3D Experiment

I'm trying something new today. I have been fascinated with 3D photography, or stereography, for many years now. I remember as a child, playing with one of those old-fashioned stereoscopes, and marveling at the illusion of three dimensions on the old photos. Surprisingly, I'm not overly fond of 3D movies... the effect is kind of cool, but it gives me a headache after awhile.

A few months ago, I was asked to do a photo shoot for work, where I took three separate series of photos for a 3D project. The photos have sat on my computer for a long time, and on my way home from work tonight, I started wondering if I could pick a couple of these photos & create the illusion of three dimensions on the computer screen. I know that the effect probably won't work with the small image that you see accompanying this blog post. You'll have to click on it to open it larger in another window. You might have to move around, or forward or backward a bit, until the image comes into dimension for you. After I created my image, I posted in on Flickr to test it, to see if I could see it just as well using a jpeg image on the web, as I could see it as a layered PS file. It seemed to work. For me, I find it easiest to see if I stare at the image on the left, sort of crossing my eyes and losing sharp focus. Then, pop! It comes together into a three dimensional image!

So, I thought I'd post my little experiment here. Let me know if it works for you. Leave me a comment! (Note that if you have a vision impairment in one or both of your eyes, you may not be able to see the illusion.) Photo above from the Smithsonian website.

Saturday in Pasadena

My friend Kate and I went to Pasadena today to attend an art exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Although we've known for a long time that we shared a love of art, it was so fun to discover that we agreed on our favorites in each of the several galleries we visited. We definitely plan on another museum trip together soon!

(click on the layout for a closer view)

One of the highlights of our day, was our encounter with a talented watercolorist, Keni, at the Pasadena Memorial Park. We were strolling through the park, waiting for a seat at a quaint nearby restaurant, when we spotted him, painting the street scene before him. He was agreeable to me photographing him at work, and I got some good shots of his lovely painting. We chatted with him for a time, and he shared his philosophy, and his love of Jesus Christ. I had to create a simple layout, showcasing his interesting face, and beautiful work. Here's a link to his blog, and finished painting.

We also drove by the beautiful campus of the Fuller Theological Seminary, which looks like a peaceful neighborhood of two-story Craftsman homes. I was able to take a few photos, including one of the lovely Kate.












One of the small surprises of the day was finding a Civil War monument in the park... imagine that, in Southern California. Who knew?

My Funny Valentines

I finally realized that after my very detailed and rambling post yesterday about my Kit layout, I failed to actually tell the story of WHAT the layout was about.

I remember so well Valentine's Day in elementary school in the late '50s and early '60s. It was so exciting to buy our valentines, and pick which ones would go to which classmate. Everyone had to give everyone a valentine, including the teacher. There weren't so many licensed character valentines back then.... I remember in 4th grade, Miss Owen, my teacher, gave me a Minnie Mouse valentine, and I can still see in my memory, her beautiful, unique handwriting, but they were usually generic and fun illustrations, much like some of the valentines on my layout.

But the REALLY BIG DEAL was the Valentine box. We all participated in decorating THE BOX- crepe paper, doilies, streamers, whatever. It had a hole cut in the top, into which each child would stuff his or her valentines, ready for the Valentine Mail Delivery and Distribution. The anticipation! Would I get a valentine from that boy I had a crush on? Would they spell my name right? (usually not). It was an exciting event, and I wanted to celebrate that memory, by creating a layout that would evoke the excitement of a box full of valentines. (Never mind the fact that valentines always were in an envelope! Small details!)

PIGS FLY!

In the world of digital scrapbooking, I'm an oddball. I'm one of very few non-commercial scrappers. That means I don't use, buy, or make scrapbooking 'kits'. These are digital versions of the scrapbooking papers, embellishments, and add-ons that are almost mandatory for all scrapbookers. I prefer to use only my own photos, scans, and artwork to create my pages. I don't really make much of a big deal about it anymore. It used to bother me a lot, and I tried in vain to 'convert' others to my philosophy of unique and personal page design. But I finally gave up, figuring that my work would speak for itself, and perhaps some day, a few hardy souls would give 'from scratch' scrapping a try.

