for me to be a fairy lulling a unicorn.

Life changed that, and my new motivation was to have it reflect something symbolic to my situation. I appreciate how art provides us the medium to express in subtle and cryptic ways ... :)"

Anyway, my costume was created using 4 different images via Photoshop and the tiger was from a photo I took while at the zoo. Below are some of the the images I used.

Me before I added Snow White garb:

Luckily I had the presence of mind to think of landscape. I pieced this to the photo above to give me room to insert the tiger:

White Bengal Tiger shot I took at the Miami Zoo. Unfortunately, the tiger was profiled, looking straight ahead instead of slightly to the rear (which would've suited the image better), but I had to make do. Since my eyes were not focused from a fully profiled standpoint, I had to place the tiger where my line of vision was, but it still looked off, so I changed the perspective a touch.

In general, I copied and masked everything into place. And then I added rays of light using the white to transparent linear gradient tool, with feathering. I also used the spotlight and omni light found in the rendering option.

Lastly, I used Mulletgod's Retouch Bonanza action to give it cohesion and contrast.