Found Footage Fave: Godforsaken (2020)

Featured

Posted on November 13, 2025 by marey mercy

Reason for filming: A documentarian stumbles upon a bizarre story and decides to make a movie about it

Director/Writer: Ali Akbar Akbar Kamal

What’s the horror: Supernatural, religious, cult

Does the dog die? Yep. The dog dies in this one. It’s right at the end, but it is shown after being killed. Oh and a cat gets eaten. Off-camera, but still eaten.

Gore factor: Low. There’s some blood and a few open sores, and one person getting his cheek bitten off.

Re-watch scale: Heavy rotation. In spite of a disappointing third act, it’s a unique story and very well done.

Filmed in a very chilly Canada, Godforsaken tells the story of Chad, a filmmaker who goes back to his hometown to attend the funeral of his classmate, Lisa. Chad hasn’t gotten that big break yet, but when Lisa returns to life during her funeral, he understandably thinks he’s onto something big.

Godforsaken benefits from a unique story that is well told. It’s clear this is more plotted and scripted than your average low-budget found-footage horror, and as usual, this leads to a much better film that moves along at a rapid pace. Lisa comes climbing out of her coffin in the first scene, and instead of front-loading the movie with a bunch of “let’s get to know our characters” blah blah filler, we get to know them as the crazy around them unfolds. Please take note of this, found-footage movie makers.

The camera work is pretty shaky in this one, so take your Dramamine. Overall, the acting is good, with Nicole Fairbairn (the mother) and Chris Laskin (Chris) as particular standouts. Mom, in particular, has a lot of heavy lifting to do in this film, and she runs through the whole gamut of human experience in a short period with aplomb. More work for this woman! But the biggest strength of this movie is the story, which has not been done before in found-footage, at least not that I’ve seen, and the result is a good, suspenseful freakout that ratches up the chaos with every scene. It also leaves us guessing for most of the runtime as to what is really going on, and unfortunately, this is where the film leaves me wanting. The third act, when the truth about Lisa is revealed, devolves into fairly common horror tropes and loses some of the momentum of the previous two acts. But it is still worth watching for how well the movie builds up to that letdown. It’s not that the ending is bad; it’s just that we’ve seen it before, and when the rest of the movie feels so inventive and new, I can’t help but be disappointed by that. But it’s still a recommended watch.

Now, let’s break it down. You know the drill: SPOILERS AHEAD! DON’T SCROLL IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW!

We start off with our filmmaker, Chad, turning on his camera as he exits his car in front of a church. It’s cold, it’s snowy, it’s Canada. It’s a funeral. We meet Chris, a friend of Chad’s, right away, as he is heading towards the church with his parents. Chris is in a wheelchair, which will be important later. For now, he’s with his mom and dad, and Chris’s Mom gives off some major community-theater vibes from the jump. She’s the only truly weak actor in the film, and when she’s onscreen, it’s pretty cringe. Chad enters the chapel, still filming, and his mother, clearly a member of the clergy due to the white robes she’s wearing, tells him it is inappropriate, which it is. Not that Chad stops filming because of that, because of course he doesn’t. We get some more shots of the chapel, and from a balcony, Chad zooms in on Lisa in her coffin. Lisa looks decidedly not dead. She doesn’t look undead, mind you, just not dead.

It’s unclear to me what happens between the time Chris shuts off his camera and turns it back on again – has the funeral ended? Has it even started yet? I cannot tell. Chad is standing outside the chapel now, complaining about hating funerals, when we hear a commotion break out inside the church. Soon, the hubbub transitions into screams, and people start streaming through the chapel doors, shouting and crying. We’re all of two minutes into the movie and weird shit is popping off, so thank you, director, for being efficient.

Chad tries to get someone to tell him what is going on, but everyone is standing around holding onto each other and screaming. He goes inside and finds Chris at the back of the church. Chris points him to the front of the chapel, where the coffin has fallen to the floor. A lot people are standing around it, including Chad’s mom Nicole, who is trying to comfort Lisa’s mother. Good luck with that, Nicole, because Lisa’s arm has just popped out from under the coffin and withdrawn just as quickly. The audience gives one collective scream at this movement, and then goes completely silent waiting to see what will happen next. It’s a very effective little moment, and when Lisa starts crawling out the chaos resumes. Lisa looks undead now, y’all. In case that doesn’t clue anyone in, she starts growling and moaning to express her displeasure at her current state. The mourners get the message and start making for the door. Lisa is running around grinning and growling and generally doing her best to scare the shit out of everyone.

Lisa’s mom is elated that her daughter’s not dead, but after hugging Lisa for a few moments, she pulls back and cries that it’s not Lisa at all. Mom then tries to strangle her, as you do when your undead daughter turns out to be possessed or whatever. I’m just guessing here; I never had kids. Lisa breaks free and takes off back into the church, where Chad quite unwisely follows her. He can’t find her, so he cuts back to the foyer where the police have arrived. For some reason, no one can articulate to the officers what’s just happened. Chad’s mom tells a cop that “some weird situation” just happened in the church, which is quite the understatement. How hard is it to say “a dead girl got out of her coffin and ran away”?

Chad’s friend Chris, however, has a different take on things. As he wheels himself out of the chapel he asks Chad, “Was that not the coolest shit ever?” Heh. Love that guy.

We get the title card, and then we meet Dom, one of two assistants who will be helping Chad make his documentary about Lisa. Chad tells the camera that he is driving from Toronto to his hometown of Minto to try and find out why a girl came back from the dead during her funeral – see how easy that was, Nicole? The behind-the-scenes footage is as boring as it ever is in a found-footage film, except for when Chad mentions that there’s no train to take to get back into town, which makes Dom lose his mind. THERE’S NO TRAIN?! THERE’S NO TRAIN? he starts shouting at the top of his lungs, and if that’s his reaction to learning there’s no public transit in this town, he’s really gonna have a problem when the dead girl shows up. Seriously, it seems as if the director told this actor that he was going to be the ‘difficult’ one who complains about everything and he ramped it up to 11 from the jump. Take it down a notch, bro.

Chad backgrounds Lisa’s story a little, talking about how in school she always claimed her house was haunted and she would jump up on desks and start screaming about demons, which you know, normal high school memories and all. She even drew Chad a picture of the demon that haunted her, which we’ll soon find out he saved, and all of this is making me wonder if Chad and Lisa were good friends or not. Chad claims they weren’t close, but he saved her demon picture? Weird. Convenient, but weird. Moving on.

Soon we’re at Chad’s mom’s house (hi, Nicole!) and Dom is being borderline inappropriate, telling Nicole that Chad is high within seconds of meeting her, and later, shouting fuck out loud so many times Nicole has to scold him like a child.

