CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--PHOTO COLLAGE WITH GUEST AUTHOR KAREN HALL

Writer and environmental engineer Karen Hall has many passions. She’s joined us previously to talk about her writing and her crochet. Today she’s joining us to talk about her passion for photography and photo collage. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

How to Build a Photo Collage

I love photography because it’s all about the moment:  I take a photo, and I know the same group of people, animals, flowers, or whatever I’m shooting will never occur again in quite the same way.  So for me, photographs are precious glimpses into a world preserved only by the pixels that appear on my screen or on the film that’s printed for my next collage.

There are a couple of ways to do a photographic collage.  The first is to purchase a large frame with several windows for photographs.  You’ve all seen them at Hobby Lobby, Michael’s and other craft stores.  They’re by far the easiest option—if your photographs are sized appropriately for the windows.

The second way to do a collage is to use a graphics program (Publisher comes with a lot of Microsoft Office packages) and “paste” them together.  Or you can, of course, go old school and print your photographs, then cut and paste them together.

No matter which way you do it, here are a few tips for making your collages terrific:

Faces  If your collage is made of photographs of people, be sure to highlight their faces.  Make sure they’re readily visible and not dwarfed by the surroundings.  Close-ups work best, of course, but you can always print the photos in a larger size and crop/cut them so the faces are correspondingly larger.

Shapes  Are your photographs taken in portrait mode (taller than wide) or in landscape (wider than tall) or both?  If you’re using a purchased collage frame, you may limit yourself in the selection of photographs by what the frame wants you to use.

Backgrounds  Try, as much as possible, to use photographs with simple backgrounds.  If the backgrounds are busy, filled with buildings or other people or complex landscapes, your eye won’t know where to go.  Use photos that focus on a single subject for at least half of the collection; if you must use shots with complex backgrounds, alternate them with simple ones.

Light and Shadow  Photographs are, really, all about light.  When you’re building your collage, try to alternate light with dark; your eye will better discern individual photographs, and the overall effect will be stunning.

Color  If you use only black and white shots, pay more attention to light and shadow.  If, however, all your photographs are in color, mix them up!  Don’t concentrate all the reds in one part of your collection unless you’re specifically going for that look. 

Here are a couple of collages I put together for pre-purchased frames.  The one at the beginning of the blog was for my father who moved to a very small assisted living apartment and wanted a collection of family photographs for his wall.

Here’s a smaller collage, a grouping of black and white photographs I took one fall afternoon at the University of Minnesota arboretum.  Note the light and dark contrasts.

Here’s a sample collage of nature photographs.  I’ve tried hard to vary the backgrounds and the light/shadow, as well as the subject matter and color.  It’s not always easy, as you can see.

Finally, here’s a color collage I just made for my sister-in-law, at whose birthday party they were taken.  I tried to pay close attention to all the tips above.  Let me know what you think. 

These days it’s tempting to leave your photos on your computer or your phone, but if you do, you’re the only one likely to see them, and then only when you search them out or select them as wallpaper for your phone or desktop.  If you don’t have a photo-quality printer, there are a number of online services that will print them for you.  I use Snapfish.com simply because my sister does, but there are many others available.  You can easily upload your photos and order prints, and you can also share them once they’re loaded to the site.  Your friends can either copy and paste the photos you’ve shared to their own hard drives, or they can order prints, too.  Either way, your photos will be out there for others to enjoy!

Unreasonable Risk

First in the series.  Hannah Morrison’s place of business might as well be a bomb. Nearly everything inside the fence is either flammable or explosive—and somebody is trying to blow it up. Hannah’s friend and mentor has already died, and though she knows it was sabotage, she can’t prove it. With the help of photojournalist Noel Keller, Hannah uncovers suspect after suspect as the stakes mount for the refinery, its neighborhood and the entire city. Determined to avenge her friend’s death, Hannah works to identify the saboteur before he decides: WHO WILL BE THE NEXT TO DIE?

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THIS WEEK'S BOOK WINNER

Thanks to all who stopped by this week at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers. We hope you'll come back often and also tell your friends about us. We have lots of exciting posts and guests planned for the months ahead. I’d also like to thank Karen Hall for being our Book Club Friday guest and offering a copy of Unreasonable Risk to one of our readers who posted a comment this week. The winner this week is Kathy. Kathy, please email your mailing addresses to me at anastasiapollack@gmail.com, I’ll forward the information to Karen, and she’ll mail the book to you.

