Create Your Own Masterpiece With A Photo Printed On Canvas
July 21, 2009
Picture this – you’ve just been taking photos of your kids on a beautiful, sunny evening and you’ve managed to capture the perfect shot of their happy smiles beaming in the golden light. This is a photo that deserves more than just sticking into the photo album. You want to frame this one and put it on your wall to preserve that moment forever. Why not make the most of this photo and have it printed on canvas!
Printing a photo on to canvas is a technique that is now widely available. Your digital photo is printed onto a canvas background and is given the texture, depth of color and feeling of a real masterpiece. Museum quality canvas ensures that these prints will last for many years to come without fading or deteriorating.
Most digital cameras now produce images of good enough quality to make really quite large prints. Think of creating a larger than life portrait of your child smiling down from the wall at you. With canvas you really don’t need to stay small, in fact you are really creating a piece of personal art that you can use as a focal point of your room.
Once you’ve had one photo put onto canvas, you’re bound to want to create your own family portrait gallery, so stunning is the effect. With the modern look of the gallery wrap finish, where the image is wrapped around the edge of the canvas stretcher, there is no need for the distraction of a frame, so you get the full force of the image. Another advantage of canvas prints is that there is no need of glass to protect the image, so the image is clear and vibrant without being disturbed by the reflections of glass.
Canvas prints are also relatively light, without the weight of a heavy wooden frame and glass. This means that it is easy to mount a whole series of canvas prints on a wall. You can have them printed all of equal size and hang them in a row, or make them of all different shapes and sizes and hang them to create a mosaic effect, all close together in a block.
Canvas prints really do bring a whole new dimension to your photography, making your pictures look really professional, so that you can enjoy your best photos of your kids everyday and keep your memories of those gorgeous toddlers alive… even once they become teenagers and are begging you to take those embarrassingly cute pictures down!
Child Photographer
The Perfect Child Photography Contest Is All About The Photo.
July 20, 2009
Have you ever looked into a child photography contest, only to be turned off by the thought of pitting your child’s adorable smile against another’s? If you look past the very first pop up of your web search you will come across cute baby contests that agree all babies are beautiful. The real entrant in the contest is you and it is your photography skills and creativity that are judged.
Because of the lure of prizes and parental pride contests to find the cutest children for advertisements are flooded with photos. I have entered more than one and while there is no doubt that my son is beautiful, for some reason he has yet to win. While I scouted out even more contests to enter his winning smile in I came upon ones that are all about the photos.
I’m sure that you have caught your child in some adorable moment, peeking around the corner, or wearing a beard of bubbles in the bath. You look at the photo and you see the perfect image. If you have staged the perfect picture, or more impressively, caught it by chance, then you should enter in one of these photo contests.
With judges that range from professionals to your peers, even offering you a vote, there is much to be had. Not only can you rise to the photography challenge, but you can look around and be inspired by other people’s clever ideas and poses. I often peruse other’s photos and find shots that I am eager to duplicate and make my own.
When Anne Geddes’ work first debuted, I was one of millions popping their own little ones into flower pots and firing off dozens of pictures. This past Christmas I photographed my son in a drywall bucket, in a t-shirt with the family’s logo on it. My father and grandfather, the heads of the business, were thrilled with the quick spin on an old pose. My father dubbed the photo his “Little Legacy” and taped a copy to his clipboard to show off when he gives estimates.
While I am a fan of beautiful baby contests, entering my son with the conviction that he will one day be on the cover of one of my parenting magazines, I find a certain satisfaction in the photo contests. I take pride in overcoming shutter lag to get the perfect shot of my son popping out of the water at the pool. I am thrilled when I choose just the right ISO to capture a low light photo of my baby sleeping without it being overcome with graininess. The contests appeal to all my photographic sensibilities, give them a peek and they will be calling you too.
A Mom’s Best Tool Is Sharing Photos Online.
July 17, 2009
It is no secret that motherhood requires you to use every trick in your bag and come up with new ones on a daily basis just to keep up. That is especially true for mothers like myself who’s family is too far away to lend a hand. That being the case there are just two things that I can’t life without; unlimited minutes on my cell phone and sharing photos online.
I want my family to be able to see my son grow up, as they are able to do with his cousins who live in the same town. I also take more pictures of my little one daily than most people take in a week. Relying on postal service is both costly and slow; uploading your photos onto the internet is really the only way to go.
There are so many benefits to sharing your photos online; I can’t believe I only started doing it this year. I had associated it with teens and myspace and never really looked into it. However, most of the websites that you upload your pictures to let you order prints and other products.
