Monday, February 28, 2005

What do I use for pics?

Now that Webshots has inspired me, what do I do for my own collections of pics, and how do I determine theme for the 'savers?
I took a look at some of the digital art websites I found in Webshots for inspiration, and then I heard a new word for searching. "Google"
When my neice-in-law told me about this new search engine I thought ,'Who would use such a silly name for a business" What did I know???
So I found other sites that made and offered screensavers. But I was dissapointed at how many were showing lots and lots of skin, and heavy in the sports and movie stars area. First, they were not my favorite subjects, and second, they were certainly not something I could copyright to sell.
Yes, I had discovered what copyright meant! I couldn't just gather any ol' pictures and put them together and call them mine. I had to take the pics , or design the pics with my own ideas.
So now I had to gather from my own archives (boxes and albums of pictures taken over the last thirty or so years) I started looking at what was available and also went out and bought a scanner/printer combo cause I needed to get those snapshots into the computer to use them!
Fortunately I had a lot to work with. Over the years we had tried raising every kind of animal you can think of for a mini-farm . We had cows, pigs, donkeys, chickens, goats, sheep and of course dogs, and cats. Many, many, many cats. We lived at the edge of the state forest, and had 30 acres of our own for the animals to enjoy. The forest apparently seemed a good place for folks to drop off cats they didn't want anymore. What made them think their cat could forge for themselves after being raised and fed daily in a home???????????
I had always enjoyed taking pics of the kids and their animals and also lots of pics of just the animals, especially the cats. We had 28 living with us at the peak of things. So that was a great place to start. And then there was all the scenic photos of places we have been.
The St. Croix screensaver is the most expensive screensaver I have made. We went there for our 40th anniversary and by then I had a digital camera and took dozens of pics of the fantastic scenery and all that gorgeous ocean. I drove a jeep for the first time, and drove on the OTHER side of the road for the first time. What a Hoot!! I get bad motion sick if I am not driving, so my husband is used to me always being the driver. He loves it as he gets to relax and really enjoy the scenery!
But I didn't have the digital ' til way later, so we are back to sorting out all these photos and learning how to make them into a cohesive theme. More tomorrow...

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Where to after Webshots?

It's my second day and I think I got it straight as to where to put this blog. I think I will leave it here at blogger for now. Tried to get it onto my website Collectincat.com and didn't do it quite right.

Need to see if this blog shows up anywhere to know if it is worth it to continue writing. I am hoping to get it into RSS feed. Let me know how you found me, OK?

Friday, February 25, 2005

Collectin' Cat Screensavers- How I started...

Just beginning this is an adventure. I have never thought of trying to explain what I do. I started by collecting everybody else's screensavers that I could get my hands on. Loved the scenic, and really loved getting into the digital art and fantasy styles. They obviously took a lot of time and imagination to create. I would actually stop working on my computer to let the pictures start rolling across the screen. Like having a "mini-movie" break!

My greatest discovery was Webshots back when I first got my pokey old computer before XP was ever thought of. If I remember right it was Windows 3.0 (talk about ancient!)

Webshots let you use proffesional pics and also see millions of photos and snapshots from ordinary folk. Many of them were spectacular, and some were hilarious, and badly done. But what fun! Putting together my own screensaver groups!!!

Of course, then I discovered I could put up my OWN pics and share with all these folks. It was so exciting the first time I saw the stats for my albums on webshots!!! I actually took pictures that other people liked enough to download to their PC's....WhoooHoooo!

I'm brand new at this blogging idea, so I'm going to stop here, and ask--

Do you use Webshots?

Do you post your own photos there?

Have you tried one of my "Freebies" to see what I am all about?