I live in one of the most beautiful places in Australia – according to ME. I have a job I love (most of the time), 3 beautiful girls, who are old enough now to be independent…but still need their Mummy. #1 is nearly 21, lives with BF, #2 is nearly 18, saving hard for a gap year in the UK and # 3 is 14, loves One Direction and the Hunger Games. Hubby and I have been married 21 years and I don’t know what I would do with out him.



I spend far too much time on the computer – often pretending to work, so when all my words with friend’s games are played and the gossip and news of the world read, I will BLOG.


Wednesday 19 September 2012

Why do I let it get to me

I had a wonderful day in Maryborough and Burrum Heads on Tuesday, one of the ladies I did the workshop with has an exhibit of her photo in the Gate House Gallery (Kent Street Maryborough) during September. It was incredible to see her photos printed big, framed and on the walls. I have seen all the photos before as we share on Flickr and Facebook - BUT WOW to see them as they are meant to be seen. *just quietly I am a little bit jealous....ok a lot jealous*. Looking at her photo makes me want to display mine. *sigh* one day.

 Her beautiful hubby bought us lunch at a quaint coffee shop around the corner from the gallery then we had photo shop 101 lessons. RQQY (her logo/user name not made up by me -  usually we call each other 'the other Roz') has decided to join the world of photoshop. I am no expert on PS, I only know what I know...if I want to so something out of the box so to speak I look it up on you tube or one of the many books I have. I showed her how to process a RAW image - side note Andrew (our Mentor) had previously shown her this, but after a bottle of wine each not much sank in. Layers and Layer Masks. In my opinion this is the most important stuff to know, the rest you can learn as you need. I was very clear in tell RQQY that some of our other members are much better than me and there is heaps of different ways of achieving the same result, she needs to learn her own way and pick up tips from others.

 The challenge for September is self portrait -   hard to do at the best of time. I had a 2 1/2 hour drive home, because I had been teaching and thinking PS all afternoon I came up with a great idea on how to do my entry. I had seen a few months ago a photo of someone hanging prints up to dry....(like in the olden days of film) I know this memory was triggered because RQQY and I were talking about how in the days of film there was processing in dark rooms where they removed blemishes and changed the saturation/brightness etc.

 I spent a lot of the drive planning the photos, how and where I could set it up, what to wear, how I was going to do it in PS....I took hundreds of photos of me - it is very hard to do, we are most critical of ourselves and I am really bad. My idea was to peg up sheets of A3 over the kitchen sink then paste in the photos of me to look like I had developed them.

 Great idea in theory...however I didn't think that the A3 sheets were going to be on an angle or twisted... it took a few hours of you tube (useless because I didn't know the question) and books before I just started to play with the transform tool and used the distort function.

 This is the finished photo....pretty dam good if I do say so myself. HWMBO and the girls were all amazed with the result (correct response) so I posted it to the competition page.
Look at it large it is so worth it


I was so pleased with it I used it for my self portrait entry in the 104 photos in 404 days group on FB...this is where I let it get to me. I am on a high from a fun day of photos, plus getting some good shots of myself look good since I lost the weight. The first comments I got on the photo we asking if I develop my own photos....mission accomplished this is what I want the photo to represent, then one of the Jpegs (our Flickr group) commented that I stole her idea, here is the link to her entry. 


How is this the same idea....all I did was us the same PS technique...I think. I never even gave her photo a thought, in fact it looks like she could have done her photo without PS.

Stupidly I replied on FB being bitchy I said 'I was unaware that I was not allowed to use the same techniques as you for the challenges - sorry' her reply was insinuating that she taught me this technique....NOT. I thought we were friends! I know if this is ever mentioned again she will laugh it of as a joke...but too often I have felt put down by comments she has made. She comments on a lot of photos on Flickr yet rarely on mine, I don't comment often yet I have noticed that if I don't like something and say so she will LOOOVE it, I I think something is distracting in a photo - she will say it frames it.

Am I just supper sensitive, PMS and bitchy...probably, I was so pleased with my photo I didn't like my bubble being burst. Constructive criticism is Ok. My sister said I look scary in one of the photos...I didn't take offence at that - I do.

I never expect only positive feedback on my photos, personal taste is a big thing with all art work. Life would be boring if we all liked the same thing. I didn't like the accusation of cheating.

I have got this out of my system now and will suck it up and file it away in the don't take any notice box.

On a less bitchy note, my baby girl Lilly is very comfortable with us now, she has explored the whole property and is happy to play outside on her own, we still keep and eye on her. Yesterday she brought in a few dead ferns to chop on - I am very glad we do not have good carpet (it will be replaced soon I hope)





Is there anything funnier than seeing a puppy run away with something she knows she shouldn't have - this morning she went in to #2's room and came racing out with a pair of shorts that were left on the floor - watching a half asleep teenager chasing an alert puppy is so funny. I might manage to get my teenagers to keep their rooms clean for a while.


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