Today, we’re bringing you the first post from our new author, Jennifer Creek. I met Jennifer when she was a fairly new digiscrapper, and have seen her grow into an experienced and talented artist! She’ll be posting here from time to time on various topics, I think you’ll find she has a slightly different take on things than I do, and you’ll enjoy her posts. Welcome Jennifer! – Jenn White

I love to scrapbook. I started out scrapbooking with paper, like a lot of digital scrappers did. I did that for ten years. Cropping pictures, cutting paper, and gluing my fingers together, and to my coke can, was my way of life! I enjoyed it.However my photos were piling up. With 3 kids, doing an album for myself and each of them took time.

Then I discovered digital scrapbooking and figured out that I could scrap the pictures once and print them to go into as many albums as I needed! What a great idea! So for the last four years my laptop has been my best friend.

Lately I have been struggling with insomnia so while I was lying in bed one night something hit me. No, it wasn’t one of the cats wanting to be let out or the dog needing attention!

All this time since my paper scrapping days I had thought I was doing this because I wanted to record my history. I mean I had always thought the stories from my grandmother and grandfather were so neat and exciting as a little girl. I thought this was going to be my way of having stories for my grandchildren and maybe even their children. If I had a scrapbook from my grandmothers life with her stories in it, I would cherish it! It would be a prized possession!

As I lay there though I think I started to realize that maybe that wasn’t my whole reason for scrapbooking as I once thought. That’s still a very big part of it but I also realized that this is something I do for me. I do it to show my creativity. I do it to create something from nothing. It makes me feel good about myself.

All the pretty colors make me happy and the photos of my children when they were little bring a smile to my face every time I see them. It brings me closer to other women with the same ideas. It gives me an outlet to just be with “the girls”, after all my house is full of boys! I really don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t scrapbook.

So even though preserving my history and my day to day routines are very important to me, its not the only reason I do what I do. Knowing the past is important but doing something that brings happiness to your life is just as important. Having a creative outlet is important. Friends are important. I am important.

Scrapbooking has taught me these things. You are important too! So I encourage you to dig deep into yourself. Why do you really scrapbook?

~Jennifer~

If you haven’t been bitten by the Pinterest bug, you will now. It’s an addiction to rival the digiscrap addiction, trust me.

What is Pinterest and what does it have to do with Photography?

Pinterest is a neat little site where you can collect and organize things you find on the web. With a twist.

Ever save a layout or preview then come back to look at it weeks or months later and think, “what the heck did I like about THAT?”

Me too.

But Pinterest lets you save the image “pinned” to a digital bulletin board, AND it lets you write yourself a little note about it!

You set up Boards – name them whatever you want. (See mine here.)Then download the bookmarklet and put it in your bookmarks bar. When you’re out and about on the internet and come across something you love, click the bookmarklet, and add your notes, tell it what board to go to and ta-da, you’re pinned!

The BEST part is when you go back to look at them. Not only do you have your notes to yourself (“LOVE the color scheme on this!”), if you click on the picture it takes you to the original web page! No more wondering “WHERE did I find this?”

THEN, you share! You can follow people (follow me here) and when you start up Pinterest you’ll see a wall of images (Pins) that the people you are following have pinned. Think of it like your facebook news feed, but in images. But you aren’t limited to the people you are following! There’s a pull-down menu of topics at the top of the page so you can see pins done by people you’ve never met. If you like what they’re pinning, follow them!

What does this have to do with photography? Two things:

1. The visual format of Pinterest is a great way to collect photos and links to tutorials that inspire you. And nothing gets the creative juices going by looking at great images. In any art a great way to improve your skills is to attempt to recreate work by other artists. You learn a lot, and develop your own style in the process.
2. The social part of Pinterest will broaden your horizons. Find people who are pinning good stuff and follow them. They’ll take you to websites and tutorials that you’d never have found on your own!

   Try this: Search by topic by typing terms into the search box. Want to take better portraits? Type “portraits” into the search box. Want tutorials? Type Photoshop Tutorials in the box. When you get results at the top of the page you’ll be able to choose Pins, Boards, or People with your search terms in them. Don’t forget to check all three!

How do you get started?
You need an invitation. Leave a comment on this post and I will send you one, or if you don’t want to wait for me, go to Pinterest and request one. I got my invite within a day or so, yours may come even sooner!

Want to follow me on Pinterest?

If you follow me, I’ll follow you!

Ok, so I’m probably the last person on earth to know this, but I thought I’d share.

My favorite way to get photos off my camera (that doesn’t require me to hunt down that pesky cable) is to post them to facebook from the phone then go download them from my facebook album to keep on my computer.

I use firefox, and when I download something it goes to my downloads folder, and a little window pops up to show me the progress of the download. What I’ve been doing is right-clicking and choosing “Open Containing Folder” then dragging from the downloads folder to wherever I want to keep it.

But today I had a *headsmack* moment!

You can drag the file directly from the little download notification window to wherever you want to keep it!

Just click… and drag.

DUH.

Did you know that? What else do you know that you’re not telling me?

Sometimes you have a ton of photos you need to resize. Maybe you want to put them on Facebook or Flickr but don’t want your high-resolution photos going out there. Maybe you captured them at very high resolution but are making a collage and don’t want them that big. Either way, Photoshop and Elements gives you a quick way to do that, without even opening up the files!

I made you a little video using PSE10 – the Photoshop instructions are at the end, too.

What do you think, do you ever have a reason to resize a whole folder of photos?

Oh now I’ve done it. I’ve hit rock bottom. Sunk to the depths. Crossed the line.

I went on vacation armed with only my cellphone camera. [GASP!]

Yes, I admit it. After years and years of lugging around DSLRs, hanging point and shoot cameras from my wrist, even buying disposables in a pinch – I decided to leave the camera behind for a little weekend jaunt to Vegas with my husband.

No, this wasn’t a case of CRAP I FORGOT THE STUPID CAMERA AGAIN!

I decided that this quick, romantic weekend with the hubby (he’s stuck there for two weeks for trade shows, so I flew out for the weekend between) wasn’t about sightseeing (though we did that) or about documenting everything we did. It was about spending time with my sweetheart without kids, schedules or anything! So I left the cameras at home.

Fortunately, our cell phones take higher resolution photos than our first digital camera ever did. So I’ll still get to scrap the weekend!
He took more photos than I did, so you’ll have to wait until he gets home to see all the fun stuff, but I wanted to share with you what I learned about relying on my cellphone camera:

• It’s sure easy. Loved having it in my hand or pocket and easily accessible. Would the point and shoot be as portable? Yes, but bulkier and I’d still have had to carry my phone. There would have been those, “I thought YOU had the camera?” moments. Nice that we each had our own camera, no extra gadget to worry about losing!
• It did just about everything I wanted it to. Didn’t miss the zoom surprisingly. Handled low light pretty well, if I held it steady. Got great landscape shots, good macro stuff, all without having to think about settings or lenses.
• I got crisper photos than I thought I would, the lens quality wasn’t bad! I did almost no editing on these (not that they couldn’t use a little) and they’re just fine.
• They were so easy to share! I could post from the phone to facebook and my phone auto-uploads to Google+, so keeping the kids up on what we were doing was easy-peasy!

Bottom line: would I do it again? Not for our daughter’s high school graduation, or even for a birthday party. But for a field trip? Maybe. For everyday stuff? Probably. Especially for situations like this where I’ll be out and about and want to travel light.

Do you ever use a cellphone camera? Have you tried addons like these lenses or these filters? Am I crazy for thinking this isn’t such a bad thing after all?