Digital Scrapbooking 101 BLOG

PERSONALIZED PHOTO CALENDARS

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Digital Photography, Scrapbook Articles, Scrapbook Tips, Training.

Title: CREATING PERSONALIZED PHOTO CALENDARS

Author: Valerie Goettsch

About Photo Calendars:

Photo Calendars are 12-month, wall-hanging calendars that you can create using your own digital photos and captions. [It's like scrapbooking your wall for a year...] As you customize your own photo calendar, you can start the calendar on whatever month and year you wish. Most photo calendars are printed on white heavy-weight glossy card stock that you can write on, and they are spiral-bound in the middle.

[Don't let that stop you though... they can also be printed on standard card stock.  Doing so gives your photo's a textured matt finish look.]

Creating Personalized Photo Calendars:

Most online digital photo printing services, such as Shutterfly (my favorite), Snapfish and Ofoto.com, offer custom photo calendars. The process of creating personalized photo calendars usually involves:

1. Picking a starting month and year for your calendar
2. Selecting a page design from a variety of photo calendar templates
3. Choosing your photos from those you have uploaded to the photo service’s website and selecting which photo you want for a specific month
4. Writing brief photo captions to accompany each page of your photo calendar (usually optional)
5. Adding a cover photo for your personalized photo calendar
6. Placing your photo calendar order with the web site [You can also create your own using FREE  digital scrapbook software.]

Templates for Personalized Photo Calendars:

Most photo printing services like Shutterfly and Snapfish offer a selection of photo calendar templates to choose from. There are also several software programs [Even FREE Digital Scrapbook Software] that include free photo calendar templates. FotoFinish offers several photo calendar templates with its FotoFinish Suite software version, and you can download a variety of additional free photo calendar templates from its website. Adobe Photoshop Album and Jasc Paint Shop [Now Corel PSP] Photo Album 5 Deluxe also feature photo calendar templates.

[Get The Greatest FREE Digital Scrapbook Gift... EVER! and learn to use FREE Software to create your photo calendars with]

Printing Photo Calendars:

If you design your custom photo calendar using an online photo service, to print it simply add your photo calendar to your online shopping account and check out. You’ll have your printed photo calendar in a few days. The average cost is about $25 per calendar. If you are using your own [FREE] software to create your photo calendar, you can print your calendar pages using your own color printer and have your pages spiral bound into a calendar at a local copy store.  [They also sell spiral calendar blank page kits]

[Personally, I just use a thumb tack to hold them on the wall or cork board.]

Customized Photo Calendars Make Great Gifts:

Custom photo calendars make terrific gifts, whether for birthdays, Mother’s Day, Fathers Day, Weddings… etc. Got an avid golfer in the family?  What about custom golf photo calendars featuring photos of your golfer teeing off or putting? Sometimes it is hard to come up with a good gift idea for elderly parents or grandparents. A photo calendar with pictures of your children makes a great gift that grandma and grandpa will enjoy anew each time they turn over a new month. Don’t have kids? What about 12 months of your favorite pet photos or [or photos from the cruise you just took]? The ideas are endless.

About the author:

Valerie Goettsch publishes the digital photography website http://www.digitalphotos101.com featuring reviews of photo editing and album software and digital photo printing services.

[Comments] – Added comments by Wes Waddell.

Happy Scrappin’

Kathy and Wes

www.EZScrapbookGuide.com
www.MyPrincessCrafts.com

-

Popularity: 15% [?]

3 comments.

Turning Your Holidays into Lasting Memories

Posted on June 12th, 2008 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Scrapbook Articles, Scrapbook Tips, Training.

Turning Your Holidays into Lasting Memories.

Author: Wes Waddell

Article:

Don’t you find that no matter how many times you experience holiday travel, the excitement never fades?

Unfortunately, the one thing that does fade is your memory of all the wonderful experiences and pleasures you enjoyed on your trips.

There is a way to preserve more of the memores, emotions, sights and senses… you can even pass them on to friends, family and future generations.