For the record, Katie can be a little weird too; when the three are watching the footage Chad shot of the funeral, she says, “People don’t scream like that unless they know something,” and I am still trying to understand this sentence. Any way you look at it, it makes zero sense. Even if you don’t know what she’s referencing when she makes the statement. How does screaming = knowing something? I cannot comprehend. Moving on.

She’s not screaming because she doesn’t know anything, I guess

We catch Mom on camera being asked about the whole Lisa coming back from the dead situation, and she says she doesn’t think they should be talking about it. Not sure why she would agree to be interviewed for a documentary specifically about Lisa, then. Although she does call the situation weird and mention she’s scared to go outside, she’s still pretty blase about someone COMING BACK TO LIFE DURING THEIR FUNERAL. If you tried to interview me about this, you’d be filming an empty chair, because my ass would have left town already. But Nicole’s still here, even though, as she says, Lisa’s been missing for four days.

The gang go to Lisa’s house to try and interview her mother, but they find her screaming in the basement with a big-ass knife she wields to chase them away. So there’s that. Although the more that I think about it, I’d probably run to the basement and scream for four days and arm myself with sharp cutlery had I seen what she’s seen, daughter or no. So scream on, Mom. I got your back. Dom screams “crazy fucking bitch!” at Lisa’s mom as they drive away, which seems insensitive even if she did try to kill them all. I mean, she’s been through some things lately, Dom, so maybe tone it down a bit.

We get a little bit more background as the team visits a local bar that Chad used to own; apparently, he sold it and moved away after his dad died to try and make it big as a filmmaker. Then it’s nighttime and the trio is walking home, even though they clearly drove to Chad’s former bar because we see them get out of the car. Whatever. Walking around at night seems like a bad idea right now, but they don’t appear to be bothered, and neither does Chris, who’s sitting on his front porch smoking weed as they walk by. They stop to partake, and we meet a dog we definitely should not get attached to. Dom suggests they title the documentary “question mark,” which I’m assuming means the symbol and not the words, and that’s about the worst idea anyone in this movie has had since deciding to walk around in the dark when there’s an undead Lisa on the loose.

Anyway, they smoke with Chris a bit, and discuss how weird the whole situation is. Chris looks unwell, you guys. He’s freakishly pale. Maybe he’s just really cold. It’s Canada after all. Katie and Chad call it a night after a few puffs but Dom says he can handle more, which I agree with if it chills him out. It doesn’t. After talking with Chris for a few minutes, who backgrounds about his history with Chad (old friends, etc. etc.), Chris looks across the street and says, what’s that? Dom turns the camera around and they both appear baffled for a while at what they’re seeing, which is stupid considering there’s an undead woman on the loose. Gee, I dunno, what do you think it could be, guys? Well, it’s Lisa, and she starts charging straight at them.

Chris wisely turns tail and wheels himself back into his house, while Dom runs away shouting his lungs out for Katie and Chad, who are still walking home. Dom tells them that dead girl Lisa has just run into Chris’s house, which we didn’t see but I’ll go with Dom on this one, and then he yells at Chad “WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE, MAN?!” Chad brought you here to help him film a documentary about a girl who rose from the dead during her funeral, Dom. We know you know this; we all saw the scene where Chad told you. Maybe Dom was too distracted by the lack of trains in Minto to remember? Moving on.

So here’s where the movie gives us our first (well, second really) surprise: as the gang rush into Chris’s house, expecting to find a bloodbath, what they find instead is – Chris, walking. Walking. His parents are shouting for joy at the sight of their paralyzed son WALKING, and his mom is still a terrible actor. Chris is stumbling a bit, but who knows how long he’s been in that wheelchair, so suddenly being able to use his legs is dicey at first. Meanwhile, WHAT THE FUCK? Allow Chris to explain.

He looks even more pale now, with red-rimmed eyes, but considering he just regained use of his legs I can understand why no one’s concerned. Apparently, after Chris came back into his house, Lisa just walked right through the door (like, through the door, meaning it was closed) and telepathically told him to calm down, then put her hands on his legs and healed them so Chris could walk. Then she asked – telepathically again – if she could stay in Chris’s house, and at that point what is Chris going to say? So yeah, Lisa’s now hanging out in Chris’s basement. I mean, when the undead heals your paralyzed legs, you let ’em shack up in your basement, right? Even if they still growl and have creepy green skin and – well – eat Mom’s cat. Granted, she does ask first – telepathically – but yeah. Bye bye kitty.

Chris and his family are 100% Team Lisa now, talking about her as if she’s the Second Coming. They’re immediately wide-eyed and freaky over her, and talking like brainwashed cult members, something that does not go unnoticed by Chad and company, who follow Chris into the basement for the unfortunate end of Mom’s cat before getting the hell outta there.

Back at Chad’s house, Dom tells the camera that he’s freaking out and doesn’t know what’s happening, and this time it makes sense so no annoyance here dude. Katie’s ready to bail also, and while it didn’t make sense they’d be freaked out by Lisa being undead and all, since clearly Chad told them that before they signed on, but said undead being some sort of spiritual healer sure as shit came out of left field, so I’m with Katie. Meanwhile, Chad’s mom is on the phone trying to talk Chris’s mom down from her Lisa-fixed-my-son’s-legs euphoria, to no avail. I mean, miracle cures are super-exciting and all, but shit like that rarely comes without a price, and no one’s gotten the bill yet – but Chris’s mother isn’t ready to consider such things.

Katie decides to stay because of course she does, so the next day they all go running down to Chris’s house when the – lead minister? Head minister? I don’t know the hierarchy here – of Nicole’s church shows up with the police and the fire department in tow. Looks like word’s gotten around about Chris’s healing, and I guess Father Andersen wants to check things out, but with lots of backup. Good call, Father. He’s not in there long at all before we hear a scream, and then Father Andersen, followed by the cops and the fire department, come running out and refusing to tell anyone what happened. They all just leap into their respective automobiles and tire-screech away, and it’s pretty funny, all things considered.

Dom films Chris’s family putting up a weird red “A” stand in their front yard, then cuts to an interview with Chris. He tells them he walked all around the neighborhood and told everyone about how Lisa healed him and could do the same for others. He tells Chad this is what Lisa wanted him to do, and that all she wants is their faith and appreciation. Then he takes them into the basement where a mother and almost-as-pale-as-Chris kid are standing, waiting to enter the sealed-off room where Lisa spends her time, eating cats and healing the sick. They go inside and we hear screams at first, but that’s a fake-out – soon the kid exits the room looking less pale and more healthy, which is enough for everyone, I guess, because they all lose their shit and start shouting for joy. It’s a lot less impressive than giving Chris use of his legs back, but never fear – soon there’s a long line of people waiting to be healed with various visible ailments like infected eyes and burn-scarred faces. Lisa heals them all. Unfortunately, Chris’s mom is one of the devoted now, and we all have to watch her bad over-acting as she encourages people to step through the decidedly creepy-looking basement door and get their heal on. Cringe. Soon everyone is putting up red “A’s” in their yards and dancing around them like they’re maypoles.

