Julie Pippert: Using My Words

My Monday Mission is to be creative with Photoshop. I imagine creative in this case is rightly interpreted to mean funny and clever, but I'm sticking with the traditional and open interpretation. I've been working on a black and white series for our master bedroom. Below are two prints from it. Originally they were full color, but when I began looking at the image, I saw the sharp contrasts, shadows and light. I adjusted it to black and white, worked a bit on the brightness and contrast, and ended up with an image I really liked. I'll mat and frame it, probably ending up at a final size of about 16x20. A while back Stephanie asked me about my art and photography. Sadly, it's fallen to the wayside. Factors: time, both my digital cameras needed repair, and then I was robbed in Boston. As of last week, I have a digital camera again. Thankfully. The photos are from our recent trip back up to Boston. It seems like another life, the days that we lived there. Before kids, th...

At some point over the last week a terrible knot finally unraveled inside me and I became a woman who could smile, laugh and enjoy life again...and so did the rest of the family: If you can laugh at yourself and have a good time, you can take your kids on a duck tour they'll talk about for the rest of the trip...and even quack along the way. When the weather is fine, you can run alongside a pond racing swans and then stop to admire them...or try to see how it is that they poop and pee (if you're under 6). Everything that goes up is for climbing, especially trees. Oh yes we did, you know it baby! Wicked good cannolis. It was here---at Mike's, sitting crammed next to other tiny tables---that we had a great conversation with another couple, some grandparents, and I realized one of the things I miss so much about MA is how much people there like kids. People aren't rolling their eyes in aggravation, "Oh here comes kids ," like they are a fatal, communicable di...