Thursday, August 21, 2008

Challenge #1 Incorporate the Blur



It is very appropriate that today is the start of the challenge blog because it is the day that I received my advance copy of When Life Gives You Lemons

As I poured through my copy I began to realize that I used to scrap this way a long time ago.

Now, my bad photos may have changed over the years but there are still times when no amount of photography expertise can prevent someone from closing their eyes as you snap and you not noticing it until it's much too late to retake. There's nothing you can do with photo editing about cutting off part of a persons head or even forgetting to take that precious shot. Sometimes we just need a few tricks up our sleeves.
That is what we will do on this challenge blog. Challenge ourselves to use those tricks. I encourage you to pick up a copy of my book, When Life Gives You Lemons but it is not mandatory to participate.

Let the challenges begin:
I cover at least 10 different types of photo imperfections in my book but I think that the most common one that nearly EVERYONE has in their stash is the blurry photo. Would you agree? Seriously, no matter how hard you try to keep that 3 year old from moving while taking their picture, those ants in their pants make it nearly impossible. How about the really poor lit room and you are trying to take pictures without a tripod. Even a pro would tell you they would have trouble preventing a blurry shot. Action and sports or how about the holidays where everyone is moving around. These all can lead to blur, blur and more blur!
JUST PITCH THOSE PHOTOS!

NO!!!!!!!!!!
That's not the challenge!
nor is it the solution.....
But you sometimes FEEL like doing that don't you?
Well, never fear (Wonder dog is here?)... no no... geesh.. I've been sniffing the stazon too long it seems! What I'm trying to say is that we are going to give you some solutions for scrapbooking BLURRY photos...

The first one is that we all have them... so why not USE them? As they are. Most of the time it can be the theme of the page... Look at our little busy guy..... or She's growing up so fast that the time is just a blur.... or how about Don't Blink or you might miss our athlete!
What I want you to do is to take a blurry photo (and don't tell me you can't find one! bet you will have to figure out WHICH one you would rather use, am I right?) and make a page that centers around the action of the photo. Centers around the REASON it's blurry. Incorporate the blur into your layout.
See a few examples of how I did just that at the top of this challenge
I want you to post a link to your page in your message here and next Thursday I will try to post those to a slider and add it to this challenge post.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions. I look foward to seeing what you can do.
Sherry




16 comments:

jakey said...

Oh yeah... I have enough lemons to play THIS game lol!

I hope to join in sometimes, I have one photo in mind already - good luck with the blog, it's a great idea :-)

Amy W. said...

wow, i don't think i have scrapped a blurry pic in a long while. i will have to see what i can come up with. thanks for the challenge!!! :)

Emily Pitts said...

fun idea sherry. i think i have a few of those photos... ;)

Danielle Flanders said...

This is awesome! I have a photo of my dad that I just took on my trip that I LOVE but it turned out blurry! I should give this a shot!

Unknown said...

Great challenge! I've got quite a few of these!

Melanie said...

what a great challenge!

The Mom said...

Love the name of this blog!!! Very good idea!!

itsallrosi said...

I definitely have some blurs, I'll be doing this challenge

Anonymous said...

Great Challenge.
Going to try it now!

Anonymous said...

I have way too many blurry pictures to choose from! I hope to have time to play later this week.

itsallrosi said...

heres my 1st lemon:

http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/pg.asp?set=recent&gallery=1&cmd=display&layout_id=1386356

Marilyn said...

When I first saw this, I KNEW what picture I was going to use! Thanks for doing this I had a blast! It is on my blog, www.melonscraps.blogspot.com

Becky said...

Thanks for the great challenge! Here is a link to my layout:

http://beckyscreativespace.blogspot.com/2008/08/using-blurry-photos.html

jakey said...

This is one I did before, it's been on my blog for a while - well, I did say I'd already made a start on these lemons... lol!

I always loved this pic so much, but considered it too blurry to use. But then I thought what the hell? It's a great photo, and I like the LO. It's for MY album, so, so what?

http://just-jake.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html

itsallrosi said...

a little late but here's another one: http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/pg.asp?set=recent&gallery=1&cmd=display&layout_id=1388593

Elizabeth said...

I had time to sit down and create doing this challenge! Thanks for challenging us!

Here's mine:
http://www.scrapbook.com/galleries/213089/view/1696349/-1/0/1.html