Shadow Shot Sunday : Arches

Hi!  Time for another Shadow Shot Sunday!

I love arches.  

I love shadows. 

 I love light.  

Where there are no shadows, there is no light.

Any questions?

If you'd like to join us with your own shadow shots, visit Hey Harriet for details.

And The Winner Is...

Time to announce the winner of my very first giveaway!  I'm going to make this short because it's been a LONG week and I'm exhausted!  (I'll share photos of the finished cabinets I've been working on soon).

So...drumroll please......

The winner of "The Artist's Way" book (and a handmade card that's not yet made!) is....  Natasha May!  Hi! It's so nice to meet you and congratulations!!  Yay!!  I'll need your address so I'm on my way to your blog now to contact you!!  

And if you're wondering what the photo has to do with this, I couldn't find a good photo of a celebration or fireworks in my stash, so I figured this light kind of looks like fireworks!  I showed more of these dandelion/firework lights a while back in this post here.  xoE

Shadow Shot Sunday : Horse Babble, or is it Babbling Horse?

Hi there.  Welcome to Shadow Shot Sunday.  

These were taken from our yard, peeking over our neighbors wall... shhh.... 

I think it's pretty darn cool to have horses just right next door to us.  Except on the nights when one is feeling rowdy and kicks the METAL feed bin over and over.  And over.  And over.

Then it's not so cool. 

 But most of the time it's cool.  Like this time, when the horse was posing for his shadow shots.  He's pretty vain actually.  Or maybe it's a she.  I haven't checked.  Then I would call her a diva.

Anywho... enough of the nonsense.  You're probably thinkin I got kicked in the head by the horse.

 Nope. 

 Just me babbling... this is how my brain works.  I've been sparing you guys for a while now, but... well... that's boring.  Welcome to my bizarre sense of humor.  Please don't be scared.  

Is sniffing a horse like sniffing glue?  Is that what's happening here?  They make glue from them right? Yipes! From the hooves I mean? Do they still do that?!  Sounds mean.  But it seems like that's the effect that's happening here.  hmmm...  Something to ponder. 

 Hey, where'd you all go?

I'd like to blame all this on the horse above.  He typed this.  I was just an innocent bystander. 

To pretend the above didn't happen and go find some normal shadow shots click here to go to Hey Harriet for SSS.

Shadow Shot Sunday : Columns

Hello there.  It's time once again for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Boy it sneaks up fast.

I took this photo a couple of weeks back at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. I love it there, it's such a nice place to wander around aimlessly.

  

Well... not completely aimless... 

we did HAVE to make sure we went to Anthropologie.  If I could only move in ... at least to one of their catalogs... sigh....

I went there with my friend Manya on a gorgeous day and took a few shadow shots to have on hand for cloudy days like today.  I loved the way the shadows from the pergola were creating stripes on the columns.  

Oh, and I think I have a fascination with columns, but I won't bore you with that ; )

To join in with your own shadows visit Hey Harriet.

Shadow Shot Sunday : Altered Image

For this weeks shadow shot I dug in my photo stash from my photography classes from about 6-7 years ago.  This was one of my first assignments.  We had to take a photo of something, then figure out ways to alter the photo in different ways.  The original photo is above.  

No photoshop her folks, all printed in a darkroom (I miss it sooo much!)  with some hand-altered goodness.

For this second one (which I LOVE because it looks like it has shadows from palm trees!) the developer was brushed on loosely.  So cool!

 The one above was bleached.  I love how soft and faded it is.

For this forth one I used oil paint that's specifically for photos to color it.  There were no brushes so I had to paint it with cotton swabs.

And the last one that I'm showing you from this assignment shows that my love of collage was already creeping in at that point.  To do this I printed the photo twice.  One in black and white and one in sepia.  Then I tore the black and white one and glued pieces of it onto the sepia and folded the edges over a bit here and there.  

I have many more versions of this photo, but these are my favorites.

To see more or join in with us for Shadow Shot Sunday go here.

Shadow Shot Sunday : Door

Quick post.  Big headache.  Cool door to an outdoor patio at a restaurant. 

Welcome to Shadow Shot Sunday.

For more or to join in, go here.

Sorry so short.  I'll be back as soon as my brain behaves.  xo

Shadow Shot Sunday :

Hello there.

Another week has flown by. 

Another set of shadow shots to post for Shadow Shot Sunday.

I don't know if you've figured this out yet, but I LOVE dramatic lighting.

