Photographer: Kapil RaichanaTuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Life from the lighter side...
1. I think part of a best friend's responsibility should be to immediately come to your house and clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize that you are so totally wrong.
3. All those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger was a big mistake.
4. There is much need for a "sarcasm" font.
5. I am 55 and still have not figured out how to fold a fitted sheet.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize that you are so totally wrong.
3. All those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger was a big mistake.
4. There is much need for a "sarcasm" font.
5. I am 55 and still have not figured out how to fold a fitted sheet.
6. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least some kind of tired.
7. Bad decisions often make our best and funniest stories.
8. You never know when it'll strike, but there comes a moment at work when you come to the realization that you're just not going to do one more productive thing for the rest of the day.
9. Can we just ignore whatever comes after Blu-ray? I don't want to restart my video collection yet again..... Beta, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and...
10. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my thirty page chapter that I swear I did not make any changes to.
11. Am I the only person who keeps certain numbers in their cell phone just so I know who not to answer when they call?
12. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
13. I totally disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Alcohol than with "K".
14. I have a hard time determining where boredom ends and hunger begins.
15. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't understand a word being said?
16. Shirts get dirty. socks get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, you can wear pants forever.
17. There are times when I will look down at my watch 3 or 4 times and still not know what time it is.
18. Even under ideal conditions I have trouble locating my car keys in my pocket, finding my cell phone, or even something as big as my van - but I can hit the snooze button from 3 feet away, coming out of a dead sleep with eyes closed, doing it in about 2 seconds nailing it the first time, every time.
19. The first testicular guard, the "Cup", was used in Hockey in 1874. The first helmet was used in 1974. So this means it took men only 100 years to realize that their brain was important too. Who says we (men) are slow?
Saturday, February 12, 2011
I am far older than I realized...
Things from when I was a kid...
1) When I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves.
2) There was no email, we had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen and paper! Then we had to walk walk to the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there. Stamps were 10 cents.
3) Child Protective Services didn't care if my mom beat me. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends and my teachers could "discipline" me too.
4) There were no such things as MP3's or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and steal the 45 yourself.
5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and totally screw it all up! There were no CD players! I had an FM converter in my first car, and after saving a few dollars moved up to an 8 track player.
6) We didn't have fancy shmancy things like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it! When I was REAL young we had a party line (which meant our neighbors and us shared the same line), two short rings and the call was for us, one long ring meant it was for our neighbor and at any time folks could pick up the phone and listen to your neighbors call.
7) There weren't any cell phones either (only on Star Trek). If you left the house, you were actually out of touch with your "friends". If you REALLY had to reach someone you could go to the nearest corner and slide in a dime inot the pay phone to make a call.
8) No Caller ID either/ When the phone rang it was a crap shoot, you had no idea who it was.
1) When I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves.
2) There was no email, we had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen and paper! Then we had to walk walk to the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there. Stamps were 10 cents.
3) Child Protective Services didn't care if my mom beat me. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends and my teachers could "discipline" me too.
4) There were no such things as MP3's or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and steal the 45 yourself.
5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and totally screw it all up! There were no CD players! I had an FM converter in my first car, and after saving a few dollars moved up to an 8 track player.
6) We didn't have fancy shmancy things like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it! When I was REAL young we had a party line (which meant our neighbors and us shared the same line), two short rings and the call was for us, one long ring meant it was for our neighbor and at any time folks could pick up the phone and listen to your neighbors call.
7) There weren't any cell phones either (only on Star Trek). If you left the house, you were actually out of touch with your "friends". If you REALLY had to reach someone you could go to the nearest corner and slide in a dime inot the pay phone to make a call.
8) No Caller ID either/ When the phone rang it was a crap shoot, you had no idea who it was.
9) You weren't even allowed to own a phone, you had to rent them monthly for Ma Bell.
10) Our big technology break through was the Atari 2600 with a game called "Pong". Your screen avatar was a little green square!
11) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! We had just three channels/stations. We actually had to walk over to the TV to change the channel or adjust the volume.
12) There was no Cartoon Network, you could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning and Davey and Goliath on Sunday morning.
13) Microwaves? If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove.
14) Seatbelts and car seats? I don't think so.
15) In grade school we would have "duck and cover" drills that included going to the fallout shelter (in case of nuclear attack)
Some interesting fact from the mid 1960's:
Cost of a new home: $16,500.00
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: 31 cents
Cost of a gallon of Milk: 49 cents
Americas Top TV Shows
1 ) Bonanza
2 ) Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
3 ) The Lucy Show
4 ) The Red Skelton Hour
5 ) Batman
6 ) The Andy Griffith Show
7 ) Bewitched
8 ) The Beverly Hillbillies
9 ) Hogan's Heroes
10 ) Green Acres
11 ) Get Smart
OMG! I am suddenly feeling old... really, really old.
Friday, February 11, 2011
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!
With Valentine's Day rounding out the most popular days to get engaged in what the wedding industry calls "engagement season" (Christmas Eve/Day and New Year's Eve/Day of course being the other favourites) Viva la wedding would like to send out a big CONGRATULATIONS to all the couples getting engaged today!!And to Viva's couples past, present, and future along with all our fabulous wedding vendors we're absolutely in love with because they help us make our couples' dreams come true... Happy Valentine's Day!!
LOVE QUOTES
Love is in the air! How can it not be? With so many recent engagements taking place over the winter holidays and the many more that came with Valentine’s Day, there isn’t a time of year more about love. To celebrate, Viva thought we’d dedicate a post to love. More specifically, quotes about love. Whether you use them on your invitations, ceremony programs, guest favor tags, or in a toast to your new husband/wife there’s always room for a love quote at your wedding. Here are some of Viva’s faves...When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. ~When Harry Met Sally
I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance. A church filled with family and friends. I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for. He said one that would make me his wife.