So, the other day, while moderating a discussion on DigiShopTalk, one of my favorite digital scrapping websites, somehow the discussion turned to my 'kit free' preference, and I received a challenge from several participants. They said if I would create a layout using a kit, they would create one using no kit! Well, I couldn't resist. I figured, what would it hurt?

Easy to say! (Ok, it was NOT easy to say. Using a kit for me is kind of like yelling in the library! It just isn't done! What would people think?) But I decided, I was up for the challenge. So, since it was just 'one time only', a singular event, a rare occurrence... and I promise never to do it again, I thought it might be fun. Finding that singular kit did not prove to be that easy either. I wanted to download a kit from 2 Peas in a Bucket, because I have so much credit in their store from all my challenge wins (and I never use those credits to buy kits) so I began my hunt. Page after page of kits that I rejected, some were templates (nah), some were just paper (nah), most didn't look like my 'style' (if I have a kit style!), and finally, I found something that I liked. I downloaded it, and challenged myself to use at least 6 things from the kit. So I did it. I used 3 papers, 1 frame, and 2 embellishments, and I created this fun layout about my vintage Valentine collection. (note that the cute little girl with the balloon, and the vintage postcard on the lower right, are from the kit. )
If you are a digi scrapper, you can find the kit here.

Here's my kit layout. Don't expect to see any more of these until pigs fly again!

Stef's Top Fifteen for 2010!

Last January I picked my favorite layouts of 2009, and I had totally forgotten about it until I came across my file of favorites. Good thing it's still January, so I can sneak these in!

These are my favorite layouts of the past year...it's always hard to narrow it down, and be objective about my own work. I tried to choose a balance of heritage, family, vacation, and non-people layouts. Let me know what you think of my selections.

An Outdoorsman

I've been thinking a lot about my Dad lately. Dad passed away in 2002, and I think of him and miss him every day. Dad lived an interesting and rich life. On the one hand, Dad grew up in a family that valued education and culture, yet he was happiest in the great outdoors. He looked as much at home in a tuxedo, dancing to the sounds of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey as he did dressed in a Pendleton shirt, with a fishing vest and hip waders out on the Malheur River. Dad was of a generation that dressed up. Until the last few years of his life, I never saw him in blue jeans. Even when hunting or camping, Dad would wear chinos or khakis, never jeans. He was rarely seen in a T shirt or even a polo shirt. I love seeing photos of Dad when he was in college. Dapper and proper, this is the way he seemed his whole life.

I wanted to create a layout celebrating Dad's love for the
outdoors. His love of bow hunting and fly-fishing were
legendary. He made his own arrows, and tied his own flies.
He loved the Malheur River in Eastern Oregon, near our home in Vale. In the early '50s, our family moved to Southern California, and still Dad trekked regularly back up to Oregon to go camping, fishing or hunting with his buddies, and often with my brother Gene in tow. I think this is how Dad would like to be remembered best: for his love of the outdoors, and his special kinship with the rugged mountains and rivers of the American West.

Don't just Transfer, BACK UP!

A great lesson learned, and I'm glad it wasn't too painful: you might remember the layout and story I told here a few days ago, about growing up in Los Angeles, and the layout I created about it.

After I completed it, I was distressed to see how bad it looked online, particularly the black wording against the red background on the right side of the page. I posted a thread in the message board at 2Peas, asking for some advice about saving the file, and what might be causing the problem. I had saved it at a high quality, and normally my layouts look quite crisp online, especially on my blog- (when the layout is clicked and opened in a new window). I got some pretty good suggestions, so I went back to try to save it in some other ways. One of the things that occurred to me, was the problem might be the red, since the layout looked decent everywhere else. In the course of going back to my original, layered Photoshop file, I inadvertently overrode the file, and I lost my high quality, layered file. This rarely, if ever happens to me, I try to be very careful when saving files.

