Saturday, April 10, 2010

Elizdesigns, Wisconsin

Elizdesigns is a ProSeller on Zazzle, and it's easy to see why. As well as being a skilled photographer, she is also a graphic designer.
I have had a camera in my hand since I was a teenager. I see art through the camera lens and sometimes like to enhance or manipulate the photo to create nice effects for cards, invitations, postage stamps and many other products. Originally from Virginia and now living in Wisconsin, I find varying amounts of subjects to photograph. I mainly love to photograph flowers and nature.

I can't even tell you my first camera ... a cheap point and shoot. Then I went to a Canon SLR with several nice lenses. Now I have two main cameras, one of which is a slick little Canon PowerShot SD1000 - 7.1 MP which can be carried in your pocket. My larger camera is older, but a Minolta Dimage Z1 which takes pretty good photos. I am waiting for some $$ to be able to purchase a DSLR. I really miss the SLR.

I chose Zazzle after watching the evening newscast and talked about 'work-at-home' jobs and Zazzle was one featured. I immediately checked it out and have been at home ever since. Being both a photographer and a graphic designer, this has been such a great fit.




Friday, April 9, 2010

Bebop's Place

Back to the USA, Bebop lives in rural upstate New York, her choice of images below shows you don't have to have a dslr to take good photos:
I have recently re-discovered my old love of photography. I used to use a Pentax K1000 SLR. This time around, though, I have gone digital and I use my trusty Canon PowerShot S3IS. I enjoy the post-processing in Photoshop Elements as much as the actual shooting, probably because I used to spend a lot of time in the darkroom.
"Farmer at Sunset" is one I took a while ago with the SLR. I scanned it and then applied a filter (I think it was the Poster Edges filter). The next three were all taken with the S3IS.
"Lilies, Irises and Grapes" was an arranged still life. I darkened the background in Photoshop. 

I took the photo of a male cardinal in a snow storm through my back window. 
Before the first hard frost, I cut an armload of dahlias from my flower garden and took their portrait using the S3IS.
There are some lovely posters in her store, as well as all sorts of other gift items.




Wednesday, April 7, 2010

PRPrints

PR Prints offers unique and customizable gifts such as mugs, t-shirts, mousepads, magnets, shoes, and more. Photos are taken around the beautiful and rugged island of Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada.
PR Prints says:
I'm rarely found without my camera close by. I've always loved capturing the beauty around me, and I am lucky to live in a very scenic place - Newfoundland, Canada. My posted photographic products are from the past several years, and I have used a number of different cameras, but all were simple point-and-shoot versions.


I was actually looking for a place to buy custom bumper stickers for a gift when I discovered Zazzle, and I thought it would be a great place to sell some of my prints. Once I discovered all the other product options as well, I was hooked.





The mug shows three shots of the same iceberg as a large chunk of it suddenly fell into the water.

Mainlymainephotos

Another photographer from the other side of the pond, Fred Nolan's mainlymainephotos store is is full of scenery from Maine on postage stamps to t-shirts, and even skateboards. He says:

I've been doing photography off and on most of my life. I started with and old Brownie box camera made by Kodak in to 20s or 30s. I picked it up at a garage sale when I was a teenager. Moved up to various Polaroid cameras. Then bought a Minolta X7A 35mm SLR with 2 lenses through a mail order company. I used that for several years. My first digital was a Polaroid that photographed in 640x480 pixels. Then had a Panasonic FZ20 and am now a proud owner of an Olympus E500 DSLR. As my name implies most of my images are of Maine since I recently moved here. I have another shop with images from around the US. Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore and points in between.