Would you like to know how?

Here’s how really easy it can be:

• – Keep a small journal or notebook handy on your trip. If the idea of writing everything down bores you, keep an audio journal with an inexpensive tape or new digital recorder. My best recommendation is to keep both a written and an audio journal. You don’t have to keep it with you at all times… but you should record or write down as mugh as you can each evening at a minimum so you don’t leave out any of the real emotions you had that day. Get comments from the whole family when possible so that you can capture their emotional memories as well. This makes it possible to transcribing your complete emotional experiences into a more coherent form once you return home without forgetting any of the wonderful details.

• – Take lots of pictures. I know, you probably already do that, but here’s a few things that usually get missed in all the excitement. Don’t forget to take background shots of food, table settings, gardens and even the outside of hotels or empty campsites. These make perfect backgrounds and stationery for your final memory books. Besides, with digital photos and inexpensive memory cards, it costs almost nothing to snap a few extra fill photos. I personally also create a seperate directory and subdirectories on my laptop for each day and each location that day. I then sort the photos into those directores at the end of each day while I’m compiling my journaling notes. Going through the photos each day also helps me create a more complete journal for each day as well.

• – Shop for bargains and think FLAT! Every location will offer some unique (maybe even exotic) items you can buy for very reasonable prices that will become real treasures when they later sit on your mantel at home. What gets missed a lot of times are local fabrics, papers and colors that help your minds eye recall the feelings and emotions you felt while you were there. Just keep FLAT in mind as you’ll be placing some of this in your memory book with your photos and journaling.

• – Don’t forget the paperwork. Be sure and keep your taxi reciepts, menus (when possible), postcards, boarding passes, railroad passes, left over foreign paper currency, receipts, and ticket stubs to special events. You might even like to cut out pages from any travel books and brochures you used or picked up on holiday. When you finally transcribe your travel journal into your memory book scrapbook, you’ll be able to add photos or journal in small vignettes and anecdotes amidst these visual items of your trip.

Finally, don’t make the mistake of procrastination in assembling your memory book scrapbook when you return home. I’m not going to say you need to do it as soon as you walk through the door, but I know from experience that you will find that the sooner you get started, the more easily you’ll create the finished memory book scrapbook project. Do it as a family and I just know (again from personal experience… even with teens) that this will be an enormously entertaining family activity. Besides that, we all know that the sooner you begin your memory book, the fresher your memories and emotions will be. Holiday travel is meant to be fun, even if not always relaxing. But why let this fun dim into the dark forgotten past.

If you simply follow these ideas, you will easily enjoy and “relive, again and again” your favorite travels. Do it well, and even your future generations will be living them right there with you in the future.

About the author:
Wes Waddell is retired Air Force and now spends his time indulging his passion for travel and his wifes passion for scrapbooking while living the dream of their own home digital scrapbook business. You can keep up with their current scrapbook activities on their blog, Computer Scrapbooking 101 at: BLOG.PrincessCrafts.com or join the First and largest digital scrapbook membership site on the internet at: www.myprincesscrafts.com/membership_sale.htm. You can even get FREE Downloadable Stationery at: www.Free-Stationery.com

Popularity: 17% [?]

2 comments.

What To Do When Your Digital Photos Are Too Big For Your Scrapbook Page.

Posted on October 31st, 2007 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Scrapbook Articles, Scrapbook Tips, Training.

Hi Scrapbook Friend,

Kathy and I received a great question today from one of our members.  It’s one we see from time-to-time, so I thought that I would pass on the answer here too for all to share in.

——————————————–

Kathy and Wes,

I wanted to let you know that I love your scrapbook pages.

I am having a problem importing my pictures to fit the frame.  Can you please let me know what I’m doing wrong.

Thanks for your help
Tracy

———————————————-

Hi Tracy,

Great question and not an uncommon one either. As digital cameras continue to improve in both quality and max resolution, it’s easy to have your images come into your scrapbook page and cover the whole thing up.