I am pretty good about making sure I utilize my external hard drives. I have 3 of them, and my usual work-flow is to keep a copy of each layout as a layered PSD file, then transfer it in a day or two, to the EHD that I've designated for my scrapbook layouts. But this happened during the final editing, so it was GONE. I was heartbroken. If the layout had been practically perfect, I probably would have just shrugged and moved on. But I wanted to fix that red, and there was no way to do it with just a medium sized jpeg. But then I remembered! I had been working on this layout for a few weeks, off and on. I worked on it in Hong Kong, and I recalled that some time during my trip, I had hooked up my 500G EHD, which I use for Time Machine (the Mac's back-up system), and I had backed up my system. So, that would mean that the file was somewhere in Time! Last night, I took the time to finally figure out what Time Machine was all about (I've been a Mac user for 15 years or so, but until I got my new MacBook Pro a year ago, I had never used Time Machine). Even though I had it since about February, I had only just in the past few months, finally activated it and started regular back-ups. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I found the file! It wasn't complete, and still required a couple of hours of work to re-extract the large photo, and re-type the journaling and make a few other additions, but I was thrilled that I could fix the big problem and make it better. I also noticed some glaring typos that I hadn't caught before. Whew, I hate those misspelled words and poor punctuation!

So, the lesson: an EHD might not be all you will need to store those extra files. You should also have some sort of REAL back-up system: online or internal, like Time Machine. I've certainly learned my lesson!

I hope my layout looks better, I think it's more fun with the new background! (click on the layout to see a closer view!)

Sunday Betting

On the Sunday that I spent in Hong Kong, I took the ferry to Wan Chai, a part of Hong Kong Island, which in times past was known as Victoria. Now it's more known by its districts, like Central, Admiralty, Wan Chai, etc. As I walked around, I noticed in several locations, large groups of men, hanging around. Sitting, standing, chatting together, talking on cell phones. Many of them were smoking, and almost all of them had some sort of newspaper and pen. I immeditately assumed they were doing some sort of gambling, but I certainly wasn't going to ask them what they were doing, or who their bookies were! Later, when I had the opportunity, I asked our Hong Kong engineering director Elaine what they were up to. She looked at my photos, and agreed, they were betting. Horse racing is big in Hong Kong, and also soccer. I just thought the photos were interesting, so I just wanted to play a bit with the one large picture, adding some filters and intense color. If I had been smart, I would have rummaged through the trash, and picked up a racing form so I could photograph it. But, really, I picked up so much junk in HK, I really didn't need anything else. So here you go! Sunday Betting.

The Best of Hong Kong, Parts 1 & 2

I decided to create two 2-page layouts for my wrap-up of my Hong Kong trip... kind of a Hong Kong's Greatest Hits. These are a few of my favorite pictures... most of them were somewhere in my daily blog posts, a few of them are seeing their maiden viewing here. I hope you enjoy the pictures, click on the images for a closer view.

Growing Up in LA

I'm BAAAAAACK!
I got home last night, from my fabulous trip, and of course, I woke well before dawn, unable to sleep. I finished this layout on the plane. I've actually been working on it off & on for weeks now, but it takes awhile to find the right images. When I was young we weren't much of a picture-taking family, so I really don't have all that many photos of all these fabulous places I wanted to scrap about. So I used the 'fair use' provision of the copyright laws, to snag images from the internet to complete my layout. 6 of the photos are my own (4 of me, one of the Santa Barbara Mission, and one of the Helms Bakery truck) the rest are 'borrowed'. (Click on the image for a closer view!)
I've wanted to do a layout like this for a long time, especially after I encountered a few blogs and websites written by people who experienced many of the same things that I did growing up in Southern California. Life was pretty idyllic back then, it was cool to have so many things to do and places to go. We were allowed to ride our bikes everywhere, we played outside until dark, all over the neighborhood. We didn't wear helmets! We didn't have seatbelts in the cars! There was only one McDonald's that I knew of, we mostly ate at home, with maybe a Saturday night dinner out at a restaurant with the family, or on a date when we were teenagers. No mall, no multi-plex theaters. One little movie theater in our town that might show a double feature. We managed to get ourselves where we wanted to go by walking, riding bikes, or taking the bus. Mom & Dad didn't drive us to school, or to our piano lessons or dentist appointment. If my girlfriends and I wanted to shop when we were teenagers in nearby Pasadena, or downtown LA, we took the bus. My Mom did take me to my piano & art classes, because they were in other nearby towns, too far to bike. Life was lots different then. I think we grew up more self-reliant, and we didn't require non-stop entertainment. LA had more tv channels than the rest of the country, but we only had 7 of them. No cable. The programming stopped at midnight, and then you'd hear the Star Spangled Banner, and then.... white noise. We watched Saturday morning cartoons for a couple of hours, then we'd go out and play. And I mean outside! Climbing trees and fences, jumping, running, playing tag and hide & seek, swimming, did I mention bike riding? I would nail an old board to some skate wheels and make my own skateboards. A little carpet on top, and I could skateboard barefoot. No fancy tricks, just skating down hills, seeing how fast those metal skate wheels could take me.
Life was good, growing up in LA.

