Asio Studio » Bonny Fleming

Why I LOVE my iPhone…

Bonny Fleming — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:23:53 +0000

Over the weekend, we headed East to the Cheyenne River Ranch to visit our favorite Wild Idea Buffalos. The trip didn’t disappoint and I could go on and on about the morning spent with buffalo, but I think that’s a whole separate post. What I want to talk about here has to do with the above photo.

I snapped the shot on the way back from the ranch… right out the front windshield of the truck. I took the shot because the moment inspired me. I used my iPhone because it was in my lap. The big camera was all packed up in the bag and not as accessible. But perhaps the coolest thing was that I was able to do the photo editing and upload it to the internets before we had even reached the highway.

Now, I know there are a lot of photo/purists out there who think that the iPhone cheapens photography, and that all the wiz-bang effects are over used. I can’t say I disagree with that. I do think however, that these tools can be used responsibly and help enhance a photo much the way we use Photoshop or even in the dark room. The only difference is that I can perform the actions with a push of a button on the device before it ever even leaves the “camera”. When I got back to real life and to a computer I logged in and was greeted with the typical “likes” and comments I’ve grown quite addicted to. People commented on the photo, and the longing to be out there in the “Nowhere”. But then the conversation took a surprising turn to the analysis of the effects and photo editing. People were actually trying to guess what I had done to the photo to make it look like that. Which, in reality, wasn’t very much. I clicked a couple buttons and presto – stunning photo.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen these effects and tools abused again and again, and I strongly believe that what makes a good photo has much more to do with subject matter and composition as it does with cool color effects, sharpness or contrast. But these tools the iPhone gives you are just that; tools. When you use them respectfully and responsibly, they can add the extra touch to a picture that the viewer really connects too.

Below is a small collection of some of my favorite shots I’ve taken from my phone. Enjoy!

Is Pinterest the key to Collective Enlightenment?

Bonny Fleming — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:12:36 +0000

So, like millions of other internet savvy women, I recently joined Pinterest. I got an account and instantly said; “I don’t get it, this is dumb” and then I went on with my life. That is, until I heard the words Pinterest about 200 more times here and there in everyday life and internetting around and I thought… “Ok, let’s go see what all the fuss is about”

It didn’t take long. It was like a light switch turned on. I got it. I understood instantly why it was such a great thing… and I will be the first to admit, I went a little nuts over it. I was pinning everything. I was finding myself looking for excuses to explore the dark corners of the Internet looking for the next cool thing to pin. And my heart fluttered every time I was notified that someone else had re-pinned my pin. I’ve since calmed down a bit and now, I pin more responsibly, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking it is an amazing tool for organizing things. Its both a bookmarking site and a discovery site, and I am in love.

Now, it goes without saying that most Pinterest users are women. There are some fellas on there, sure. But it’s safe to say that the Y chromosome isn’t at home amongst the pins. I’m not sure why this is, maybe it’s that the logo for Pinterest is in a nice pretty cursive typeface, and maybe just because that women are early to adopt it. I would say it is safe to assume that the men stay away from it because simply, it’s quite full of girly stuff.

I’d be willing to bet that there are some developers out there working on a “Manterest” site. One directed at men. I’d bet money though, that if Pinterest were male driven, the contributors’ content would be considerably different. I’m not trying to paint the picture that men only care about boobs and power tools, because I know that’s not true. I just think, to men, other things are important. And I’m not sure that sharing the best way to preserve and serve your chocolate chips to be a priority.

I started noticing a trend. I started to notice that particular things will get pinned over and over and over again. Occasionally these things are a particularly clever way to cook brussel sprouts, or some witty, life changing quote. More times than not, the pin that gets passed around is something really, really clever tip or trick that someone figured out to make her life easier. – some little thing she does in the home that saves time or energy.

This got me thinking:
Could Pinterest be the key to humanity’s collective evolution? Could sharing and easy access to these tiny tidbits of time saving nuggets free our minds enough to think about other more important things? Probably not anything of that magnitude, but there’s something there.

Now, is putting a soda bottle lid on your chocolate chip bag going to levitate us humans as a species to the next level? Doubtful, but it’s possible that if the network of Pinterest women all get on the same page, and we share our innovation and thoughts freely, we just might have a little more time to be happy… and we all know that when the ladies are happy, the world is a better place.

