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2013-05-23 21:05:27 (4 comments, 6 reshares, 85 +1s)

Day 13/21 for #thetoybox  is a well-loved toy.

The Toy Box is a 3 -week toy-themed project conjured up by the team of +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz 

2013-05-21 20:37:03 (31 comments, 10 reshares, 180 +1s)

11/21 for #thetoybox  where I am challenging myself to post cat-toy pictures for three long weeks. This is our little lady, Merguez and a less-favoured feather toy. 

#thetoybox  is curated by the ever so lovely +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz: thanks to all four of you.

See the whole album to date here: https://plus.google.com/photos/103650703836816496431/albums/5876900995489555697

2013-05-21 15:44:48 (19 comments, 1 reshares, 51 +1s)

I am really, truly surprised and honoured to have made it to the front page of +Jarek Klimek's +PhotoExtract Photography Magazine today. Thank you Jarek. 

2013-05-21 20:36:49 (15 comments, 8 reshares, 127 +1s)

10/21 for #thetoybox  
I wish Toulouse was contemplating about how cruel and viscous he can be to his poor little sister. But it's more likely he's wondering how he can get rid of that yellow thing on his window sill.
The Toy Box is a 21-day challenge to post a daily toy. For some reason that is starting to make me look crazy, I thought it would be a good idea to self-commit to narrow my theme down to only cat toys. 
The theme is curated by the purrfect combination of +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz 

See the whole album to date here: https://plus.google.com/photos/103650703836816496431/albums/5876900995489555697

2013-05-20 04:23:42 (45 comments, 7 reshares, 143 +1s)

This is what happens to your #selfysunday  portraiture when you've been watching +Brooke Shaden on +creativeLIVE all week!

2013-05-20 04:20:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 28 +1s)

Added photos to The Selfy Sunday Project.

2013-05-19 16:58:28 (3 comments, 5 reshares, 71 +1s)

Even Mama Bird is totally surprised by the new layout.
www.mamabird.me

2013-05-19 16:12:49 (7 comments, 3 reshares, 79 +1s)

9/21 for #thetoybox

"Ewwww, what's that sticky eyeball" thinks Merguez as she gingerly stoops to paw the gruesome object she discovered lying on her windowsill. 

#thetoybox  is a 21-day event themed around toys that you can join in at any time. It is hosted by +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz 

Link to The Toy Box album can be found here: https://plus.google.com/photos/103650703836816496431/albums/5876900995489555697

2013-05-19 04:36:13 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 19 +1s)

The Strange Tale of a G+ Photography Coincidence:

Today I went to the Makers Fair and it was huge, thousands of people over acres of land. I sat down on a bench for an ice cream-with-burnt-caramel break, and started talking to the they guy next to me about his camera. I found out a few sentences later that  he only works for +Trey Ratcliff. Which was such a strange coincidence given the number of people at the fair and the dearth of empty spots on benches. It was pretty funny that I could tell him I'd actually been a guest on one of Trey's shows! Small world.

Trey - please send me your friend's name so I can connect. It was great to see +Lorenzo Montezemolo with them too.

2013-05-18 15:55:51 (24 comments, 6 reshares, 139 +1s)

We are on to day 8/21 for #thetoybox  in which Banger tucks in to his Sardine Supper

Last weekend Oakland hosted a Cat Video Festival where they closed down a few blocks in the center of  town and projected LOL cat videos on a ginormous wall whilst thousands of people watched and laughed. Out loud. They had an area where people were selling pet-related merchandize and I decided to treat my trio to some hand-made catnip-filled sardines in a shade of colour that our host +Jules Falk Hunter would most certainly enjoy. My kitties loved it so hard, this sardine was ripped to shreds within a few days. The toy was made by Trish Iriye. You can purchase them through her Etsy Store Miso Handmade:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/misohandmade

#thetoybox is curated by +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz and I am aslo going to sneak in a #caturday  tag
... more »

2013-05-17 08:07:39 (91 comments, 7 reshares, 305 +1s)

Project 52 B&W paired with 7/21 of The Toy Box 
Week 20: Framed, Model Merguez
#P52BW13 | +Project 52 B&W 
Curated by +Tisha Craw, +Susan Porter, & +Lauri Novak 
#thetoybox  curated by +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz 
I just love her.

