Opinions Wanted

[Irene]

You know the old adage about being married to an electrician, and having to get another electrician to do your work???
It works the same with children!! I have been waiting for over 12 months for my son to do a photo to overlay a poem on.
I am looking to do a coffee table book with photographs as background to the poems - and finally I have one done!! At this rate, I will be dead before I have the book finished!!
There are a couple of adjustments to be made - capitalize the I's in the second half of the poem, and take my copyright info from the top and put it in small print at the bottom (I need it in there as I want to do these singly to go in a frame as well).
But am looking for opinions on what you think. Does it look ok? Any suggestions welcome. Do you think the concept of poems on photos will work ok?
(And no - that's not my wrinkly hand there!! It's my Mum and my grand-daughter!! )

[Robyn]

Lovely poem Irene, and the text over the photo works beautifully. The only thing that pulled me up is the lower case for I(i), but then I went to school in the pre-digital age and I (i) know that's how kids write now!
Cheers
Robyn

[Bob Pacey]

A little hard to read Irene, maybe a darker print ? or larger font.

I'm in the process of doing something the same .

Great stuff Bob

[manfredvijars]

Great photo and a great piece Irene ... all you need to do is reduce the opacity of the image - lighten it.

Image programs usually have a 'Contrast' and 'Brightness' function.
Decrease the Contrast, and increase the Brightness.

If you have any difficulties, post on here and I'll try and talk you through.

I'm sure others may be interested?

A freeware image program, "Fast Stone Image Viewer" can be found at ... http://www.faststone.org/
Doesn't do a bad job for simple image manipulation ...

[Frank Daniel]

Nice piece of work Irene, Manfred's advise is worth following however, you could format the picture even as a 'washout' so that the text becomes more visible and the picture a little lighter as you might prefer.
I am against the author's signature at the bottom of a poem, that's how our writers names get lost over the years, I'd leave it at the top.
good work,
Joe

[Maureen K Clifford]

I reckon it works well Irene as have been doing it for ages and it makes a really nice effect that adds impact to your writing and an opportunity to showcase your own country. You can also work with different effects - overlays etc - couple I've done here might be of interest

With the one you have shown here I think you need to BOLD up the print to make it stand out more but it looks good and that is such a beaut poem - a lot of it is trial and effort working out where to place the verses on the photo for max impact - sometimes you may need to stagger them around as in not the usual way we set them out but that works just as well. Other times just a change in the print colour can work - that ghastly bright citrus yellow shade actually works well on really dark photos as does hot pink and bright orange. Any of the fluorescent colours seem to stand out well - try experimenting a bit and see what you get.....you could find that the medium blue shade could work well with this one here perhaps better than the black print.

Good luck with your book - it will be a beauty I am sure.

Cheers

Maureen

[Irene]

Thanks everyone - will get Clinton to play around a few of the ideas and see how they go. He originally made the text a little transparent as he felt the black looked too stark. However the suggestion of a different colour might work well. He will do a couple of different effects to choose from. I guess the effect used in book form may well be a little more muted than that used in a picture frame but will keep experimenting
Maureen do you have all of yours on a website somewhere?
I never thought about someone dropping of the poets name - so may just get Clint to make it smaller
Thanks again
Irene

[Maureen K Clifford]

Most of the work I have done that I consider good enough is here Irene

http://pool.abc.net.au/users/mahalia/profile/works

It's a pretty mixed bag though but you might get some ideas - this is a Haiku that I just revamped today - a bit of word play I called Breakfast on the Fly

[Zondrae]

G'day Irene,
I was about to suggest the same thing that Manfred and Frank have said. That is, make the picture less prominent by using the washout (or reduced density) of the image. Therefore making the words the focus. I have done this with the cover of my last book. Otherwise it is a good job.

I have started on a new book too. So far I have a list of possible poems... I think you will beat me. My aim is to have it finished for the National Folk Festival in April.

Good luck with yours.

[Irene]

Ah Zondrae - I doubt I will beat you. It took me over 12mths to get Clinton to take this photo for me!! However, now he has done one, hopefully he will get busy and do the others a lot quicker!!!
I have to sit down and work out what poems I want to put in mine - because of the style I am doing, I won't have as many in as a standard book, (or I would probably have to mortgage my house!!! )
Good luck with getting your finished - I'm sure, with your determination, it will be ready to go in time!!
Catchya
IRene