Two Wishes

Polaroid's Last Stand

I first fell in love with Polaroid films many years ago, after an afternoon class on Polaroid Manipulations. The ink in Polaroid's SX-70 film takes a while to harden, so by pressing on it with a small, pointy instrument you can "mush" it around to create little works of art.  I can't draw a thing, so this is the closest to Impressionist Painter that I will ever reach!:

One of my favorites -- a restful spot in London's Hyde Park. Though don't know why the bottom isn't loading properly, sorry!

Or should I say ... you could once create little works of art?  Polaroid stopped making SX-70 film a couple of years ago.  Manipulation lovers everywhere panicked, cried, and stocked up on whatever sad supplies were still in existence, but alas the film is gone for good.

And now the rest of the Polaroid film stock is set to follow on the road to obsolescence ... Polaroid film will stop production on December 31.  Though, in a bit of good news, the company is having one last hurrah, with speciality pack films (the peel-apart kind some of us remember form 1970s childhoods) in beautiful, muted tones of blue, chocolate, and sepia.

Blue and Sepia examples from the Polapremium gallery. I especially love the second one -- take away the strip of land across the water, and it could be the view from my old concrete-block apartment high above the Mediterranean in Haifa, Israel.

Each color is available for $16 /pack at Polapremium.  (They are located in Austria, so unfortunately US shipping is a bear.  But I used them at the height of the SX-70 feeding frenzy, and they are completely reliable and professional.)

Fellow Polaroid lover?  If you're looking for substitutes, check out this article on Photojojo.  And if you're still holding out hope, Save Polaroid is the site for you!

Polaroid is dead.  Long live Polaroid.

(Final image thanks to Arlisnap.)

Cancel My Makeover!

Thanks to Smashing Magazine's recent list of 70 Beauty-Retouching Photoshop Tutorials, I never have to look attractive in person again. Apparently, appearance is all in the Photoshop, baby!!

Sure, we know what Photoshop routinely does for celebrities:

(The lovely -- and lovelier -- Christina Applegate.)

But it can do so much for the rest of us as well. For example, why lose weight when you can magically melt away spare tires and cellulite?

Or, perhaps you'd like shinier hair?

How about longer fingernails? 

Other possibilities include nose jobs, thicker eyelashes, a new hair color, bigger boobs, whiter teeth ... and, of course, the all-around touch-up:

I may never visit the beauty salon again! But you'll never know it, my cyber-friends.... A little study time with these tutorials, and I'll be looking HOT.

(All images and all 70 tutorials linked here.)

Engagement Photos!

It seems to be engagement photo season around here these days -- I know several of the Bees have just gotten theirs back. And, so have we!

As you may recall, we were originally torn over whether to have a professional photographer for the wedding.... But it turns out hiring Punam Bean was a fantastic decision. She was a joy to work with, and we're in love with the engagement photos. Now we can't WAIT for the wedding pics!!

We traveled up to NYC for the photos, since that's where Punam Bean lives. (FYI, for anyone who needs to travel between DC and NYC, there's a new $25 bus with guaranteed reservations and wireless Internet onboard -- you can't beat it!) It was freezing all day and drizzled off and on, but we had a great time. Started the afternoon at South Street Seaport:

The area seemed to be ruled by seagulls. We were even buzzed by a seagull flyby. (Me: "I only have eyes for you, Mr. T." Mr T: "Well, maybe you should spare some for the enormous bird flying right at your head!"):

Then we traveled to the DUMBO neighborhood in Brooklyn, where I used to lived. There are lots of magazine photo shoots taken here, and my old roommate and I wax nostalgic whenever we come across one in a magazine. Many of them are shot on this street, with the Manhattan Bridge in the background:

And at the end of the afternoon, we ended up at a playground! (I love this next shot because of the grafitti underneath us, which we didn't notice till we saw the photo.... Also for the glimpse of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background.)