You don't marry someone you can live with, you marry the person who you cannot live without.
Trip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever.
Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
You know you’re in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. ~Dr Seuss
Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin
If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day so I never have to live without you. ~Winnie the Pooh
The spaces between your fingers were created so that another’s could fill them in.
You can't have too much memory...
If you are in the market for memory I have a couple of sweet Valentines Day deals for you from Adorama, great prices, customer service to match their prices, and shipping is free.
The first deal is for a 6 pack of 4GB SanDisk Ultra II Compact Flash memory cards and it includes a Think Tank card case to hold them and you get it all for only $74.95. That's almost half off the regular price (46% to be exact).
I've used SanDisk for quite some time and have been very happy with their performance, there are times when I shoot fast (machine gunning it) and have never had to wait while images are written to the card.
Deal number two is for a Lexar 16GB 100x Platinum II Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Memory Card for just $29.95 (again, with free shipping). If you purchase two Adorama will take an additional dollar off each card.
The first deal is for a 6 pack of 4GB SanDisk Ultra II Compact Flash memory cards and it includes a Think Tank card case to hold them and you get it all for only $74.95. That's almost half off the regular price (46% to be exact).
I've used SanDisk for quite some time and have been very happy with their performance, there are times when I shoot fast (machine gunning it) and have never had to wait while images are written to the card.
Deal number two is for a Lexar 16GB 100x Platinum II Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Memory Card for just $29.95 (again, with free shipping). If you purchase two Adorama will take an additional dollar off each card.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
That Gritty Dave Hill Look...
In the 4 plus years we have been writing this blog our post regarding the "faux" Dave Hill look is by far one of our most popular posts, so here it is again.
If you have not seen the work of Dave Hill you need to, please take a minute (or 10) and look at his incredible images.
Now to imply that the technique I am about to show you is "just like Dave Hill's" would be a like saying my child worn minivan is just like a Ferrari. The only similarities is that they both have license plates, after that all similarities come to an end.
Though the ladies do love my minivan, as it is the "sport" version.
;)
Anyway, the technique I am going to show you will give your images a cool gritty look and works on most images, but it does work best on high key images. Below are several of my examples.
And though it looks like a lot of steps, after you have done it a couple times it will take you only about a minute to complete (really).
So here goes:
Step 1:
Open your image in Photoshop and create a duplicate the layer.
Go to "Filter" - "Other" - "High Pass" set the Radius to 4 Pixels.
On the Layers palette select the "Vivid Light" blending mode.
Flatten the image.
Step 2:
Create a duplicate the layer (again).
Go to "Filter" - "Other" - "High Pass" set the Radius to 7 Pixels.
On the Layers palette select the "Color" blending mode with an opacity of 40%.
Flatten the image.
Step 3:
Create a duplicate the layer (one last time).
Go to "Filter" - "Blur" - "Gaussian" set the Radius to 9.5 Pixels.
Go to "Filter" - "Noise" - "Add Noise" set Amount to 3%.
Got to "Layer" - "Layer Mask" - "Hide All"
Now use the lasso tool and select only the eyes (assuming the image has eyes, for multiple selections hold the shift key).
Go to "Select" - "Refine Edges" - set "Feather" to 5-6 pixels, then "Select" - "Inverse"
Select the brush on your tool palette, set the brush opacity to 30% and brush over the entire image once.
Flatten the image.
Step 4:
Go to "Filter" - "Sharpen" - "Unsharp Mask" and use the following settings:
Amount 100%
Radius 30.0 pixels
Threshold 0 Levels
That's it, give it a try, and I would love to see your results.
If you click on any of the images below they will open larger and in a new window so you can have a better view of how the effect has changed each image.
If you have not seen the work of Dave Hill you need to, please take a minute (or 10) and look at his incredible images.
Now to imply that the technique I am about to show you is "just like Dave Hill's" would be a like saying my child worn minivan is just like a Ferrari. The only similarities is that they both have license plates, after that all similarities come to an end.
Though the ladies do love my minivan, as it is the "sport" version.
;)
Anyway, the technique I am going to show you will give your images a cool gritty look and works on most images, but it does work best on high key images. Below are several of my examples.
And though it looks like a lot of steps, after you have done it a couple times it will take you only about a minute to complete (really).
So here goes:
Step 1:
Open your image in Photoshop and create a duplicate the layer.
Go to "Filter" - "Other" - "High Pass" set the Radius to 4 Pixels.
On the Layers palette select the "Vivid Light" blending mode.
Flatten the image.
Step 2:
Create a duplicate the layer (again).
Go to "Filter" - "Other" - "High Pass" set the Radius to 7 Pixels.
On the Layers palette select the "Color" blending mode with an opacity of 40%.
Flatten the image.
Step 3:
Create a duplicate the layer (one last time).
Go to "Filter" - "Blur" - "Gaussian" set the Radius to 9.5 Pixels.
Go to "Filter" - "Noise" - "Add Noise" set Amount to 3%.
Got to "Layer" - "Layer Mask" - "Hide All"
Now use the lasso tool and select only the eyes (assuming the image has eyes, for multiple selections hold the shift key).
Go to "Select" - "Refine Edges" - set "Feather" to 5-6 pixels, then "Select" - "Inverse"
Select the brush on your tool palette, set the brush opacity to 30% and brush over the entire image once.
Flatten the image.
Step 4:
Go to "Filter" - "Sharpen" - "Unsharp Mask" and use the following settings:
Amount 100%
Radius 30.0 pixels
Threshold 0 Levels
That's it, give it a try, and I would love to see your results.
If you click on any of the images below they will open larger and in a new window so you can have a better view of how the effect has changed each image.
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