Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Touchnote Photographer of the Week
Friday, April 30th, 2010
In this week’s Touchnote Photographer of the Week blog, we turn the spotlight onto Amelia Bookstein Kyazze.
Amelias work (a selection of which you can see in our our image gallery) is a stunning blend of landscapes, culture and people. Her passion for photography began when she won a grant to shoot photographs in Nepal for six months and then present her work at Cornell University in the US.”Working with refugees and in humanitarian relief in my career since the late 1990’s, I have always tried to keep my photographs of people and landscapes both visually beautiful/interesting and respectful of the person and the interaction we shared.”
Amelia’s two favourite images from her collection are of children laughing (taken in one of South Africa’s Townships in 1998) and of children singing (taken in Liberia in 1993). “In all my travels I’ve been repeatedly touched by how children still laugh, play and celebrate despite adverse conditions.”
Touchnote customers use Amelia’s photographs to create personalised cards for a wide range of occasions such as for birthdays cards, thank you cards or just beautiful Touchnote notecards. We hope to see more images from Amelia soon, so keep an eye on her work when creating your next personalised card.
The Touchnote Team
Beach photography is high on the agenda
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
With bank holiday coming up in the UK and hopefully more great weather, what a better way to pass time then by hitting the beach and taking some photographs? Beaches present digital camera owners with a number of wonderful opportunities, as they offer beautiful landscape, colours and light.
Here at Touchnote we love beach photography and have numerous images in our gallery that are extremely popular to create personalised cards with. Below are a few tips on how to take great photographs at the beach, so next time you want to create a personalised card you can use your own photo instead.
Find a focus
Many people can feel lost when taking pictures at the beach as while they might capture a beautiful scene they actually have no point of interest and as a result can take pictures that feel empty and boring. When taking a shot look for a point of interest or focal point that will give those looking at your photo a place for their eye to rest. Some typical examples are: footprints in the sand, chipped paint on beach huts or boats, shells on the shore or intersecting blades of dune grass. What is also fun is to look for the little things that tell the story of going to the beach, like shoes at the water’s edge, sand castles, sunglasses, sunscreen lotion etc. For best results zoom in closely on your focus point, you can even get down in the sand and stabilise the camera on something to ensure details remain crisp.
Look for some wildlife
The beach is home to many interesting and colourful creatures and shells. Look for starfish and crabs in rock pools, shells in the sand or coastal birds such as gulls.
Capture the movement of the sea
The flow of the sea is a beautiful and tranqiul motion to capture on camera. Set your camera on a tripod and dial in a slow shutter speed, how slow will depend on the brightness of the day, but you could use a polarizer or ND Grad filter to reduce the amount of light entering the lens.
Be creative with post photo production
Why not do a little post photo production and see what impact stripping a photo of color has upon it? There’s something about a black and white shot at the beach that completely changes the mood and feel of a shot. It’s also a great way to bring to life beach shots taken on dull days as shadows and light will stand out more.
Head to the beach when it doesn’t look so inviting
A beach can really come to life on days that everyone avoids it. Stormy seas, threatening and dramatic clouds and wind slowing lifesaver flags all make for atmospheric shots.
So whether sunny or stormy, the beach is a great place to practice and experiment with your photography.
We look forward to seeing some of your own creations next time you create a personalised card. They are particulary good for creating postcards, thank you cards, birthday cards and get well soon cards.
The Touchnote team
The beauty of the English language
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
Here at Touchnote we get personalised cards from all over the world and what we have noticed is that the majority of the time, people write their personalised messages in English, no matter where they are from. English is one of the most commonly spoken languages in the world and in many countries is the official second language taught. So wouldn’t you think that English would be one of the simplest and most straight forward languages for people to learn?
Well, you be the judge of that…
We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England… We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
Lets’s face it - English is a crazy language. But keep in mind you can write your personalised messages in any language when creating a Touchnote card so feel free to try something different!
The Touchnote Team.
Explosive art
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
I want to believe is by far one of the most impressive art exhibitions of all time. Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang the creator, took over the New York’s Guggenheim Museum and transformed the building’s iconic rotunda with large scale instillations of exploding cars and flying wolves.