Normally, digital scrapbook pages are made at somewhere between 150 and 300 dpi (dots per inch). Making them more than 300 dpi usually just makes for a much larger file than needed as 300 is the max true capability of most color printers… especially the ones used in photo stores and book publishers.

What that means is that if you have taken your images with a 3 or more mega-pixel camera, your images will be more than 300 dpi (effective on your page) and will be much larger than the pages you are creating.

This isn’t a problem though; you just need to shrink them down by dragging the corners when the image is selected or use the cropping tool to remove the excess parts of the image so it will fit your frame opening.

What Kathy and I do is to first open the images we will be using on the page one at a time. We then shrink them down close to what they need to be, usually leaving them a bit larger… just in case. We then save them as a new file on the computer so that we keep the original in tact. If we ever need a larger image, we still have it that way.

Now, we open the scrapbook page and import the new smaller images to the page and do the final sizing and cropping.

In the rare instance that your image comes in smaller, such as when it’s been taken with one of the low resolution children’s digital cameras, you can enlarge it by up to about 25% in most cases with out too much pixilation. By that I mean that as you make a digital image larger, the digital pixels are actually square and if you make it too large, the squares begin to show in the image. We call that pixilated.

If you need to make it larger than about 25%, then here’s one thing you can do. Print a copy of the image on a photo quality printer or have one printed for you. Then, scan the image in at a very high resolution. My scanner lets me go up to 3200 pixels. Depending on how big you want to make it, you may only need to scan it at 800 or 1200.

What that does is makes the pixels in the new digital image denser and in effect makes the image larger than it really is for your digital scrapbook page.

It’s the digital version of what they used to do to enlarge prints (and still do for really big prints) where they would make a large negative of the small image and then blow it up on the photo enlarger lens. You are just doing the equivalent digitally.

Hope this gives you some good ideas and a path to success for your digital scrapbook pages.

Just let us know if you have any other questions…

Wes

www.PrincessCrafts.com
(877) 751-6368
5505 Whipshaw Rd.
Peyton, CO 80831

-

Popularity: 16% [?]

0 comments.

10 Halloween Photo Tips

Posted on October 20th, 2007 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Training.

10 Halloween Photo Tips – Wes Waddell

Halloween is spooky, but taking Halloween pictures doesn’t have to be.  From a jack-o’-lantern’s scary face to your child’s frighteningly fun costume, the Halloween holiday offers unique picture-taking opportunities all to it’s own. These tips will help ease your mind and take off some of the stress this unusual season presents for an amature photographer and scrapbooker.

1. Tell a Story

Every halloween costume tells a story.  Make sure you capture it.

Show your child turning into a clown or frankenstein – or whatever costume they dream up.  Take photos thoughout the transformation. Get photos from the same angle, if possible.  This lets you create a mini flip book style digital scrapbook page album when you are done.

Keep your camera handy when you go out too.  You just never know when the perfect trick-or-treat event or moment will happen.

2. Avoid Flash Reflections

When using a flash, especially a built-in one, avoid windows, mirrors and other reflective surfaces in your backbround.  I’m sure you have seen lots of images with the bright flash reflected in the printed photo.  This glare can ruin an otherwise great Halloween photograph.

If you can’t avoid the reflection completely, try to stand diagonally from your costumed little angel so that the reflection is angled away from you camera’s lens.

3. Move in Close

Don’t be afraid to move in close and fill the viewfinder or LCD screen with your little costumed Harry Potter or Fairytale Princess.  Step in close if your camera’s zoom feature isn’t powerful enough.  This is how you emphasize what is important and keep out the rest.

Check your camera’s manual for the flash effective distances.  Too close and you can wash out your image… too far and everything’s lost in the darkness.  Use your fill flash setting if you have one and want the area behind to be more natual and dark looking.

4. Stay Within Flash Range

This goes hand in hand with tip #3.   Typically, flash units on most digital cameras run from 6 to 10 feet with a max of around 15 feet.  Subjects (your Halloween Costumed child) outside this range will tend to be too light if too close and too dark if too far away.   Try and stay within the limits stated in your camera’s manual.