MY Top 8 photos from 2011

Bonny Fleming — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:14:11 +0000

Well, It has been quite a year. I feel that I’ve grown leaps and bounds this year as a photographer, and with the addition of the new 5D(!!!!!!!) the sky’s the limit for 2012.
I thought I’d take a minute and pull my favorite photos from this past year and tell you a little bit about the shots.

It was a beautiful foggy frosty morning, not too long ago. I was the first one to get to work, but I didn’t stay there long. I got the itch to shoot so I grabbed my camera and ran out the door and was out of town before the boss lady could say "No". I was shocked and kind of sad that all the beautiful tree frost seemed to end as soon as I went west through the gap. Not to be discouraged, I headed up to Pactola. I wandered around the shore line and followed Tuesday (my dog) as she chased a squirrel. I got a couple other neat shots from that day, but it wasn't until I got back to my car and looked out through the trees at the lake again when I saw him. He was high in a tree, but the tree was down the hill so he was actually right at eye level. I left the car running and headed down the hill to see if I could get a better shot. I thought I might have a better chance if I went to the edge of the lake and tried to sneak up on him rather than to come at him through the trees. I was getting some nice shots of him up there when Tuesday decided to run the waterline right past him. This proved to be too much for his patience and he took flight. He was gone in a flash and I just shot. I didn’t even look at my camera until i got back to the office. I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw this one.

Rapid City got soooo much cooler this October when the Main Street Square finally opened. I took this shot of the lead singer of the band Lunar Funk Theory. They played for the grand opening. Great show! Great Night! Great shots!

Speaking of Main St Square, did I mention that it’s AWESOME!!! This little guy was checking out and contemplating the casual fountain run. Great shot in general, but I love the Alex Johnson in the back ground and the overall size represented in this photograph.

Sometimes its just a right place at the right time situation. I got invited out to the Linn Ranch (of Linn Brothers fame) to celebrate the 4th of July. These guys went all out! It was an exceptional party, but Mother Nature put on quite a show too. The sunset was unbeatable. Toss in an adorable little girl and some giant bubbles and you’ve got the recipe for awesomeness. I just happened to have my camera at the ready.

This shot is fantastic. We were doing a video shoot for the Strider Running Bikes. All these little guys had ridden their bikes like champs all afternoon. We were just about ready to call it a day when they all dropped their bikes and went out on the pier to look at the water. You can't set up a shot like this. Once again, just another “Right place at the right time” kind of moment. I grabbed the photo and the kids quickly went on with being kids. It was a great afternoon.

I love live music. This shot was taken at the R&R music festival. I’m not sure how the festival turned out, but the pictures sure were excellent. This one is of a Bluegrass (?) musician named Jalan Crossland, one of my personal favorites. He’s local enough to come around often, but famous enough to have his own Pandora channel. He stepped into the light at the right time for this shot. I just love the way the beam of light directs you to the subject matter. You can almost hear the sweet banjo pickin'.

My daughter is great. But she’s also one of the most photographed kids on the planet. Lucky for me she’s a trooper. “Anna, go climb up on that ledge and walk that way.” “Mom! Do I HAAAAVE to?!?!” “I’ll get you ice cream.” … anyway, you can see, for obvious reasons why these instructions were important. She’s the best.

This list wouldn’t be complete without this photo. The remarkable thing to me is that I took this with my iPhone. But what a perfect moment, huh? This was at the last Summer Nights of the season. There was an ominous storm threatening to shut everything down. I can’t remember if it actually did start raining or not. But none the less the sun came out long enough to cast a perfect rainbow right over Main St in Rapid City…. Another one of those “right place at the right time moments.”

6 things you (probably do but) might not know you can do on Facebook.

Bonny Fleming — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:00:55 +0000

I was talking to my Dad on Fathers day and inevitably the conversation turned to Facebook and before long I was spouting off tip after tip of Facebook knowledge when it dawned on me that others could benefit from this information as well. So here you are…

6 things you may not know you can do on Facebook!!!

These particular 6 things will be presented one thing at a time every day until the 27th of June. That’s nearly a full week’s worth of things you may or may not have known! WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Enjoy the things.

Hey, Check out the bottom half of my face!

