Pick Me! » Art and Photography

It’s My Flag, Too

Laura Moncur — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:00:43 +0000

I took this photo back in November 2007, but I just noticed it in my iPhoto collection and thought I’d post it here.

There are so many times when a Republican was standing in front of the flag and it made me feel like I had nothing in common with my nation. If THAT was what my flag stood for, then I was having a hard time feeling any affinity with my country.

The day I saw this flag flying, I thought to myself how beautiful it was and how much I loved the orange rocks and sand it protected. It was one of those strange moments when I realized that it’s MY flag, too.

Winter Greetings

Laura Moncur — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:00:11 +0000

Now that Christmas is over, I need to change the greeting on my front door. Here is what I put up:

I don’t care for scrapbooking since I do all of that memory stuff digitally, but I do like playing with GIMP and making pretty things. This is about as ambitious as I get, though.

Feel free to download this and put it on your own door if you want!

Gorgeous Snow Photographs from Jere Keys

Laura Moncur — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:40:01 +0000

My old friend Jere is going to law school in New York right now, so he was there for the huge snow storm that hit the East coast this week. This is my absolute favorite photo from his collection:

Click on it to see it full size. It’s just gorgeous!

You can see all the photos here:

Snowpocalypse photos | Blind Prophecy

2010 Calendar Gift Box

Laura Moncur — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:00:58 +0000

I love this little gift box papercraft from Blackpio:

I printed it on an 8 1/2″ X 11″ piece of normal paper, which makes a small box, which is only three inches high. It really should be printed on cardstock so the handle is sturdy enough to handle the act of closing the box. I’m sure this would be a great box if it were printed on a larger piece of paper, but my printer only prints on 8 1/2″ X 11″.

So, I altered the pattern provided by Blackpio so that it could be printed on two sheets of paper and put together. Here’s what it looks like when it’s assembled.

You can download the altered pattern here:

This box is big enough to fit the lollipops that Mike and I make every year, so I think this is what we’ll use for our neighbor gifts this year!

Via: Blackpio 2010 Calendar Box Papercraft | Papercraft Paradise | PaperCrafts | Paper Models | Card Models

Elvis and the Fainting Couch

Laura Moncur — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:42:47 +0000

Yesterday, Mike and I finished getting the rest of the furniture out of storage. We have been at the Daybreak house for four months now and it has taken us that long to finally get everything here. The two of us carefully lifted the fainting couch up the sixteen winding stairs to my office. I promptly locked the door to keep out the animals.

I inherited this couch from my grandpa. My grandma had found the couch and lovingly reupholstered it. It desperately needs new springs and reupholstering, but I refuse to undo my grandma’s work. It will have to stay soggy and dusty.

This morning, when I opened the door to my office, both Maggie and Elvis rushed in to smell the funk of forty years. I watched them, waiting to reprimand them the second they put claws to fabric, but they were surprisingly respectful. Elvis curled up in a ball and took a nap.

My home is one step closer to complete.

Friday the Thirteenth

Laura Moncur — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:58:20 +0000

Tilt Shift Kuaii

Laura Moncur — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:00:03 +0000

I just learned how to edit photographs to make them look like models using Tilt Shift Photography. There are ways to do it with a really cool camera, but if you have taken an aerial photo with a normal camera, you can use Photoshop techniques to make it look like a Tilt Shift photo. There is a tutorial here:

Tilt-Shift Photography Photoshop Tutorial | Miniature Faking | TiltShiftPhotography.net

The basic steps are:

Choose Quick Mask mode.
Using the Gradient Tool in Reflection mode, draw a vertical line from the center of the in-focus area to the point where the transition from in-focus to out-of-focus is completed.
Return to Standard Mode
Choose the Open Lens Blur Filter option.
Deselect
Open Hue/Saturation in the Adjustments menu and increase Saturation (+40).
Open Curves in the Adjustments menue and create an S shaped curve.

This is my first try. It looks better if you click on it to look at it full size:

The original is here:

Here is another one I did:

It has been a while since I’ve found anything fun to do with my photos like this. It makes me want to hike the Wasatch Mountains so I can tilt shift my town.

Maggie Avoiding Me

Laura Moncur — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:29:35 +0000

When I took this picture, Maggie kept moving her head away. She refused to look me in the face no matter how much I coaxed her and clicked my tongue. I can’t bribe her with food, she has no weaknesses except for the constant desire to be petted and held. She was on my lap and happy and there was nothing I could bribe her with.

Sid Loves The Summer Sun

Laura Moncur — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:18:06 +0000

Sid and I went outside to test the camera on my new 3G iPhone. I heard that it was inexplicably better than the old one, but I can’t really tell the difference. On a beautiful sunny day like today, the cameras on both phones work fine. I guess I should be testing this indoors.

In the end, the true killer features of the new iPhone is the 16GB of storage and the GPS. It’s nice to see that I have plenty of room on my iPhone now. I was pushing the limit with my 8GB.

Discarded Honor

Laura Moncur — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:00:56 +0000

Discarded Honor by Laura Moncur from Flickr

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a valedictorian medal at Thrift Town. Jessica L. Eriksson graduated valedictorian from Viewmont High School in 2005 and just gave her medal away to a thrift shop. It made my heart ache to see it there.

When I think of how hard I worked to get as far as I did, it makes me sick to see it. Our school was so competitive that a 3.96 GPA wasn’t good enough. Neither was a 4.0. You had to take all the AP courses that were weighted and still we had two people with a GPA over 4.1. Suzanne Clark and Aracelli Rojas were our valedictorians at Kearns High in 1987. I wonder if they got a nice medal this shiny and clean with their names engraved on the back?

Two bucks. That’s what it cost me to buy a valedictorian medal. Is it just easier now? Did Jessica not care about it? Did it somehow get lost with the old clothes and end up at Thrift Town on accident? If it had been me, there would have been no mistakes. That thing would have been framed and mounted on the wall. There would have been no way for me to lose that accolade.

Jessica, I see you won fourth place in the State Finals for the FBLA in Accounting in 2005:

FBLA STATE CONFERENCE WINNERS 2005: Who’s Who in FBLA

I also noticed you ran the 5K in 27 minutes and 38 seconds in October of 2004.

5A JV Girls 5K Results

You finished in 64th place. Is that good? Is that bad? You beat my best 5K time by three minutes. Three minutes and 0.3 GPA points. That’s the difference between a winner and a loser in these little races of human competition, but how fast do I need to run in the race of life?

Jessica, if you want your valedictorian medal back, you can’t have it. I’m pretending it’s mine now.