7.26.2012 // Daily Life

In an effort to re-embrace (?) my photographic self, I have made a conscious effort to carry my camera with me as much as possible lately. I've let myself ride on the "you don't have anything to shoot" excuse too long, and have dedicated myself to learning how to photograph my environment in a clear, unique manner.

This is a bit of a challenge for me, because my house is excessively dark. So I have to use really high ISOs which doesn't play well with my camera, I also have a bit of a focal point issue, which I've yet to figure if its my lens/camera or just user error... ! Anyway...

Round 1

Wedding Weekend

Congrats my friends!So happy for both of you and can't wait to see what your future together holds!

Behind The Lens: Wedding Weekend

I took very few photos this weekend, one look at the environment lighting, I knew it was going to be difficult to get  great photos, with what I'm working with. Not too mention, sitting in the seats as a guests, makes it very difficult to get great photos. But the one's I did get I loved. :)  

Congrats Mr. & Mrs. Sims! 

PhotoBlog: Bunny Wabbits

How cute is this? One of the guys mowing our "lawn" found him hopping along in the grass. He tried to move him out of the way, but the baby ran right under neath the mower... when the starting of the mower didn't scare the rabbit out, he had to hope for the best and pull off. Luckily the rabbit was un-harmed..so he picked him up and put him in the truck bed, so my vicious beasties wouldn't get a hold of him. (They have no calms about killing something cute.) 

I'm sure the poor guy thought he was a goner for sure! 

Tiny rabbit sits among ropes and tools in the back of a truck

Baby rabbit being held by a young child

50mm

Life in Photo

This week, I didn't start out to re-start my P365, but more so to use my camera again. I'd stopped using it, because downloading my photos onto my very.take-20-minutes-to-open-a-program-Mac was a


Sunday:

Monday: One of my favorite kids-to-photograph-ever. 

Tuesday: The Plan: Get up early, get Rob out of the house, do some shopping, return before 12:00pm, drop of said dog, leave for Jobs 1+2, then come home get the dogs out of the house before it was time for VBS Play practice.


What really went down: Got up llaaate, got the dogs some playtime in, food in their bellies and jetted for work. Bought lunch, worked both jobs, stopped by a shoe store on the way home, decided to go ahead and fill up my car ($31 woooo!)  and pick up some groceries. The rest of the night went as planned, but my poor to-do list is getting longer and longer.

Wednesday: I woke up with the odd dream I had replaying in my head. Have I ever mentioned that I'm not a morning person? Only about 1,324,234,575 times you say? Hmmm.. Well needless to say, getting up and "gettin stuff done" once again, did not happen. I really wanted to go to the Farmers Market this morning, just to go but...perhaps another day then.
As I was returning from Job #2, I couldn't resist snapping a photo of the doodles on the side of this abandoned costume shop. 

Friday: My sister is constantly pestering me to take more photos of people and my family, so I was surprised she eagerly got ready for an impromptu photoshoot. These two were my favorite from our time. Both very natural, very Kristen. :) 

Saturday: We said good-bye to our fourth family member....she visited with us for the week while her family was out of town. Sweet little pup but Ka-RaZy while at my house. :) 

Comfort Zones

My Job of almost two years + My House of One year + My Family + My Friends +My Church = Some of my comfort zones. 


I'm a person who thrives on the sameness of my comfort zones. Of knowing what/when/why/where/and whoe 


However, that does mean that I'm not really motivated to do or be more than I already am easily..which is not something I really feel is that good of a trait. Just because I'm comfortable being lazy doesn't mean that, that is a place I should stay. 

No matter how much I like it. 


Truthfully I'm not "lazy" in that sense of the word, when at work I work, as hard and as efficiently as possible. However, once I reach the comfort zone of my house. All bets are off. I'm just sayin. One of the side effects of being a college student. When you're done. Your done.


Back to my point, last night (Sunday Night) as I was praying about my future, schooling, life after that I asked God to allow me to actually be able to use my degree. And it suddenly hit me, that ultimately I'm in charge of that. "But I don't wanna be in charge, God!?" 

To be honest, starting my own business is not something I really had in mind for my "life goals". I've worked in several small business venues and quickly realized just how.much.work it is to run one.  


So the idea of going out there and creating my own job is scary. Its risky. I could crash and burn. People could hate and ridicule my work. People could steal my work. I could be horrible about keeping track of my funds, and what about taxes!? Do I really love photography enough to do it every day? Yes.


So many thoughts careening through my mind. 



I can get quite noisy inside me head for sure. 


Then this question pops into my head: "But are you passionate about it?!" 


Between you and me? No. 


If I could exactly what I wanted to do?! It would be dog training. 


Those who know me, know I'd talk about dog behavior all day if I could. I love the challenge of finding the solution to what people deem "problem behaviors". I'm on at least three different behavior/training email lists, subscribe to countless other training blogs, not to mention all the dog trainers I follow Facebook. I've been doing this for five years now I think I kind of like it.


But all the "training" schools are so far away/too expensive and right now its not an option/an option that God has put his approval on so. We do it as a hobby at the moment. 

I think my biggest draw to photography, was its something I can do, and still be a SAHM.  As much as I hated the idea when I was younger, its grown on me quite a bit since I've entered the working world. I CANNOT imagine trying to get ready for work and kids off to school in the mornings. 


I have a rough time getting my dogs fed and pottied before leaving for work now as it is! 


But I'm straying away from the point. 