Cropping your Profile Picture:

Maybe it’s just the photographer in me but I can’t stand it when someone’s profile picture shows half of their face, half of their buddies face and then most of a tree they are standing next to. It’s super easy to adjust the way your profile picture shows up in the little box, here’s how:

First go to your profile page and click on your profile picture in the top left corner of the page and you’ll notice that it says “Change Profile Picture”

After you click this Facebook will give you a menu of options. If you scroll down and click “Edit Thumbnail”. A new window will open and you will then be able to drag the thumbnail around to get the cropped photo you desire. Drag your profile picture to desired crop and click save…. noting more too it!

I don’t really care how your farm is doing… go away!

Hiding Stuff from your news feed:

By now most of you have found the handy little “hide” box in the top right corner of a status update but incase you’ve missed it; Facebook allows you to turn off those applications (or friends for that matter) you find just a little to annoying.

If you’re like me you don’t really care about Farmville, or horoscopes, or “What type of shoe defines you” or the super awesome high score someone got in Farkle. Facebook allows you to block information you don’t want to see by clicking the Hide button. You can find the hidden ‘Hide’ button by rolling over the application update you wish to remove. When you do this a button will appear in the top right corner that says… oddly enough “Hide”.

When you click the button a box will pop up

This box allows you to block the application or to block the person posting the application (more on this later).

Once you’ve blocked the application its gone forever… poof! No more Farmville.

BUT WAIT!

This new page I’ve turned in I’m my life has made me a more tolerant person with a much more addictive personality. I totally WANT to play Farmville now!

Not to worry, you can get it back by following these steps:

Navigate to the News Feed page and make sure that you are looking at the Top News option (this option can be changed at the top of your home page). Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the “Edit Options” link. Select the “Applications” tab and click on the “Add to News Feed” button beside any third party application that you would like to add back to your home page.

Yeah, but… its not the applications so much as it’s my really annoying neighbor who wont stop talking about his dog Fluffy!

“Well, just delete him.”

“I can’t”, you say… “He’ll cut down my tomatoe plants.”

Well, there is one more option. You can turn off status updates for people too.

Same as before. Roll over, click Hide but this time click “Hide (Person’s name)” instead of the application.

Done and done….

Oh, but 6 months later when you play poker with the guy and you get to talking about Fluffy, ‘Woof”, he comes over and falls asleep in your lap and now you to want to know every cute thing he does from now to eternity. Not to worry, you can turn your neighbor back on too:

Scroll down to the bottom of your News Feed and click “Edit Options.” If you are looking for a friend, scan the list to find that person. If you are looking for a public profile, select the Public Profiles tab. Click “Add to News Feed” to see their posts again. Click “Close” to save your changes.

Now, if you were paying attention you might say at this point… “But Bonny, when we did the thing before where we turned the applications back on I totally saw a box next to the Applications button that said Friends! Cant we just add our friends back there?”

The answer is “Yes” and you get a big fat gold star for being such a good student, and heck even a pat on the back while we’re at it.

…Moving on.

I know how awesome Frank Bob and June Summertimington are, if only the rest of Facebook could too…

Link to other profiles in your status updates

Lets say that you spent an afternoon at the lake with your good friends Frank Bob and June Summertimington. Now, you had a great time with them and you want to tell the whole Facebook world about it, but by golly, it isn’t enough to just tell them you want to show them who these fantastic people are you spent your whole weekend with. No problem, you can do this by linking their names to their profile pages in Facebook.

Start by typing up your status update as usual: “We had the best time at the lake this weekend with Frank Bob and June Summertimington” (great update!) but when you get to their names type the @ sign first. You’ll notice that when you type the first letter of their name it will pull up a list of everyone you know what that letter in their name. A few more letters will narrow the list down and you should be able to select Frank Bob’s name. Once you do this you’ll notice the name will change to blue. This means you did it right.

…Now of course a much more effective way to use this would be to help promote a friend or an event. Example:

Stupid Facebook, that’s not what my link was… it should say _______

Change the description text in your link

I see this one all over Facebook. Its actually something I discovered on accident, and I love it!

Sometimes when you put a link to a new story on Facebook, depending on the settings of the site you’re linking to or a gambit of other circumstances, the title of the page and the link descriptions can vary from exactly what you want to say to some sort of internet gobbldygook no one can understand. Facebook gives you control over both of these things so you can change them to say what ever you want.

