Theme 322 - Portrait

Sorry for being MIA! Fall semester started so I don't get much time for myself between work and school.

I had a "Seasons" project for my design class and this is fall! :] It's my favorite out of all of them; as well as the family's. The model is my sister, Ashliegh, I did the make-up, hair, photo (obviously haha), and photoshop work - yes, I photoshoped this, and quite a bit too! >_<> This was also the very first time I've EVER done portraits, let alone someone else's hair and make-up, so I'm quite pleased with this.

I've learned a lot from doing this project and it also helped me realize where I might want to go with photography. :]

EDIT: I missed 2 out of the 3 classes for for design due to being very sickly! So I basically did this project off of the information he gave us the first day of class. We had out critique last night and I found out then that the project was supposed to be COMPLETELY ABSTRACT!! Total bummer!! Everyone loved the portraits and completely backed me up considering how much work/time I put into it and for even having a project when I've been sick. I'll find out what grade I get, despite the fact that it wasn't abstract, next wednesday!

Theme 354 - Beach

This is LBI! The waves were wicked nice that day (Not all that great for surfing though but definitely threw you around in the water) We went for labor day (which actually resulted into getting my car impounded, but thats another story. :[ ). There were a lot of jelly fish too, Mark got stung by one. I'm going to miss LBI and Seaside once we move. :(

Theme 153 - Footprint

At LBI again, these are the foot prints of a baby seagull who would run to to the ocean eat food and run away from the water when it came towards him and then run back towards the ocean. He was cute and fun to watch.

Theme 137 - Childhood

This probably isn't the best photo I could have taken; the sun was way to harsh and it was a quick point and shoot shot. I didn't want the kids parents to think I was some crazy girl for taking pictures of her kids, so this was the only shot I got. Anyway I thought they were adorable kids and decided I had to share with everyone. Hopefully they bring back memories of your childhood or your kids childhood. :] This was taken at LBI (Long Beach Island) I lowered the saturation quite a bit and messed with the the contrast and brightness.

Theme 310 - Camera

This was Thomas Plant's camera and it's case. He's the man who had the Castle in the Sky built and once owned it. It was made in the U.S.A. by Eastman Kodak! I'm pretty happy I got a picture of this because it was in a closet room that we weren't allowed to enter and I stepped in to grab a picture before one of the "security" people came walking by.

Heres another photo of the camera:

Theme 172 - Black & White

The same pink car from my previous car post. I really love how it turned out in black and white, probably more so in color. I was kinda torn with these car photos in either putting them in retro or vintage or (obviously) car.

Heres the same picture in color:

Theme 246 - Swing

This is a swing that looks like a horse at the Castle in the Clouds. Behind it was the horse stable which has now been turned into a restaurant.

Theme 334 - Car

I went to NH/MA with my boyfriend to visit his parents. While there his parents took us to Castle In The Clouds; if you ever go to northern NH or live around there this is a must see! Anyway, on the way up the mountain theres little stop points to check out the scenery and on our way back to our car from one of the spots two wicked sweet cars pulled up! They each had awesome license plates too; the orange with "FAB50S" and a pink car with "LUVBIRD".
Here is the pink car:


PS. I apologize for not posting in a while, like I said before I was out of state and then the fall semester started so I didn't get much time to work of my photos from the trip.

Theme 161 - Sky

It feels so good to post this. I've been wanting to catch a photo of the moon for a long long time now. It took me two nights to try and figure out the right aperture and shutter speed to have my camera on to get this shot; a lot came out with just a big ball of white for the moon. I intend to catch a photo of all my main points of the moon (first quarter, half, second quarter) and then get it into one big picture with a photo of the Eclipse (if I get lucky - It wont be until next year though) in the middle. That's the plan at least.

As for the theme sky, I know the best time to take a photograph is at dawn and dusk and considering the project calls for photo's of that sort, I figured sky would be the best - and there's a whole lot of it. :]

Theme 261 - Gold

A lovely old couple have a beautiful garden in front of their house. They change it every year and I always look forward to seeing what it looks like year after year. This year they had gorgeous sunflowers! I snuck up and grabbed a shot before work the other morning.

