Monday, May 7, 2012

Set as Wallpaper.

Attesting to my age, I am regularly amazed how technology is changing our everyday life, though that is true for every generation.  Smart phones are incredible; Having a tiny computer with you brings many conveniences, including sharing ideas, inspiration and art.  Is that a computer in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

I use many Google products in addition to Blogger, one being Picasa Web Albums which allows me to easily organize photos online for sharing with family, forums and blogs.  One home screen on my phone is dedicated to bookmark links, including my web albums.  With a swipe and a press I can bring up my library of photographs as well as my collage scans, as long as there is adequate signal strength.  

When viewing an image on my phone one long press gives me an option to "Set as Wallpaper," a function I love.  Not every image works well as wallpaper, as anyone who has ever lost icons in a sea of busy graphic elements knows.  Which brings me to my excuse to share some images I have used as pleasing and functional wallpaper.

My current wallpaper is a scanned collage of mine.  I tried a few until one worked well and this one is great.  The original is a full 8 1/2" x 11", a difficult size to collage when using average format-sized magazines.  It was inspired by the color blue (as so many of them are, it's long been my favorite) and began with the silver frame.  Any sort of frame is a great starting point, especially larger ones like this, and I always keep my eyes open for them when flipping through magazines.






This next one I tried to use but it was too busy and my icons got lost, probably because of the contrast between the black, blue and white.  I love leather jackets and that was the initiating piece of this collage; it was a two page spread so in order to use the whole jacket I split it on opposite sides of the paper, an effect I really like.  The original size is 8 1/2" x 10 3/4".






There are two photographs of mine that have made beautiful wallpaper as well.  I shared them on my photo blog when they were new but you'd have to dig a couple years back to find them.  This first black and white image was taken at the incredible Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon.  If you are in the Portland area do not let the admission cost deter you from visiting the gardens, they are beautiful and worth the price.  It's a great addition to a trip there for the Oregon Brewers Festival , "Always the last full weekend in July!"







The second is one of the first fragment photographs I took that I really, really liked.  The color and texture are divine (in my biased opinion) and the history behind it is fascinating;  they are small skylights above Seattle's old underground.  Ignore the black frame, it was a phase and I haven't gone back and fixed them all yet.  Fun fact: this was the 481st click on my camera.




I would love to see what others use as their wallpaper.

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