To see the rest of the P52BW album see here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103650703836816496431/albums/5829402990956187761

To see the rest of the toy box album, see here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103650703836816496431/albums/5876900995489555697

2013-05-16 18:01:31 (14 comments, 14 reshares, 171 +1s)

[ LIVE NOW: Fine Art Portraits ] http://www.creativelive.com/live1 Get ready for the launch of a 3-day visually stunning online workshop with Brooke Shaden Photography. Learn inexpensive ways to create gallery-style works of art from scratch & get secrets to transforming mundane images. Enroll FREE http://cr8.lv/brookeshaden

2013-05-17 01:03:47 (46 comments, 3 reshares, 117 +1s)

For day 6/21 of #thetoybox we have a special guest visitor. Our neigbour bought his little kitty, Evie, along our outside  window ledge for a 'playdate' with Merguez. It was dusk and I had to act fast with an outrageously large ISO  to capture this funny initial reaction to the meeting of the young girl-cats. Thank goodness there was glass inbetween them!  In order for my image to qualify for The Toy Box  my childhood doll, Louise, sits at the window sill, oblivious to the drama unfolding behind her..

#thetoybox is curated by +Jules Falk Hunter  +Steve Johnson  +Felicia Renz  and +Dave Renz 
To see the full and ongoing album of my Toy Box images for this 21-day challenge please visit the following link: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/103650703836816496431/albums/5876900995489555697

2013-05-15 15:35:20 (6 comments, 4 reshares, 96 +1s)

He stood in the window eating his breakfast and watching me as I took pictures of the surrounding area.  With his mouth still full of food, I took this picture.  For #MonochromeMonday (+Monochrome Monday) Curated by +Hans Berendsen , +Jerry Johnson , +Steve Barge, +Dominique Hilbert , +David Orr and +Martin Heller

2013-05-15 14:54:35 (55 comments, 9 reshares, 108 +1s)

For day 5/21 of #thetoybox  in which a quiet, pensive Toulouse daydreams of his adventures as mighty ruler of the Kingdom of fluffy little pink mice whilst reflecting his gaze through a   #windowwednesday .

#thetoybox is curated by +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz. Mouse a gift,  courtesy of +Penny Leyton 

2013-05-14 13:28:32 (73 comments, 13 reshares, 131 +1s)

#thetoybox  

If you don't like cats (it's OK, I understand, I used to be one of you), then you may want to stay away from my stream for the next couple of weeks as I challenge myself to post a picture of toy with accompanying cat on a daily basis. But I warn you, my cat pictures will be full of the kind of cute that might make you Dog-people cave in.

In this image, Banger is trying to wrestle the cuddly fish-bone toy out of my grip. It was  tough for me to hold my heavy camera with just one hand in order to get this shot, as the other hand was on some serious toy-tugging duty.

The Toy Box theme is curated by +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz 

2013-05-16 20:07:34 (50 comments, 9 reshares, 111 +1s)

I met Harvey in San Francisco sitting on a bench near Clay Street just beyond where Sue Bierman Park is carved through the middle by Drumm.  "Do you want to take a picture of the real Santa Claus?"  he called out to me, causing me to stop in my tracks, twist around and take in the source of the voice, a wizened gentleman whose mass of greying hair spilled around his face in wiry coils. No wonder he introduced himself as the self-proclaimed father of Christmas.  "I would love to", I responded, moving to sit down beside him.

"They call me Humboldt Harvey" he chuckled.  "Oh, I said knowingly, "you must have grown up in Humboldt County then?". "No, no, Humble Harvey, humble". "Oh, Humble! So, are you Humble". "Yes", he laughed before telling me stories of his family, how his siblings are doing well for themselves,the... more »

2013-05-13 14:20:33 (38 comments, 0 reshares, 98 +1s)

#thetoybox  3/21

Today marks the first toy box appearance of kitty number three, the lady of the trio, the one and only Merguez as she sits in the dappled sunlight, completely ignoring the little pink jingle ball.

Twenty-one days of toys coming to you in this project curated by +Jules Falk Hunter  +Steve Johnson  +Felicia Renz  and +Dave Renz. My attempt at the theme is based on cat toys and I am trying to post each one with cat(s) included. Let's see if I can keep this up for 3 weeks. Crikey...

2013-05-12 18:15:59 (35 comments, 6 reshares, 140 +1s)

#thetoybox  2/21

Twenty-one days of toys coming to you in this project curated by +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz 

Today Banger & Toulouse are playing with their favourite toy of all time. The feather on the string toy...

