Around The Block

Oh how excited I am to share these images with you. As part of our first Superhero Photo assignment, I committed to bringing my camera along with me for the entire day. Now, I have always wanted to show you the path I run in the morning, but I have used the excuse that my Nikon is too heavy to run with as a way to get out of it. No more. Our fearless leader, Andrea Scher, says you can use any camera to take meaningful images. So with my phone in hand, with the camera app on, I set out on my run.

I snapped lots of photos along the way. Some that will never see the light of day, and that is okay. But these are a few. And I know what you are thinking... we are saying to yourself  "wow, Kerry, oh my goodness... your camera takes the most amazing images ever. Are you using a special app to make them look like old polaroids? Do you have an iPhone?"" To which I reply "Nope, no special app. No iPhone either. I did it all in photoshop!!"

I have been hearing whispers of something called "actions" for photoshop for sometime now. I even looked into it once before. But that first experience left me feeling like they were something for "professional" photographers/photoshop users. And I let my knowledge of them fall to the way side. I am constantly bombarded with the awesomeness that is Instagram images from friends with iPhones and I am incredibly jealous and even considered buying an iPhone just so I could take and post cool photos like them... but, first... I decided to give actions one last try.

It was a blistering hot day on Monday. Andrew started the summer session at his new school, Lauren was at a friend's house, Jacob had a few hours of weight lifting scheduled, and I found myself kid-free yet again (gawd I hope that becomes a reoccuring thing this summer!). So instead of trying to brave the inhuman temps I knew my studio would be reaching, I sat in my lovely air conditioned living room digging deeper into what these action thingies were/are and holy crow, they are a freaking piece of cake. They make editing life so much easier!! And I can make crappy camera phone shots look like super cool 1970s-esque polaroids in seconds. Yeah, literally seconds. Best part... all the actions I found to download are FREE.

Weird, I think I sound like a door to door salesman. HA!

Hmmm... I think I may have to work applying actions to images into my Snaptastic class for ArtBliss in September. And actually, one of my summer to-do list items is writing an e-book for that Snaptastic class and I am considering making it available to everyone as a download. Lots of new territory for me. Exciting isn't it.

But, I digess... I was first saying how I always wanted to take you along for one of my morning runs. This is the path I run. It is 2.5 miles around my block. Or rather, halfway around my block. I cut down the bike trail to get back to my street. Otherwise, it would be a 5 mile run (which I have a goal of running in August). The L O V E Y O U message was on a bike trail leg of the run. I grinned so big when I saw it. It really spurred me on. I have friends that run marathons all the time, and I feel somewhat pathetic that I have to push through 2.5 miles. But, I am learning to be gentle with myself and know I will get there someday. It feels good to be out there, working on making me the best me I can be.

And one last polaroid... one of the shots from datenight last week. So wanna print this and hang it on the fridge.