Hong Kong Journal, Day 12

I leave for the airport in an hour, time to go home and see my Sweetie. Today was a fun day.... I made sure I took a photo of everyone on our Hong Kong team. In my business, a "business trip" to Hong Kong means working with our counterparts in our Far East office, problem solving and working together to take our products from prototype to the store shelves. The team is enormously talented, kind and helpful. They know the manufacturing process inside out, and really do their best to get us what we want, but still keep in within our cost. I had a long talk with the engineering director, Elaine. She told me about her busy life as a wife, and Mom to a teenage daughter. Juggling work and family is definitely a universal dilemma. Elaine took my manager Mina and I to lunch. We enjoyed a lovely Japanese meal, and a quick break away from the office.

Mina & I returned to our hotel, and I stepped out for a bit this evening, hoping to catch some night photos of the incredible Victoria Harbour skyline with all the magnificent lights. But it was just too overcast. Instead, I took more pictures of the fun light sculptures surrounding the Coliseum.

Well, time to leave! It's been fun, see you soon!

Creative Break/ Hands

Our daughter Amy got engaged the day after Christmas. We are so thrilled for her, and love her fiance Jon. She was anxious to show her gorgeous ring to her Grandma. I was so glad I had my camera handy when Grandma took Amy's hand in hers to examine the ring- there was something so touching about the two sets of hands- the young hands with all life has to offer in front of her, and the older hands with the many years and experiences, coming together in joy and excitement. I just had to spotlight this photo. I did add some effects to the photo, to draw the eye inward to the hands. I hope you like it too!

Hong Kong Journal, Day 11

As my time in Hong Kong winds down, it seems like I've been here for months instead of almost 2 weeks. A lot of my coworkers have started to leave- and several of them are heading for exotic vacations in Japan, Thailand, Bali and other places. But I'm happy to be heading home soon. Moorpark isn't too exotic, but it's where I belong!

Here are a few photos I took today, and this evening. At lunch I walked down to the harbor, hoping that the sky would finally be crystal clear for photos of the skyline. It was lovely, but alas, not all that clear.


I've loved neon signs forever... I remember taking black and white photos of neon signs back when I was in college. They seemed so nostalgic and kind of tacky, but I found it interesting how the signs were constructed with all the letters connected together. I took a couple of neon sign photos when I was back up on the sky bridge, it gave me a great bird's eye view of many of the signs. I liked the photo on the right, and how the neon looks kind of luminous as it overlaps the sky.


After work, I took the train to Kowloon Tong, and spent a couple of hours in the Hong Kong LDS temple. It's a gorgeous building, and inside it's so serene and beautiful. I wish I were a better night-photographer. I did my best, but the temple was a lot more beautiful than my photos show.


So that's about it for day 11, day 12 will be my last
day in Hong Kong. See you tomorrow!

Hong Kong Journal, Day 10

These past few days have been very intense.... as my trip draws to a close, the amount of work I have to do is growing, there's so much to do, and only a limited time to do it. It's really a great learning experience for me. I can definitely see the value of working closely with our Hong Kong team to get things done.

