Text Styles, Sparklers, Movie Posters, Oh My!

If you have not guessed school has started once again and we have been set with another 6 images that we must produce for our portfolio plus any that we must/ want to reshoot.
Our first task you might ask... Well you may have noticed we are learning text styles and writing.... this of course leads to non other than..........MOVIE POSTERS. Yes we get to either recreate or remake a movie poster. The stipulation... it must be an existing movie. No it has to be from 2010, it can't have this, it can't have that, it has to follow your theme. This is one of the best one's we have gotten it is almost entirely whatever we would like to do especially if it is a recreate in which case it has to capture the feel of the movie but does not have to look like the existing posters. PERFECT right. This is where the creativity flows. So you may ask me what am I doing for my poster, well I'll give you a hint, it does have to do with my theme.



It is none other than HERCULES

That's right the place where the song "I need a hero" became popular.

As for text styles, I found one that I had done last year as well as made a few new ones up while working on a fake movie poster for an inclass assignment and I thought I would share them with you here.

 

Now the water one (my favourite) can also be used to look like glass depending on the font you use and what you lie it on. To accomplish this style type what you like or add droplets, I personally did my font first and then added the drops later and put the style on both layers,

From there you will go into your layer style box

Put the drop shadow to the following pictures specifications

 You then will go to the inner shadow

 And lastly to the Bevel and Emboss

If you follow those instructions you can get the water look. As well a little side not if you would like to put water droplets on that blend into your text layer, rasterize your text layer and then add the water droplets with a brush, in varying sizes or with the brush set to scatter, which you can find in the brush panel. After doing that if you have not already put the layer style on put it on then and you will get the water droplets that blend in to the word like real water would.

As for the luxury word the settings are:

 

*As a note this one does not really look well with the text colour as white, any other colour and the text looks transparent*

And Lastly the pearls under the word luxury

I started with a brush with the colour white.

If you have any trouble following these, please let me know and I will try and help you.

Now for the last thing that I did this week. 

We had a nice fun class on Friday where we learned about dragging our shutter. Here are just a few of the images me and my group got with sparklers and glow sticks.

 

These are just a few of the many fun images we took during that class. It was one awesome time and I would do it again in a heart beat. If you ever get a chance to do this.. I recommend you do. 

Have a camera, have a tripod, got some sparklers and glow sticks. Find a dark space and do it on your own or with friends. We ended up spelling all our names out after realizing you had to write backwards, we made a person, we light our entire set with the sparklers only. It was awesome.

Do something creative this week, you'll feel better.

Sincerely,

-Photo Alley

Ol' Mc Donald

Hey, so next week is when our banners for class are due and I realized I don't have the full images posted any where here on the blog. So I thought I would give you the full version of said images. They are of a bunch of awesome barn yard animals that were at the petting zoo when we had to photography Richmond Fair. It makes me think of sun and warmth, if only it were that warm again... I would be happy.

 

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did when I took the pictures. 

-Photo Alley

Typography

Today we learned about text, a little befitting after just finishing reading A Sherlock Holmes novel where he analysis's the writing. Now I know this is different because not only is it computer generated but then we played around with different text tools in photoshop. After that we were given an assignment where we were given words and we were to take 2 and stylize them in a way that represented the words. Well I found it a lot of fun so I did about half the words. I thought I would give you a look at what I did with the words. I hope you can guess what each word is. some are obvious while others are not exactly in the order they are usually written.
Enjoy!

 

I hope you like the images.

Next time I will be adding some pictures that I took at the beginning of the year when I had my Richmond Fair assignment. I posted some but I have been using a set of 6 for most of my work on my website and things to do with my website when they do not need to be portfolio images and therefore with my banner being finished I thought I would let you know the full images.

Keep warm.

