Hi - Jakey here, and I'd like to introduce you to Sherry Steveson, a hugely talented scrapbooker and writer who has recently published an amazing new book chock full of ideas and tips on how to use those imperfect photos we all get from time to time. Over to Sherry:
Sherry Steveson has been passionate about scrapbooking for over ten years. Finding a hobby that merged her love for photography with her gift of writing, all wrapped up in a creative outlet was the catalyst for a life long devotion. Her work has been published in many of the major scrapbook magazines and idea books and always brings a thrill to her family when they see their faces on the pages of those publications. She has also found her calling in the world of teaching scrapbooking to others. She is the author of When Life Gives You Lemons; turning sour photos into sweet scrapbooks and currently writing The Scrapbookers Embellishment Handbook. When she isn’t writing, scrapbooking or teaching, she has a very full schedule with her three children and husband’s landscape business. You can read more about Sherry at her Sassy Schtuff blog: http://sherrysteveson.typepad.com/my_weblog/ and she invites you to join her at her challenge blog Making Lemonade http://makingsweetlemonade.blogspot.com/
Close your eyes for a second and picture this scene. As you stand there with camera in hand ready to capture your precious child’s face on Christmas morning, you picture all the fabulous memories you will capture on that special morning. What you actually find when you get back that photo sleeve from the developer or take a glance at the photos captured on your memory card hardly portray an accurate image of a Norman Rockwell moment. Quite the opposite, in fact. Blurry faces and poorly lit surroundings are all you see. Has this scenario ever happened to you? While this is not what you imagined when you were all set to capture those perfect holiday moments, it’s all you have to remember that moment. That is the way life happens. Imperfect moments happen all around us and so it would seem that our scrapbook pages should reflect life. I have developed a few tricks and techniques for dealing with those imperfect photos of our perfect moments of life. 1. Make the blur work FOR you Simply put the blurry photos to work for your page by capturing the feel of activity, time passing by quickly or an out of focus theme. Another great trick is to reduce the size of blurry photos to minimize the blurry appearance. 2. Tips for clashing colors or backgrounds Find a subject to focus on and use their colors as the focus or use a monochromatic color scheme. Camouflage the background with scrapbook embellishments. 3. Black and white can be our friend When colors become too difficult to work with a simple solution is to create a neutral palette to work with. 4. Red Eyes Red Eye is an image in which a subject’s irises are red instead of black that can be corrected using simple photo editing software commonly available. 5. Using photo editing programs Changing the lighting within a photo can give a photo new life with a few simple tricks from many of the photo editing software’s that are available 6. Embrace the age or preserve the photo An older photo can add a sense of nostalgia to a layout in spite of its imperfections. On the other hand, preserving the photo can breathe new life into memory. 7. Incorporate the design of your page to flatter the cropped subject Quite commonly when a subjects head has been cropped too much or a portion of their body is missing, we can find a way to creatively use these photos as clever designing moments When I see an imperfect photo, I often times will challenge myself to see the photo as an opportunity to tell a better story within my journaling to engage the reader. Telling a compelling story can often balance the imperfections within the photo and allow the charm of the moment shine through. This is why it is always important to scrapbook even the most flawed of photos because the story that needs to be told can make a great scrapbook page. The imperfect photo will still support the story and provide another insight into the memory. Here are some layout examples to show you how I tackle the challenge of an imperfect photo. Too Blurry: Change to black and white and add a vibrant color scheme Distracting background, can't see the focal person as well Place a design circle around the focal subject and add pops of color in the design to focus on the energy in the photo I hope these will give you some ideas on how to work with your imperfect photos. SO. Instead of hitting the delete button on your camera next time a photo doesn't turn out exactly as you would like, please take a moment to think about how you can use improve upon that photo with a little help. Sherry
Many thanks to Sherry for sharing her ideas and work with us today
love from the creative girls xx
Comments