09 August 2009

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Aug 9, 2009 in Fashion

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Hello everyone!

I can't believe that summer's drawing to an end. (No, I can't say that! If I don't say it, I won't believe it's true - and then it won't be true, right? Sigh.)

I've a question for everyone. I know some people here are into photography. I am, and I also like to play around with photo processing software. (As you might tell by the photograph above). I had an old version of paint shop, but that went away when I had to get rid of everything on my hard drive. Right now I'm using a freeware program called photoscape. I like it a lot, but it tends to have lots of settings and preset things and makes it difficult to actually do things yourself. (Although I must admit that the antique and fisheye filters are fun). Does anyone have any recommendations on another photo software?

All that said, I'm still very much a fan of film photography. I've got an old minolta slr that I simply love. I should be getting a roll of film back from walmart soon, can't wait to see how my photos turn out. Anyway. On that note, here's a poem that I wrote a day or two ago.

Snap a Photograph and Walk Away

We manipulate
The film
In our darkrooms:
Emotion is a mere function
Of colour, light, and chemical,
Until it matches our memories
Like a negative,
A little smaller, a little less colourful, a little more transparent.
Yet it matches.

And we clip the two together,
A small square of waxy grey paper
Folded to protect
Against the sharpness of aluminum,
And file them both away
In one of the abrupt corners
Of a steel cabinet, shedding chips of paint
Somewhere between dark mustard
And warm olive.

We file them away,
Together with the memory
Of all the things,
All the intricate moments
And all the simple beauty
We ache to give our hearts to,
But for which we cannot stop our lives
Any longer
Than the moment it takes
To fill the frame,
Snap a photograph,
And walk away.

I'll try to catch up on styleboards and blogazine posts and all of the wonderful things that happen while I'm away.

Until next time. <3

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Comments (17)

I'm envying this rite now!I just use a Nikon, and fool around w/ the angles, i mostly use black&white and SepiaI got a little too obsessed w/ it, so i went crazy and spent $260 onAdobe Photoshop Lightroom2 , I thougght i was some kind of Pro.....?!? Try besybuy, they might have something a little less, maybe. Report Spam Posted by atalina_08 at 3:06 PM on 08/09/09
I also use Adobe Photoshop and it's great :] Report Spam Posted by crayola09 at 4:21 PM on 08/09/09
If you can't afford photoshop you can try downloading GIMP for free from download.com it works like a very very poor imitation of photoshop. Report Spam Posted by lavabunny at 4:53 PM on 08/09/09
I cant afford photoshop so I use Picnik, sometimes it makes me computer slow when im using it but I really like all the effects; the have preset settings but then you can mess around with them after that. Sometimes I use the Photobucket editor but it doesnt have the bar to change the settings. I'll have to check out Photoscape, when you said fisheye filter I got excited! Report Spam Posted by dreapuff at 9:47 PM on 08/09/09
I'm using photoshop. I don't think a photoshop user can use no other programs cos they would make feel very shallow. Report Spam Posted by tort at 12:41 PM on 08/10/09
Great poem btw. Report Spam Posted by tort at 12:41 PM on 08/10/09
Love your poem! My suggestion for photo editing would be to familiarize yourself with bit torrent and then just download it. Which is kinddddd of illegal, but where in do they get off charging $699 for Photoshop?! Students can get a significant discount on it, so maybe look into that (if you're a student) or find a friend who will let you rip their copy? Report Spam Posted by emyko at 2:09 PM on 08/10/09
i always use picnik..don't know if that has what you would like or not though.. I LOVE FILM TOO!!! great poem and cute pic! Report Spam Posted by jennic at 6:34 AM on 08/11/09
Great poem! I've been using photoscape for a while too. It is a bit frustrating to achieve some things with it. But I guess its what you get for free! Report Spam Posted by agauthier79 at 6:58 AM on 08/11/09
lovely poem--keep creating! Report Spam Posted by emyink at 11:42 AM on 08/11/09
i really didnt care for the poem it seemed a lil out of focus... what would a photo be if we just snapped it & walked away? Report Spam Posted by amped at 4:12 PM on 08/27/09
That was a completely awesome poem!I use Gimp, but then I'm a computer professional; I have a hard time recommending it to others. Definitely look into the student version. There are also stripped down versions of Photoshop (like Elements) that cost a lot less, and are typically included free with things like pen tablets. Report Spam Posted by zow at 6:41 PM on 08/28/09
very nice. I'm don't have that sort of creative gene Report Spam Posted by shaneesez at 9:15 PM on 08/31/09
thanks everyone for the comments! i'm sorry it's taken me so long to write back! Report Spam Posted by amiens at 12:19 PM on 09/15/09
hmmm, for all who said that photoshop is great, i've looked it up a couple of times and am very tempted! Especially with the student discount thing. :-) before I buy something, though, I'll try GIMP and Picnik. thanks everyone for the suggestions, and for the comments on the poem! amped - thanks for reading the poem, i'm always happy to hear everyone's comments. when i wrote the poem, what i meant by snapping it and walking away was sort of capturing it and then filing the moment away until we take it out again to look at it. if that makes any more sense. :-) Report Spam Posted by amiens at 12:23 PM on 09/15/09
I like to use Picasa. http://picasa.google.com/ It's simple, but it does have some nice editing features. It works for what I like to do. Report Spam Posted by anna_panda at 3:50 PM on 10/18/09
I totally love the poem. I got the idea of filing the moment away. Sometimes that's all there is time for unfortunately.I currently use Paint Shop Pro 7. I used to have Photoshop that a friend was kind enough to let me borrow, but I lost it when my hard drive crashed. I haven't upgraded to any of the latest PSP versions though. It seems since Corel bought them the feature set was going a different direction than the older versions. I do have version 9 but I uninstalled it and went back to version 7. Report Spam Posted by lamerchick at 6:48 AM on 11/12/09