Note: Even though you may be within the stated flash range, weak batteries can still result in dark images and disappointing out of focas photos.  Install fresh batteries or charge them fully before you head out, especially at night.  It’s dark out there and your flash is going to be busy.  You will want to take the extra batteries with you too… just in case.

5.  Act the Part

Have your child really get into the part of the character they are playing.  Snap the photo when your little football star is about to throw the winning touchdown pass or while your little witch is casting her favorite halloween spell.

Don’t be afraid to add some action to your images.   If they are dressed as a cowboy, have them ride their horse or rope the fence.  Your little ballerina can leap and twirl away as you snap the photos.  You’ll get natural smiles and movement and they’ll have a ball acting it out.

6. Capture the Mood

Halloween is a natually spooky good time.  This is the perfect time to use the warm orange and yellow glow of the sunset and jack-o-lanterns to set the mood of your posed and candid photographs.

Try turning off the flash (or cover it with colored plastics) and take a few spooky glowing shots.  Use a tripod or a steady object to help keep the camera from moving and bluring the images.  Use the night time setting if you have one.

Silhouette your kids in their halloween costumes against the light sky or full moon.  Use the light glow from the pumkin to light up your childs face close-up.   Don’t forget the flashlight can light up your face too for a spooky night time image.

7. Set Your Camera Right for the Night

The vast majority of your Halloween photographs will be taken at night, so be sure and switch to the Night Portrait mode if your camera has one.   This way your camera will be able to take advantage of what light is available in the background.   This makes for longer exposers though, so take that into account and steady the camera or have a tripod handy.

Note: When taking pictures in low light (not just at night), cameras are prone to move during the longer exposure times.  To avoid as much of the blur as possible, press the shutter button gently or use a tripod (or other flat surface such as rocks or fence).  You may also want to consider using the self timer.  That timer will also let you get into some of the images too. 

8. Use Natural Light

Great Halloween photos also happen during the day.  Get out early (and get a head start on the candy…), late afternoon light is great for taking people portraits.  Get them out in the falling leaves and into the corn fields or gardens where the pumkins grow.  Dusk is the perfect time to start the spooky images while you can still see some of the backgrounds. 

Fill Flash settings are also a great help just as the sun is going down to light up their little faces and still catch those final golden rays over the mountains.

9. Shoot Your Jack-O-Lanterns the Right Way

Try carving bigger openings for the eyes and mouth.  Bigger openings mean more light and more light gives you a better image after the sun goes down.  Also, the bigger the pumkin, the bigger the face.

To really capture the eery glow coming from your Halloween Jack-O-Lantern, turn off your flash and let the natural orages and yellows take the limelight.  To avoid the blur of a moving camera, you’ll need to use a tripod or other secure surface to take your glowing images.

You’ll also want to snap a few shots at dusk to take advantage of the natural mood lighting of sunset.

10. Create a Ghostly Picture

Don’t believe in Ghosts?  You can create photographic proof using your own camera.  The results are surprisingly and ghoolishly good.

All you need to be able to do is to set your camera’s shutter speed to about 8 seconds or manually hold it open that long.  Have your child or subject sit on the portch with the pumkins for about 4 to 5 seconds. 

Then, have them quickly move out of the camera’s image.

This lets your camera create a bit of a double image and usually makes the child or subject look transparent or ghostly.

You’ll have to experiment with this a bit and you’ll need an old camera as most digitals don’t let you set such long exposer lengths.  You can also have them move out of the image very slowly if you want them to have the appearance of a ghost on the move.

With a digital camera, you can also get (sometimes) the moving ghost effect just after dusk with your subject moving through the night time setting snapshot.

Digital or Computer Scrapbooking go hand in hand with learning to take better snapshots and photographs. I hope that these few Halloween Photo tips will help to make your holiday scrapbook page the best scrapbook pages ever!

