Larger Than Life

The Huge Challenge

Take a picture of an everyday object and make it look larger than life.

What to do

Just sit down and really think about what you use daily. Thinking is the key to this challenge. When you figure out what you want to take a picture of just make sure you make that object look huge in the photo! By doing that just simply get down on the ground and take the picture looking upward. This gives the effect you want by making that object larger than life.

Why the thrown?

The thought of taking a picture of the toilet was a very easy idea! Well for one I had to go potty, sorry if that was TMI! Everyone has to go potty! This is a daily used object in everyone’s lives! Could you imagine life without a toilet? This challenge makes you think about what you have in your life. This challenge makes you become grateful for what you have and become thankful and not take those things like being able to go to the bathroom in a toilet. Don’t take the little things for granted. There are people out there that aren’t able to use a toilet or don’t even own one. Step back and think about something you use everyday. Our world has become selfish and don’t look outside their own picture. Take a step and think about what you have that others may not have that you could be taking for granted. Think about others. Grow and really look at the world and give a hand and let you become larger than life.

Makeup your Pet

The Challenge

Take a picture of your pet. Then, using a picture editor (such as paint, or pixlr.com) over-edit your pet. Put makeup and add as many accessories as you want! You could even change the background and put your pet in a different situation.

What do you have to do?

If you want to have a little fun and kick back and just be creative this is totally the challenge for you!! You will have a blast! All you have to do is take a picture of your pet. What I did was take a picture of my cat on my iPhone and I emailed it to me and then saved that photo under my pictures. I then opened up paint because I haven’t used paint in years! Paint is a picture editor that comes with ever computer. Go done to the left hand corner of your screen and in the search bar type in “Paint” and all you have to do is click it. Paint will open up and then go to the far left hand side to a tab and there will be an option to “open”. I explored everything because I haven’t used Paint in years! So explore everything in paint and have fun! I used all sorts of paint brushes in making Meeko look pretty. When you finish your master piece click the “Save as” button in the top left hand side. You then can save the picture you just created and you can then can later on open the picture where ever you want to. So go ahead! Start now and begin to make your pet look BE-A-UTIFUL!

Why did I choose this challenge?

I am a kid at heart! You will begin to find out that I am young at heart. I loved the idea of taking our companions that we all love and just making them look pretty. My cat, aka Meeko is so spoiled! Ever since I left for college she gets my parents all to her self. What a brat. So.. I decided to make her look “pretty” haha! Paybacks! No I do really love her. She just gets into everything, hence the name Meeko. Sound familiar? Of course! We named her after the raccoon in Disney’s movie “Pocahontas”. Because that Meeko also got into anything and everything and would get in trouble or start trouble which is so her!

I drew her like a princess because she really is one! I gave her a cute crown, painted her nails, gave her some eyeliner and eye shadow, a cute bracelet, a necklace, and earrings. She loves to lay in the grass when the sun is out! I also made her thinking about birds because she is obsessed with watching the birds outside and she wakes up so early to watch them! I know she thinks about them everyday because like I said she is obsessed. What cat isn’t? To bad she is to puggy to catch one lol!! We feed her a lot…opps! She is a princess what can I say?

I really wanted to do this challenge because what can I say, I’m a kid at heart. I haven’t used paint in years and when I read the word “paint” I snapped a photo of Meeko and went straight to the computer. This challenge really entered the side of me that I haven’t really been able to use in a while. I’m a busy college student. I don’t have the time like I used to when I was younger to go on the computer and create for FUN! I know right? We used to do things for fun. This challenge really makes you stop and just sit down and have fun and simply create art. You just get to go with the flow and draw what you imagine. When you get older a lot of people lose their fun and creative side. So please! Take a moment and go open up paint for FUN and just create. No thinking, just have fun!

Don’t you wish you had her life?….I’m so jealous of pets, aren’t you?!

Putting Disney into Focus

The Challenge!

Put a famous object from any Disney movie into focus. Blur everything around it, make the color pop out, BE CREATIVE! In your blog post, explain why you picked that object to focus on.

If you didn’t know what a dinglhopper was, now you know! This was a very simple challenge that I recommend every one to do! Who doesn’t like Disney movies?! Everyone loves Disney movies and if you are a 90′s baby we lived off of these! Well I know I did, lol!

What I did

All I did was take a picture with my iPhone 4s with me and my dinglehoper! I sent the picture to my email and then opened it up and saved it on my computer. I installed the free 30 day trial for Photoshop. It is very easy, simply Google ”Photoshop free download” and it will take you through easy steps to download. Since I have already have Adobe Photoshop CS6 already downloaded I opened it up and then opened up my photo into Photoshop. In looking at the photo I needed to blur everything but my shiny dinglehopper. I went to the top bar tab to the one that said “Filter” then to the one that said “Blur” and then I selected the type of blur which I liked the most which was “Iris Blur…”. With this type of blur you are able to manipulate where and what exactly you want to be blurred. On the right hand side of the screen when you are blurring your photo you can adjust the amount of blur you want. For my photo I used 15 px, because I wanted to still be able to see that I was holding the fork in my hair. Now when you finish blurring your photo you click ”Ok” at the top right of the screen and it will exit you out of the blur tool. I wanted my fork to really pop and stand out. So I went over to the right hand side of the screen where there is a vertical tab. The second tab says “Adjustments” and in that tab there is a sun icon and if you put your curser over it, it will say brightness/contrast. I played around to what I personally liked for my photo. I made the brightness 2 and the contrast -50 because I liked how it looked and also the fork really stood out with being really shiny and you can see the top of the fork has a reflection to it because of that.