-Photo Alley

O' the weather outside is frightful

The weather as you may know by now is in the winter stage, and therefore terrifyingly cold, that is of course if you don't live in a warm climate and if that is the case I wish I were there and not here. Today is a warm day at -10. AND it's snowing again, albeit not crazy snowing but snowing none the less and it is suppose to snow tomorrow. This image reminds me exactly of how this week is going.

                        

This image was taken last year, but it has the potential to represent this year so well. I came across this image while trying to find an image for one of my printing assignments and it frightened me how similar it looks like to this winter so far. A tad scary that we are in the month of snow, the month of cold and freezing. So I thought I would remind you all what it looks like when it is warm. These images also are candidates for the assignment I am working on.

 

This swan I took pictures of with my mom after a dentist appointment. I like the fact that they are over exposed and clipping in the white, they almost to me look majestic and powerful.

 

This one is honey, yes I know it is not of the outside but honey makes me think of bees and bees are found in warm weather. As much as I don't like bees I do like honey. I was taking this picture when I thought to myself wow I really haven't taken that many pictures this summer I should walk around and take snap shots. Then I thought wouldn't it be cool to get honey pouring. Well I didn't get it pouring because I was afraid I would spill all over the table but I did get it running down the side which was just as cool.

 This one also is not of the outside but the white and the fact that it is a butterfly reminds me of spring. I also really like close up shots so this is definitely in the running to be the image for my assignment.

 

And lastly there is this image, a complete front runner in the assignment. I love the colour it makes me think ethereal. Besides that it is abstract and I just love this series I did earlier this year. 

I hope you keep warm this winter, drink lots of hot chocolate and play in the snow as much as possible.

-Photo Alley

The Pizza

I have found a post about the pizza from Gluten Free Girl and the Chef. I thought maybe I had misread that maybe the pizza wasn't going to be in the book and therefore I wanted to recheck their blog to see. I wasn't wrong the pizza was to be in the book. It actually is under a different name. If you would like to read the post they have about it and find the page it is on if you too have bought the book and are looking for the pizza here as well if you would like to check out the gluten free oreo recipe here is the link
I hope you enjoy her posts as much as I do.
-Photo Alley

Soup for Soul

Why is it that every time your sick you want homemade food? More specifically mom's home made food. This I can't answer but I can say I am sick today and it all started with a headache a few days ago and it is manifesting into nausea and flu like symptoms. Talking to my parents apparently severe headaches can do this so tomorrow, if it lasts, it's the doctor's office for me. But till then I continue to try home remedies, including gingerale, green tea, cold compress, hot water bottle, darkness, sleep and lastly the reason for this post.... soup.
That's right because my parents are not here for them to make me soup but rather at home I am stuck making myself something home made that is of course also gluten free. Now if you are on the gluten free diet or have ever tried getting ready made soup for a gluten intolerant person you know it is very difficult so you have to make it by scratch. I personally like beef soup. This in itself poses the problem of soup base because most soup bouillons I have come across have wheat in them. Therefore through trial and error I have found my go to gluten free soup base it is a company called "Nutrimax" natural foods soup base. They have beef (my favourite), chicken, vegetable and I believe tomato. This is an easy to use powder that makes wonderful soup.
In this post I thought I would share my go to soup as well.

I start with a 2 quart pot and add a small amount of oil, any kind, I personally use canola.
Add to this pot onion, I like onion so I use around half of a medium sized onion. I then chop length wise and cross wise making small cubes, almost like dicing but slightly bigger pieces.
To this I then add finally chopped garlic, around 2 or 3 cloves.. again I also like garlic, however you can add as much or as little as you like.
I turn the stove to around medium heat and let the onions and garlic sweat, stirring occasionally till the onions are soft and slightly transparent.
To this I then add water, I make a pot that is around 4 servings.
Now I turn the heat to high.
To this water I add my veggies. Now my veggies depend on what I have bought of late.
I usually add carrots (cut thin), mushrooms (pre sliced), baby potatoes (quartered) and celery (cut small). As well occasionally I have put radishes that have been julianed, and eggs, I once added snow peas that I broke in half. I think if you added corn it too would go well but I have not tried this before.
I then add spices, this includes salt, pepper and garlic powder (I told you I like garlic). I don't add a lot because the soup base itself also has flavour.
When the water comes to a boil I add 1 tablespoon of the soup base, stir and taste. Depending on the taste I add another tablespoon.
I let it boil for a few minutes more and then it's ready to serve.

