My new blog is here!

Hi everyone,

I am really excited about sharing this with you! For a while now, i have been working on re-inventing my blog. Well, i am happy to announce that despite illnesses galore, it is *finally* done and is awaiting your visits.

Check out the new digs at

www.sriluviene.com/blog

NOTE: This blog will no longer be updated. All updates will occur on my new blog so please update your rss feeds or bookmark my new location — www.sriluviene.com/blog

I have a couple of new posts up so do stop by. I’d also love to hear your feedback so please do drop me a line or leave a comment there!!

swinging v2.0

yes, a geeky joke.

And yes, i have been known to be a bit of a geek sometimes but guess what i saw in the backyard this morning? Nia and Jayden discovered a new and improved way to swing.

And for once instead of shying away from my camera, they were actually hamming it up. Aysha, in the meantime, took the opportunity to pour sand down my sink and then attempted to cover up her handiwork by running water over it causing the sink to clog but that’s a whole different story. sigh…

Onto some other news, I am going to the bon jovi concert this Friday. Yay!! My love affair with bon jovi, much to john’s disdain, started a long time ago when i was barely a teenager in india. My friend, Kanch had just moved to the city from Australia and brought with her some Bon Jovi albums. Popular there but not so much in india. And thus it began – my introduction to the music that would essentially come to typify my growing years. We have *so many* memories intertwined with their music. Music just has an uncanny way of transporting you instantaneously to another period in your life. Even now, when i hear some of their earlier music i am taken back to what was a wonderful time in my life. Needless to say, I am a HUGE fan.

The last concert i went to was years ago. We had a whole group of friends go (yes, even john!) and it was a fun night. I knew they were coming to town but by the time i looked I didn’t find tickets that would work and so i gave up.

Well, last night Arch calls me from San Fran and tells me (get this–) she’s at the Bon Jovi concert in a suite complete with a bar and food. And all “phenyl” as we like to say in hyd. That triggered the nostalgia again. I went a-looking this morning and snagged some tickets that’ll work. Not quite archana style but it’ll do And so we’re going. Daughtry is opening and since i like some of his music too – it’s just a bonus.

{a sorry sight}

that’s what I am today. I have been fighting a cold/cough for some time now but over the weekend it hit me full blast. I feel pretty terrible right now and am hoping that this passes quick. As any parent can attest, it’s not easy being sick when you have young ones to tend to.

I will have something exciting to share with you soon but I’m in the midst of working on it and it’s taking a little longer than I’d like. Getting sick didn’t help either.

well, i’m off to nurse my cold but not before i leave you with a picture.

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{target aquired} – a storyboard

You know how much I love storyboards so when I saw these pictures while editing, i knew I just had to pull them together to form this:

I really really like that 2nd picture. It lends itself to so many different textures. Here it is, in a larger size

Have a wonderful weekend!

a moving target

that’s what my 18 month old buddy was today. M was such a busy lil’ dude who had absolutely zero interest in staying still and much less interest in having a camera pointed in his direction! But I persevered and he finally relented and we ended up with a great set of pictures.

P, I’m really excited to share these with you. Here’s part one of your sneak peek. Hope you like them!

sigh.. so handsome. I like this in color as well but i thought I’d mix it up a little.

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He loved climbing.

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he’s got such a mischievous look in this one!

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jayden sandwich

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I’ve never been much of a writer and since this is after all a photoblog, I’m thinking that from here on out I’ll primarily focus on posting pictures instead of trying hard and often unsuccessfully to come up with interesting things to say

These pictures were taken over the weekend on my birthday. A picture of all 3 kids having fun made a wonderful present for this photo-crazy mom.

safe.

Watch over her in the desert
Watch over her in the mountains
Watch over her in the labyrinth
Watch over her by the quicksand.

Protect her from the Voices
Protect her from the Visions
Protect her in the tumult
Protect her in the silence.

-T.S. Eliot

{photo notes} :: I heart this picture. It’s a very simple photograph of a simple moment between father and child but it still speaks volumes to me. I love the manner in which she is resting her chin on dad’s shoulder, the slight tilt of his head towards her and her somewhat perturbed expression. I decided to tint the picture to lend to the mood but it didn’t seem quite enough. So I typed up some text and created an overlay to enhance it some more. I like how it looks now.

I love post-processing. I find it to be a lot of fun and it enables me to push myself creatively. Like most photographers, I own a ton of actions and do make use of them but more often than not, I just like to post-process by hand. To see what I can do and where I can take a picture creatively. It ends up being such a learning experience because by playing around in photoshop I stumble upon new techniques all the time.

Have a great weekend!

my youngest

Here’s a picture of my youngest on easter. I use the term “youngest” loosely since she is ALL of 5 minutes younger than her sister but maybe it’s because she has such a slight build, I sometimes feel like she’s the baby of the family. I think she looks really sweet in this one but like any parent, I’m biased!

Of all my kids, I feel that Nia is the most like me with regards to personality. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of battles we have as she grows older! I’m sure all the back-talking i did while growing up will come back to bite me threefold. What’s that they say about karma?

See those frames in the background? One of the things that has been a lot of fun for me has been to fill up the huge amount of empty wall space in our home with pictures. I basically use my photographs as artwork in certain areas.

I’m not sure how much you can tell but each one of those frames is 23×32 inches and houses a 16×19 print. And I have six of them arranged in a grid so the entire arrangement spans 4 feet by 8 feet. I really enjoy walking into the room and seeing these photos on the wall. Makes me smile as I remember when they were taken and the events surrounding them. And I think a few large prints make such an impact. No one can accuse me of not being serious about my pictures!

fun in the sun – a storyboard

I will be meeting with mom this week to go over the proofs and I thought she might like a look at a storyboard i pulled together in the meantime. I figure it may tide her over till we meet.

I’ve said it numerous times in the past but i just *love* storyboards. They are so versatile and 100% customizable. Don’t like a picture- no problem, we can switch it with one you like. Think it’s too busy – no problem again, let’s switch the arrangement.

Yep, i definitely like them storyboards.

random favorites & organizing photos

Just thought I’d share some random favorites from the last month.

I’m in the process of pulling together an art album and since I went through the exercise of finding the pictures, I thought I’d share some with you, my lovely blog readers.

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I’ve come to the conclusion that I really need to do a better job organizing my personal pictures. I have a pretty decent system that is date-based but since I shoot so many pictures I’m starting to lose track and my system is falling short when it comes to family pictures. I have both ACDSee and Lightroom and have started cataloging but the sheer number of pictures is just so overwhelming that I haven’t begun to crack the surface yet. Does anyone have a good system they recommend? I’d love to hear about it.

On a related note, I read a good article on Epic Edits a few months ago regarding this.

Organizing Images (part I)

Organizing Images (part II)

Organizing Images (part III)

For those of you that may be unfamiliar with Epic Edits, it is a wonderful resource for photographers and is highly recommended. Brian Auer, the author, shares good photography related information which I’m sure more than a few of you would find worthwhile.

The following article titled “28 ways to interpret a photo” was the first post of his that I stumbled across and it was so interesting that I was hooked to his blog from that point on. The article discusses the dramatic impact cropping and post processing the same picture can make, and how it will change the look and feel of a picture drastically. It’s pretty amazing, really. Have a look:

28 ways to interpret a photo

Have a good one!