Picture Improvments with Picnik

I want to thank all of you for your kind words welcoming me home from my summer of traveling.  While I'm very happy to be home (picture me drinking straight from the tap and eating peaches and plums with joy), it has taken me a bit to adjust to getting back into work, getting back into a new routine, and getting the house organized after a wild and crazy spring - okay and let's face it - getting back into cooking and cleaning because I didn't do that for the seven weeks I was away!   


I love looking back at the photos I took in Bangladesh and India and I have spent countless hours making a photo book out of them. I've also been playing around with some of my favourite photos using Picnik, a free on-line photo-editing website which is a source of endless fun for me.  I should say that a portion of the site is free and that is all I use because I'm cheap like that, but there are other wonderful features if you are willing to pay.  In case you missed my earlier posts about the virtues of Picnik, you can read them here and here - and yes - even here.


Picnik has so many different ways to edit and apply effects that I love to try different combinations.  What I do with each photo isn't always exactly the same, but in general I make the following edits:

• use auto-correct to do the initial adjustment
• lighten the exposure 
• bump up the colour a few notches
• straighten the photo (my eyes must be crooked as so many of my photos are slanted - thank heaven for Picnik to fix them up)

And the following effects are my favourites.  I have listed them in descending order from the one I like and use the most, to others that I try.  I also sometimes do more than one effect on a single photo:

• Cinescope (you can uncheck the box so you don't have the letterbox effect with the black lines top and bottom)
• Cross-process (you can use the slide to decrease the amount of effect you want to apply to the photo)
• 1960's (you can uncheck the box so you don't have rounded corners)
• HDR-ish (I definitely move the slide over to minimize the effect of this one)
• Lomo-ish (again I move the slide over to minimize this one as well)

Have a look at the changes I made to my photos below.  In each case the first photo is the original photo and the second shows the changes I made using Picnik.

PHOTO #1 ORIGINAL



PHOTO #1 EDITED USING PICNIK



PHOTO #2 ORIGINAL

PHOTO #2 EDITED USING PICNIK

PHOTO #3 ORIGINAL

PHOTO #3 EDITED USING PICNIK

PHOTO #4 ORIGINAL

PHOTO #4 EDITED USING PICNIK

PHOTO #5 ORIGINAL

PHOTO #5 EDITED USING PICNIK

What do you think?  I'm in love with the last one and am thinking of printing it to put up in our family room.  Anyone else tried on-line photo-editing programs like Picnik?

I'm Back!

Yes folks I'm finally home.  I had an amazing, wonderful, arduous, intense, exciting adventure and I finally arrived home on Sunday morning.  I've spent the past week talking and talking and talking and telling everyone more stories about Bangladesh and India than they probably wanted to know.  I've sorted my photos and made and ordered photo books so I would have an easy way to show others the best of my pictures.  I've handed out presents.  I've drunk water straight from the tap - oh joy, oh bliss - and eaten all those things that are on the taboo list for visits to South Asia.   

Children playing London Bridge at the CRP school, Bangladesh

I wanted to give my family and friends a peak at the best of my photos and thought I would play the numbers game as a fun way to summarize what I did this summer.  

Man standing on a pile of jute rope in Dhaka, Bangladesh

12463 - the number of kilometres from where I live in Canada to the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed that we taught at in Bangladesh

An elephant I saw on my last day in Bangladesh.  The owner was sitting up on the elephant making him do tricks and when the elephant reached down for a tip he didn't like how much I gave him, so the elephant blew the money back at me and I had to give him more

63 - the number of monkeys we saw sitting beside the road as we traveled down the mountain from Darjeeling to Bagdogra in India

Women picking stones out of lentils in Old Dhaka, Bangladesh

52 - the number of days I was gone from home

The crowds in Old Dhaka, Bangladesh (I love how proud the Momma is in the photo as she could tell we were oohing and ahing about her baby despite the language barrier)

34 - the number of students I taught (19 first year students and 15 third year students) at CRP

The lush greenery at CRP in the early morning light

7 - the number of airplane flights I took this summer

Workers on the Glenburn tea estate near Darjeeling, India

Worker at Glenburn Tea Estate, near Darjeeling, India

6 - the number of countries I visited (presuming that a couple of hours stop-over in Abu Dhabi counts as a visit)

Buddhist Temple on Observatory Hill, Darjeeling, India

3 - the number of salwar kameezes I bought and wore for the month I was in Bangladesh

Man picking reusable coal from the Himalayan Toy Tran

2 - the number of days we stayed at the Glenburn Tea Estate, the most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed in (more about that later as I have lots of photos to share in another post)

Red Fort, Delhi, India

Red Fort, Delhi, India

Humayun's Tomb, Delhi, India

1 - the number of stomach bugs I got (thankfully I was only sick the last two days and am now on antibiotics and things are feeling and working much better).  

The best photo I took of my friend Kim who I couldn't have done Bangladesh and India without - a wonderful companion, adviser, and friend throughout (she is in constant motion so most pictures of her are a blur)

It's great to be home and to be re-connecting with my patient supportive husband, my family and friends, and even my blog.  Thanks to all the summer guest bloggers for filling in for me.


