faith, hope, love

Happy Valentine's Day

to the

love of my life

***

thank you for putting your faith and trust

in me,

for sharing your hopes and dreams,

and for

being more than charitable

by always giving of yourself

and your

love

xoxo

LaLou

***

Today I am linking up with Texture Tuesday, where the theme this week is, of course, LOVE.

This is a macro shot of the gold charm that was a wedding gift from my husband - a gold version of the silver charm he had given me over two years earlier when we had to part after meeting and falling in love during a two month trip to Europe. Bob composed the verse to accompany the original gift.

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Two hours and over 40 takes finally produced the tack-sharp image I was after. Lensbaby + different apertures, different backgrounds (finally settling on the louvered laundry room door!), and a tripod, of course. Aw heck...off with the Lensbaby. On with my 'Nifty 50' (50mm, ISO 200, f/14, 2.0 sec) . Whew! What a process!

In Lightroom I selected the best shot; cropped, then played around in the Basic panel, adjusting white balance, exposure, contrast, clarity, etc. and adding a gradient filter to the right side. Then I tried several ways to achieve a richly toned b&w, finally settling on the split tone method from Scott Kelby's book. Love that book! BTW have I ever mentioned David Duchemin's wonderful series of books on photography and photo editing? I have learned so much from him about vision and intent; and he is so readable! Both authors are highly recommended and often referred to...

Once in Photoshop I simply added the text and two layers: kk_chill (Multiply blend mode @34%) and kk_0101 (Multiply 28%).

Golly, that was fun!