Sometimes I just screw up!

Preparing for the h2h photo tournament this time was really weird.. to start off with I could not for the life of me come up with a great idea.

The theme sounded so easy... color. the more the merrier, NO GREEN.

It was deceptive in it's simplicity. Usually when the theme is narrow and ordinary, I usually don't find it too difficult to come up with something a little out of the box.. not so out there that everone is lost.. but just enough to make an impact. The problem with the theme was there was no box to think out of.

I decided to try several different things.... wine glasses with water .. in a sort of
tower arrangement. I didn't want a pyramid.. so moved them all to one side. Let's just say that didn't quite work out and 6 out of the 7 glasses I was working with fell to their fragile death in my livingroom, unfortunately, nobody is expected to come to the funeral.

I then tried with glass vases..I wanted to replicate the idea of the wine glasses with each having a swirl of coloring that would look like thick smoke dancing their way through the glass. The swirls of color were either not enough or they looked all the same. I tried with different backgrounds and that just made matters worse as the background color was mixing with the foreground colors of the dye.. and as the liquid and vases were transparent, left me with either "blah- muddy colors" or the dreaded .. GREEN!!

so I abandoned that idea too.

I had earlier in the week borrowed a pink wig from Carmen. Kevin wore it for Halloween dressed up as a girl and I thought I could perhaps use it. My idea was to put it on a balloon head.. and paint on eyes and a mouth.. open as in surprise. Then blowing up a pair of blue latex gloves, I would have the gloves holding her (the balloon lady)'s head. She would look up in surprise and awe as many colored balloons were escaping to freedome. Well, the darned wig would not stay on the balloon head, no matter what. I tried weighing it down with pretty blue hair curlers, but then the head was much too heavy and I couldn't prop it up.

Did I mention this is late Saturday night.. Sunday morning? .. oh.yes!

anyways.. I abandon that project also..

Now I'm desperate.. I'm at the point I'm using colored hair elastics, you know the type with material on so they don't hurt. Well, now I had color..but it was just a jumbled mess!

I finally come up with something that I don't think it's the most original thing since sin.. but I at least I like it ... It is now 4AM in the morning.. I have 2 - 1000WATT lights aimed at my white living room ceiling .. creating bright but soft lighting without any harsh shadows on my new subject. If any of my neighbors were up.. they were probably thinking .. what's Maggie up to this time :-D Try and envision the hydro meter spinning like crazy behind my house.

I can't show it here right now.. because voting is not finished but I can tell you that I went through several shots that I liked and eliminated until I came down to the shot I would upload. I had one I really liked but it had fewer colors and probably would be more of my style if it were on my wall..but I really wanted more colors.. (the more the merrier thingee). I cropped the image, resized it .. sharpened it

Monday, I'm still mulling over if I should upload a different image to the tourney. I'm feeling angst at this moment. I usually take photos.. and when I have the right one.. I just know it.. I stop and I just know it's right. I didn't get that this time, I got many good shots.. but not that .. this is it!! shot! So I finally make my decision quite late Monday night.. I upload and cross my fingers.

Monday afternoon.. I'm looking at my image.. and something is not right..I don't like it was much as I did on my comp.. now why is that? very simple .. I uploaded the wrong image to the contest. I uploaded my uncropped version. Was the uncropped version really bad.. no.. but the cropped one obviously had better flow and the composition really was much more balanced. Would it have changed who the winner is.. maybe not.. but I would rather have the better image left behind in my stats.

anyways, yesterday I was pretty depressed about it.. mad at myself and sad too..

but today, I have decided to leave it behind. This is sort of my way to get rid of it.. to tell everyone how I screwed up. It 's not the first time and probably won't be the last so I better stop beating myself up about it.

Would it still be considered petty to ask for hugs though.. if anyone is giving them out today!! ;-)

Oh.. and a huge congratulations to Kirby and his wife Jen on their new baby girl, Rachel, born today! :-)