I spy...

Our current design team challenge was to use black and white photos. I did some homework on the digital camera I acquired at a yard sale and found that my camera does not take pictures in black and white, but I got good info on how to set the camera at the lowest ISO and to shoot in RAW format. So I set the camera up and on Sunday when my husband was opening his Father's Day gifts I got some awesome pictures of him and the kids. There was a perfect light behind them that worked brilliantly. But, when I loaded my SD card into the computer... my computer could not read the RAW format. I tried everything and no go. So I had to regroup and figure out what I was gonna do next. I decided that I would get up at 6am on Tuesday (cause my husband was off that day and I could leave the boys home sleeping). I went to one of my favorite spots, The Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. I have taken pictures here many times, and was interested to see how using my photo software how they would look in black and white.

I really liked the Mosaic Moments page pattern #117, because it reminds me of film strip.

So with the new pics in hand I loaded them into my computer and got to work.

We were to include any one of the following elements, photo corners, photo tinting and chipboard.

I decided to first do the photo tinting, since this was a technique I have been wanting to try. After printing out my photos I pulled out my copic markers and got to work.

On some like the Blue Bird house, I decided to tint the house brown since the bird was in shadow and the blue would not have shown.

In this one I really wanted to capture how wonderfully yellow the the American Goldfinch is.

I also used my new love for catching reflection pictures (thanks to design team challenge #7), when shooting the picture of the Great Blue Heron, which I chose to tint the reflection, thus highlighting that feature in the picture.

For a second element I decided to use the corner tiles. I had them laid out on the table (to use as photo corners) and when I looked down at them they reminded me of arrow points. To go along with the square I wrote, in white coloring pencil with, to name the different subjects of my pictures.

As a side note; I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror when I was trying to get a shot and thought what a great picture that would make, so I included it as well.

My journaling box: I got up at 6am to drive to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge to get the birds, in the early morning light. I like to go here and watch the birds and wild life and with the challenge of black and white photos, I was excited to see how today's pictures would compare to others I have taken here. The Refuge is a drive thru. you can also get out at different points and walk designated paths, go up observation towers or at a pull off get out and look.

Tips: really glad that when I sat down to put this together that I did not have to cut out the 60 black 1x1 squares, because I had them in my stash. (see my previous post about pre-cutting your scraps) Also when I went to get started I realized my Mosaic Moments Mat had a lot of glue residue on it so I got out the Goo Gone and with a little on a paper towel wiped down my mat then went over it with a damp paper towel and it was as good as new.