Showing love to the bad photos - Challenge!

Happy Monday everyone!  It’s Danni here with a post-CHA challenge for you.  With all the new lines coming out, we have visions of perfect layouts with the perfect pictures dancing in our heads.   But what about those photos that don’t make the cut, the ones that would certainly not be considered to be on the newest papers with the best embellies?  You know the ones, they tell an amazing story, a story we don’t want to forget, but just aren’t the best photos?  Well, this challenge is for them.

Today we challenge you to “show love to the bad photos” and will share some techniques for scrapping photos that wouldn’t normally make it onto a page as the center of attention.  Whether you have photos that are blurry, off-centered, poorly lit,  busy or crowded, taken by children, over-exposed, older (some may say vintage) or ones that just wouldn’t make the cut, pull them out and let’s show them some love with all the OA goodies we have to choose from.

For my layout, I chose these photos taken by my 5 year old son of me and a group of kids he played tee ball with.  These are the only photos I have of these children and these families have such a special place in my heart (as the journaling will explain)

Here is the layout I created using the new October Afternoon Boarding Pass line of papers and embellies:

 

If you look closely, you can see the photos are not the best.  They are off-centered, crowded and taken by my 5 year old, but they really mean so much to me, they are the only ones I have of these families.

(I have blurred the images of the children’s faces since I am unable to contact each family to ask permission to use them on-line)

I’ll share a couple of techniques I used to draw attention away from the fact that these were not the best photos and bring the layout together.

Technique #1:

Make the journaling a BIG focus.  The reason I wanted to scrap these photos was because of the story and meaning behind the photos, the journaling  “shares the story”.  When getting started , focus on the journaling first and not the photos.  Decide what your journaling will be and design the layout to focus on and around your journaling.

 

Technique #2:

Create title work through parts of your photo.  If you have a photo that is not centered, a photo that was not edited in PhotoShop, or just printed off-center for one reason or another, create your title work through the part of the photo you wish to “hide”.   I could’ve cropped this photo with my paper trimmer but the background (seen behind the title) actually adds to the memory of the photo and I didn’t want to chop it off.

 

Technique #3:

Frame your photo using corner stickers or embellies.  This photo was taken with the kids all trying to fit in the picture, sitting on my lap, arranging themselves, and I giggle just remember falling over backward during this.  It is a very special photo to me and I wanted it to be part of the layout.  To draw attention away from the fact that the photo was taken by my 5 year old, busy and overly crowded, I created a frame using various sticker and embellies, to focus the eyes...... a “border” if you will, so the person looking at the layout could focus the eyes around what was in the picture.

 

Technique #4:

Create focal points around the page, drawing the eyes to many points of interest. These layers finish telling the story of the layout and draw the layout back to the starting point “the journaling”

 

 

 

Joining me today is Becky with her gorgeous layout.  Becky is an amazing photographer, as we all know, so I thought I might have to send her some of my drawer of “bad pics”....giggle, but she went another direction with the challenge, one I absolutely love.  Becky pulled out some of her Christmas photos, the ones we all have that are indoors, with poor lighting and scrapped this amazing page, swoooooon.

 

Technique #1:

When lighting is a problem, change photos to black and white.  This gives you a lot of room to “lighten” up the photos and scrap the photos with any paper you’d like, regardless of how busy the colors are (like all the colors of Christmas)  Becky created this amazing layout using the new October Afternoon Boarding Pass and Christmas photos......genious!

 

Technique #2:

Add color to the layout using bright and fun title work against a basic patterned paper background.  This really draws the eye back to the photos and makes them pop. 


Technique #3:

Use multiple photos.  Using multiple photos actually focuses the attention on the “story of the layout”, rather than the “photography” of the layout.  We are documenting life, and sometimes life doesn’t have perfect photos, but the stories are always just that.....perfect.

Thank you Becky for your absolutely gorgeous layout and ideas!

These are just a few techniques to get the ideas flowing.  Open up your desk drawer and pull out those photos you’ve been keeping hidden, the ones that you can’t bear to throw away but haven’t wanted to scrap, this challenge is for them!  We can’t wait to see what you create.  Please upload your layouts in our FlickrGallery so we can all be inspired.  happy creating♥