Seems the whole town went Full Lisa pretty quick, which hasn’t done much for church attendance. No matter, because Father Andersen has skipped town, leaving Nicole in charge. He does leave Nicole a message though, telling her he doesn’t understand what’s happening but he knows it can’t be good. Nicole agrees.

Chad and the team are talking about how one of them should go visit Lisa in her healing basement. Katie is all for it, while also making it clear she won’t be the one to go in. Dom tells Chad to take some time and think that over. As things escalate, Dom sounds more and more like the sane one.

Dom’s also the one who sees Father Andersen standing in front of Chris’s house, wielding a cross and gesticulating about. Chris speculates that maybe Father A. is blessing the house, but we all have eyes and can see that whatever the guy is doing is more serious than that. Before the team can speculate further, Father Andersen stabs himself in the face with the crucifix.

Cut to Mom doing a good job crying and wondering why Father A would do such a thing. Chad and Katie comfort her while Don films, and eventually Katie gets up and snaps at Don to turn off the camera, which I’m not sure required her to be so snippy since it’s good footage for the documentary, but whatever.

Maybe they just needed an excuse to cut to the next scene, which is Nicole at Chris’s house trying to get his mom to see reason. Mama Chris’s terrible acting reveals that she’s never climbing down from Lisa Mountain, so Nicole does what may have seemed the right thing to do at the time, but turns out to a big mistake: she decides to go challenge Lisa’s savior status by confronting her in the basement.

As soon as Mom gets the statement out that she knows Lisa is not God, Lisa grabs her head with both hands and Nicole immediately falls into some sort trance. She stands there with her eyes closed for a good 35 seconds before Lisa grabs her head again and Nicole loses her shit. She starts looking around and screaming for someone to help her, and it’s truly terrifying. It’s clear she is somewhere else and seeing something, just not anything that’s really around her, and then she falls on her knees and begs Lisa to forgive her. Her voice is pathetic now, and she appears to be broken beyond any repair. It’s the best, most tense scene in the movie, IMHO, and it works because the actress completely nails it.

Cut to the gang in Mom’s bedroom trying to console her to no avail – mom’s crying and whining in a way that sounds more animal than human; just really gut wrenching, pathetic wails and cries. Somewhere in there someone gets mad at Don for filming but it feel perfunctory, like the movie knows Chad should feel that way even though there’s no movie if Dom agrees, so we all know he won’t.

They decide to get Mom outta there and attempt to get her down the stairs and out the front door, but mom escapes and runs to the basement, where Chad and company find her holding a knife to her throat. She tells them Lisa won’t let her leave, and that they have no understanding of what Lisa did to her, which is accurate: beyond fucking her up big time, we have no idea, but it’s clear her brain is broken. Chad ends up promising Mom that they won’t make her leave the house, and then Dom barrels his way over to Chris’s house to resolve the issue in any way he can.

This is not the solution Dom was looking for

Instead, Dom finds Chris’s parents dead on the sofa, and then Chris comes down the stairs, laughing and giggling like a maniac and talking in a strange high voice about how this is the day they get to be with Lisa, and he’s got a gun in his hands and spends a few seconds trying to convince Dom how great whatever’s going on is, and then we hear a gunshot in the distance, and then Chris takes the gun he is holding and shoots himself in the head with it.

We hear more gunshots going off, and my first thought was dang, this town has a lot of guns. My second thought is the same as Dom’s, which is let’s get the hell outta here. But more gunshots are firing and the first thing we see as Dom leaves the house is someone hold a rifle up to their heads and pull the trigger. Man, whatever Lisa is up to here making everyone unalive themselves is sure being helped along by the high percentage of gun owners in this town. Guns don’t kill people y’all – Lisa kills people.

Unfortunately, the suicide mania that’s taken over the town has gotten into Nicole’s head too; she may not have a gun, but she’s still got a knife, and after explaining to Chad that Lisa buried her alive for centuries and she’ll do it again if she doesn’t comply with Lisa’s orders, she manages to stab herself in the neck and bleed out. Chad’s mom, noooooooo!! And with the death of Chad’s mom comes the death of the film.

What happens next is so disappointing and predictable that I am not going to recap it-why bother when we’ve seen all of this before over and over. Everyone who kills themselves rises from the dead as murderous zombies. Mom kills and eats a dog, then bites Dom. Dom takes a ridiculously long time to turn into a zombie but eventually does. Dom bites Katie, I think, or some other zombie does but honestly who cares, and she turns into a zombie in about half the time of Dom. When did zombies biting people and turning them into zombies became the way to spread Lisa’s dark magic? Up until now this was not a zombie movie. Lisa’s no zombie; she’s eaten no human flesh and has healed people, not killed them, and the only way to be infected by Lisa has been to actually approach her. Based on how good this movie has been up until now, you might be tempted to think the movie has something else up its bloody sleeve – but it does not. The zombies multiply and Chad is the last survivor standing, continuing to film until the moment Lisa herself kills him. The end.

There is one thing that happens here that explains this whole Lisa-rising-from-the-dead event. We get a scene of Lisa’s mother with a big ol’ knife, basically describing how she cast some spell to bring Lisa back. I don’t remember how the scene played out because it really wasn’t memorable, and I forgot all about it. So I am lazily shoving this paragraph in to make sure you know. You’re welcome.

I have no words for how lame this ending is in light of everything building up to it. And it’s not just the last five minutes, either, we’re just a little more than halfway when the zombie apocalypse begins, so that’s a lot of running around trying to avoid a bunch of uninteresting, run of the mill undead. Maybe this ending is Lisa’s real revenge. Do cool shit to get everyone interested and then drop us all into horror trope hell. Couldn’t you just bury me alive instead, lady?

For the life of me I cannot understand why this is the way the filmmakers chose to end this movie. What if instead, the gang decide to kill Lisa and that takes up the third act of the movie? Or when people kill themselves, they stay dead, so the gang runs around trying to stop people from committing suicide? Those are just two ideas off the top of my head but either one of them would be better than 20 minutes of running from place to place and trying not to die.

I still recommend this movie in spite of its disappointing third act. The first time I watched it, it didn’t even bother me, because I fully expected another twist, but then Lisa ate Chad and it was over. The second time I watched it I realized the ending was a massive disappointment. It’s such a shame when the film has been so unique up to that time – maybe they just ran out of time to film anything else? I don’t know, but I do know this is a good movie that could have been great, which is a tragedy itself, and Lisa had nothing to do with it.