2013-05-12 01:45:50 (32 comments, 2 reshares, 111 +1s)

#thetoybox

This is my entry 1/21 for a new project lasting 21 days that anyone can join whenever they like. The idea is to post one picture a day, the main theme is toys. I don't have any human children, so don't be surprised if I post a few cat toys instead. This is my boy Banger, sniffing Jules' favourite colour! My cats are so tricky to photograph, we'll just have to see how this goes..

thetoybox is curated by +Jules Falk Hunter +Steve Johnson +Felicia Renz and +Dave Renz 
The project starts Saturday May 11 and lasts 21 days and anyone can join in at any time.

I guess this is good for #caturday  too!

2013-05-10 06:09:24 (42 comments, 5 reshares, 174 +1s)

Project 52 B&W
Week 19 theme: Food
#P52BW13 | +Project 52 B&W 
Curated by +Tisha Craw, +Susan Porter, & +Lauri Novak, P52BW13 is a year-long black & white photography project with a new theme every week. 

2013-05-09 16:03:16 (16 comments, 5 reshares, 115 +1s)

“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”  Mark Twain

2013-05-09 15:51:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

What happens when 73 Google Plus Female Photographers, Artists and Writers get together and do a book for charity?  How We See It...the nature of our worlds is the result. Just published on Blurb.com +Blurb Books This book benefits the +HWSI  #HWSI  charity, the NOW Love Your Body Foundation (http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org), an organization that deals with body image issues and eating disorders.  100% of the profits of this third HWSI book will go to charity.  The book is now available on Blurb in the hardcover version and a PDF version with an eBook version coming shortly.  I am sure that the ladies involved with the project will be sharing this project with all of you as well.  Thank you to all 72 of you! You are all wonderful, and your work and support of this project is incredible! 

http://www.blurb.com/b/4293600-how-we-see-it-the-nature-of-our-worlds

2013-05-08 14:51:42 (96 comments, 16 reshares, 308 +1s)

#wordlessonwednesday  

2013-05-13 16:01:37 (24 comments, 3 reshares, 94 +1s)

Another image resulting from our tests with lasers in collaboration with +frederic schmidt 

2013-05-06 21:54:18 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 34 +1s)

Creative People Say No

Saying “no” has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know. We are not taught to say “no.” We are taught not to say “no.”

I have been thinking about saying no more often. I am hopeless at it, but I need to learn to be better at it.

2013-05-04 23:34:10 (47 comments, 12 reshares, 164 +1s)

My blue-eyed girl, Merguez for #caturday  




Thinking of you, +Lee Daniels +Christophe Friedli +Shantha Marie Fountain and +Cicely Robin Laing at +CATURDAY! 

2013-05-04 17:43:13 (19 comments, 3 reshares, 112 +1s)

#HappyBirthdayChrystaRae  

Today I give thanks for the birth of one person who has changed the course of my life in a way I never imagined was possible a year ago. She has opened up a world of possibilites and dreams to me. I will forever be grateful to Chrysta for giving me a kick in the arse and making me realise what I was capable of. Without her prompting I would be a much lesser me.

May your Birthday, and every day, be as special as you, +Chrysta Rae. 


This picture of +Christopher Germano and Chrysta was taken last September in Vegas, baby.

2013-05-04 09:00:10 (39 comments, 3 reshares, 143 +1s)

Project 52 B&W
Week 18: Speed
Created for #P52BW13 | +Project 52 B&W 
Curated by +Tisha Craw, +Susan Porter, & +Lauri Novak 

2013-05-13 15:58:30 (70 comments, 2 reshares, 78 +1s)

Well you know you got it, if it makes you feel good

#lyricallyinspired  


theme by +Jason Jakober +Tara Romasanta amd +Amanda Recker :D

2013-05-02 13:41:16 (42 comments, 1 reshares, 99 +1s)

#coffeethursday returns today, meaning I can at last share this portrait of a young gentleman drinking is coffee at Sightglass in San Francisco a few months ago.  His outfit was so fabulous, I just had to ask him if he wouldn't mind me taking his photograph. 

Good morning to the brew crew  of +Maki Silberberg +Jason Kowing +Sairam Sundaresan and +Stuart Dyckhoff who are hosting this caffeinated event.