I love how dark the shadows are in the photo above with the pop of sunlight on the ground in front of the cool silhouetted tree.

I was only going to post the photo above, but I wanted to share more photos so you can better see what the sky looked like at this time...

Not natural, but it looks cool.

It's fun and addicting to search for and photograph shadows.  

You should join in the fun.  

You know you want to.  

Stop fighting it and go here to figure out how to join in with the rest of us shadow hunters.  

See you there.

Oh...And I totally forgot to thank you all for you input on last weeks shadow shots...so THANK YOU!!     I couldn't decide again this week, so I put all three.  Close enough.

Shadow Shot Sunday : Decisions, Decisions...

So it usually takes me FOREVER to choose photos to post because I always have trouble picking my favorites out of the MANY that I take during each shoot.  I wanted to narrow it down to two photos...one of the closer vertical shots, and one of the long horizontal shots.  I kept on going back and forth between each of these.  There's something a like about each one.  Finally I decided to post them and have you choose instead!  Please let me know which your prefer out of the two photos above, then while you're at it...pick one from the photos below too.  Thanks for doing my job for me! ; )

If you want to join in with your own shadow shots, or just see who else is participating, pop on over to Hey Harriet for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Shadow Shot Sunday : High Five

Here's my shadow shot for this week. 

 I love the simplicity of this photo.  I had actually told my son to go "high five" the wall so I could try to catch him and his shadow before he ran away.  Yup.  He's two.  Enough said?

To join in Shadow Shot Sunday, click here to visit Hey Harriet.

Shadow Shot Sunday : Art Sneak Peek

I can't believe it's already time for another shadow shot!  Where does the week go?  I wanted to share a new art piece with you but it's not quite done.  Just needs to dry so I can do the final details.  So I'm going to give you a lil' up close up detail shot just to tease ....uh..err.....to hold you over I mean.

To see more shadowy shots, visit Hey Harriet for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Happy Holidays to Everyone!!

I just wanted to wish everyone the best for this holiday season.

Enjoy this time with your friends and family.

See you soon.

Shadow Shot Sunday : Portland, Oregon-Style

These photos were taken a few weeks back while we were up in Oregon visiting family.  I love going to Portland whenever we go up there.  It's such an artsy city and there are some amazing buildings.  This one really caught my eye because the beautiful architecture and details really stood out, especially with the way the light was hitting it, creating some very cool shadows.

I cropped in closer on this bottom picture, so you can better see the shadows created by the chains and awnings.  With that said...these are my submissions for Hey Harriet's Shadow Shot Sunday.  To check out everyone else shadows or join in the fun yourself, just click on the button below.  Enjoy!

Light and Beauty and SSS

There is something about the light in Oregon that takes my breath away, especially the late afternoon light.  That's my favorite time of day anyway because I LOVE the long shadows, and because the afternoon light seems to soften the appearance of everything that its warm glow caresses,

even paved roads and dirty, tattered old mail boxes.

These pictures were taken from my sister's house, at the end of her driveway.  Amazing.  Every afternoon I would just stare out at their front yard and try to take it all in...try to soak up the light and beauty that was right there in front of me...right in their yard.  I wondered if I would ever get anything done at this time of day if I lived there...and wondered how often her and her husband stop....and just breath it in.

This is for you V and B, to remind you to not take advantage of the beauty that surrounds you...and to remind all of us to do the same.  We may not all have a view like this, but there is always beauty that we could appreciate right there in front of us, which we probably take for granted.

What is it that is right there in front of you, that you would suddenly miss if it were gone?  Take a good look around.

These pictures below were taken IN their yard.  I was working just outside their garage, making them some art pieces (talk about an inspiring view!  picts of the artwork coming soon), and I looked up, caught my breath, then grabbed my camera and walked maybe 25 feet in front of me and snapped these shots.  Unbelievable.  Sooooo pretty!  I did nothing to any of these pictures, just simply captured the Lord's light and beauty that seemed to make things glow from within...hmm kind of like He can do with us if we let HIM.

I love how the leaves seem to capture and hold the light.

I've been wanting to participate in Shadow Shot Sundays for a while now, and I think that this might be a good week to start.  I love capturing the play of shadows and light, so now I found a good reason to keep it up!  It's as simple as it sounds, take photos of shadows,  post them, and link to the amazing person who created Shadow Shot Sundays so everyone could go check out all the other participants.   To check it out just click on the button below.  Enjoy!