Currently you can watch Godforsaken on the Found channel, and it’s free with ads.

Summer Update

Posted on June 26, 2023 by marey mercy

Up here in Nacogdoches, we managed to escape the blistering heat a little while longer than down in Houston. Until about midway through June we could still sit outside on the porch in the mornings and evenings, but that’s over for now. Now, it is brutally hot here just like everywhere else, and Nac is an outdoor sort of town, so a lot of the things we want to go do and see have to wait until it cools off.

My sister came up for a visit a few weeks ago, and to be honest, it was kind of weird. I don’t think I was ready to open the place up to others yet, if that makes sense. I’m a pretty introverted, homebody kind of person, so entertaining really isn’t my thing. Usually I can handle it when it’s family, but I just wasn’t ready to entertain someone yet – especially since I really don’t yet know what my “places” will end up being yet. I was still trying things out that I’d never experienced, and taking her along, with mixed results as you can imagine. We still had fun hanging around the house and watching the rabbits and deer (as well as a lot of TV in the sunroom) but I felt kind of exhausted when she left. I think it’s just not yet time to be having company as we are both still wrapping our heads around the fact that we live in the country now. It’s a huge change from living in one of the largest cities in the nation to a small town. It’s a wonderful change, to be sure, and I haven’t regretted it one bit, but it’s going to take time for me to embrace the novelty of it to the point that I want to share it with others. I guess that sounds selfish, but I’ve never been a let’s-throw-a-housewarming-party kind of gal, and I guess I need more time here with just Doug before I’m ready to share.

I attempted, before it got too hot, to take some levitation photos outside, with mixed results. I’ve always wished I lived in an environment where I could take self portraits outside in some interesting location as a set piece, but I don’t know how to do it properly. I am so used to working with studio lighting and a totally controlled environment (with the exception of plane photos), so when things don’t look right while taking outdoor shots, I am clueless as to how to fix it. It’ll take a while to learn, and for now it’s too hot to even try.

And by the way, overalls are even more unflattering than I thought

Also, we’ve discovered that a doe has hunkered two fawns back in our woods, and if we go anywhere near them they take off and disappear for several days. I’m sure they’re fine and they clearly are comfortable in the area, so they have several locations around here where they can safely hang out, but we certainly don’t want to scare them off forever, so we’re staying off our walking trails for the moment. I haven’t gotten any decent pictures of them yet, because unlike back in Houston I still haven’t set up a camera that’s ready to go at all times (something I need to hurry up and do as deer and rabbits provide nice photo opportunities regularly – sometimes right outside my window) so I’ve had to settle for phone photos which have been pretty crappy.

As a fashion and makeup fanatic, I will say that so far I haven’t seen much that’s going to tempt me in those areas around town. We have a Belk store, which is basically a Kohl’s under a different name, and some boutiques with names like Glamour and Guns that all sell the same rayon dresses and rhinestone-embellished jeans. Suffice it to say I am not going to be tempted to go out and spend a lot of money on clothes like I was in Houston. Thank the gods for online shopping, right?

I will say, though, that there is an EXCELLENT Goodwill in the historic downtown area – it’s probably the nicest Goodwill I’ve ever been in. Super-clean and organized, with hardwood floors and everything. It looks nothing like the Goodwill that was right by our house in Houston, and it’s a great resource for photography costumes. In fact, once it became clear it was too hot to take shots outside, Doug and I stopped by there a few weeks ago and I picked up some things to wear for photos. I’d also bought a few wigs from Sams Beauty online, so last Sunday I set up my office for studio shots and took some pictures.

I also put on a full face of photography/drag makeup, which I have not done in forever. Since I’ve gotten so good at adding makeup in post, I’d gotten to a point where I quit putting a lot on because it takes at least half an hour to do, but in looking over old photos there’s no denying that the best sets always involve me wearing full makeup, and really, it’s not like I am pressed for time up here. Plus, it was quite fun to go through the whole process, and since my office here is a bit smaller than my old one in Houston, and the light is better, I actually didn’t have to set up a bunch of my lighting equipment to get good shots, which saved both time and space. You’d be shocked if you saw how tiny the room is where I take these photos, and just how cramped into a little space I am when posing – it’s kind of ridiculous, but hey, it works.

I also have a blonde wig like the one above that transitions from blonde to blue, and I found this awesome old 60’s style blazer with big lapels that’s bright blue with white polka dots, so I’ll be taking pics of that outfit at some point in the near future. Overall I was pleased with how many good shots I got out of this shoot, so that makes me optimistic for the next one. It’s good to know that even though my office is smaller I can still pull off a good photo session, and can do it without having to set up as much lighting as I had to do at home.

It’s also good to know that at 54 I can still pull off a good drag look. Obviously, these are processed, and my drag makeup in person would not pass ANY drag queen tests, but for photos and with a little bit of digital magic I can still pull off a good selfie. I am always drawn towards photos in a set that look as little like me as possible; since I only work with my own face I’m always looking for expressions or poses that I haven’t done before, which is still possible after all these years as my face changes, so hey, a positive side of aging! Take, for example, this photo I took well over ten years ago:

This was probably taken in 2011 or 2012, and I had barely any makeup on at all. I definitely look a lot younger here, and it’s wild that I’ve been taking selfies long enough to make the comparison, but I’d say the source material is holding up as I get older. That may sound conceited, but I don’t really give a damn. Since I don’t like working with other people when it comes to what I consider art more than traditional photography, well, it’s good to know I’m still a pretty good subject to photograph. I’ll definitely be sharing more selifies soon, for anyone who cares. 🙂

Country Codes

Posted on May 16, 2023 by marey mercy

Well hellooooo there from Nacogdoches, Texas!

We’ve been here about two weeks now, although Doug has gone back home to collect the furniture that wouldn’t fit in the moving truck last week. Easing the cats into the new location has kept me around the house for the most part – as has the fact that I don’t have much in the way of clothes or makeup unpacked to be presentable. I’ve tried a few things, but haven’t met yet with much success-mostly because I’m realizing there are a LOT of little things about small-town living I have yet to learn. Here are a few of them:

