A Creative Year

I ran across a great interview from Paul at Boagworld that I thought I would share. He spoke with Nicholas Felton about his yearly reports project. Apparently he has been designing yearly reports which detail his life. They cover how many air miles he’s traveled, how many alcoholic beverages consumed, books read, movies attended, and more. A bunch of information, beautifully designed and posted online for the world to see.

I’ve never heard of it before, but apparently it’s catching on, and Nicholas, along with a partner, is launching a website designed to make tracking this information easier. I think this is really fascinating – as a designer who is interested in numbers and tracking things (ok, a little obsessive) this is a brilliant idea. Give yourself a yearly report to really see what your life looks like, what you spend your time and money on. Sure, it’s time consuming, but I’m sure it’s also rewarding.

A new year is bearing down on us. It’s the perfect time to follow in Nicholas’s footsteps and maybe gain some insight into your own life.

My daughters birthday is coming up and my wife let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I would be designing the invitation. She even provided the photo! With wild abandon, and plenty of free time, I dove right in. It turned out to be the perfect opportunity to see if I was liking Lightroom 2.

Here is the original photo:

My wife took this shot in the front yard, and it was my job to jazz it up and throw some text on it. I mean, apply my years of design knowledge to produce an elegant and informative invitation.

So, I imported the photo into Lightroom and worked up a couple of options for the picture. Now, my experience with Lightroom is limited. However, I have taken the Lynda.com training on the program, so I know my way around it pretty well. Having said that, I have to admit I wasn’t initially liking the program. That probably has more to do with changing my workflow and getting used to something new than the software itself.

Right now, the thing I love most about Lightroom is the virtual copies feature. Creating several versions of a photo, while still only having one actual file (and easily comparing and going between versions) is fantastic.

After processing the photo in Lightroom 2, I added some snow and made some further edits in Photoshop. Here is the final version:

You can see there are some color changes, adjustments to the skin, hat, coat, eyes and teeth. I may have overdone the snow, especially the big fuzzy flake over the hair, but I was limited on time. There is a vignette as well, and the photo has been cropped to allow room on the left for text and also create more visual interest. All in all, I would say Lightroom is growing on me. I think if you use Bridge, Camera Raw and Photoshop, you are perfectly fine and don’t necessarily need Lightroom, but it can make some things easier, and has a few really nice features. I’m not wild about the cost, but for full time photographers, it’s probably worth it.