This morning as I was walking to work, I saw the woman in the above layout, getting ready to cross the street. I had only a quick window of time to snap the picture, and I got it at just the right moment. I was going to title it "Street Worker", but I realized that might not be too appropriate. I know that gray and yellow are very trendy colors right now, and I was grateful that this particular woman was so fashionable, and that the backdrop was likewise trendsetting in its color combination. It's always nice when everything in a photo is so matchy-matchy. Of course, there are a couple of pops of red to add a bit of visual interest. It's was thoughtful of her to plan so well.

So, I found my camera cable, and was able to download my photos from yesterday, so I'll add a few of my favorite pictures from the past couple of days.

Here's me on the elevator this morning. There aren't many photos of me on this trip, so I had to take one myself.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I took a couple of
hungry missionaries out to dinner. They were so sweet,
I just had to take their picture. People are so patient
with me!













This next photo was taken from the 3rd floor of a three story mall where we ate, looking down upon a dim sum restaurant. I thought it was so cool to see that vast sea of tiny diners, eating their tiny hot pots and other dim sum delicacies. (They aren't really tiny, they just look tiny!)


Today I took a tiny break in the middle of the afternoon to run a few errands. I love the Chinese New Year decorations they have everywhere!

And last but not least, I took a photo of a
colorful & fun row of chairs from an outdoor
cafe on the plaza. I love chairs! Ok, I love
everything I see. I'm just in love with the
culture & style of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Journal, Day 9

Catastrophe! Disaster! Horror! One of the worst thing that can befall a traveling (amateur) photographer.... I lost my USB transfer cable which enables me to upload my photos to my computer! What am I to do? Perhaps I left it at the office, but perhaps it is lost forever. Major pain in the tush. I didn't take a lot of photos today, but I really wanted these, like, TODAY! Oh well, I'm sure I can find a replacement tomorrow.

To make up for the lack of fresh photos, I created a little layout with some of the amazing faces I saw on my little journey on Sunday. I hope you enjoy.

Today was the Big Day... the real reason I came to Hong Kong- our model review. It was long, stressful, and painful, but it's over and a lot of the pressure is off. So now I can focus on other tasks. It really was productive- we have a great management team who support us and keeps us focused (most of the time).

After work I grabbed a cab and headed off to an area of Hong Kong called Tsing Yi. This is the area where two very nice LDS Missionaries work: Elders Ho & Jolley. Elder Jolley is the son of my daughter's employer in Salt Lake City. As soon as I told Amy I was going to Hong Kong, she told me about Matt Jolley, and asked if I would mind looking him up. Since I know that Missionaries are always hungry, and nearly always poor, I thought it might be nice to take them out to dinner. We met at a lovely, large mall in Tsing Yi, and enjoyed some great American thick crust pizza at the nicest Pizza Hut I've ever seen. Elder Jolley is fortunate to have a Chinese companion.... it helps him learn Cantonese better, and it smooths the road a bit to have a native who knows all the cultural and social ins & outs of Hong Kong. Plus it doesn't hurt Elder Ho one bit, to have some help with his English. They were such nice young men, it was great to meet them.

Until tomorrow!

Hong Kong Journal, Day 8

Another lost day: I spent the entire day indoors at work, never leaving from 9 am until nearly 8 pm. My feet ached all day from my long adventure on foot yesterday, so when I returned to my room, I had to take a nap! I'll tell you, sitting at a table and desk all day are exhausting! Tomorrow is the big day, it's our model review, where we present our models and line to our management team. There's a lot of preparation and anxiety involved, and I will be glad when it is over.

I did take only one photo the entire day, and here it is, ta da! (ok, I took 4, but they were all very similar!) This photo is of one of the pretty light installations at the Hong Kong Coliseum, which I walk by every morning and evening. Here's a link to a little article about it, in case you were curious.

I also did a layout.... it started out as one thing, and eventually became something else entirely. That always drives me crazy because I don't know if I like the finished product. I prefer my layouts to be a bit more 'planned' or predictable or something. But whatever the case, I'm posting it. I think it's growing on me!