Small towns have the JANKIEST roads I’ve ever seen. I’ve been driving my big old Mercury Grand Marquis for many years, and have never had an issue with parking or driving it – not even once. But on our first day here I ran into a parked car while trying to pull into a spot, which was mortifying (no real damage to either car). The next day, I popped my car over two different curbs while trying to turn, and I accidentally ran over an old parking block today while trying to find the entrance to the Taco Bell drive-thru (don’t judge – we have no refrigerator yet). It’s like there aren’t even standards about how wide or narrow the roads or parking spaces have to be, and apparently, I was more dependent upon those city standards than I thought.
It’s always been a THING with me, as a city person, to avoid crowds whenever possible. This means doing grocery shopping and other errands during the week, leaving the weekends for the nine-to-fivers to navigate. Also, it always felt imperative to get to wherever it was I wanted to go as soon as possible, preferably as soon as the doors opened, again to avoid crowds. But I’m starting to suspect that in a small town, stores only open when crowds are likely, and if you try to go visit them during “off hours” they’re just going to be closed. Either that, or they’ll be open and you’ll be the only person in the place, while the workers stare at you with a look that says, you know we don’t get customers until after lunch, what are you even doing here?
Everybody waves. Maybe not on major roads, but on smaller or neighborhood ones, you best believe everyone who passes you coming from the other direction is going to wave at you.
Sound travels! We have two acres, but we’re only about a mile or so from Nac’s historic downtown area, and there are a lot of restaurants and bars there that have live music on the weekends. And we can hear them from our front porch. Not only that but sometimes we can hear the SFA band practicing. I admit I thought we’d have more quiet here, but we also looked at houses farther outside of town and decided we didn’t want to be isolated, so more noise is a part of that deal, and it’s not constant. Once we get settled we’ll have to go listen to some of that music at the actual location where the show is happening. And the train sounds are heavenly.
Fitting in takes time. I don’t know what I expected here – part of me thought everyone would know immediately that I’m some city chick who knows nothing about this place, and the other part thought everyone would be falling all over themselves to be our friends. The reality has been more…normal. So far I’m just another chick driving a car (and popping curbs) or buying groceries, and everyone I’ve encountered is just a person doing person stuff. There truly are a lot of things in the area I want to experience, in fact, there’s so much it’s overwhelming, but I’m starting to feel like the best thing to do over the next few weeks is just settle in at home and get used to the vibe.

And on that note, I haven’t started taking any pictures yet. Part of that is because until my house is in order I’m really not thinking about anything else, but it’s also that aforementioned feeling of not fitting in just yet. I’ve never been comfortable taking pictures in public places because it makes me feel so obvious, so doing it somewhere new is even more intimidating. But I will get there.

Out of Town Bound

Posted on April 14, 2023 by marey mercy

Welp, we did it. We bought a house in Nacogdoches.

The house sits on a two-acre lot that is heavily wooded around the perimeter as you can see – there’s even a walking trail back in our woods, which is really cool. But even more awesome is that we feel like we’re in the country, but we’re actually smack in the middle of town, so anything we might want or need, including entertainment, is right up the street. This house is nestled in a tiny little neighborhood where most of the houses are just like ours; sitting on a couple of acres and set back from the street, so it’s lovely and shady and seems to be quiet.

It’s smaller than our current house, which was our goal, and it’s only one story as opposed to the two we have now. The owners are already out of the house and aside from some minor repairs it’s ready for us to move in once we close at the end of the month. So yeah, this happened fast!

Selling the house we’re in now is a whole other ordeal; we haven’t listed yet or really prepped for it in any way except for meeting with a realtor this afternoon. But we are doing our best to stay calm, take breaks from the madness, and try to stay focused on the positive end result.

It’s funny when I think about it – the life decisions I’ve made so far, the ones that felt really huge and even scary, are decisions that probably would be considered small to most people. I have friends who have changed states in their lives at least three times and friends who’ve moved to different countries, and I’m nervous as hell about moving three hours away. I’ve lived in Houston my whole life and never intended to leave until this past year. It seems like it should be an easy move at this point in my life – tons of people move after they retire, after all. But for me, this is a scary venture even while I’m super excited about all of it.

My great-grandmother had a screened-in porch and we all loved it as kids; I’m stoked to have one in the new home

Teaching was the same way for me. I know many people take up teaching when some other career doesn’t work out, or as something to hold them over until the ‘real job’ comes in. It’s considered an “oh well if it doesn’t work out I can always teach” sort of thing. But for me, it was terrifying to even consider it. I was terrified for the first five years, to be honest, and I never totally got over the fear that something would go terribly wrong. But just making it through my student teaching year, when I wanted to quit a thousand times, was a huge accomplishment for me. Hell, graduating from college was a huge accomplishment, for that matter, as it was never really emphasized to me that college was something I needed. The expectation was that I would get married and have babies, and my family never cared much about my grades or my future career. To be fair, all of my siblings, male and female, were raised this way, and I was the only one of us who was not married straight out of high school. If someone had asked, I’m sure I would have done it too, but I was terribly shy and kinda prudish so no one was knocking down my door. This turned out to be a good thing, as it forced me to think about how I would take care of myself. Hence the college degree and the teaching career – two things I never thought I would be capable of doing.

And now I’m actually moving. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever picked out a house to live in. In my twenties I lived in other people’s apartments, and then another person’s house, and then I married Doug and moved into the house he already owned. And truth be told, I’ve never much cared for this house. I mean, it’s nice and all, it just is not at all a house I would choose had I had the opportunity. And now I’m actually going to live in a house that I chose and got to decorate myself. And it’s weird to think of this as something so momentous when most everyone I know did this shit decades ago, but I guess I’m a slow mover.

So things are gonna be crazy over here for a while, and after we get settled I am sure my blog will turn into non-stop pictures of Nacogdoches, but hey, I’ve been bored with everything else I could take pictures of anyway. So, stay tuned!

Wakeful April

Posted on April 3, 2023 by marey mercy

Well helloooo there, friends! How the hell are ya?

I guess the biggest news right now is that we’re moving out of Houston to Nacogdoches, which is about three hours away in the Piney Woods area of East Texas. We’ve been going to East Texas for about a year straight now, although farther east than Nac is, to a tiny town called Broaddus, TX. We started going there because my husband’s grandfather built a home out there after he retired, and Doug remembers it fondly as the place he spent his summers as a kid, so when we decided to take an RV camping last year the first place he wanted to visit was Broaddus.

sign — Cassels-Boykin State Park in Angelina County

pappy house — the house Doug’s grandfather built in the 70s. Doug hadn’t been out to see it in decades, although it’s stayed in his family since his grandparents died, and in an instance of serendipity, the house was partially torn down about two weeks after I took this photo. Apparently whoever now owns it (we’re not sure) is building a new residence on the property.

RVs — Our rented RV was white one closest to the camera.

sunset — One of the main boat ramps at Cassels-Boykin

The biggest draw to Broaddus, or Cassels-Boykin State Park, is Lake Sam Rayburn, considered by many to be the best place for bass fishing in the state. It’s a huge lake, with many small towns dotting the shorelines, each nestled in the San Angelina National Forest, which consists of pine trees, dogwoods, and other such flora and fauna I’m not familiar with, being a city girl my whole life. In spite of that I felt a real affinity for the place from our first trip – it’s a part of this huge state I’d never visited, and the beauty of the forest there really appealed to me. So much so we considered moving there many times over the past year, but the problem is that Broaddus, where we usually go so Doug can fish the lake, has a population of 184 people, and that is just WAY too small for us. Aside from fishing, there’s just about NOTHING there, not even one donut shop or fast-food restaurant – things you can usually find in a small town, even if you can find nothing else. We knew we could never tolerate life in such an isolated setting, but we did find a charming cabin right on the lake that we rented through VRBO; and we’ve since gotten to know the owners so we go up there about once a month.