Happy Scrappin’

Kathy & Wes

www.HolidayScrapbooks.com  

Popularity: 19% [?]

0 comments.

All About Holiday Greeting Cards

Posted on September 15th, 2007 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Scrapbook Articles, Scrapbook Tips.

All About Holiday Greeting Cards

Author: Wes Waddell – TheGreetingCardBiz.com

You may think of holiday cards as being just Christmas or Seasons Greetings cards, but really there are many more holiday cards than this one holiday or season of the year. 

There are holiday cards for Christmas, Hanukah, Easter (or Resurrection Day), Thanksgiving, Halloween, Columbus Day, President’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Independence Day, New Years, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents Day, St. Patricks Day and Administrative Assistants Day. 

As you can see, there are many holidays we celebrate, and each of them have their own holiday cards.

Holiday cards were not always so popular.  Only in the last several years have holiday cards been created for all of the holidays we celebrate as Americans.  I was surprised to find Halloween and Thanksgiving holiday cards when I went Christmas card shopping last year.  I later discovered that holiday cards are becoming more and more popular, as people send holiday cards all year round to their friends and family. 

It is becoming increasingly popular to send holiday cards to all of you friends and family at every opportunity, just to let them know you are thinking of them and care.

Holiday cards come in all shapes and sizes.  You can choose holiday cards that are uniform and simple, and send one to everyone on your list.  Or, you can choose individual holiday cards suitable for each person based on personality and what holiday they celebrate. 

For example, if you know people who are Christian and people who are Jewish, you may choose to send a uniform card that says simply “Season’s Greetings.”  On the other hand, you can choose to send your Christian friends Christmas holiday cards, and your Jewish friends Hanukah holiday cards.  This way everyone feels special, and knows that you are thinking of them specifically.

Holiday cards can come with fancy pictures or cartoons, sentimental poetry or funny phrases, or even music or pop up figures and personal photos.  You can get holiday cards specifically for each member of your family.  There are holiday cards for children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, husbands, wives, and friends.  There are romantic holiday cards, funny holiday cards, sexy holiday cards, and sentimental holiday cards.

How about photo greeting cards?

You can find holiday cards at most any general store, retail outlet, discount store, or holiday store.  You can also find holiday greeting cards at wholesale outlets, dollar stores, and specialty shops.  Some of the funniest and most sexy holiday cards can be found at novelty stores such as Spencer’s Gifts, found in most USA shopping malls.

Alternatively, you can make your own holiday cards with a little bit of glue, construction paper, a pair of scissors, and a lot of creativity.  If you are not quite so creative or don’t have that kind of time… My favorite is to use the computer and holiday photo greeting card templates to make personalized photo greeting cards.  Children rather enjoy making holiday cards for their friends and family and the computer makes it easy enough for anyone and almost any age.  I love the no mess when you’re done part too.

Buying a holiday card is not nearly so much fun as making one yourself.  Also, the home-made holiday card from your children means much more than a uniform holiday card purchased in a store.  With the computer and digital photo greeting card templates as your friend, time isn’t all that much a factor either.

Regardless of who you are sending a holiday card to, you are sure to find the perfect holiday card to suit that person’s interests and hobbies.  From Harley Davidson to Disney, holiday cards purchased or custom home made are an absolute must in every season.

Don’t have the time to create personalized greeting cards yourself…? 

Not a problem, there are many personalized custom card and photo greeting cards businesses in most areas of the world.  You can even order from most of them online.  Provide your photo and message or theme and in very little time they’ll deliver as many custom greeting cards as you need, right to your door in many cases.  Some will even do all the mailing for you if you provide the list of names and address… for a small fee of course.

Custom photo greeting cards are one of the most popular and most cherished gifts people get at any holiday or time of the year.

Start your own Custom Greeting Card Business for next to nothing… everything you need including 456 Hi-Res digital photo greeting card templates with commercial license: TheGreetingCardBiz.com

Popularity: 19% [?]

0 comments.