What in the Sam Hill are you talking about Bonny? … well, let me show you…

HOLY COW! I just read the most amazing story on this super awesome website and I want everyone I know on Facebook to see it. I go through the common steps: Go to web page. Copy web page URL (Web address) and Paste into my Status box. YAY! Now everyone will know about this thing I found and the world will be a better place!

Oh no! when I pasted it in the box it put up some weird title that doesn’t explain what the story very well, and the text below the title is a description of the website, not of the story… no one will click on my link now and I will be sad.

Alas, check this out:
If you hover over the title of the story when it appears below the status box you will notice that it turns yellow. This glorious transition of color means you can click on that text and change it to WHAT EVER YOU WANT, so instead of the link text saying “bla bla bla, I’m not text that’s relevant to anything” it can now say “Hello, I’m something super important, relevant and descriptive, you surely want to click on me now!”

While we’re here lets just touch briefly on the thumbnail selector at the bottom of this box. you can change the photo that appears with your link by cycling through all the images on the page. This is particularly useful if for some reason Facebook thinks the Budweiser logo is more important than you’re best friends daughter knocking the ball out of the park for the game winning triple. Additionally, you have the option of displaying no thumbnail if, after you’ve cycled through the selection of photos available, none seem appropriate.

My buddy from high school keeps sending me event invitations, but I don’t want to look like a jerk and click “Not Attending”.

Remove yourself from events with out grief

You can remove yourself from events completely. This means you don’t have to lie and say you might be coming to an event you have no intention of attending or worse yet, you wont show up on the Not Attending list and hurt anyone’s feelings.

Facebook recently changed the way they handle events so this actually took a little digging to rediscover but it would appear that it is pretty easy. All you have to do is go to the event page and look under the event photo in the top right corner.

Man, Facebook Chat is so annoying. Frank Jim keeps talking to me but I really dont want to go off line in case Dreamy McHearthrob wants to talk to me….

Turn off and sort chat

Most people know that you can turn off the chat function if you are feeling particularly antisocial but what you may not know is that by using Facebook’s list function you can actually sort groups of people into friends, family, people you saw once in the hallway in high school and most importantly, people you really don’t care to chat with.
What this does is makes you appear off-line to one group of people while appearing online to another group. For example:

I like to be online when ever grandma pops up because I love grandma and want to talk to her every chance I get but I don’t really like talking to the pimple faced squirrelly boy who sat next to me in math class in the 8th grade and he seems to want to talk to me all the time…. gawd he’s dumb!

Here’s how we fix this:

Start by creating friend groups. You do this by clicking “account” in the top right corner of Facebook and then clicking “Edit Friends”. A box will then pull up containing all of your Facebook friends. Name the group by clicking the box at the top then you can sort through your friends by scrolling down or by typing their names in the search box in the top left corner.

You can create as many groups as you’d like. This function is also nice for sending messages and filtering status updates from friend groups as well as some other handy dandy stuff, but I suppose that’s another article.

Now that you have all your friends sorted nicely into nice folders lets move over to your chat box in the bottom right corner of the page. This will open a list of everyone who is online at the moment. You’ll notice though that now they are sorted nicely into the groups you’ve created.

To the left of the list groups is a green toggle switch. If you click the switch for each group it will change your online status. This way you can control who you appear to be online to at any given time.

Sticky: 6 things you (probably do but) might not know you can do on Facebook – Intro

Bonny Fleming — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:51:51 +0000

6 things you may not know you can do on Facebook!!!

These particular 6 things will be presented one thing at a time every day until the 27th of June. That’s nearly a full week’s worth of things you may or may not have known! WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Enjoy the things.

Everybody Like This!

Bonny Fleming — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:44:38 +0000

So, Hank Harris just stopped by to drop off the a copy of his latest album “Shortcut to Hanksville”. I’m listening to it now, I’ll report back with a review after I’ve spent some time with it, but for now I wanted to show you the stunning graphics designed by, who else, ME!

We’re working on getting the album up on his site soon I’ll keep you posted as soon as we get that done.