The Cabin — Standing at the water, looking back at the cabin

Angelina National Forest — The view of Lake Sam Rayburn from the front porch

Evening Walk — The view on an evening walk

Lake Sam Rayburn — Covered picnic table and fire pit by the water

We’ve run through all sorts of options in the past year regarding how to align our life more closely with this newfound aspect of it; Doug’s totally retired and I am halfway there, and working from home, so we know we can afford to make a move if we want to, but as I mentioned already neither one of us felt we’d be happy living in isolation or in a truly tiny town. Then Doug thought of Nacogdoches, the home of Stephen F. Austin University, where he got his undergraduate degree back in the 80s. He loved living there so much that when we first started dating, he actually took me up there to show me around one weekend, and I recalled being impressed with how pretty and quaint the town seemed to be, and how beautiful the college campus was. We’d toyed with other ideas and places to move, but nothing sounded right until he thought of it, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth I just knew it was the right place for us to be. A few weeks ago we went on a house-viewing expedition, and even though it was poring down rain the whole time, we both felt completely at home there right away.

One of the MANY parks in the Nacogdoches area

Then there’s the houses. There are some truly beautiful old homes in the area, the oldest of which we certainly cannot afford, but are lovely to look at, and due to the lack of big-city zoning, we could afford to buy a house next door to some of them.

This one’s for sale, for the insanely low price of $550K

Doug and I have both always had an affinity for those old, elongated ranch-style homes of the 60s and 70s, so we’re holding out for one of those in one of the city’s quieter areas; we’ve seen a few that almost fit the bill for us, but since this is going to be our retirement dream-home, we’re keeping cool and carrying on until the most-perfect option presents itself. But as soon as it does, we’re basically ready to pounce at this point, since everything’s in order to strike when that iron gets hot. It’s pretty exciting!

Oh, and did I mention they turn into a Hallmark Christmas movie in December? Because they do!

One thing I hope to be able to do once we’re settled is take lots of pictures of the city, the university, and the forests around Nacogdoches. I’m looking forward to injecting my photography with new life, since I’ve become bored with everything I might photograph in Houston – including myself! I’ve pretty much photographed every single thing I might want to photograph here in Houston, and I plan to take advantage of this move to re-energize my photography hobby. I didn’t take any of these photos, by the way – as I said, the one weekend we spent house-hunting there it was pouring rain the whole time.

Oh and there will be more about this later since as usual, my post has run too long, but after losing both Sprocket and Penny over the past two years, we finally adopted a new fur baby – so please say hello to Gigi!

She’s a two-year-old chihuahua, she’s incredibly hyper, loves the sun like no dog I’ve ever known, and I am completely in love with her. She’s a spaz, and she and Simon “play” too much (they genuinely do play together, but Simon makes so much noise it sounds like he’s being massacred, which is a problem since he’s usually the one who instigates the roughhousing), but she cuddles like a fiend and is full of love and adorable charm. In spite of my love for my cats, life just isn’t complete without a dog in the picture.

Knitty Kat

Posted on April 15, 2021 by marey mercy

Over spring break, I had enough free time to get in the mood to take pictures again. I’d gotten so stuck in a certain setup and process that I’d “perfected” over the years that it never occurred to me it might not be serving me well anymore. Looking over some really early photos gave me the idea to experiment with some techniques I hadn’t used in years, and they worked out brilliantly.

I’ve always been partial to using softer light than this, but I’ve had the technology to use stronger, brighter light for a long time. As I’ve gotten older, all those soft shadows I’ve been using on my face weren’t as flattering as they used to be – LOL – and directing more light to my face really did the trick.

I’ve also gotten away from using my wide-angle lens for portraits, because to be honest, that totally makes sense, but when I first bought my 17-40 I used it for everything, and in looking over old portraits I realized that hey, they actually didn’t look half-bad. Plus, when working in a space as small as mine the wide-angle really makes it easier to take photos, even if I am just doing portraits. It allows me to incorporate more movement and flowy fabric as well as creating stronger lines that for whatever reason are really working for me right now.

I had a lot of fun doing this over the course of two days, but soon real life emerged again and I haven’t had time to do a photoshoot since.

When the pandemic began, my husband and I committed to staying home as much as possible because we didn’t have to leave the house at all. I switched easily to tutoring from home, and he was already retired, so we went into full lockdown in March of 2020 and still have just barely come out of it. We got vaccinated a month ago – Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but since it’s been over a month we aren’t at risk of blood clots – and while my husband was able to meet up with a few friends to sit outside and have a nice lunch, no one I know has been fully vaccinated so I haven’t ventured out yet at all. But, when this all started I decided since I wasn’t going to be anywhere or doing anything, it would make sense to just tutor as much as possible so I didn’t get bored. So, since last March I’ve been tutoring every single day, seven days a week, and now I’m pretty much stuck with it until the end of the school year because I don’t want to abandon any of my students so close to the end of the semester. But part of my own personal return to normal will be setting some new boundaries and giving myself some days off again. My point is that this should allow me more time to get inspired to take photos again. But we’ll see – I’ve got some other creative endeavors going on at the moment that I’m balancing.

I’ve written about how I took up coloring last year, and while I am still doing that fairly often, more recently I decided to learn how to knit. I’ve only been doing it for about a month now, so I’ve not knitted much more than a bunch of lumpy squares, but I have to say it’s a very enjoyable hobby even when whatever I’m trying to make doesn’t turn out.

I’ve only managed to make one actual THING so far, which is a very skinny scarf -I tried to make a normal width at first but I kept screwing up when I got past about 6 stitches, so I settled for a very skinny one. It’s also kind of short because after successfully knitting a bunch of rows without having to start over, I began to fear screwing up and went ahead and bound it off.

I am currently trying to make a wider scarf in a different stitch pattern, but I’ve had to start over a ton of times so far, which is fine, because as I said before, it’s still a relaxing hobby even when I keep messing up. It only took me a few days to get the basic knitting stitches down – knits and purls – which is pretty miraculous considering my inability to follow instructions, so the rest of it is just finesse and practice. If you’ve ever wanted to try to knit, trust me, you can do it if I can. I am generally hopeless and being crafty with my hands. I’ve tried to learn to sew I don’t know how many times and have always failed, for example.