Maui Biz Trip Photos and Updates

Posted on August 28th, 2007 by wwaddell.
Categories: Digital Photography, Scrapbook Articles.

Aloha again Scrapbook friend,

I’m a little late getting this out today, but the weather here in Maui has been sooooo very nice, it’s hard to get motivated to actually do anything that even resembles work.

Kathy and I are having a blast and taking lots of photos for scrapbook pages and scrapbook backgrounds.  But, if you have any requests while we are still here (just two more days ), just let us know and we’ll do our best to get them and pass them on to you.

I thought today that I would kind of sum up the trip to Maui so far for you and give you a few sneak peaks at things to come when we get home.

We arrived in Maui on the 23rd of Aug, 2007.  After picking up the rental car (we highly recommend one as things are far apart and taxi’s are pricey), we drove a little over an hour from the airport to the other side of the island where we will be staying at the Ka’anapali Shores. 

We of course stopped at Costco (a bulk food club here in the states) for a few amenities to stock the condo kitchen and of course the bar with.  They also have a Wal-mart and K-Mart just down the road.

Once we unpacked, it was a great dinner at the Hardrock Cafe‚ (loud music, but great food) and we watched the Sunset there in Lahina just in front of the Hardrock.

Here’s one of the sunset images we took that night.  You can see and download the full sized image by clicking on it or using the “Right Click” function to save it to your computer.

Should make a great scrapbook page background, don’t you think?

We spent the day of  the 24th on the beach most of the day, then we got our bearings and had a sunset dinner at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Restaurant in Lahina.  I’m sure you remember the digital photo we posted the other day for that one.  The Maui sunset from the window of the restaurant?

For the 25th, my sister Danette and I took scuba lessons in the pool here at the condo’s and scheduled our first dive for the 27th.  More on that in a bit… You gotta see what we got to do!

That afternoon, we made the almost two hour drive from our condo to the top of Mt. Haliakala.  That’s the 10,000 foot mountain on Maui.

My mom’s afraid of heights and we just about took her past her limits as we drove up the narrow (she thought) road through the clouds… Yes, I said “drove through the clouds” to the top. 

We broke out of the clouds about 300 feet from the top is all.  No one believed me when I told them that we would be above the clouds for the sunset.  Luckily, the mountain didn’t let me down and we had one spectacular sunset from above the clouds of the Maui rain forest.  Here’s my mom silhouetted just before the sun went down.

She didn’t like the drive back down either, but it seemed to go a lot faster than the drive up.  She says she’ll never go back up that narrow winding road again, but she’s very glad we took her to the top on this trip.

They say the sunrise is the most popular time to see the mountain, but getting up at 2 AM to be at the top by 4 AM isn’t my cup of tea and mornings are usually pretty clear so you don’t get all the different colors that you do for the sunset in the clouds.  I personally like the sunset myself, but it’s probably a 30 percent chance of not clearing, so you will be taking your chances.  I think it’s so worth it though.

On the 26th, we took a Molokini snorkel and turtle tour.  Then, that evening, we had our rescheduled professional photo shoot with Steven and Shooting Stars Photography.

Kathy doesn’t get in the water, she’s afraid of fish, but she loves looking at them and being on boats.  Here’s a shot another couple took for us of Kathy and I headed for Molokini Crator.

The glass bottom part of the boat was a real let down, but we had a great time in the water and Kathy got to see lots of turtles later on as they came up for air in the bay.

Here’s a shot of all of us (Wes, Kathy, Donna – my mom, Leo – my dad and Danette – my sister) that the onboard photographer took with our camera for us.  We also picked up all of his photos above and below the water and a DVD of the video he took both onboard and under the water. 

Here’s one of the photographers shots he took of an eel just behind and under our anchored catamaran. 

As you can see, the photographer was quite a character and had lots of fun with all the passengers.  This is one of the 12 shots he took of my sister Danette and I snorkeling.

While the shark was only plastic in this case, it didn’t stay that way.