2013-05-01 15:53:12 (22 comments, 5 reshares, 155 +1s)

#wordlessonwednesday  

2013-04-30 15:25:26 (30 comments, 2 reshares, 74 +1s)

In my #assignmentforjake  to create an image based on the letter E for +Jake Johnson's Alphabet Challenge, I came up with this E is for Escher-inspired interpretation of the Bond of Union. 
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/e/escher/escher_bond.jpg.html
I am not really doing Escher much justice with this, but it was a good learning exercise and I can see what I might do differently next time to make improvements. Step #1: Learn to carve an apple better...

2013-05-13 16:00:28 (59 comments, 11 reshares, 119 +1s)

Riddle: What's Black & White & Tread All Over?
Answer: ?

This was my entry to the April +Style It! Shoot It! Share It! challenge hosted by the inimitable +lane langmade and +Shantha Marie Fountain. Sign-ups for the May challenge are still open, and I think spots are still available but not for much longer, so hurry if you want to take part. 

Thanks to my model Pearl Yon, Mayhem #2336988
Location: Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA, USA
Lighting Assistant +frederic schmidt 
Mystery Male Model +Chris Chabot 
Inspiration: David LaChapelle. Let's hope he doesn't sue me for mentioning that.

2013-04-26 07:19:35 (48 comments, 0 reshares, 150 +1s)

Project 52 B&W
Week 17: Night Lights
#P52BW13 | +Project 52 B&W 
Curated by +Tisha Craw, +Susan Porter, & +Lauri Novak 

Playing with my speedlite, aka off-camera flash. It was scary!

2013-04-26 02:06:58 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

Exciting news:. +Joey L. is going to be doing a +creativeLIVE course next week. I am pretty certain I won't be able to resist purchasing this one. I recently received his lighting book (signed, thanks Joey :) and loving it so far.

2013-04-25 15:33:29 (18 comments, 2 reshares, 81 +1s)

#BlastfromthePast  

This picture is from 1986. I was "modelling" for my friend 'Vix', who was the photographer-one in our shared student household in Bournemouth, UK. 
So eighties. Such pretentious students. Ha!

+Blast From The Past is a weekly trip down memory lane hosted by +Isabelle Fortin +Cheryl Cooper and +Mark Rodriguez 

2013-04-23 05:37:06 (22 comments, 6 reshares, 138 +1s)

April Rise
If ever I saw blessing in the air 
I see it now in this still early day
Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips 
Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye

Excerpt from the poem by Laurie Lee

2013-04-19 07:13:01 (29 comments, 1 reshares, 119 +1s)

Project 52 B&W
Week 16: Fade
#P52BW13 | +Project 52 B&W 
Curated by +Tisha Craw, +Susan Porter, & +Lauri Novak 

I was pretty pleased to have achieved this lighting straight out of the camera within a small number of attempts, no post processing. My idea was to show a filament fading after the light was switched off. Soundtrack for this week's theme, Fade to Grey...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17ei1_visage-fade-to-grey_music#.UXDrkavwJ7Q

2013-04-18 16:30:34 (15 comments, 2 reshares, 99 +1s)

On this week's ultimate edition of #urbansnap  the challenge is to try and cover as many themes as possible from the last year in one shot. Here's my first attempt.  I am claiming the following themes with this one...
Red and Man Made Waterfall and Rust and One of a Kind Walls and Urban Athletics (which is what it took +Guillaume Desachy to position himself in the Vallaincourt Fountain) and maybe, at a push, grounded metal?
#urbansnapgrandfinale  

Read about how to take part in the grand finale here: https://plus.google.com/114855977826297290745/posts/UCvW1FXzvTh

2013-04-18 06:33:50 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 20 +1s)

With utmost thanks to everyone who has joined in the fun over the past year, this week marks the One Year Anniversary of #urbansnap and so we thought it would be a great idea to look back over the themes of the past year and make a new theme out of all of them combined. Your challenge, if you wish to take part, is to find images which contain at least two of the past themes. The more themes you can fit in one image, the more impressed we all will be! This week include the hashtag #urbansnapgrandfinale so we can find them more easily. Here is a list of everything we've snapped to date:

Yellow Buildings
Blue Doors
Spanish Style Architecture
Fish
Flamingos
Tiles
Stained Glass
Women on Walls
Old SchoolVW Bugs
rainbows
Selfies
Stars 
Stripes
Public Transportation
X
Under Construction
Urban Athleticsmore »

2013-04-15 15:08:30 (14 comments, 3 reshares, 98 +1s)

Spring view from the i80

2013-04-12 14:12:28 (34 comments, 0 reshares, 140 +1s)

Project 52 B&W
Week 15: Flower(s)
#P52BW13 | +Project 52 B&W 
Project 52 B&W is a weekly event curated by +Tisha Craw & +Susan Porter for which participants submit black & white photographs on a given theme.