Now for this recipe you could use any or all veggies, it depends on what you like or if you are like me what is in your fridge at the time of the soup. As well even though I do not add meat to my soups you can add meat, I find stir fry beef or stew beef the best. You could also use rice instead of potatoes. The possibilities are endless but if you have never made home made soup before this is a good jumping off point.
Now if you are feeling particularly adventures you could try adding gluten free pasta. I have tried and failed every time but you never know it may work for you. It may have been the pasta I was trying to use or it may be my technique, what ever it may be I fail every time I try that combo finding the water to become too starchy and a little slimy. My mom however has made pasta and bean soup nicely many times, she uses thin spaghetti.

In my near future, making another Snorlax as my mom stole my last one for her dashboard... well at my permission. My new one is going to be a creamsicle inspired one. As well a self portrait that requires many images and finally my images for my final portfolio.
Till next time.
-Photo Alley

Good Service...Good Food

Hello all,
I know I haven't posted diligently over this holiday break, but I have been to say the least... lazying around. I have done practically nothing but relax. I tried to start a quilt that the main panel is appliqué but it's not the same as I am use to so me and my mom have to figure out how to make it work, however we did choose our materials for the respective panels, one each for my mom, my sister and myself. As well I got the materials for my compass rose quilt and heart quilt though haven't started those either. And as for my photography, I needed a much needed break which was further helped by the lots of rain and snow we had with little sunshine.

I have however had tons of time to shop and found the wonderful cook book that is more than a cook book by gluten free girl and the chef. I love the stories they put in it and the fact that not only is it a recipe book but a good book with stories of their life and how they get on. The one thing I was disappointed in was the lack of a pizza recipe which I was almost positive I had read was going to be in there and which is pictured on the cover. None the less I am glad I purchased the book.

The other thing I have been doing this holiday break has been eating, and I mean eating a lot, lots and lots of good food. I have discovered a new haunt I might go to when with my family called "Rooster" or something with that word in it. Anyways the first time I ate there we called in advance to check out the gluten free options. They offered to fry my fries in a pot of oil so they wouldn't be cross contaminated and do my halibut fried instead of battered. I had a wonderful experience, the fish was moist, the fries were fresh... all I can say was that it was amazing and I felt safe eating there. We then recently decided to eat there again before my brother went back to school and had another wonderful experience. The service was impeccable, the wait-staff lovely. I didn't feel judged or anything, they again complied to the fries in a separate pot of oil and since I couldn't have the halibut this time because it had already been breaded they suggested the pulled pork with out bread of course or the salmon but a smaller portions so it did not cost as much as the dinner portions. I decided on the fish because recently I have been having problems digesting pork. However my mom had the pulled pork and said it was delicious. I optioned for the salmon. It was cooked just right nice and moist again but no fishy taste. The fries were of course the best I have ever had at a restaurant and the spices on the fish refreshing. It definitely goes to show you good service does make for good food.

Then just yesterday me and my mom decided to try perogies again. I would give you the recipe link but I can't seem to find where I got it. If I find it I will post it. They turned out lovely. This time for the fillings we did mashed potatoes with onions in some and mashed sweet potatoes with mozzarella goat's cheese. Those the sweet potatoes ones were a little on the sweet side for my family I liked them a lot, I think if we had mixed the two types together before putting them in the perogies it would have been just perfect. But I still found them perfect and delicious. Doubling the batching and having extra in the freezer for a later date. The ones we cooked yesterday was eaten all up at that seating.
Who knows what we will make next.
-Photo Alley