mom, look what I made (vol. 2)

For this installment of “Mom, look what I made!” I’m going to show you some of the things that can happen when photography and design collide. Some of the pieces below (this is turning into an art gallery) are nothing more than pictures framed in a eye-catching way. Others are manipulations of photographs. I’m confident that you’ll be able to tell the difference between the two. I took all the pictures displayed*, and after playing with them in GIMP for a while, they came out looking like this. Click on any image to enlarge it, and I hope you enjoy.

*I did not take the pictures of Kent or Jon in the Luther Street masterpiece. I’d have told you that sooner, but I didn’t want to abuse my parenthetical asides… which I so often do.

mom, look what I made (vol. 1)

I assume you readers who are parents love having your kid come home from school or church with a piece of art in their hands, raised high for you to see, often accompanied by the words, “Mom! Dad! Look what I made!”

You readers who are still in [grade] school know how much you love completing a piece of work – maybe a painting or an awesome drawing of a ship – and taking it to your parents to proudly show them and say, “Look what I made!”

Well this is my version of what I just described, only it’s not only for my parents’ eyes. It is for all to enjoy.

“(Insert your name here)! Look what I made!”

gimp 2.4

The fine folks over at GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) have gone and outdone themselves. GIMP 2.4 has recently been released in its stable version and is available for free download here. It’s been available for a while, but the stable version hasn’t been available (to my knowledge) until a few weeks ago. Either way, it’s here now, and you should get it if you’re looking for a powerful photo editing and graphic design software. You no doubt remember my previous entry on the GIMP about six posts ago.

Now for the true reason for this post. Pictured above is my current – and possibly your future – desktop background. I’d like to use it to introduce the first online diary for the masses contest for November, 2007. The person/persons who provide me with the author of the poem written above the tree will have bragging rights in the blogosphere. However, the winner will be the one who provides not only the person who penned the provided poem, but also the author of the original poem from which the provided poem was derived. The winner will be rewarded as generously as I’m possibly able to reward someone. Google is a permissible resource, however if you are able to answer it correctly without google… I’ll come find you and hug you.

A hint: click on the picture above or you’ll have a very hard time reading the poem.

An observation: it is very presumptuous of me to expect anyone to participate in this contest. Yet another example of how I make my blog out to be a much bigger deal than it actually is.

GIMP 2.2

One of the perks of having the abundance of free time I’ve experienced this past month is that it offers me the ability of honing my [very amateur] photo editing and graphic design skills. Over a year ago I learned of a freeware program called GIMP that is comparable to Photoshop, equally powerful, yet free!

I’ve had GIMP on my machine for a while, but up until this past month I’d been pretty intimidated by it and hadn’t really messed with it much. However recently I was motivated (upon having the desire to give odfm a rhytidectomy) to tackle the GIMP. I’ve done lots of research, learned lots of stuff, and made lots of things. This post will exhibit some of those things.

Above is the ever popular mostly-black-and-white-with-one-colored-item photograph. Subject: Lauren Rouse (who’s engaged by the way, for those you hadn’t heard). Below I hope you’ll enjoy my new desktop background, followed by some headers I made just for kicks, and finally my most recent facebook profile picture. Comment away. Or don’t.