The point is, I'm realizing more and more if I want something, I may have to step outside of my comfort zone to get it. And that, my friends, is scary.

Photos from the Week

I have nothing of great import to write about today. 

Disney Souvenir and Subject for my Metal Assignment in Studio Calss

Hence why I am bombarding you all with photos. I've sort of reached a plateau in my blogging experience, ha, with life in general at the moment. I'm placing the blame on the summer like weather we've had over the last couple of days. The warmth just cries out for me to be lazy and lay out in the sun. But then my homework will jump up and smack me in the face, for not using those valuable hours to get the afore mentioned things done. 

Rob laying quietly on his blanket while I worked on the above photo

 Its just soo hard to focus when the weather is sooo pretty! 

Rob waits patiently for me to produce a treat for him.

My sister Kristen 

Thank God we only have a few more weeks left!

Bubbles lounges in the grace with me. 

A One-Sided Conversation..

Crab Apple tree in bloom

So...Hi...
How have you been..?
That's good.
Yeah so its been a while huh?
Have I fallen off the face of the earth?
{ha-ha}

No....I would have totally blogged about that from my phone at least.

What's going on with me? Um..well nothing much really, just living life you know?
...although my neighbors fighting all weekend, did provide a great source for entertainment... yeah one girl was screaming and fighting with her ..Grandfather? I don't know, freaked me out something bad. I was about to call the cops, but another male neighbor ran over to check things out, so I let him handle it. I don't know exactly what was happening but she kept screaming LET ME GO! So I didn't know if he was hurting her or what exactly. That was more scary than entertaining. Then the OTHER neighbors, were having a relationshipal (is that a word? You know what I mean) spat loudly at like 11:00pm...kind of amusing, since all I had to do is stick my head out ot he door and could hear every word as clear as if I was right beside their house. That would SO not have happened in my other middle class neighborhoods.

Yeah I did feel a little sorry for them to,but not much.

How's the weather? The sun's been out all week, so you know that makes me a happy girl. I love me some sun. I'm going to replenish my flip-flop supply tomorrow hopefully.

What happened? Um... well lets just say that we broke up. Literally.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah it was Rob. I love his squishy face, but his teeth? Not so much.

Three month old Rob stares at the camera

Well, I would love to stay and chat, but I need to use the next four hours, to catch up on a weeks worth of homework.

Yeah, I kind of slacked off last week...something about knowing I had extra time just promoted me to be lazy.
I know its bad, thank you very much!



Oh! I almost forgot...hoepfully my 'rents and I will be going to look at a car this weekend. Pray!

Ok well I'll talk to you later!

See-Ya.

Done.

"....Friday, Friday, I can't believe its Friday, who knew the weekend would be here so soon, soon...Friday, Friday....".

Hey. If she can do it, I can too. :)

However, I'm soooo glad its Friday, this has been one of those weeks where I just felt stupid on multiple occasions on a daily basis. I'm blaming my spike in caffeine intake. Its "funny" but since I started drinking caffeine again, my food intake has once again decreased to MAYBE once a day. Again. I know its not good for me, but when you're not hungry you don't think about food. Not to mention how tired caffeine makes you...I don't think I've gone to bed before 12:00am in about two weeks. I'm seriously feeling it right about now.

Why isn't it summer yet?????

However, next week I'm weaning myself back off the addicting stuff. Mainly cause I'll be outta of cash/change. :D

I don't have much else to write about at the moment, well...technically I have a LOT but in an effort to respect other's privacy and to "not put everything on the internet" I won't. :) So you're left with this drab post! :)

I realize I haven't been posting many photos on this blog...um..so I decided to post these that I have taken for my studio still life class. I honestly didn't think I'd like it...but have been pleasantly surprised by my teacher and what we have to do!

Don't have anything overly exciting this weekend, trying to decided if Rob and I want to "road trip" to AVL this weekend for a puppy meeting or do the sensible/responsible thing and stay home and do homework.

We'll see.

Counting down the days until Summer Vaca!!!!  2 months +

TTFN!

Glass Bear with a blue and white Background: Canon Rebel xti; 50mm; Light Table, Two light setup, Blue Gel, 

Opaque Object: Oatmeal Lotion bottle surround by oatmeal. Canon Rebel xti; 50mm; One Light Medium Soft Box, ISO 100, f/4.0, 200 sec. 

Metal: Sony Alpha a200, 18-55mm, One Light, Light Tent, ISO 100, f/11, 160sec. 

Opaque Objects: Same as above 

Project Erin: 365: Week 1

I gave in and started one of these again....365 days is a daunting task...but I need the challenge of keeping my camera with me at all times. Especially with this semesters class line up! Photojournalism is going to keep me on my toes, not to mention Studio Still Life! So here goes!

1. My oldest dachshund Bubbles. She looks peaceful but she was really annoyed that I wasn't petting her. 
2. Texas- Love the lighting on this photo! 
3. Breakfast of Champions - Scooby Snacks and Sliced Peaches. Yes my stomach hurt after that. But it was worth it. 
4. Officially signed up for 12 credit hours! Printed out my daunting assignment schedule for my Statistics and Probability class. I promise the camera picked the Spring Break line to focus on. 
5. Ticket Books. You speed on our campus? We're ready for ya.
6. Pompei after a long day of classes and shopping. 
7. How I spent my weekend. Trying to make up the homework I'd missed due to late registration. :( 

Posting Daily @ Project Erin 

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