OH NOEZ

     I skipped out yesterday on my blog. >.< Bad me. It wasss a busy day, and nothing really interesting happened besides work which took up half of my day. Anywayyy. Today my family celebrated my dad's birthday. I worked in the early afternoon so I was pretty pooped when I got home, not too sure why. But we had some delicious grilled salmon, baked potatoes, coleslaw, etc. And then had some cake. I got to take some photos of my 4 year old cousin, and a few turned out pretty well, out of about 25. 4 year olds aren't known for being able to stand still for more than 20 or 30 second at a time :p So I just have a few shots today.

This one has to be my favorite. I don't even like cake that much, but I love this picture.

Abby has some beautiful blue eyes, which are the focus of this shot. Obviously :p

xoxo

365 Project: Prettyyyy Stoked.

    Yesterday I uploaded a photo onto my 365 project, I also posted it on yesterdays blog, the heart, with the purple tint. It went over pretty well, and I was happy about the feedback, it has even been favorited. What's even more exciting is that it landed in the recently popular section under browse. I was so excited. I still am. That's crazy for me. It's one thing to hear from others that my work is pretty good, then to actually see the benefit. I'm just so thankful that I started this project, and thankful for Leesa informing me about it :p

    akfdjakjfda sooo, the photo i'm posting today is from a few weeks ago. or a month ago ahaha. But I just edited it yesterday using photoshop cs4. And it's really the first time I've used it in-depth. It's just been really, really, intimidating. >.< hahaha.

Back in the hang.

    Ahhh. Today has been a pretty good day. Work in an hour but I'm actually looking forward to it. Each day that I pick up my camera I keep getting more excited about taking more shots. My 365project is going pretty good and I've already gotten quite a bit of support for only having 3 days on my plate. It's really nice to hear good feedback from other photographers. On top of my 365project, I have a couple of girls interested in photoshoots and that really excites me. I'm not interested in charging for the shoot, I'm just looking forward to getting something under my belt. And I've decided that after putting away a big portion of my next paycheck, I'm going to buy a lens, probably from Amazon. I'm not looking for anything fancy, just something that will get me more familiar with the bajillion different kinds of lenses.
    I'm not going to ramble too much longer, but I have a few shots for you today, that I actually took today :p and I actually like them quite a bit. RAW photos are becoming my best friend, even if they do take more work to process.

Anotherrrr boring day off.

     Today has been an odd day. Uneventful to say the least. I'm not in the greatest mood for some reason, I'm not sure why. I've been doing pretty good lately, but i'm feeling really uptight and grumpy today. On the plus side I've been mostly been spending my day off looking at photography, lenses that I'm lusting after, and informative articles. For the longest time I've wanted a fish eye lens and a wide angle lens. Oh and a macro lens. ahaha. I've found a few cheap ones on Amazon that I'm looking into, especially for fish eye/macro lenses. I'm looking at a pretty decent sized check so after putting most of it away I might look into a fish eye. Anyway, I've decided to participate in the 365 project on 365project.org, thanks to one of my only followers, Leesa. :p

    I did take my camera outside today and used one of my dogs as a subject to mess around with my 50mm lens given to me as a birthday present from my boyfriend. I've been trying to harness Manual mode and it's quite a challenge so I only got a couple decent photos out of the 30 I took. So here you go. Enjoy your day, however eventful it is. At least I've got One Tree Hill and Glee. <3

I have been saaaaaved! By RAW files.

      I've had my Nikon D60 for over a year now, and I'm STILL getting the hang of it. I've known about RAW files for a long time now, just never used that option while shooting, on a regular basis anyway. So I decided this morning I would try it out. Even though RAW files are mainly used for prints because of the higher resolution and  dimensions, (Or so I think, correct me if I'm wrong :p ) I used it to take some self portraits.

     What I love is the expanded editing options. I bought myself Photoshop Elements 7 last year and it has been useful in editing, especially because CS4 blows my mind and I haven't been able to grasp it all quite yet. CS4 was given to me by my amazin' boyfriend, what a sweet man. :)
    
     So anywayyy. I shot in RAW. Although they take more work, I can really tell the difference in clarity. It's a lot more clear to me. So I edited a few, and those will be my photos for the day.

     I like the black and white photo a lot more than the other. But it was really just an expirement.
     Long day today. Closing again. Last night was pretty insane. Closed at 9, and I normally get out around 9:15 or 9:30, but I didn't get done until 10:30. Thank God Oyster Run is over and everyone is going home. Now I'm off to do something productive. Maybe.

XOXO

Odd day in Washington

    I was going to post later today, but I forgot about work. So today is going to be a short blog. It's a gloomy day today, well sort of. It's all rainy and wet out, but it's almost 70 degrees. Not something you come by often in Washington. Work is going to be crazy. My town has this little festival thing called Oyster Run. No, it doesn't involve people running a marathon hold oysters. It's pretty much just a big biker fest. People come from all over the state on their harley's, etc. for a weekend of drinking, music and ogling other biker's shiny possessions. But mostly drinking. It would be a perfect time to pull out my camera and go downtown where all the action is at, but seeing as I have a ginormous hatred for large crowds and an over-abundance of noise, I think I'm going to pass. Not too excited about work tonight, We've got a band who's playing all weekend and bikers just love that.
     Anyway, instead of posting one of my own photos, I want to share my favorite photographer. I would be very surprised if anyone who knows anything about photography doesn't know who Annie Leibovitz is. She's incredibly diverse and has an incredible eye. Her photos are gorgeous, here's just one:

Amazing right?!

In case you're not sure who's featured in this photo, they are Julianne Moore and Michael Phelps.

Although I don't really care for her use of celebrity subjects in this series, it doesn't at all take away from how amazing all of them turn out. This photo is from her Disney Dreams Portraits series. 

This woman has some mad skill. With her camera, and with editing software :p

Well have a wonderful day, and check out some of Annie's work if you haven't already. :)

Photo Blogitty Blog Day Two

     Today was a beautiful, beautiful day so I went to the beach and ate lunch with a friend. It was pretty busy there, lots of families having picnics, people kayaking and boating and a plentiful amount of adorable puppies and aggressive bees trying to steal my sandwich. It was probably the nicest day Washington has had in the last 3 weeks. Sunny AND warm. I'm really going to miss that. I used to hate summer, hot, muggy weather made me miserable. But I think after my trip to Virginia to see my boyfriend this summer, it grew on me. Well, Washington summer anyway. :p

  
       As much as I like summer and don't want it to go away just yet, my favorite season of all would have to be Fall. And as Fall draws near, it has me opening up my photo albums from about a year ago. I love Christmas time to death, but Fall colors and the crunching of leaves is my favorite. In fact, Halloween has really caught my eye and I'm sort of excited for the decorations and all of the "haunted" attractions to open up. Perfect photo-op. So anyway, photos for today are a few of my fall photos from last year.

   This is a photo I took up the road from my house at a cemetery. I knowww, scurryyy. It's actually super pretty during Fall. The lighting was gorgeous.

I took this photo at a pumpkin field. Such beautiful colors that represent Fall perfectly.  :)

  

          And this girl is pretty much adorable.

beautiful lighting makes for a nice portrait.

     So that's all for tonight. I'm hoping that all this posting of my older photos will inspire me to go out and take some new ones. Feel free to leave some feedback. :)