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR KAREN HALL

hardcover edition

Our Book Club Friday guest author today is Karen Hall, an environmental engineer and author of the environmental thrillers, Unreasonable Risk. After obtaining an English Literature degree, Karen attempted to answer the age-old question:  What do you do with one of those?  She spent time as an editor, lifeguard, graphics designer, marketing executive, bank teller, secretary and cherry picker (really—Yakima Valley, Washington).  None of them fit her well, so she went back to school for degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering and spent nearly nine years working in Minnesota’s oil industry.  She left to start her own environmental consulting business and to devote more time to writing.  Her first novel, Unreasonable Risk, published in 2006, is a thriller about sabotage in an oil refinery; it will be released for e-reader in April 2011. 

Karen has recently finished the second in her environmental thriller series, Through Dark Spaces, set in the hard rock gold mining industry of the Black Hills.  It will also be released for e-reader in the spring of 2011. To learn more about Karen, visit her website.

One of our readers will win a copy of the hardback edition of Unreasonable Risk. To enter, simply post a comment to the blog, and be sure to check back on Sunday to see if you’re the lucky winner. -- AP

e-book edition

An Answer to an Often-Asked Question: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Every time I do a book signing or go to a book club, I’m asked the question:  where do you get your ideas?  How do you decide what to write about?   My answer:  I write about things that have touched my life.  I think most writers at least begin that way.  I’d always wanted to write a novel, but it wasn’t until one sunny November afternoon in 1999 that the idea for my first book crystallized – as a result of an event that happened that day.

At that time, I was working in Koch Petroleum Group’s oil refinery just south of St. Paul, Minnesota, as an environmental engineer.  Refineries are structured a little like small towns – they have a grid of streets and avenues – and I was walking along A Street toward the wastewater treatment plant.  The brisk Minnesota wind made me hunch into my heavy blue parka, so I didn’t hear the pickup until it was nearly on me.  It was cherry red; all the refinery vehicles were sky blue.  And it blew past at about 30 miles per hour.    Since the speed limit in the plant was 5 mph, my adrenaline picked up and I ran, thinking there must be an emergency somewhere.

Though I never got to the emergency myself, I found out later that day what had happened.  The kid in the pickup had driven past the refinery every day, twice a day, going to and from work, for over a year.  On this particular day, he was coming home from the bar in the middle of the afternoon, having lost his job the day before.  He’d apparently been in that bar for quite some time, had imbibed a significant amount of the brew of the day, and was seriously angry.  As he drove past the refinery, he decided it was high time he had a look at what was in there, so he turned in at the gate. 

Now think for a moment about what’s in a refinery.  Pretty close to everything inside the fence is either flammable or, worse, explosive.   At that time, the only “protection” the refinery had was an arm gate, like those at railroad crossings, which the guards inside the building could raise or lower.  Not much of a barrier, as it turned out.  The kid in the truck simply plowed on through, snapping the gate like a twig. 

Here’s the kicker:  security didn’t catch him for nearly 45 minutes. 

And they only caught him then because it was November.  As refinery vehicles cornered him in one of the tank farms (where several of those enormous white cylindrical tanks sit), he abandoned the truck and sprinted up the metal staircase that spiraled around one of the tanks.  Fortunately for the refinery, he chose an asphalt tank.  Now if you think about asphalt and Minnesota Novembers, you realize that if the stuff isn’t kept hot, it would turn into a hockey puck well worth mention in the Guinness Book of World Records.  And to keep asphalt liquid, it has to stay REALLY hot.  The kid from the pickup stepped out onto the roof of the tank…and pulled his foot back.  He was afraid he’d burn his feet right through his shoes if he tried to walk across.  So they finally caught him and hauled him off, either to detox or to jail, I’m not sure which. 

The whole incident, though, made me realize how lax security is at many of our large industrial facilities.  And what would happen if, instead of some angry unemployed drunk, the person who broke in wanted to sabotage the place?  What could happen? 

The answer is:  nothing good.  My first thriller/mystery, Unreasonable Risk, takes a close look at that answer.  It opens up the world of the oil business for the reader, too, and provides a glimpse of an industry that touches every one of us every day, but about which most of us know next to nothing.  And without any mind-numbing descriptions of how refineries work.  Just lots of action, lots of explosions, and a likeable heroine with a strong sense of justice.

I hope you’ll all enter the contest to win a free copy, and that you’ll let me know what you think once you’ve read it.  And perhaps Anastasia will invite me back to explain how I got the idea for my second book, soon to be released for e-reader, Through Dark Spaces, another environmental thriller, this one set in a gold mine!

Thanks so much, Karen! We’d love to have you back at some point. Readers, let’s hear from you. Post a comment for a chance to win a copy of Unreasonable Risk. And remember to check back on Sunday to see if you’ve won. -- AP