Chloé’s Ramblings

Sunday, November 17, 2013

You Are Golden freebie - part 2

Better late than never, right? Well, after a long month focusing on work (both my real day job and my budding photography side gig), I'm finally back to offer the second part of my You Are Golden mini-kit! I created it with golden anniversaries in mind.

Click here to download part 2 of this mini kit for free! The first part should still be availble here.

I hope you enjoy this freebie and you'll live a comment to let me know you do! Oh, and of course, if you scrap with it, I'd love to see your creations!

Subscribe or visit again soon for another mini-kit, this one focused on Silver anniversaries (25 years of marriage, still pretty impressive if you ask me!)!

PS: Thanks to all of you who expressed concerns about my little hospital stay. It was a planned surgery, nothing serious, and everything went great. I'm like new now! LOL Thanks again for your sweet words!

Saturday, October 19, 2013

You Are Golden... New link!

Sooooo, apparently setting up the first download link of my mini-kit "You Are Golden" right before leaving for the hospital wasn't such a good idea as I got out of bandwith VERY quickly and people couldn't download! It's a shame, I know. Anyway, I set up a new link for part 1, hopefully it'll work this time! Here it is!
Hope you enjoy it, don't forget to leave me a comment if / when you download it!!

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

You Are Golden mini kit freebie (part 1/2)!!

So, I got this crazy idea a couple months ago and tried designing. Because, yeah, you know, I don't have enough to do already! LOL After hanging out with so many amazing designers at The Digichick, I was already in admiration of their talent and creativity, but now that I've given desiging a try, I'm also in awe of the HARD WORK that goes into it!!

I have to admit that I'm pretty proud of my first attempts and I really enjoyed the process, and I'm really excited to share the result with you guys. So, without further wait... Let me introduce you to my very first mini-kit: You Are Golden. This mini was inspired by Golden Anniversaries, aka 50 years of wedding. FIFTY years, can you imagine?
Click on the image to download the first part of the mini-kit. Please respect my Terms of Use and leave a comment when you download!

ETA: please check the next post for updated link!

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Alphabet Get-to-know-me tag game!

My dear friend Marloes posted a blog post with these alphabet-inspired questions and tagged me. It was a loooooong time ago but since I finally have time to post, I thought it was a fun inspiration!

A – Attached or Single? Attached, since a bit more than 12 years
B – Best Friend? Nanie, since we were 14.
C – Cake or Pie? Mmmmm... chips? I'm more a salt person!
D – Day of Choice? Wednesday: we're halfway through the workweek!
E – Essential item? A camera and a computer
F – Favourite Colour? Neutral colors: black, grey, white, with a touch of red, purple or turquoise to add some fun!
G – Gummy bears or worms? Both, I love those jelly-ish candies!
H – Hometown? Sion, Switzerland
I – Favorite Indulgence? Browsing the web mindlessly
J – January or July? Both, January for the snow and skiing, July for warmth and sea
K – Kids? Not yet
L – Life isn’t complete without... the internet!
M – Marriage date... Not married, not planning to get married, we're just happy the way we are.
N – Number of siblings? A younger brother, Jeff
O – Oranges or Apples? Since I have food allergies that forbid me to eat apples, I'll have to go with oranges!
P – Phobias? Being buried or crushed, for example by a truck.
Q – Quotes? The serenity prayer: "Give me the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other." And the "mantra" we practice after each yoga lesson: "Every day, on every regard, I'm feeling better and better" (crappy translation, but you get the idea!)
R – Reasons to smile? Too many to choose from!
S – Season of Choice? I love all seasons, they all have good and bad aspects!
T – Tag 5 people... Mmmmm, nope, I won't play on this one! LOL
U – Unknown fact about me? I was badly burnt on my feet when I was less than 1 year old, that's why I only walked when I was about 18 months: I couldn't use my feet for a long time!
V – Vegetable? Salad, radishes... which are the only veggies I can eat raw (still those darn allergies!)
W – Worst habit? See letter I
X – X ray or ultrasound? X rays freak me out with their radioactive signs, so I guess ultrasound!
Y – Your favorite food? See letter R
Z – Zodiac sign? Scorpio

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The best-spent 6.90€ of my photography life

Hi everyone, and happy new year! One of my resolutions is to revive this ol' blog of mine and use it as a way to stay in touch with the few people that don't have a FB account, first and foremost my mom and dad. That's why I'll start writing in French more often, too.