Not more than 15 minutes after he took the fun shot above, here’s the 3 to 4 foot long reef shark that came to check out all the noise and this is one of 3 shots that the photographer swam down and took (in his scuba gear) as it swam directly under our boat and all the snorkelers in the water.

No one was ever in any danger and most of the snorkeler’s didn’t even know he had dropped by until they seen the photos on the monitor on the way back to port. 

Once we got back to shore, we had time for a bit of shopping and time on the beach.  Then, it was time to get cleaned up and head to Wi’ilea for our photo shoot.

What a sunset Stephen had ordered for us.  This is what it looked like through our little amateur camera’s.  I can’t wait to see the finished prints that Shooting Stars created for us.

Stephen is such a great guy and so very entertaining.  We had a blast working with him and laughed our way right through the shoot.  I know Stephen used to photograph all the big names in Rock-n-Roll out in California, but he also knows just how to make the everyday folk like you and me feel great and look our best.

Here’s my Sister Danette and her husband Chuck silhouetted in the sunset.  Stephen was busy taking photos of all of us as the sun slowly settled into the sea.

I snapped this with no flash so that I wouldn’t mess up any of the real photos being taken.  You can just imagine what Shooting Stars Photography was seeing in their pro lenses.

As a matter of fact, here’s one I took of Stephen working with my sister and her husband.

Stephen took us through two different locations and I lost count of all the images he took.  Individual, group, couple, the girls, the guys? you name it, Stephen shot it.

That’s Stephen just above the green bush with his camera in hand…

Now we are just waiting for the processing and link to check out all the images. 

And, all you scrapbookers will be happy to know that Stephen and Shooting Stars Photography allow you to use any of the images in your scrapbooks and even will sell you a CD of the shoot for you to create your own prints, cards or scrapbook pages from.

How many other professional photographers you know will do that?

Finally!

That brings me to what has been the highlight of my trip and probably will be in the top 10 of the rest of my life.  While the professional photo shoot is an absolute must for any trip to Hawaii and especially Maui…

On the 27th, my sister and I went scuba diving for the first time in our lives.  We couldn’t of asked for a better first dive.  Get this…

WE GOT TO SWIM WITH THE SEA TURTLES!

They were in shallow that day in 25 to 30 foot of water and right where we were diving.    This first image is of the 2nd one we seen and that’s my sister Danette shooting a photo of me on the other side of it.  As it turned out, there was that one beside me and another just under me.  I can’t tell you how cool this was.  No words to fully describe the experience.

There must have been 10 or more of them, both green sea turtles and hawk bills.  We even found a couple of small ones, maybe a year old eating in the coral and rocks.

Here’s one for you to download and use for your computer scrapbook page backgrounds.  This one was just sitting there watching us in about 25 feet of water.

Yes, I took the picture myself.

Just right click on the image and “Save Target As” or “Save Link as” to save the full size image to your computer.  You can just click on the image to see the full size digital photo on your screen or to save it from other browsers.

We also got to see star fish, all kinds of coral fish and even a lobster under a ledge.  Even the sea cucumber wanted to let us know where we were.

No, it wasn’t retouched, our dive instructor just used his finger to write the letters in the coating on it’s back.   It doesn’t harm the animal and goes away in just a few minutes afer we go.  That’s Danette again holding the sea cucumber… if you could smile underwater while diving, she would have been grinning from ear to ear.

That’s the end of our photo tour for now.  We’ll upload and share a lot more of the images once we get home and have all our systems again.

Just a couple more days to go here and then it’s back to Tacoma WA and all to soon it’ll be totally over and we’ll be back in good ol’ Colorado Springs.

Until next time…

Kathy n Wes

www.PrincessCrafts.com
www.MyPrincessCrafts.com

P.S.  Make all your vacations a legal tax deduction.  Enjoy the benefits that Uncle Sam has waiting for you as a small business owner.  More details can be found at: http://www.referal.ws/

Popularity: 100% [?]

0 comments.

« Previous Page — Older » « Newer — Next Page »