Photograph

** This post is reposted from here 

where I have started a 31 day photography challenge **

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So, to get me in a photographing mood, I have decided to start this challenge with a GIANT camera, and SPARKLES. (wait, are they called sparkles? I don't even know. Whatever, you know what I mean!)

Regardless, here is how it happened:

This is the main image I started with,

now the thoughts that I had while doing this are:

• needs to be expanded and cleaned up,
• the pillow should be exchanged with a camera,
• my feet have to be reconstructed,
• we need to add some sparkling lights to the diffusers.

so here we go:

this was done through stitching in some of the images I have taken of the scene without me in it. However, we now still have to remove the shadows from the T.V...

Now we added the camera (taken in the same light and location of the main image so that it can fit in and not look so 'superimposed' into the image)..

After that, I am adding back my arms from the original image (since the camera was slightly bigger than the pillow)..

after I added my hands in, and blurred them a bit (since my arms were more in focus and the camera body is out of focus.. so a little of Gassian Blur is added!

yaaaay!! now we are getting somewhere! added some life to those diffusers! yum!

yes, yum.

Since I love all things vintage, I am adding some textures to the background (on soft light), then erased it off of me and the camera.

Some curves adjustments!

et voila!

enjoy xx

Showg.

note: Photo inspired by Joel Robison

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I think happiness is overrated.

I consider myself a happy person, but I still think that happiness is overrated.
I think we should all get over the idea that we 'need to be happy' because it's okay not to be. It's okay to be sad and it's okay to be upset and not to be okay. It's okay to spend all day in bed and feel like you don't want to get up, and don't want to move.

You can be the happiest you can be, have all the luck in the world, be surrounded by so many loved ones, but a switch in your mind goes off and you feel like you no longer have the energy to smile.

Happiness is not a destination. Happiness is not the final prize we should try to attain or achieve. Happiness is a state of mind, a mood, an emotion: Happiness is the journey.

1. Find content: (I mean satisfaction not the contents of something)

If you are happy, but not satisfied, you're happiness is a waste.
instead of looking for what makes you happy, look for what satisfies your soul.

2. Write. It. Down:

this may seem to be extremely old fashioned, and you may thing I am crazy, but there is something extremely therapeutic about getting pen on paper.



find a nice thick glide-able pen (It's about time you splurge and get that Mont Blanc pen you have been drooling over since 7th grade, go on, it's okay - I bought myself a Parker), get a notebook that's unlined (I think lines constrict us and forces us to think we have to write in sentence form rather than abstractly), and just write. you don't have to journal, you don't have to write in it every day, or even talk about your day, all you have to do is write. Thoughts, Ideas, to-do lists, doodles, anything. 



3. Be grateful

This goes to my previous point. get a notebook specifically for this. 
everyday, write the date at the top and write 3 things you are grateful for on that day. it may sound easy, but, the rule is you can never write the same thing twice.



Before bed, make some tea (camomile or peppermint maybe? something uncaffeinated, camo helps you relax and wind down, peppermint has antidepressant abilities, so both these are a good choice) or take a bath, and write down 3 things you are grateful for that day. 

Then, whenever you feel down, you can look back into all those things that make your heart swell with joy, and you can see how lucky you are, and how 'this too shall pass'
at the end of each month, write 10 things you are grateful for at that month, and by the end of the month, you will have around 100 things you are grateful for every month! 
isn't that something?