Washington DC - part 3

Another night in DC...another stroll. This time we were in search of a good spot to watch the sunset before it actually set. So we headed toward the nearest water and didn't have much time. I think we caught the last few seconds and then it was below the horizon.

We ended up heading to the Jefferson Memorial and since neither of us had been there before, we figured it was worth a walk. There's one thing about DC that you should know - things always look closer than they really are! Once we got there we realized why we'd never been there before - because whomever we were with (parents when we were kids) knew that it was a long trek for little ones to make. Well, it was worth it. The crowds were fewer than at the Lincoln Memorial, it's a beautiful place, and at dusk it was ... well, dusky.

Of course that hike wasn't enough for us, so once we passed the Washington Monument, we continued to walk the streets of DC.

 We had dinner a few blocks from Ford's Theatre, and my husband being a bit of a history buff, was keen enough to realize this. So, we had to see that and of course the house across the street where President Lincoln died.

 And since we were headed in that direction anyway, and Mike wanted to see it, we dropped over to Chinatown. I have to say the chintzy arch looks chintzy even at night, but it photographed pretty well.

 Oh how I enjoy skyscraper cities all lit up at night...brings back fond memories of Chicago, my favorite big city.

Well, stay tuned for more pictures...

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Lights pt 2

Today, I decided to try creating my own neon-lighted self-portrait. It's still a work in progress, but here she is thus far:

 I still want to add more to the face so it'll be brighter and create more motion in the background. As to the tutorial I posted previously, I decided I didn't want to use someone else's image, and though it would be good experience to practice using the warp tool, I wanted to create the glow forms from scratch. So I found another tutorial on creating glowing curves, which I used to create this image. While searching for these tutorials, I went looking for ways to make this in Motion or After Effects and found some interesting tutorials, one on creative cow and another on geniusdv. And, finally, by using the information on both tutorials, I was able to create particles and make a moving glowing streak in Motion.

So here's my own tutorial for how to create these streaks (we'll stick with 2D space since I don't have the new Motion at home and haven't perfected moving them in 3D space).
Step 1: In a new Motion project, create a small circle with heavily feathered edges
Step 2: With the circle selected, click on "Make Particles"
Step 3: In the Inspector, with the Emitter selected, change the speed to 0.
Step 4: Using either keyframes or behaviors, move the "Emitter" along a path
Step 5: Adjust the birth rate to make it smooth, colorize and check "additive blend", make other adjustments such as opacity over life, scale, etc