When Cai Guo-Qiang was still living in China he began experimenting with gunpowder. He would sprinkle it on fibrous paper then light it to create a drawing with the burned residues. He moved on to produce outdoor explosion events, using fireworks to create spectacles on the ground and in the sky. By now, Cai is an old master of blast art and is known for portraying social and political commentary through his work. He has compared this exhibition to a walk through a scroll of his life and that he wants to depict the contradictions of violence and beauty.
Inopportune: Stage one
The most startling work of the exhibition is Cai’s “Inopportune: Stage One,” made up of nine cars filled with light tubes that give the impression of being frames from a movie of a car exploding upwards through the central atrium of the museum.
Head On
Other works displayed on the ramp that leads visitors around the museum’s rotunda and our personal favourite include “Head On,” featuring a stream of 99 wolves that start on the ground and end up flying though the air before crashing into a glass wall.
Inopportune: Stage Two
Cai’s “Inopportune: Stage Two,” is also fascinating, made up of life-sized tigers pierced with arrows.
Artists such as this do not come along often so if you get the chance to see Cai’s work jump on it.
You can see more at: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/shell.php?sid=2
Enjoy!
The Touchnote Team
Creative artists personalise our streets
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Here at Touchnote we love photography and try to include as many inspiring photographers work in our image gallery to create personalised cards with. What we also like is street art, our favourite artist being Banksy. Street art can be seen all over our cities in different shapes and forms as artists challenge conventional art by situating their work in non-art contexts. One of the inspiring aspects of these street artists is that they do not aspire to change the definition of an artwork, but rather want you to question the existing environment that they have placed it in. They want their work to communicate with everyday people about socially relevant themes.
The little people project
Slinkachu is a street artist with a very interesting project called the ‘Little People Project’ which he started in 2006. This involves the remodelling and painting of miniature model train set characters, which are then placed and left on the street in different scenarios. It is both a street art installation project and a photography project. What this artist is trying to communicate is the notion of surprise by attempting to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings. The scenes that are created reflect the loneliness and melancholy that result from living in a big city, as the characters are so small and insignificant to their large bustling surroundings. Most of the little characters are hand painted and remodelled by the artist himself.
A project such as this is not necessarily difficult to create; you just need some imagination and free time. Why not set up and photograph some fun scenarios of your own? You could use the images to send personalised postcards or greeting cards to people for their birthday, wedding or anniversary. You will definitely have the most original card to give!
Also remember to keep an eye out next time you take a walk, you never really know what you could be missing.
See more at http://little-people.blogspot.com/
The Touchnote Team
Create your own personalised pop art card
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Have you tried using colour effects and filters on your photos when you create a personalised Touchnote card?
Having been inspired by the pop art work of famous artists such as Andy Warhol and our own Touchnote artist Pearl Clarke, we thought it would be a nice idea to show you how you can easily transform your own images to make them look ‘pop arty’ too for your own personalised postcards and personalised greetings cards.
The process is really easy and simple. All you need to do is upload your picture on to the Touchnote site and once it is uploaded choose the option to add a filter. Here you will have the option of various filters that you can apply to your image to create an original personalised card. Look at this photo below, it looks completely different with each filter.
The look of your image can be completely transfomed and look very artistic without much effort.
Try it out on your own birthday cards, anniversary cards or personalised postcards.
We hope you enjoy this!
The Touchnote Team.
Our favourite artist Pearl Clarke
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Photography with a pop art retro feel is very much the trend at the moment and a style which we really like here at Touchnote. Artist’s such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein offer fantastic examples of this style with numerous recognisable works, as seen below.
We would like to celebrate one of our own pop art photographers, Pearl Clarke who has offered a mix of interesting pop art images to the touchnote gallery for people to create personalised cards with.
According to Pearl, she has always had an artistic flair, she remembers that as a child she always loved drawing and rather than play with dolls she would draw people, cut them out and play with them instead. She developed an interest in photography and always took her Pentax 1000 with her. Now she is very much into pop art and loves the fun aspect of the style and the bright colours that are used.
Pearl’s work is often used to make personalised cards, particularly valentine’s day cards, birthday cards and baby cards. We hope to see more designs from her soon.
The Touchnote team.
Picture perfect silhouettes
Monday, April 19th, 2010
Last week we tried to lift peoples spirits with some photography tips on how to photograph the beautiful red sunsets that will result from the volcanic ash which has recently taken over our skies. Hoping that this was interesting and helpful, we would like to add one more tip to the list in order to help you capture the best sunset images you possibly can.
