The Gingerbread House

I just had to share this photo of last month's gingerbread house. It makes me feel all warm and Christmas-y just looking at it.



This is another good example of that blurry background effect. Here's what I did:

1. Set my aperature (Av) setting to its lowest numeric setting (around 4.0 for me)


2. Zoomed in as far as the telephoto would allow


3. Moved myself around to fit the house and tree in the frame


4. Focused on the house, pressed the shutter button halfway down and held it while I framed the shot, then continued to press it all the way down to take the photo

Part II: Easy Photo Books That Make You Look Incredibly Talented - Wedding Speech & Colorized Photos

Did I mention I *love* photo books?

Another favorite photo book project was a wedding memento for one of my closest friends. I had given a speech at her wedding and I combined the words from my speech with photos I had taken.

For the colorized effect in some of the photos, I used Photoshop to create a copy of the photo and placed it on top of the original. I converted the top photo to black & white and then used the eraser (50% opacity) to erase the top photo wherever I wanted color to show through. With this technique, I was able to "add" color to specific parts of the photos I wanted to highlight.

Front cover:


Inside cover:


Sample pages of colorized photos with words from my speech:

Part I: Easy Photo Books That Make You Look Incredibly Talented - Art Gallery Book

Ever since customizable, bound photo books became available to the average consumer, I have been a huge fan. They're fairly simple to create, look professional, and are relatively inexpensive ($25-$40 and there are always discounts around the winter holidays). I've created books both in Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery with nice results.

In addition to doing scrapbook-style "Year in Review" photo books, I've found other great applications and wanted to share my favorite projects.

The first project was an art gallery book for my co-worker of her children's artwork. While she was out of town, I snuck into her office, took the artwork off the wall, and photographed each piece individually. (Thankfully, I took a "before" picture of her wall and was able to put the artwork back exactly in its place so she never suspected a thing.)

The inside cover (the photo appeared through the cut-out in the cover):


The perfect quote that I added inside:


A few sample pages of artwork:






Another idea - publish your children's stories and illustrations!