It was a fun project. We’ve been Hank fans for a long time. It was fun to design an album for him. The album is a mix of songs, emotions and styles. So far the songs Everybody Like This! and Vacuum are my favorites. Other musicians who play with Hank on the album are:
Jimmy Goings, Mike Miller, Jeremy Hegg, Jon Hegg, Peter Neussmann, Ricky Jacobsen, Kenny Putnam, Matt Berry, Matt Wallace, Tommy Hartig, Jimmy Sanchez, Andrew Reinartz, Genevieve Goings, Tony Baker

The complete track list is:
1. Amanda Lee
2. Everybody Like This
3. Women Choose
4. Typing and Entering
5. Vacuum
6. The Way to Heaven
7. I See Your Face
8. Love Doesn’t Stick
9. Nothing 2 Wear
10. Voodoo Avenue
11. Hope Dies Hard
12. What Am I Gonna Do?
13. Hypnotized
14. After All

Termes Openhouse & Online Sale

Bonny Fleming — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:08:45 +0000

Every year around this time our friend, family member and favorite sphere painter Dick Termes opens up his gallery for a Holiday Open House. He overs great deals on Termespheres but also on his many smaller, very cool Termesy things to buy.

This year we went out a little farther into the marketing world and made fun posters and used Facebook and Twitter to try to help promote the event. So far he’s already had a reported 3 visitors to the Gallery BEFORE the event’s even started. I’m taking that as a sign that our extra effort has payed off.

Below are a couple sample graphics of what I created to help spread the word, enjoy:

She’s a mounkey

Bonny Fleming — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:46:47 +0000

Lets talk downloads…

Bonny Fleming — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:43:45 +0000

I recently switched form CS2 to CS4, there are things I like and things I don’t and even something’s I don’t understand yet (imagine that).

Back a while I was still a CS2’er I discovered the exciting new world of downloadable presets for Photoshop. Brushes, Custom Shapes, Gradients, Actions etc. When I made the switch to CS4 I thought I had lost all of my previos downloads and was heart broken. Alas, today my day was brightened when I discovered they still worked. This sent me on a quest to find more – I found this site www.ladyoak.com you have to register but once you do you have access to a bazillion custom shapes. I’m not going to tell you how much time I spent downloading them this morning.

www.qbrushes.com has proven itself awesome for brushes and there is always www.deviantart.com which is chalk full of useful downloads for all sorts of purposes.

The point to this post I guess is that even though Adobe is awesome there is much more out there that can be added to make it even more awesome.

If you know of any secret sites out there I’d love to hear about them.

Photo What?

Bonny Fleming — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:17:19 +0000

When I was 10 my dad got this really cool program for his computer. I think it was called Photoshop. He showed me how to use a couple of the tools, I remember specifically the “smudgy finger tool” was of particular interest. I played with it for a while and made (drew) a picture of a candle. I remember thinking the program was incredibly cool but didn’t know at the time how much of my future I would spend using it.

18 years have passed since that fateful day in Ohio, and I have grown with each upgrade of Adobe. I was there when they gave layers, history, clipping masks, filters, and vectors. Heck, I even remember the “big electric cat”.

The problem though about a program that can do so much is that its nearly impossible to know everything, its my opinion that most people tend to figure out a way to do something and stick with it, even though there might be a far easier way to do it if you just knew how.

Let’s take Paths for example. Dylan sent me this link. I thought what a cool effect. I wanted to make a stencil for Dylan so we could spray paint it on a shirt. When I got to the end of the tutorial I said “NO WAY!!!” I didn’t know you could do that!!!! Now this is one of those things, I’m sure if I had taken a Photoshop 101 class I would have learned in the first week, but since I never took that class and instead just learned with the program, an upgrade at a time, I never got to that chapter.

My point to this post is to always keep your mind open to change, and learning new things. Learn the quick keys and the cool effects, take the tutorials, and never unclick the “hint a day” boxes, even if you don’t read them every time. All of these programs are here to make our lives easier and can do the most amazing things but we have to know how to use them.

Here are some good turtiorials, and lists of tutorials…

www.smashingmagazine.com

www.rustylime.com

www.designvitality.com

www.hongkiat.com

www.photoshoplady.com

www.graphic-design.com

www.creativecloseup.com

how to turn a photo into a sketch

how to put smokin bullet holes and a wanted sign into a piece of wood

www.good-tutorials.com

www.pswish.com/best-tuts/

Have I done all of these tutorials? Heck No! I’m too busy working… but I certainly have book marked them.