Finishing Up

 I clicked “save as” and saved it into my folder of pictures. When you are saving your picture that you just edited in Photoshop, I came across a problem so listen closely. If you save the picture as a Photoshop picture you will run into problems, well I did at least. Change it to JPEG. I don’t know why I was having problems but just a note to you save it as a JPEG and you are all set!

The Dinglhopper

 Why would I choose a Dinglhopper?

When I saw this challenge I had to do it! I could not wait as you can see! Its midnight! I love Disney! I grew up with Disney all my life! I also have a strong love for the ocean, which is pretty obvious that I would love “The Little Mermaid” and I do! I think she is an amazing princess who always seems to get left out.

When I think of Ariel I automatically think of her obsession with human items, hence why I came up with the fork idea. I really wanted to go outside the box. Being a princess isn’t about the apple, the magic carpet, or even the glass slipper. Its about exploring and wanting to learn about the unknown. This challenge really inspired me to get outside the box and really open up what other famous objects there is in Disney movies. Ariel’s obsession with finding out what a fork was and what it was used for is pretty famous in my eyes. She goes to her friend Scuttle to see if he would know what this foreign object she found was. You wont truly know what something is until you ask. Its all about going out and not holding back which a lot of people fear. People fear what others are going to say. Our world needs to be more open when a question arises. No one is perfect. Living is all about learning and discovering new things every day.

That is what life is about…. live your life like Ariel, don’t forget to use your dinglhopper to brush your hair

Valentine’s Day Caption Challenge

The Challenge!

I was in Urban Outfitters the other day and stumbled across a postcard pack labeled “Unbridled Passion” by Franco Accornero. It’s a collection of 30 different postcards from an artist who has painted more than 5,000 romance novel covers (as well as westerns, thrillers and sci-fi books). The postcards are really ridiculous on their own, but I thought for this Valentine’s day I would make them even funnier but adding my own captions.

That’s where the 2012 Valentine’s Day Caption Challenge for #ds106 comes into play: I challenge you to  make your own captions for these postcards! You can use any photo editor or the Aviary one built right into flickr to add the caption.

Download one blank card from my flick set and add a caption that raises the love spirit to a new level. In addition to writing it up on your blog, when you post yours to flickr include the tag ds106valentine so we can assemble them all into giant virtual card set.

Getting Started

In getting started with this challenge I clicked on her hyperlink in the assignment that took me to her flickr account with the blank postcards where you can see multiple photos of couples. You can also see other photos where other individuals put their own personal touch on things. Once you decide which photo you want to add your own caption to, you simply save the photo of your choice and then save it. Once you save it, I uploaded the photo in a new picture editor website called pixlr which was very easy to add the caption that I wanted to do!

How to add the caption to the photo

On the left and side of the screen there is a vertical tab filled will all kinds of icons called tools. Near the bottom of that tab there is an icon with the letter “A”. I clicked that icon and picked the spot where I wanted my caption to be on the picture. A text box will show up and you simply type what you want to say and you can change the text size and the text font in that same box that will appear when you type the test that you want to place on the photo.

Why did I do what I did?

 That’s simple! Out of all the postcards choices this one stood out to me. So many relationships go through ups and downs. Hands down. Nothing is ever perfect. Don’t get me wrong some relationships can be pretty close to perfect but every individual on this planet goes through a time where they hide a secret from their loved one. This picture caught my eye and my brain and heart drew to the assumption that this girl had a secret that she was determined to hide from her boyfriend. Our society today is so hard to trust. You need trust in a relationship to have a relationship. Sadly you have to trust that one person that you truly love and trust that they love you as much as you love them.

I’m a girl and I’m currently in a relationship. Being in a relationship is tough! Its great to have a person that loves you and is there for you and you know that you have them in you life and you can call them yours. But I am the type of girl who does over think and I do question what he is doing because I know society. Society is a snake that likes to disturb the peace and the happy. It may sound that I am a crazy girlfriend and you could think that but I know if you step back and think about it I am just looking out for myself. Who wants to be cheated on? NO ONE! I want to know what he is doing and who he is with. I tell him that I love him and that’s all I can do. This picture spoke to me because I can relate to it, so could other individuals in or been through a relationship.

The most common thing that ruins relationship is trust and cheating. It really does stink. This photo grabs that secret that one individual in a relationship could hold, but you will never find out until that secret is unlocked. I have a best friend who had no idea that she was being cheated on and he broke up with her and she found out he was cheating on her the entire time. It breaks my heart. So many people can pull off an amazing poker face it is unbelievable. This picture was really great to do and I’m so glad I chose this challenge because I can relate to it and I feel like everyone else can to.

All you can do is trust and continue loving who you love.