Adding a blacked out silhouette to a sunset picture can make it much more interesting and really allow the colours of the sunset to stand out. As well as this, a sense of mystery and emotion can be evoked by including a blacked out silhouette as the viewer of your photo is unaware of the entire story of the picture and therefore, can use their imagination to wonder.
How to include a blacked out silhouette to your image
• Choose a strong subject that has a strong and recognizable shape that will be interesting to look at. As colours, textures and tones of subjects will not be visible; the silhouettes shape needs to be distinct.
• Make silhouetted shapes distinct and uncluttered by only including one object in the image. If you combine two silhouettes such as a person leaning against a tree, they will merge into one shape and the effect will be lost.
• Photograph people’s silhouetted profile rather than have them look straight on as this way more of their features (nose, mouth, and eyes) will be outlined and be more recognisable.
• Place your subject in front of some source of light. Instead of lighting the front of your subject, in silhouettes you need to ensure that there is more light shining from the background than the foreground of your shot.
• Set your cameras exposure upon the brightest part of your picture (the background) and not the subject of your image (therefore under-exposing the subject).
• Turn off your Flash and have your camera in automatic mode as your camera is most likely to light up your subject instead of underexposing it.
Here’s a few examples. Beautful images such these are great for designing personalised cards for various occasions such as ‘thank you cards’.
A volcanic photography opportunity
Friday, April 16th, 2010
Although the ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajoekull volcano has caused great disruptions to our hectic traveller’s lives, as well as many problems to Iceland’s agriculture, there is one unexpected upside to this natural phenomenon. It creates beautiful red sunsets. The dusky-red of the setting sun after a volcanic explosion, is the result of ash, dust and sulphur dioxide released in to the clouds. The mixture of this with light results in spectacular red skies. Volcanic ash can also create the appearance of a blue moon, however a reddish moon is more likely. This is therefore the perfect opportunity for photographers to get out there with their camera and document these beautiful colours. We have put some digital photography tips together to help you out.
Tips
• Get out there early - A sunset comes and goes quite fast and you never know when the best and most beautiful light is going to happen. Usually it happens in a one-minute window, which can be any time within 15 minutes before and after a sunset so you need time to set up and be ready for this moment.
• Experiment with the exposure of your camera - This makes pictures lighter or darker.
• Set your white balance - Automatic white balance can sometimes make your colours too cold, so try setting it to manual and play around until you find the right exposure.
• Set your ISO to its lowest setting - The sky at sunset is still bright enough that you can get away with doing this.
• Try using your flash - This can illuminate things in unexpected ways.
• Get in the right place - Move around as much as you can and find the perfect angle.
• Get to a beach - This offers you an unobstructed view of the setting sun on the horizon as there are no mountains, buildings or city lights to obstruct your view. Just a flat horizon and the setting sun as well as a smooth expanse of water to reflect the colours.
• Look for interesting silhouettes - Try taking a photograph of a tree or person against the sky or the sun.
• Photograph clouds - The most dramatic sunset pictures almost always include clouds.
Most importantly however take lots of pictures and choose the best of them later when you see the results. And for those of you who don’t take photographs, just get out there and enjoy the light spectacle!
The Touchnote Team
Picture perfect personalised cards
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
Although we have numerous wonderful images of landscapes to choose from in our image gallery in the nature and black and white categories, we are always on the look-out for more interesting photography.
Adams, Ansel (1902 - 1984), photographer and environmentalist, was born in San Francisco, California and is known for his black-and-white landscape photographs of the western United States as well as his commitment to the conservation of those lands. His work is fascinating and perfcet for creating beautiful personalised cards with.
Adams is believed to have helped influence photography as an art form and played a key role in the establishment of the first museum department of photography, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He had a true passion for the environment and spent substantial time in the Golden Gate hiking and exploring the land. From his first visit, Adams was transfixed and inspired and he began his photography career using the Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie his parents had given him. His career took off in the late 1920’s when he began work as an official photographer for the Sierra Club. Most of his photography is of landscapes at Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Carlsbad Cavern, Glacier and Zion National Parks; and Death Valley, Saguero, and Canyon de Chelly National Monuments.
You can see more images on flickr. We hope this inspires your card making!
The Touchnote team