Finally, as we were packing up and some serious drizzle started, we noticed a patch of what looked like grass made of fiber optic lights, growing in a park along the river. And came away with this magical shot:

A few lessons learned from our e-pic session:

1. We were both really nervous because we tend to be shy in front of a camera. But it turned out to be fun just walking around together and exploring. The photographer takes so many pictures that you start to forget she's there. And when in doubt, you can always smooch! We clearly took full advantage of the smooching option. But it was great for neutralizing our tendency for goofy facial expressions....

2. Don't worry too much about what you're going to wear. Basics like color matter much more than the intricacies of style. I agonized over the issue, changing clothes multiple times before we left. (In summer, a flirty sundress or vintage skirt would be so easy. But what do you wear when it's 30 degrees?) And as it turned out, we never took off our coats!

3. Similarly, don't worry too much about location. Sure, sometimes fun locations (like Miss Petunia's amusement park) can make for equally fun pictures. But you can also get great photos on the street, on a bench, against a wall, wherever....

What words of wisdom for engagement pictures (or any pictures!) would you share with everyone?

We booked a photographer!!

Thanks almost entirely to advice from the Hive, Mr. T and I have gone ahead and booked my beloved wedding photographer.  The contract is signed, the deposit put down, and we're meeting her in a few weeks for an engagement shoot.  I'm still crazy about her, so now that everything's official, I wanted to share her details with you ASAP.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Punam Bean:

Sure, there are a number of excellent wedding photographers out there.  But there's one fact that sets Punam Bean apart -- she just started photographing weddings, and she's already this good!  I feel extremely blessed to have discovered her at this point in her career, because she's still affordable and it was still possible to book her on only a few months' notice.  I suspect this won't be the case in a few years' time, once the community has discovered her talents.

When I was looking at photographers, there was nothing that made me as sad as finding someone I loved and then discovering that her/his rates were 2-3 (and even up to 5!) times my maximum.  But Punam's 2008 rates start at $2,000.  And that price includes an engagement session.  And you get a DVD of your images.  She's willing to travel and is reasonable about travel expenses, which is how this DC bride ended up with an NYC photographer.....  Plus, she's absolutely enthusiastic about her work and seems like a joy to work with!  I can't tell you how excited I am to finally meet her when we travel to NYC for the engagement shoot next month.

For more information, to contact Punam Bean, and/or to check out more of her wonderful photos, you can visit her website. 

P.S.  She also does Trash the Dress and boudoir shoots, and even some amazing headshots of her fellow NYC actresses.  (Yes, this multi-talented woman is also an actress!)

Final Potpourri of Photoshop Filters

To close out my little spree of extra-easy Photoshop filter tricks -- a potpourri of other fun filters that I recently discovered.  All examples are demonstrated on a photo of a friend's basset hound at a Tulsa Drillers game on "Take Your Dog to the Ballpark Day"....

First, "solarized" pictures.  To get this effect, go into the "Filter" menu, then open "Stylize" and then "Solarize":

Second, images that appear to have been made with a rubber stamp.  (I've always been too lazy to want to carve my own rubber stamps, so I looove this fake-it effect!)  Just go into the "Filter" menu and open "Sketch" and then "Stamp":

You can also highlight the contours of a photo, so that it comes out looking like one of those maps that shows different land elevations.  Not sure why you'd ever do this, except that it looks sort of neat!  Just go into "Filter" and then "Stylize" and "Trace Contour":

Another "just 'cause it's neat" option is to give all edges a bit of a neon glow.  This effect lives in the "Filter" menu under "Stylize" and "Glowing Edges":

And finally, if the former options are all a bit too avant-garde, here's one with a good old-fashioned look:  One of the filter options allows you to give a photo more grain.  This seemed a bit strange to me at first, given how hard photographers work to get rid of visible grain in their photos, but turns out the results can look great. 

This filter lives in the "Filter" menu under "Artistic" and "Film Grain".  To get the effect below, I then went into the "Enhance" menu and used the "Colorize" option (described in some of my other Photoshop posts) to give the picture a sepia cast.  And voila -- looks like Freddie the Basset could have met Babe Ruth!:

Photoshop Fun Part IV: Embossing

Here's another super-easy Photoshop filter that I discovered the other day....   By going into the Photoshop "Filter" menu and then choosing  "Stylize" and "Emboss," you can give your photograph the look of an embossed design pressed into paper or metal. 