The one I use even retains my address book so I can share pictures with everyone or just two or three people with only a few seconds of clicking. There is even an automatically formatted invitation from my account to view the photos which saves me tons of time. Not only can I use it to order prints, but so can everyone else I share them with.
I can’t even tell you how much I used to spend on doubles and triples just so I would have enough to give away. Now everyone picks out what they want and does whatever they want with them. My cousin stores them on her iPhone while my mother is constantly ordering 8x10s. One of the nicest things is that they can send me comments as soon as they see them and I can pretend we are all hanging out together chatting about our kids instead of spread across the country.
There are more technical advantages too. The photos you upload are stored on the websites server, so you can access them from anywhere. It is the perfect place to store your precious memories in case of fire or other destruction. My cousin who is studying to be a professional photographer uses the sites to get critiques on her photo skills from family and peers.
Whether you are a professional photographer or a time pressed mom, photo sharing websites are ideal for you. It doesn’t matter if you scan in a print or start with a digital image, as long as you know how to store your pictures as a jpeg you are good to go. If you don’t, Adobe Photo shop can do it for you. Either way you can simplify your life and start uploading now.
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Already Put Your Photos On Canvas? Here’s How To Make The Perfect Display.
July 16, 2009
Now that your photos are on canvas how do you give them the attention that they deserve? The answer is in your display. If you really want to make your artwork pop the wall that you hang them on is almost as important as the giclee.
Contrasting colors make the boldest statements. Finding the right shade is as easy as getting a color wheel. You can get them at the art store or just grab one online. The exact opposite color is straight across the circle from the one on your canvas. To turn your intended wall into an eye catching gallery simply paint it in the contrasting color to provide a stunning background.
It may be simpler to reverse engineer the process and choose photos for your canvases that contrast the existing wall color. Choose a number of your favorite photos and using some paint safe tape, design your ideal layout, then send the winning pictures in to be printed on canvas.
When I was pregnant with my son my nesting instinct turned into the pressing need to paint my son’s room perfectly. My goal was dappled sunlight, and after half a dozen shades of yellow and a week with a sponge I succeeded. While playing with my Photoshop software in my son’s first weeks home I made a collage of animals that I had photographed at the zoo. I laid his name over it and played with colors. A deep almost purple blue declared the room as his and I converted it to canvas for hanging by his door.
It doesn’t take a maternal instinct to desire beauty from your home. Whether you want to be surrounded by canvases of your child’s multitude of expressions or some other happy memories, there is no sense in hanging them on the wall if they are just going to fade into it. Nor do you have to paint the whole room if one wall will do.
Accent walls are very popular now. You can jump onto this trend and make it your own with distinctive canvases arranged on a single wall of bold contrasting color. If you are looking to spice up your home in a fun way let a color wheel lead you to the perfect shade of paint to bring out the best in your canvases. Make your memories stand out on your wall like they do in your mind.
Use A Digital Photo To Give The Light Of Your Life The Ultimate In Personalized Gifts.
July 15, 2009
A light in the dark represents so much. To a child it is protection from the monsters under the bed. To a sailor it is a safe guide through the night. Through new technology it can now be a glowing tribute to a memory that you hold dear. If you are looking for top of the line personalized gifts, send your digital photo to be carved into a beautiful light.
Being a proud mother with more pictures of my adorable son than I know what to do with I am constantly searching for unique photo gifts. When I ran across the process of illuminating photos I was instantly intrigued.
They take your photo and carve it into a translucent material. It has all the simple elegance of a black and white photo, the variance in thickness of the material creating the gradient of the photo’s tones. When you light it from behind it makes your precious memory glow with an ethereal beauty. They even give you an option of frames to compliment the light or just make it match your home.
Even if I didn’t have a child, my home would have a variety of nightlights for safety and solace. Add a baby and guaranteed late night wakeups and they are an absolute necessity. These beautiful works of art shame the glowing frog in my bathroom outlet. While their uncomplicated beauty would compliment any home, they could easily reside in a church.
I am a fan of cathedrals like Norte Dame with their spires and stained glass and that is not an endorsement I give lightly. It need not even be night to view these lovely displays, although they do shine through the darkness like a beacon of hope promising sweet dreams and happy memories.
These delightful pieces belong on a mantel; don’t let their function hide them in a dark hallway. For such elegance the prices are unbelievably reasonable. You can easily afford to both display the artwork with your other precious photos and light your bathroom.
Whether it is your wedding day, your child’s first smile, or the first time your mother held you, the memory will be illuminated fantastically. If you have a photo that shows the light of your life, that makes you glow every time you glance at it, then that picture has a higher calling. Let the light shine through and illuminate your happy memories.