This was shot on our Office Photoclub walk this past Wednesday. We took a walk around our office-park campus together and concentrated on capturing macro shots and for that, flowers are the obvious subject. I was using my Ring flash so I could have a wide depth of field and enough even light on the subject with a dark background for this shot. It was a tall singular flower which allowed me to separate it from the background more easily.

2013-04-11 19:29:12 (23 comments, 2 reshares, 66 +1s)

According to #blastfromthepast , today is National Sibling Day, so I had to dig up a picture that included me with my sister. Here we are in 1976 on the first vacation we had that I remember. Balanced on the side of the Jensen Healey is my mum's new boyfriend, later to become step-dad, who of course we liked because... look at his car! My mum barely had a car at all, let alone a fancy one. I can't even begin to tell you how smug it felt when he picked me up from school in that thing. A car with the top down! No one else had one of those. 

The Summer of 1976, in the UK, was the hottest since records began (350 years). There was a serious drought. But to my ten year old self, the months of blistering sunshine couldn't have been more perfect. We were going on our first ever family holiday. All 4 of us squashed in the car, which had no back seats, just a little ledge that me and... more »

2013-04-07 06:18:24 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 24 +1s)

Added photos to The Selfy Sunday Project.

2013-04-06 17:30:12 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 61 +1s)

It's Saturday, it's +CATURDAY! 

This photo is from a +Photography+ Project a few months ago on the theme of vintage and I don't think I ever remembered to post it publicly. I was trying to go for that 70s look. It's a genuine 70s dress my mother made, a floppy hat and a bottle of Mexican coke. And of course, photogenic kitty Merguez wanted in on the action too, making this perfect for #Caturday  !!

Caturday is hosted by +Lee Daniels +Christophe Friedli +Cicely Robin Laing and +Shantha Marie Fountain 

2013-04-06 04:14:33 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 84 +1s)

Project 52 B&W
Week 14: Transportation 
#P52BW13 | +Project 52 B&W 
Curated by +Tisha Craw , +David Bowden , & +Susan Porter

A train as seen from the passenger seat of a Nissan 350Z on the 880 in Oakland, CA, on a rainy Sunday.

2013-04-05 00:15:36 (7 comments, 3 reshares, 38 +1s)

GIANTS is the new #urbansnap  theme.

How does the game work? We  put down a card with an urban theme and everyone who wants to can follow suit and post their pictures of urban examples of motion too. Make sure to tag your posts with the hashtag #urbansnap   so other players can look for your entries. You can post as many entries on that theme as you like throughout the week.

Every week, a new urban theme will be created by Urban Snap and we'll start another round. The day for the new theme announcement is Thursdays.

The latest theme will always be announced here in our stream so you can check in at any time to see what it is.

It's just meant to be a bit of fun... so get creative, get snapping and most of all, enjoy!

Urban Snap is hosted by +Sam Breach  and +Kristine Ward 

2013-04-01 14:56:24 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 51 +1s)

This week's #urbansnap  theme is motion. Here is the delightful +Swee Oh pointing to a great example of motion blur for us, this taken on The Strip in Las Vegas last year.

+Urban Snap is a photography game with a weekly changing theme hosted by me and +Kristine Ward 

2013-04-01 15:23:19 (42 comments, 1 reshares, 120 +1s)

I don't know if you have heard, but +Jake Johnson has been handing out personalized assignments tailored specifically to those brave enough to sign up for one. I meekly squeaked interest and he went very easy on me this week and said this:

"I know you are headed away this weekend. So I want to see the best image from your trip.... I am thinking green rolling hills with you singing the Sound of Music in the middle of a field.  Or maybe a roaring fire with wine set out and the frenchman waiting for you on a bear skin rug.  You get the idea. I am going easy on you this round, make it good"

Jake's idea of my weekend away was obviously influenced by grand theatrical notions where those going for a night away in the countryside are lucky enough to stay on large estates nestled in luscious valleys with giant rooms furnished with giant fire places and bear skin rugs. Aswo... more »