Linked to Good Life Wednesday at A Beach Cottage

Our Evening with the International Models

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would attend my first fashion show while I was in Bangladesh.  Yep, you read that right - recently we went to a fashion show at a fancy hotel in Dhaka.  Kim and I were asked by the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) to attend a charity reception as the money was being raised for CRP and Miss Canada was going to be there.  And since Kim and I are so closely associated with both Miss Canada and international models we were selected to attend the posh event.  All I can say is that it was the most surreal evening of my life!


Late Friday afternoon Kim and I got dressed in our finest (which for me meant my slightly dirty linen pants and a navy and beige blouse) and met at the gate of CRP with one of the Bangali Speech teachers who was going to attend with us.  It took two hours of bumpy, hot, sweaty driving to get to the hotel.  The drive was through all the poverty and crowds and noise that make up life for most of the people here in Bangladesh.

The event was about an hour and a half late starting so I had plenty of time to people watch - very interesting as you can imagine.  The evening began with a somewhat dubious comedian who liked to berate the audiance for not laughing - an interesting technique!  Then we watched the CRP video and finally saw the fashion show.  

The fashion show was a mix of western clothing - some of which were a tad on the skimpy side shall we say - and Bangladeshi clothing.  The Bangladeshi clothing were lovely, all decorated with jewels and fine material.  I do always wonder why models, no matter where they are from, insist on glowering at the audience.  

We left at the break as it was already 10:30 and we had a long drive to get back to CRP. On the way home we had to stop at a gas station to have the heat indicator on the jeep looked at. When we stopped our driver asked us to please sit in the plastic lawn chairs beside the jeep.  It struck Kim and I as rather hilarious to be sitting in the middle of a gas station at 12:30 at night surrounded by buses.  I referred to the plastic lawn chairs as our princess chairs (you can see me sitting on my princess chair in the photo below).

We got home to a minor flood in the kitchen and a giant cockroach.  It's never dull here - is all I can say!

Boating on the Ganges

Yesterday we went for a boat ride on the Ganges River. I hadn't realized until I came to Bangladesh that the Ganges River delta is the largest in the world and forms the river network that makes up most of southern Bangladesh. 


It was lovely to be away from the hustle and bustle of life in one of the most densely populated countries in the world and to relax and see all the wonderful things the river had to offer.  


It's always an adventure when you step out the door here.  Since there were eight foreign volunteers on the boat trip, we made quite a convoy of rickshaws barrelling down the street to get to the river. There are not many westerners here in Bangladesh so we always get lots of stares everywhere we go, let alone with eight of us.

Our boat was a lovely little wooden boat with a woven mat covering painted slats and a curved roof to shade us.  

We were taken on a two-hour tour up and around a series of islands.  One side of the river was very industrialized with metal buildings lining the river, work boats moored, and people going about their business.

The other side of the river and the islands were low-lying rural lands and such a joy to see after all the people and urban spaces we have been living in for the past three weeks.

There was a steady stream of boats going past us.  Everything from boats laden with hay (anyone else think the man in the photo below looks like Santa Claus),

to boats transporting motorcycles,

to barges traveling so low in the water we had no idea why they were even still afloat.

I feel like I got a peak at such a different part of Bangladesh yesterday.  

Linked to My Favourite Post of 2011 Link Party at Home Stories A2Z

My Bangladesh Abode

I thought some of you might be interested to see photos of where I am living while I am here teaching in the Speech and Language Therapy department here at the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) in Bangladesh.


We have lovely quarters to live in, because we are two old ladies volunteering as opposed to most of the bright young things that are here.  Our bedrooms have a British colonial feel to them with the wood furniture and the mosquito nets on the bed.

There is also a lovely wooden hanging rack to put your clothes on.  One of the Australian volunteers put her western clothing in the drawers under the bed and a month later, when it was time to leave, they had all turned white with mould, so I will be leaving mine hanging on the rack so there is plenty of air circulation.

We also have a cute little kitchen with a two-burner gas stove that we make our toast on in the morning. It reminds me of camping so I love making the toast and took over that job right away.

There is a water filtration system in the corner of the kitchen.

I love the cabinet that we store our dishes in.  The openings are covered in screening and it is made of a lovely rich wood.

When we first got to Bangladesh we sorted and cleaned the toys we had brought. You can see them in the photo below on our dining room table, which also serves as Kim's desk and I use the table against the window as my desk.  

All the doors have huge bolts to close them that look like something out of Harry Potter and the front door is secured with a large lock and skeleton key.

There are huge ceiling fans in all the rooms that attempt to keep us cool. It is a bit unnerving, though, when you lie down at night and look up at these huge whirling blades.  My mind starts to wonder things like how securely fastened the fan is to the ceiling and other charming thoughts.  


Oh and I can't forget to show you our resident ghecko who is about four inches long.  We are very happy to have him as he eats mosquitoes.

I hope you liked the tour and will stay for a cup of tea.  We even have biscuits to offer you that we bought in a little shop along the street from CRP recently and really like them.  I think they live up to their reputation - "crispy and contains a charming taste".