Of late...(and really late)

A few weeks ago I travelled to the Fraser Valley for university orientation and met up with a few of my friends. With Oliver and a new lens along, I couldn't resist the opportunity for a few photo shoots!

Meet Irma.

We had arranged for a photo shoot on the Saturday I was down at a surprise location (for me anyways!) It didn't disappoint!

 There was so much to work with here! 10 walls of graffitti, a nearby train track, and a wall covered in greenery!




 Meet Lauren.

Lauren saw some of the photos from my shoot with Irma and asked if she could have one too.

Of course I obliged, quite willingly! :)





Earlier Lauren was commenting on how blue eyes got all the fun.
Time to give the brown eyes a turn! Don't they pop?




AYKM?? Hellooo gorgeous!!!



I love me some train tracks!

Meet Deanna.

Unfortunately she was still busy with school and work while I was down, and this is the solo picture of her on my blog. That will hopefully change soon enough!

Safe to say: I love my new lens. (Thank youuu Dustin!)

And most recently, my (old) school's production of Fiddler on the Roof! They did a fantastic job from start to finish!

This will probably be the last blog post for a while: my summer is already proving to be super busy!
My cousin (sort of ish) asked me to help her shoot a wedding coming up (!!!!!!) so I'm crossing my fingers that I can get time off work for that!

Have a good summer!

Spring is here!

Spring is definitely in the air! Seeing spring unfold around Smithers this year reminded me of a poem by Robert Frost:

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.  



Introducing...

At long last, another blog post :) Yes, my life really is that boring. I've had essentially nothing to post about for the longest time!

However...it is now time to say good-bye to my days of walking (let me rephrase: the days when I was forced to walk everywhere)! Introducing....

Yay! New car! And man is she a beaut. (Name still pending, though accepting suggestions ;] ) This doesn't mean I've hung up my sneakers/bike for good though. :)

Aaaaand....since the last full moon was so "new and improved," here's the one photo I captured that looked fairly decent-ish. These things happen when your tripod is broken...

I had my camera set in Auto-ISO. Some people rave about the quality of their photos when using this setting, but I'm less-than-thrilled with its performance in low-light situations.

Something old, something new: Favourites

It was time for the routine clean-up/organize. I was going through my photo files (and in a short 5 months how many of them there were...!); deleting the 'attempts' and putting the 'nailed-its' into their own folder. These photos to follow are just a few of my favourites. Obviously there's always room for improvement (I mean, I just figured out how ISO works!), but I'm just enjoying the ride. It'll be cool one day to look back at these and realize how much farther I've gone! (The Lord willing, of course)

I've tweaked a lot of these in Photoshop; some have obvious changes, but others are just minor adjustments. One of the things I hope to learn in the future is how to capture the perfect frame on the first try. Because to me, photography should be less about editing photos and more about nailing them on the first try. But maybe that's just me.

Enjoy!

I think this one was definitely a "nailed-it." No editing.

This photo's been on here before. I got rid of the gross colour this time though.
Win!

Another "nailed-it." Taken with 50mm lens and macro adapter.

Not a super sharp image, but this chick makes me laugh every time :)

With folks like these along for the ride, it's never boring.

Converted to B&W using Oliver's colour menu.

Edited to create more of a 'vintage' look. Success?
If you know what kind of a camera this is, let me know, k?
I'm thinking a Brownie?

Lightened in Photoshop and converted to B&W

Edited to create a different look.

Another "nailed-it." Changed to B&W in Photoshop.

Manipulated the intensity of the colours in Photoshop.










First attempt at controlling ISO. A little grainy, but not bad.
The gorgeous ring was actually payment for house-sitting!



Adventures Of Late

So, we're ossum. nbd.

Every girl loves her roses :)

Rockin' it out!!



...then came the train. That was a close one!





<3





...duuude.



 Life's great. Nuf said.

Hope you all have a great week!



When it comes down to it, what really matters? When it comes to life, why are we here, living now, here in our respective roles? Life, touched by death, suddenly seems to have so much more meaning to it. So much more depth. So much more reality. 


The meaning of life is something that is clear to me. But just recently while talking with a friend he gave me the challenge to ponder what life means to me. They are two very different things.


The cliche phrase after a death has touched someone's life is to "not take your own life for granted." But what does that mean? Sure: live each moment. Live each moment. Fully. Yet, when you're faced with death, that's really the last thing you want to do. Smiles are forgotten and laughter seems far off. 


Yet, 


We have something to laugh about.

and life isn't a hopeless mush

and tomorrow the sun is going to rise.

It's going to be cold, and

maybe a lil' cloudy

but we'll still have things worth living for

we just gotta make that worthwhile.

(blatantly copied from afore-mentioned conversation)

Think about it. What does life mean to you? Is it just a day-by-day happening..or is there something more to it between life and death?

Technical Difficulties

Hello blogosphere! A friend kindly "reminded" me that I haven't posted any photos of late. I had the best of intentions to do that tonight...but as I am using a Mac (very foreign territory) I can't figure out how to get the photos off Oliver and onto my blog. This could be a problem...but I'll post them as soon as I get this figured out :)

On a happier note...Oliver's lens is safely on its way to Nikon in Burnaby to be fixed. It's hard to explain what went happened to it as I don't really know how to describe it. A little piece broke off of it, and that little piece helped it stay in the body of the camera. So I think it should be an easy fix. And, since it's covered under warranty...also free :)

In the mean time...I've got an 18-200mm lens :D That's kind of a big deal. I'm sort of in love with it.

Oh, and today at work I got to talk with a real live professional photographer ;) He's been at it since the mid-70's and has done some super work. I showed him a few of my photos and he said I've got "the eye" that photographers need. We're going to keep in touch, and hopefully he can show me a few of his Nikon tricks one day!

Repairs...

I'm afraid it's time to send Oliver out for repairs :/ or, the lens rather. It's not staying on properly. I sort of freaked out when I saw it just barely hanging from where it should be...but Nikon's great, and it's still under the 5 year warranty. Now to see if I can borrow a lens from work for the time that mine is shipped out...

Pyromania

Fire has always intrigued me. Maybe it's because I come from a long line of pyromaniacs. Ooor maybe it's just the way it feels on a cold winter night with a bunch of friends, rosy cheeked and breathless from the night's adventures. As C.S. Lewis said:  "Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire?" The way the flames dance, chasing after sparks accompanying smoke curling up into the night sky is a sure recipe for magic when accompanied with the right people. When bright stars are added to that mixture...it's magic, every time.

I remember when I was little and my dad was teaching me how to build a fire. There's a certain art to it, something a lot more than just matches and wood. I would watch awe-struck as my dad expertly crumpled newspaper, placed kindling around it and struck his match. Within a few minutes a fire would be roaring.

Then it would be my turn. I'd lay on the newspaper and dump in the kindling. Lighting a match, I'd tentatively set it to the newspaper hoping it would ignite. Clumsy flames would leap out and tiny wisps of smoke would curl up and then fade away. I'd crumple more newspaper, lay on more kindling, light another match. Fruitless. Er, flameless.

At that point my dad would reach in and fix my fire. He'd crumple the paper more and place the kindling on top so air could come in. I'd light the match then and fan the flames a bit too hard. Lighting another match, I'd put it again to the paper and again watch the flames lick away. As soon as I was satisfied that the fire took, bigger chunks of wood would find their way onto the fire, sending sparks flying. More smoke would curl up, making it hard to breathe and causing tears to spring up. My dad would reach in and take out the wood, gently admonishing, "Not yet."

We'd start over. Carefully, this time.