Monday Challenge: Using Your Not-Quite-What-You-Expected Photos

Happy Monday! Stacey here, bringing you a new challenge for this week.Use a photo (or a pile of them!) that didn't turn out right. It could be blurry, too dark, really light, or have something weird in the background. Or maybe your child got ahold of the camera and took pictures of things from his perspective. (This happened to me once, and I had a whole lot of pictures of dolls, stuffed animals, and feet - and this was before I had a digital camera, so they were on real film and I paid to have them developed!)

The inspiration for my challenge is a photo of my daughter that I had printed in 8X10 size for the grandparents for Christmas (scroll down - there's a lot of white sky at the top of the photo):

Since it is a digital photo, I had to pay close attention to the cropping when I sent it to Sam's Club for printing. I printed about 40 photos that day and digitally cropped them all - except for this one! In the layout below, you'll see what happened. I still LIKE the photo, but it's not what I was looking for (I needed more than her head for the framed gift photos). As soon as I saw the mistake I'd made, I knew I could use it for a scrapbook page...I love white space on photos, and this one has an abundance of white space!

The title on this is inspired by a sign I found on Pinterest. The big alphas are hand cut - I just eyeballed the letters. It's been a while since I cut anything out freehand like that, and I like how they turned out for this one! I used several October Afternoon collections - even some older ones like Night Light and Cherry Hill!

Here's a closer shot, just for fun:

When I told Jill Sprott my challenge theme, she said she knew just what pictures she wanted to use! She said she had some that turned out blurry, but she still wanted to use them. Here's the layout she did - I love how she cropped and edited the photos a little so that the blurriness isn't so obvious. Here's what she said:

"Taking photos of my husband is always a challenge, but recently, I was able to hold him hostage for a minute outdoors.  That didn't stop him from clowning around the whole time, though, resulting in a lot of blurry photos.  Still, I found myself smiling as I went through the photos, and knew that they would be perfect for this challenge.  How do we judge what is a "usable" photo anyway?  A little blur is inevitable when you're trying to capture life as it happens, after all.  

One way to make blurry photos a little easier to work with is to make them smaller, which is what I did on this layout.  It also helps to make the photo black and white, as I did with one of the photos.  This way the expression on my husband's face becomes the emphasis, and the fact that most everything else is out of focus becomes inconsequential.   

Imperfect photos can share space perfectly with other elements.  On this page, I pulled together lots of blues, greens, and neutrals from various lines, including Rocket Age, Sidewalks, and Farmhouse.  I had so much fun layering and embellishing the patterned rectangles and journaling cards."

I really hope you enjoy this challenge!

Comments

[Denise Price]

Thanks for the cool challenge & inspiration. I played along; my LO is in the OA Flickr gallery: http://www.flickr.com/photos/denisemprice/6736849879/in/pool-770617@N25.

[julia cotrim]

hi!
loved this challenge!
here is my take: http://juliacotrim.blogspot.com/2012/01/boy-in-box.html
thanks for the inspiration!

[Suzanne]

Great inspiration pieces for the challenge, loving what you did with the girly photo/page especially.

[Traveling Mama]

These are awesome! I especially love the use of "white space" on the first one. Just like a magazine cover!

[Cynthia Lloréns]

I just loved.
I will like to participate with my page.
How can I get in to the gallerie.
Thanks for sharing so many gorgeus projects.
Big huges and kisses.
Cynthia

[Nicole N.]

I love this one!! Who doesn't have photos for this one :)

[Emily Todd]

I'm glad you made this challenge! I often have trouble using my blurry photos, this post definitely inspires me to not worry about what the photo looks and focus more on what the moment it is trying to capture!