Theme 266 - Sweets

Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! I love Strawberries dipped in chocolate! I like cake and ice cream and all that good stuff, but this is definitely what I think of when I hear sweets. I used Hersey's Chocolate and added a bit of water to it while heating it up (it tends to dry and then burn really fast without the water) Now that I look at it I probably could have used a little less water, but it was good (and the photo turned out good) non-the-less. I took the photo outside, which I hoped to give me some nice natural lighting but I came out too late and the sun was already hidden behind houses and trees. I placed the strawberries on two white pieces of cardboard paper; one for the bottom and one for the back. I think it did the trick, hopefully you think so too.

Theme 236 - Dog

This is my dog, Scooch! Scooch is yawning! He's a big dog; full blooded German Sheppard. He's got the greatest personality a dog could ever have! He's a big baby when it comes to thundering and lightening though, he'll open up my bedroom door and run between my legs leaving a trail of big balls of fur! He thinks he is king of the house too; he wont move for the vacuum, he'll push you out of the way going up/down the stairs, he'll sneeze on your feet, and sometimes he likes to attack Pancakes (My bunny), but only when he wants your attention.

This is a picture I took of him when I first bought my camera, but still in the 2008 time frame. my dad says it's a great picture of him and that he was wondering why I haven't already posted this yet.

Here is another of him from the same day.

EDIT: sorry you can't view the pictures at a bigger size, again these were taken earlier in the year and the regular picture was destroyed (along with hundreds more pictures) with my external hard drive. :(

Theme 175 - Crowd

This was from the Seaside Heights Boardwalk in NJ, my boyfriend and I went on Saturday night. It's always crowded in the summer; it's one of NJ main beach tourist attractions. That long green light in the left corner is a ride called the "Tower of Fear" It shoots you up drops you, then shoots you to the very tippy top (which is taller than you can see because the lights don't reach the top) and then drops you again and kinda does this bouncy type thing to bring you down. Mark made me go on it and my heart nearly jumped out of my body, it was fun though. I had to take my glasses off and hold them in my hand, and when we got off I had sweat all over them. >_<

Theme 38. Such Great Heights

Saturday morning was my Dad's and my first photography outing. We were trying to find some hiking trails with waterfalls, but we ended up making this a small trip due to it being our first. (We actually ended up right down the street from our house at some kind of nature reservation that we never knew about.)

This would probably be the only photograph I liked from our outing, and I really like it! It has a slightly funny story with it; we saw these extremely tall plants with these yellow flowers (Sorry not sure what they are called) on the top, and I mean extremely tall - I'm tempted to call this "Reaching For The Sky" because that's exactly what they looked like they were doing. My dad and I stopped to look at them and then I decided to try to get a photograph, my dad stayed back and actually took a photograph of me! I showed him what I got and he goes "wow, that's really great" and then walks over to another plant and takes the same picture! :D (Sorry Dad, I had to share! <3)

Update/News

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately, school and work have been making things a bit hectic but I'm going to try to catch up on everyones post.

In other news, I've come to the conclusion that I rather have quality pictures than quantity, so with that I probably wont make my 366 goal. I know bummer, right? My goal is to become better, not rush to make the deadline. I'm not saying I'm going to post the most amazing stuff ever, but I want it to be "good" so I can learn and become "great". This also means that I would love to have constructive criticisms, both good and bad - I wont learn until I hear what I'm doing wrong. I'm not forcing anyone to comment my pictures, but I do ask if you think something is wrong, let me know. :)

Last but not least, and some of you may not even care, but I've decided that after I get my associates in ART I'm going to switch my major to photography. I have a bit of trouble sticking to one thing but I'm going to devote myself to this. I was looking at the AI schools in both Seattle and Boston, and my friend Heather told me about a school called Hallmark Institute of Photography, so I'd like to check that out as well. I still have some time to decided though (roughly a year, perhaps a little more).