The effect looks particularly impressive for photographs with lots of architectural detail, as with this view of the inside of the National Building Museum here in DC:

The filter renders all photographs in the monochromatic gray tone seen above.  To change the color, you can manipulate hue, saturation, etc. by going into the "Enhance" menu and then going into "Color" / "Hue/Saturation" and clicking the "Colorize" box.  For instance, this view of the Arno in Florence was changed to a sepia brown:

Tomorrow: one last batch of filters.  Stay tuned!

Photoshop Fun Part III: Cutouts

Another in the series of Photoshop tricks I discovered the other night: Cutouts.  I'm not sure how the process works, but the results are pretty nifty!  Here's my favorite pic of the Brooklyn dog:

To apply this trick, open the photo in Photoshop, open the "Filters" drop-down menu, then "Artistic" and "Cutout."  There are several sliders to apply your choices for number of levels and edge characteristics.  And voila -- instant art!

The look of these cutout pictures reminds me of recent digitally painted movies like Through a Scanner Darkly and Waking Life.  It looks quite interesting with snapshots of people as well.  Here's a shot of my dad and me:

Coming up soon are a few last Photoshop tricks, and then sneak peeks into some Japanese craft books that arrived this weekend.  And then, believe it or not, I may actually have a finished craft to show off.  Hooray!

Photoshop Fun Part II: Fresco Paintings

Once I learned yesterday's Photoshop trick, I decided to play around with a few more of the dozens of Photoshop "Filter" options that I've never tried.  There are some fun ones!  Here's another of my favorites, which converts your photos into something resembling a fresco painting:

(Yep, that's the same Brooklyn dog from yesterday....)  This method is even easier to perform than the charcoal prints, as it's only one step -- just go to the "Filters" drop-down menu, choose "Artistic" and then "Fresco", play around with the slider options (for brush size, amount of texture, etc.), and you're done!  A few other examples:

My cat, Milo (here trying to ship himself off to one of my friends), as a fresco

Rather than a fresco inside a church, a fresco of a church (in Bermuda)!

Photoshop Fun: Sepia Prints

Here's a fun little Photoshop trick that I learned last night:  You can turn a color digital photo into something that looks like a sepia-toned charcoal print.... 

Here's the result with a random photo of a dog in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn:

Best of all, the process is extremely easy! 

1.  Just open your file in Photoshop (the Elements version works too; that's the one I use), go to the "Filter" menu, and choose "Sketch" and then "Charcoal." 

2.  There are a few variables like thickness of the charcoal and amount of detail -- you can either try the default or play with these settings to your liking.  (Tip: If the preview window doesn't show enough of the photo for you to judge how things will look, try hitting the "subtract" button underneath for a larger preview.)

3.  Once your photo has been transformed to a charcoal sketch, you can sepia-tone it by going to the "Enhance" menu and choosing "Color," then "Hue/Saturation."  In the lower right-hand corner, there's a box that says "Colorize"; when you check this, the photo will turn a uniform brownish hue.  From there, you can play with the sliders to get your preferred tones.  For example, I like to move "Hue" a bit to the right to go from brown to sepia, and lower "Saturation" a bit for the look of a faded print.

Here are a few others I tried last night.  Some photos turn out better than others, depending on the balance of light and dark and the amount of detail, but it's such a quick process that it's fun and easy to experiment!

Rainy street in small-town Belgium


My feet enjoying a beach in Bermuda

My Newest Photo Toy

Remember a few years back, when someone first figured out how to create photo mosaics (thousands of tiny photographs combined to make up a larger picture) and they had a brief burst of popularity in art and advertising?  Well, they're back, and this time you can make them yourself with the Internet Mosaic Generator.  Here's my boy Milo as a mosaic:

It's totally my new favorite toy!  Best of all, it's free, and you don't have to register for anything.