That’s all for now – I hope you all are getting your vaccine on and otherwise doing well!

Update!

Posted on February 1, 2021 by marey mercy

Hello all – just a few quick updates so none of wonder what the hell is going on when my next full post hits your email.

Among my many hobbies and obsessions are horror movies – particularly found footage horror, which is probably the most maligned genre in the horror game but I love it anyway, and always have since Blair Witch Project back in the 90’s. Perhaps it’s my love of all things documentary that makes FF so tantalizing to me – who knows. For whatever the reason, I’m feeling the itch to review some of my favorites and upload them here, so feel free to ignore them since it’s probably not your thing. I doubt anyone will read them but I don’t much care – because of the pandemic I am more bored than usual, watching way too many FF films online (due to the lack of budget required to make such a movie, there are literally tons of them available – most of them awful, but I try to find something redeeming in each one. I often fail, but still, I try). Since my husband isn’t into them, and I have no one else to discuss them with, I’m just going to write up some of my favorites in a new category, so feel free to ignore at your leisure.

In other update news in lieu of a full-length post: Daisy the kitty is fully integrated into the house now and is running around like a maniac. I’m still staying home as much as possible and have managed to stay healthy as has the husband. I have not gained back any of the 20 or so pounds I lost a few months ago but I have re-injured my torn rotator cuff and working on getting the PT to work for it again as I want to avoid surgery. I am not taking photos at all, but AM doing a ton of coloring – therefore, I have no photos of anything to share at this time but when I do a proper post later I will take some and upload, including the pages from the hilarious Cat Butt coloring book a blog reader sent me (you know who you are – wink).

And in “I am going to tell you this but I don’t want to say much about it” news, our beloved ten year old dog Sprocket died in December. We were heartbroken but it’s just what we sign onto when we take on a dog. We know they won’t live forever, and that at some point we will have to say goodbye. So we’ve said goodbye to one of our babies, and we miss him still.

More soon! I hope you all are well!

Daisy Day

Posted on September 3, 2020 by marey mercy

OK, so clearly my 365 project fell apart. Turns out that Daisy has added quite a bit of work and stress to my day, and taking a photo a day just fell by the wayside as a result.

Oh and by the way, I changed her name again obviously. Lucy just didn’t feel right either.

The thing is, I’ve never “found” a kitten, or any pet for that matter, and then kept it. Any time we’ve brought a new pet into the home, especially a little one, it has been planned for in advance, and mentally I was prepared for the work it would take to break it in. Not so with Daisy. She just showed up on our front porch, and well, now she’s here to stay.

This was taken about 20 minutes after we found her

I just was not prepared to deal with kittendom again, and as it turns out, neither were all my pets, or was Daisy for that matter. Unlike in the past, Daisy has not adjusted quickly to being here. For a solid week we had to keep her in the master bathroom because she would not venture out at all, and she hissed and growled terribly whenever another animal came into her view. And by the way – I absolutely HATE the hissing stage. The sound of a hissing cat just freaks me out. Don’t get me wrong, I adore cats – but I can definitely do without the hissing.

Simon, as he did when I brought Violet home, has been the first to adjust and welcome the new addition. He is just a super-friendly little boy, and from the start he was doing his best to get close to Daisy. But Daisy hissed and spit and growled and scratched for a solid week before finally allowing Simon to get close to her. She still mostly wants to attack him, but she does so playfully, rolling over onto her back often and making a lot less awful noises. Simon has been a trooper throughout the ordeal, sniffing around her, batting her down when needed, and backing off on occasion before persevering in his quest to befriend her. It’s interesting to watch this play out, and once Daisy calmed down enough to stop terrifying me with her hissing, I’ve spent a good deal of time watching and admiring how good Simon is with new kittens.

Violet however – she’s another story. For the most part she’s just stayed away, and the few times she’s been in the bedroom when Daisy has ventured out of the bathroom she’s hissed her head off. This morning, she even hissed and growled at Simon, I suppose because he’s spending so much time tussling with Daisy that she’s either jealous or just pissed that he smells different. So, this whole acclimation process is going to take more time than I would like, but it is what it is.

I’ve even wondered if we should find her a new home, because I really am stressed over all the different animal attitudes floating about the house right now. We already had two dogs and two cats to care for, and a third kitty just wasn’t in the plans, but she just bounded right up to me and into my arms as if she already belonged to me, and when she’s not acting insane I love to cuddle her – even though I am still having to hang out in our bathroom to do that because she’s not yet comfortable being out in the house. I think it’s OK to not love the kitten-introduction stage, and that it doesn’t mean I’m not cut out for a new furbabe. Truth be told, I’ve been desiring a new kitten off and on for the past year, but at the exact moment Daisy came into my life I just was NOT prepared for the extra stress. And as I said, this is a different situation from any I’ve ever dealt with before when it comes to pets (the dogs, by the way, really could care less about her existence, but Daisy of course hisses and growls at the sight of them).

So, I don’t even have any new photos to go with this post which is unusual for me. Sorry about that. All I’ve been doing the past week is stressing over cats, getting my schedule filled back up for tutoring, and then stressing over cats some more. It’s very time-consuming. 😉

Sharp Tutor

Posted on August 22, 2020 by marey mercy

I know that schools all over the US are in various states of open vs. online, so I thought I’d throw down some of the Language Arts resources I use on the regular with my students whom I now tutor through Zoom. Some of these resources are free, while others are subscriptions I pay for.

By the way, I usually share my screen with the student so we can view whatever site I am working off of together. I can also give the student control over my mouse, so that he or she can click around the site I’m on rather than having to dictate to me what to click and when. For added fun, sometimes students figure out that when they have control of my mouse they are actually in control of my entire computer and they get a kick out of turning my volume way up or way down, or turning my caps lock key off and on and making the light flicker. Hey, it’s the little things. Oh and also the occasional kid will ‘freeze’ on camera and pretend like our connection has frozen. They do find ways to be frisky, even online. 😉

Quizlet is an online flashcard resource that has been around for quite awhile; accounts are free, with a purchase option for access to specialized sets that aren’t really necessary, IMHO. When creating flashcards, you simply type the term on one side of the digital ‘card’ and the definition or answer on the other side; once all the cards are created you save the set and anyone can view that set and study by clicking each card to flip it over. Two great things about Quizlet: 1) it’s been around long enough that you can search topics for sets that have already been made before starting yours from scratch, and if you find one you like you can save it into your own folder and edit it to fit your needs. Super-useful! 2) Quizlet takes the information on the flashcards and presents it to the student in several different forms: an online quiz, a review sheet that asks the questions in several different forms, a matching game, or an asteroids like game. Lots of different ways to reinforce learning using the different modes of presentation.