Ok, that's it! :]

Theme 223 - Reflections

I figured most people would use the water or maybe even a window for reflections, which granted always seem to look incredibly pretty (and I may eventually take one of those photo's), but I wanted to do something more funky.
This is a lamp my photography teacher back in high school used for one of his auctions at his class. (He has one every year, he even actioned off his wedding photo of his wife, it was pretty funny.) I think the lamp went for like 5 bucks or something. I lost, but the person who won threw the lamp in scummy water outside, so I took it, cleaned it off and have been using it in my office at work ever since. (Or in my bedroom when I didn't have this job.)

So the other day at work I noticed the reflection of my office and myself in my lamp and thought it looked cool and decided to take a picture.

This is what the top part looks like. It's definitely one of my favorite things to have.

Theme 115 - Flag

This probably isn't the best I could have taken, but I do still like it and it was the best out of the few I took of it. I saw it blowing in the wind on our way to Olive Garden. I told my boyfriend on the way home I wanted to stop there and get a picture, he laughed and said theres hundreds of American flags, why that one. I proceeded to tell him "No there aren't" and "they don't blow in the wind like that one does". So we stopped.. and on the way home we saw countless more American flags, perhaps a hundred even, all blowing in the wind.

Theme 190 - Farm Yard

When I think of farmyards I think of pigs, cows, sheep.. and of course horses! I love horses; I remember when I was younger my parents told me that if we won the lottery they would buy me a horse. Need less to say, we never won the lottery. I was a bit nervous taking pictures of theme beautiful creatures because well, I was trespassing. I did try to ask them for permission but no one answered the door. So I took them anyway. I do wish the sky was more clear, it looks kinda musky. I took a few so heres two more for fun.

I thought this one was pure funny.

Theme 27 - Job

Last night I went to my school to get in some studio time (I'm majoring in art :] ) and on my way out I saw these flowers and thought that looked neat so I went up to them and noticed there was a big bumble bee collecting pollen from the flowers. He'd do a little circle dance while collecting the pollen then jump to a new flower. It was cute. I watched for a good five minutes and decided I wanted to a get picture before I left, so I did. I wasn't even sure what I could use this for but then I came across job and I remembered that he was doing his job so other bees could make honey! So thats how this little guy became my "job" theme. :)

P.S. This really made me want to get another lens, perhaps the Nikon 10.5 mm DX f/2.8 G IF-ED AF Lens, but that's a good 700 dollars right now. :(

Theme 94 - Post Box

This is one a the few nice looking mail boxes I drive by on my way home from work. I took the shot immediately after I grabbed a few shots of these really pretty horses on someone's property (which will also be posted as my "Farm Yard" theme). I don't think the people who live here actually use this mail box because they had another (along with a newspaper box) on the other side of their yard and this one didn't seem like it could be open. >_<

Theme 36 - Clouds

Ok Ok.. So I cheated a bit. I know we aren't suppose to "photoshop" our pictures except to resize them and stuff.. but I really liked how the rays of the sun in this looks. It kinda reminds me of an opening to heaven or something. If it makes anyone feel any better, I only messed with the levels and contrast, that's it, scouts honor! I may end up taking another picture for the theme clouds anyway.

Theme 42 - Fences

I pass these gorgeous houses on my way home from work (along with ranches, bridges and all sorts of other things), a few have painted white fences. This one is right in front of the road you drive on, the fence just keeps going.. kinda gives you an idea of how far their land goes I suppose.

Theme 220 - Bridge

I pass this bridge every day from work and I have always thought that it would take a great picture. I love the color of it and how the sun hits it. Today I finally decided to pull over and take a quick shot.

Theme 332 - Egg

I decided to start with an easy theme, whats easier then eggs, right? When I opened the carton I saw one had a tiny crack. I actually pushed my finger into the crack just a tiny bit to show the broken egg a little more. The sun was shining straight through our kitchen window so I placed the eggs right in front of the window and took this shot.
No touch up was done. I just resized the photo and placed a black border.

Project 366

Recently my father sent me this website about the Project 366. Seeing as were both picking up photography we thought we might give it a try. The year is half way over but were going to try to get our 366 anyway. So here goes!


Credit for Project 366 goes to Project 366 and the list I'm using goes to Helen at Dogeared Photos. Make sure you check them out!