Bonjour à tous, et bonne année! Une de mes résolutions est de faire revivre ce bon vieux blog et de l'utiliser également pour donner des infos à mes proches qui n'ont pas de compte facebook, en premier lieu mes parents. Voilà pourquoi je vais également essayer d'écrire en français en plus de l'anglais!

I don't want to start too fast too soon with a ginormous post about my OLW and resolutions, so I'll keep it short for today. I just wanted to share an awesome accessory I recently bought. It's a tiny investement that brought huge rewards to my photography: a remote.

Je ne veux pas me brûler les ailes en démarrant tout de suite avec un énorme post à propos de mon "mot de l'année" et de mes résolutions, donc je vais commencer léger pour aujourd'hui. Je voulais juste vous faire part d'un accessoire absolument génial que j'ai acheté il y a peu. C'est un investissement minuscule qui a apporté d'immenses nouvelles perspectives à ma photographie: une télécommande.
 
And trust me, when I say "tiny" investement, I'm not joking: it cost 6,90€ (about 9$) since I bought a generic brand and not a Nikon one. Yet it works wonderfully and I've used it for so many projects already!

Et quand je dis que c'est un investissement "minuscule", ce n'est pas juste façon de parler: elle m'a coûté 6,90€ vu que j'ai acheté une sous-marque générique et pas une Nikon. Pourtant, elle fonctionne parfaitement et je l'ai déjà mise à profit pour plein de projets!

First and foremost, it allows me to get in the frame too. For example I took this pic with "da man". We're an "old" couple, that's why I still had 2 or 3 brain cells available to press the remote despite the fact that he was kissing me and making me forget about everything around but him! ;)

En tout premier lieu, elle m'a permis d'être moi aussi sur la photo, comme celle-ci avec mon homme.On est un vieux couple, c'est uniquement grâce à ça que j'ai réussi à garder deux-trois neurones disponibles pour appuyer sur la télécommande plutôt que de m'abandonner totalement à ses baisers et oublier tout autour de nous! ;)
I used Charm Box Studios' Shaped Bokeh Overlay on this pic.

Then I also put my camera in a corner of the room and used the remote to snap pix regularly along the evening. That was during the Christmas party at my dad's. We were a small group so it was perfect.

J'ai aussi profité de la télécommande pour poser mon appareil photo dans un coin de la pièce et prendre des photos au cours de la soirée. C'était durant notre Noël chez mon papa. Nous étions un petit groupe, donc c'était idéal.
On this one I used "Roman Holiday" action from the Classics 1 set, still by Charm Box Studios.
Last but not least, the remote is extremely useful for night photography with a very slow shutter speed. Even if you are very careful when pressing the shutter, you have great chances to shake the camera and get a blurred pix. One possible solution is to use the delayed shutter (you press and the pic is taken 10 seconds later), but you lack control on what will happen when the photo will actually be taken. For example, a car can show up in the middle of your pic... Yuck! The remote is great here because it allows you to take the pic exactly when you want to without touching the camera!

Enfin, la télécommande a aussi un gros avantage pour les photos de nuit, à exposition longue. Même si vous êtes extrêmement prudent en déclenchant, il y a de bonnes chances que vous fassiez bouger l'appareil et que vous obteniez une photo floue. Une solution possible est d'utiliser le retardateur: vous appuyez sur le bouton et la photo est prise 10 secondes plus tard. Le problème, c'est que vous n'avez aucun contrôle sur ce qui se passe au moment où la photo est effectivement prise. Par exemple, une voiture peut se trouver en plein milieu de votre cadre... Beurk! La télécommande est donc parfaite dans ce cas puisqu'elle vous permet de déclencher la photo exactement au moment où vous le souhaitez sans toucher la caméra!
 
There you have it, an amazing accessory that will cost you a couple bucks and yet help you tremendously in your daily photography. Do you have a remote? Are you interested in getting one?

Voilà donc un petit accessoire qui n'a l'air de rien mais qui peut faire une grosse différence dans votre photographie au quotidien. Est-ce que vous avez déjà une télécommande? Si non, êtes-vous intéressé(e) à en acquérir une?