readworks.org is currently a free site, although that may change once the pandemic is under control. This is a great site that presents students with small passages categorized by grade level, content, and/or skill level, and includes multiple-choice, short answer, and fill in the blank questions at the end. For my students, I find the reading levels to be 1-2 grades lower than what my kids can do, so if a child is in fifth grade I may bump up the reading level at the site to 6th or 7th grade, but other than that, this is a quick and easy way to reinforce a concept, especially since you can search for material by target skill. Also, the articles and corresponding questions can be printed out as a .pdf, so it’s great for assigning some quick homework without having to do too much work. (I don’t normally assign homework, but some of my parents insist on it.)

educaplay.com has different educational games you can search or create – crossword puzzles, word searches, matching games, word scrambles and so on. I don’t use other people’s games too much on this site as they tend to be shorter and less comprehensive than I like, but I do use this site a lot to make matching games I can play with my students when we end up with some time at the end of a session. I have made a lot of matching games that also involve memory testing – the goal is to match pairs of cards, but if you fail to match during your turn, they flip back over, so we’re testing memory as well as recall, which makes it more fun, IMHO. I also set the number of turns you can take as high as I can go, rather than a lot of other people’s games that only allow, say, two turns before the game ends. I like for my games to be endless so we can play them until everything gets a match. I only have a free version of this site, but there is a paid subscription with more options. With a free option, you do have to sit through the occasional ad, but the kids don’t mind, they’re brief, and unlike somewhere like YouTube, because this is an educational site you’re not going to get hit with an ad out of nowhere that is awkward as hell (I once was trying to watch a YouTube video with a student online and the ad that queued up started with the statement “Sex shouldn’t have to wait until you’re done with your period,” or something like that – which, sure, I would agree with that, but it’s not a discussion I want to have to get into with a seventh grader).

One site I do pay for is IXL.com, and it is fantastic. There are many different subscription levels; I only pay for access to the language arts materials since that is all I tutor. You can access some of the lessons for free, but with a paid subscription the lessons can go as long as up to 50 activities/questions per concept, whereas without paying you get maybe 10 per lesson. The activities are mostly some form of multiple-choice ‘quizzing’ of different concepts, which sounds like it might get boring, but they present material in many different formats within each lesson, and the software is intuitive and increases and decreases in difficulty in response to the student’s answer choices. It also covers a much higher range of grades than most sites – everything from Pre-K up to 12th grade, which is great because I tutor a wide range of grades. And all the material can be searched by grade level, particular skill, or particular content, as well as being presented in collections that guide you through a progression of concepts that all work together and build on each other. This is such a useful resource, because I can ask a student what they are working on in class and go to this site to find several different activities that address those skills. However, it can get a little boring, so I use the next site to help out with that.

gamesxl.com is a site of free, REALLY simple online games that are pretty basic and simple to play. I like to use these with students, especially younger ones, when we are doing something rather bland like going through a long series of ixl.com multiple choice activities. Then, I tell the students that for every question they get right, they get to go bowl a round (there is one particular bowling game I really like because it’s quite easy to use) and if they get it wrong, I get to bowl a round. Believe it or not, I can easily get a student through two or more ixl.com lessons easily when I offer them this little fun incentive, and it makes tutoring more fun for me, too when we get to add a little silly competition into the mix. When I was a classroom teacher, I used to bring my Wii to school on review days, and would do the same thing in person, and it always transformed a boring old review day into some fun competition that kids were excited about (and I taught high school at the time). Keep in mind these games are nothing fancy, and you occasionally have to sit through an ad because they’re all free, but even the simplest little game will break the monotony and keep kids engaged while they’re doing all their schoolwork online. And I find that when tutoring through something like Zoom, simpler games are better, because there’s less chance of it getting “hung up” between your computer and the student’s.

I have a ton of other resources I use, but most of them are very content specific and not free; these are the ones I find the most useful and ones that could also be useful to parents trying to supplement online learning or make it a little more tolerable.

Photo No-Go

Posted on August 12, 2020 by marey mercy

As I may have mentioned previously, one of my bright ideas I had about getting into coloring pages was to use my own photos as pages to color. However this turned out to be much more challenging than I expected.

So obviously, this doesn’t work. Coloring greyscale images is actually a thing, but it’s not my thing at all. One of the coloring books I bought was in greyscale without me realizing it, and in researching online how I could color the pages I discovered greyscale coloring usually is done with colored pencils, which isn’t a medium I enjoy working with at all. It can be beautiful though:

Since I wasn’t interested in that process, I started thinking of ways I could create a more typical coloring page out of my pictures. I did some research online and found a few different techniques, but none of them really created an actual coloring page with clear lines. Every suggested process I tried ended up looking something like this:

My next big idea was to convert the image into this rather messy format, print it out, and then trace it keeping only the lines I want. This seemed to be a decent solution, but for some reason it still wasn’t working for me:

It’s OK, but it still didn’t satisfy me, plus I found the whole process boring. From transforming the photos in Photoshop to figuring out what lines to trace, it just wasn’t any fun and I still didn’t feel happy with the results.

And the traced result. I actually did end up coloring this one.

Choosing which lines to keep and which to leave out was tricky; I always felt like I still had too many lines and they got in the way when I was trying to color. And the lines all felt ‘weak’ and rickety and difficult to color within for some reason. Compare my attempts to one of my coloring pages that has a similar image:

Why is this so much better? I can’t explain it, I just know that it is.

I even found some free sites online where you could upload a picture and the software claimed it could convert it into a coloring page, but guess what – all those sites used the exact same processes I had used on my own and disliked. So I pretty much gave up and decided I just wasn’t going to be able to color my own photos. No big deal – I had plenty of other stuff to work with. But a few weeks later I thought perhaps I could find someone on Etsy who had the capacity to covert photos; lo and behold I found the perfect person! It’s an artist with a shop there called MGSCustomArt, and she hit it straight out of the park!

See how much more satisfying this is? I swear to God I never could have done this and I’m still amazed at how good this artist is at it herself. I sent her three photos the first time, and it took about two weeks to get them back, which was fine. I just ordered another print from her today and sent it along to her as well.

She charges $10 a page, which I know sounds like a lot when you can buy a whole coloring book for $6, but to me having my own photos looking like real, actual coloring pages with exactly the right lines and clarity while STILL looking like ME is totally worth it! She has a lot of positive reviews at her Etsy site with uploads of other people’s pictures, so you can go there and see samples of other photos she’s transformed. Lots of people have had more personal photos than these turned into coloring pages – pictures with family, friends, or pets – and they all look great!

I just sent this one off to get converted also

So, if this is ever something you’ve been interested in doing, give MGSCustomArt some love because she is the best I’ve found. I have never seen anything even close to what she can do!

mareymercy.

Art, Horror, and Other Obsessions

Category Archives: Blog