Romance/Valentines Day

Last weeks theme, appropriately so, was Romance. I took it a little more generic and slashed it with Valentines Day, a day of romance...

Romance summed up in 7 days...Beautiful pink roses (Thanks Alan!), rose petals, champagne, heart shaped treats and decorations, chocolate and wine. Next week I will be naming hodgepodge. No coherent theme, which will be the theme. See you soon!

Body

Sorry for the lateness of this blog, I had a rather busy past couple of weeks and this is the first moment I am getting a break. This shoot would have been WAY better with some models. Although Alan sweetly let me annoy him, he had his limits. I plan to take this project even further when I have more time. Possibly between semesters. We shall see.... I have also been experimenting more with photoshop. Usually to adjust bad lighting (stupid flash), hopefully it has not been done too poorly so that it is very obvious.
I just adore the angles of the body! Although it was hard to get my own neck (no tripod used) I think this one encompassed the image I was originally trying to get, which was the hard lines and the strength that is in such a small body part.

Who could forget to take a picture of hands. They make us distinctly unique from the animals. Alan has been doing construction so what would be a better pose (even though he never actually stopped moving) than with tools.

What do you see....my bellybutton!!! Being mid-winter I am extremely white so I thought this would be a great opportunity to adjust the colors of this photo.

Bodies have the amazing ability to heal themselves. Alan was involved in a tumble many years ago, but he carries the reminder on his elbow with this large scar.
Toes! What can I say, they help me balance!

I will post again soon. When I find another free moment.

Sleep...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sorry for the lateness of this post. It took a few days to get just the sleepy shots I wanted. Although the lighting is a bit off in some of these, I have been playing with those settings on my camera and hope to have a good handle on lighting by the end of the year. Self-portraits are difficult to set up when trying to do it in manual. Next time maybe I will stick with automatic:)No matter how big a bed is, Alan's feet will always find their way to the edge.

I look like Casper the friendly ghost in this picture, yikes!!!

The library, a perfect place to nap between classes!

Some find the hallways more soothing...hmmmm

There is a head somewhere in there!

Next week's theme is Body. This is a project I have been wanting to work on for awhile so hopefully it turns out fabulously!

Food!!!

This picture is random, I know, but we made delicious tacos the other night and I thought it was so colorful and beautiful, I just had to capture it in a photo!

Change!!!

Originally I was not too optimistic about this week and how these pictures were going to turn out. It was my first week back to school, which was a lot of my motivation. Some of my ideas for the pictures seemed pretty mundane, but I think they turned out alright (or at least most of them). I am sure there will be many more weeks like this, but I must remember for the purpose of this project, to take pictures. Each picture does not have to be a masterpiece, but it should make me use my camera. And that is what I have done here. Enjoy!


I think the new car, empty apartment and filled moving truck explain themselves, however the pictures of Plato may not be self-explanatory. Alan and Plato have recently moved to be with me. For Plato this is a big change, he has been discovering new things that he has never seen before and I felt it only appropriate to showcase two of his adorable pictures :) In the one below he meets a grasshopper.

The start of the Spring Semester calls for new books and new notebooks. Although this is a small sampling of my books, I figured everyone can guess what I am getting my masters in...

What is a bigger change than a birthday?!?! You become a whole new number! Modeling her adorable birthdayness is my sweet Kennadie Hope! Accompanied by one of my dearest and oldest friends Marley! Love these two!!!
Next weeks theme is sleep, expect many pictures of fuzzy sleeping cuteness (and yes, Plato will make his presence well known next week.) Until then I may post more pictures from Kennadies Bday party, if I can find time between classes and the reading I am already behind on!

A strange visitor in my car...

As I got into my car today after taking pictures of a beautiful blooming tree, I heard a noise to my left. I look over and there is a bee trying with all its might to get through my car window to the outer world. After making a less-than-dainty noise I decide the best way to not be stung is to pull over and roll down my window. To my surprise the little bee no longer wanted to fly away once the window was open. Having just taken photos my camera was sitting on the passenger seat, perfectly ready to take some shots of my new friend. After a jogger came by and scared me half to death the bee flew away.

My Life in Macro

You probably guessed it, this weeks theme is Macro. And fortunately for me I recently received a great Canon Macro lens as a Christmas gift from my dad, stepmom and grandpa. All of the flower pictures were taken with this new lens. Pretty cliche for a macro picture, but I do enjoy trying to get just the right angle and the right lighting to capture the beauty of the flowers.
This one is of my cat Plato. I was attempting to get a shot of his tongue. Have you ever seen a cats tongue up close? They are rather strange looking and I took tons of shots of his face while he was grooming himself. However, as you can tell, I had no luck getting a good shot of Plato's tongue. This is something I will keep working on though because now I am pretty determined to get this shot.
My mother is to blame for this shot. I have a terrible fear of spiders, but she called me outside one day to show me the giant spider in the back yard. I am impressed about how close I was able to get this spider to get this shot. I was a little creeped out, but later that day the spider disappeared and never returned so the timing was rather impeccable.

I have a large collection of FD lenses for my Canon AE-1 camera. I have an adapter to attach these lenses to my DSLR and this is one of the shots from a Tamron zoom lens with macro capabilities. This project is really helping make use of all the lenses I have in my arsenal.

Keep tuned, next weeks theme is change!