Love Live Laugh

Back in February, the captain and I had an eventful afternoon in Orlando when we drove from our winter getaway into the city to visit the Central Florida Fair. We discovered upon our arrival at the front gates that the fair was closed, but since we try to treat our outings as adventures, we didn't let it spoil the day. Instead, I wandered around outside the fence, taking photographs of what I could -- thankful, for example, that the ferris wheel was located near the entrance.

I've shared some of those photos here on my blog, and here's another. You might think that this image took a lot of time to prepare, but it didn't. It took only a few clicks. Oops......not clicks. Taps. Yup, this is another iPhone creation.

WordFoto is the newest addition to my iPhone; the latest find in my never-ending quest to discover cool and fun iPhone apps. All I had to do to create this was open up the app and bring in the photo, then choose the words I wanted to use (more than 20 phrases are included in the app), then choose from among eight different styles (you can create custom styles as well). Done. There is an option to do a little fine-tuning, if I'd wanted.

It's that easy. Even better, WordFoto allows you to use whatever words you want, so I gave "eat write create" a try and came up with what you see below. Some images work better than others, depending on the styles you prefer, so a little experimentation should be expected. But it's fun and it creates something pretty nifty in just seconds. Give it a try!

The ducks are back

We've lived in our current home for many, many years. I can't remember when the ducks first started to visit, but it was a long time ago. Every spring, they grace us with their presence. Sometimes, we see them only once during the season, other years -- like this year -- they visit a little more frequently.

They're out there right now. It's the third time we've seen them in the past few weeks. There's always the male and the female; we've never seen them solo, and we've also never spied any babies. Can they possibly be the same pair? I have no idea how long ducks live, if they mate for life, or really anything much about them. I do know they're beautiful. They love our pool, and why wouldn't they? It has yet to be cleaned and chlorinated for the year, so it's perfect for them. They're also not fearful of us. The captain was out mowing the back yard this afternoon and they basically ignored him.

They may be out there right now, but I can't show you. My camera batteries are all dead, so the artwork features a photo I took two years ago. It contains a lot of textures and brush work, use of layer masks, and more. My muse was making a lot of noise today so I finally gave in to her and had a go at some duck art.

On a journey

I've been neglecting this poor little blog of mine. Sometimes, life just gets in the way.

I'm on a journey right now and, unfortunately, it's not one where all of you can come along for the ride. Not this time. Some amazing things have been happening of late. Good things. Good, but very personal. Someday, I know, I'll share them here. But now is not the time.

More artwork is on the way. My muse, who's been pretty quiet lately, is starting to rumble and get pretty noisy. I'm going to try to listen to her.

Black-and-white?

I am a huge fan of colour, but lately I find myself attracted to black-and-white photography -- not just when viewing the work of others, but in my own creations as well. When I'm working on an image in Photoshop's Camera Raw interface, I often select the Convert to Grayscale option to see if the conversion appeals to me. More and more frequently, it does. I'm now taking a critical eye to my photos, trying to determine if the colour enhances the image or distracts from it.

Take the photograph above. Roll your cursor over it (in other words, slide your mouse pointer onto the image) to form your own opinion -- when you do the rollover, you'll see the colour version, which is the image I chose to post in my Flickr photostream. But I was so undecided about that decision that I almost put both versions up. I really like this image in black-and-white, but yet I think the colour version highlights the grunge. In the end, I decided to go with the colour because of the photograph's delicious decay.

As a side note, this amazing architectural element was found right here in Toronto. Walking south on Yonge Street early one summer evening a few years ago, south of Bloor Street, camera in hand, I happened to glance up and was so surprised to see this beauty. Who knows how long she's been there? I stopped to take photographs (of course!) and the captain and our son and his girlfriend kept walking, only to realize I was no longer with them -- not the first time this has happened -- so they backtracked to where I was standing. We'd all walked up and down Yonge Street many times, yet had never noticed.

Makes you wonder what else we miss. We see but we don't always observe.

It's an addiction

When I was in grade five, my father bought me Scrabble Junior for Christmas. I quickly moved up to the grown-up game -- the one with the wonderful wooden tiles -- and have had a passion for this board game ever since. I have so many different versions, even the fancy one with the rotating board. But perhaps the best yet is the newest one in my collection -- the Scrabble app for my iPhone. It's also available for the iPad, should you have one of those.

If I could describe this app with one word, I don't know if I would choose "addictive" or "excellent". How about addictively excellent? Leslie and I had been playing Words with Friends (another great app and one we're still playing) and now we typically have a Scrabble game constantly on-the-go as well.

You do have to like words to like Scrabble; if spelling and wordplay are not your thing, then you likely wouldn't enjoy Scrabble at all. I'm a word junkie, so Scrabble is most definitely my thing.

Election Day 2011

Don't forget to vote today!