Thanksgiving

Every year, when the trees start to reluctantly lose their summer coats, one of them in particular is a show stopper. It deigns to go out in style, producing a stellar burst of robust orange which lights up in the entire yard.

As you can see above, this tree is the sugar maple and since this spectacular show typically takes place in late October, I expected to come home for Thanksgiving break and be greeted more a mostly winter-ready backyard.

But, thanks to an unusually warm fall the colors started to shift only days before I journeyed home, leaving me with a beautiful fall tableau to photograph!

My photography has been a victim of graduate school-- I still take family photos at gatherings but besides that, my beloved DSLR has been quietly gathering dust in the corner of my bedroom.  

Even before graduate school I started to lean away from nature photography and into portraits. Which is an unusual move for several reasons, one of them being the lack of subjects. A couple years ago I was able to do an surprise engagement shoot for one of my high school friends and I loved it. Previously I had only shot nature but it was really cool to be able to do something so different.

To be fair, I was really spoiled for my first couple! She had not only brought coordinating change of outfits for them both, she came equipped with props and ideas for what type of pictures she wanted (and she didn't even know he was going to propose! It was a fun night).

Regardless, I really enjoyed wandering around my backyard upon arriving at home after a long car ride with my cat. Luckily Otto doesn't mind road trips too terribly-- as long as it's quiet and I'm not singing.

I can't believe the semester is almost over-- though I'm at an odd part of my graduate career where the lines of semesters ending/beginning start to blur and lose their meaning. Research, after all, is not confined to any time schedule except its own, and there's always more work to do. I'm only taking one course this semester-- and teaching two labs and three discussion sections-- and next semester I may take none, focusing on research until a class I want to take is offered.

But for now I'm on break (sort of, I have labs that need to be graded and a coding project that won't fix itself-- or will it? Wouldn't that be a wonderful world to live in) leaving me time to metaphorically dust off my trusty Photoshop and catch up on my NaNoWriMo word count. A couple weeks before November started I decided that what I really needed to do was a writing competition that I fell in love with during high school. It's called National Novel Writing Month and the goal is to write 50,000 words during the month of November...which is an awfully lot of words by the way.

Which reminds me-- my novel is woefully behind on word count (and woefully behind on quality writing but then again, that's not the point of NaNoWriMo). I'll leave you with these photos of my backyard (doesn't it look like a nature preserve or something? Considering we live in the middle of a city we definitely won the yard lottery).

I hope that you will have a great Thanksgiving-- I for one am looking forward to my third Thanksgiving meal this season. Last year I racked that number up to four or five-- I don't think I'll be able to break that record!

As always, thanks for reading. :)

Ma Belle Masion

It's good to be home. :) I'm not yet home for the summer, I have three days left of work next week.

As soon as I got home I pulled out my camera and went to the backyard. I appreciate my yard more now that I live in an apartment not surrounded by beautiful flowers. I was uploading these new nature photos when I realized that I had never uploaded the night shots I got of the 'supermoon'.

Which, by the way, wasn't that super of a moon. Yes, the moon was physically closer than it has been in a while. However, it the moon didn't appear drastically larger.

But I was able to get some good shots.

 

 

I have the week of July 4th off, and it's been a nice, albeit oddly timed, break seeing how my summer break will begin next Wednesday. Either way I'm not complaining. 

I've got to say, I'm loving my new lens. It allows me a beautifully shallow depth of field-- which allows me to focus on the white flower while reducing the background to strokes of green.

I love the shot of yellow in the background of this picture.

One of my favorite flowers in the yard :) 

Anyway! Just thought I would post a quick couple of pictures.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

A New Perspective

I don't even have a valid excuse for the lack of blog posts! Sure, I have a technically full-time job, but with no homework, the only thing that has been preventing me from posting is laziness.

Which stops today! You see, recently I bought my first lens for my SLR. It's a beautiful 55-250 mm lens. My kit lens is 18-55 mm which is an excellent beginners lens. However, I found myself wanting to taking pictures of things further away. Also, this lens is great for portraits.

 

And nature shots! It was difficult to adjust to a new lens. It requires you to think of things in an entirely new way. You have to be surprisingly far away from your subjects when at a focal length of say 100 mm. The huge advantage is the shallow depth of field-- the way that the bloom is in focus, but the wall behind it is nice and blurry. 

While it did take me a while to figure out how to set up my shots with the new lens, I loved the results. The shallow depth of field really makes the photos pop. 

 This is a head of garlic. While the subject may be unusual, I loved how the composition of the photo turned out. The setting sun was almost masked by my house, but a little light managed to get through, turning to blurry streaks of light orange in the background. 

 I think this is dill...I love the wispy feeling of the delicate strands, and the mellow green vibe.

In other news, my brother is getting married! Last Sunday after church I did a little photo-shoot with my brother and his fiancee. It was my first time doing formal portraits and not just quick shots where I drag my friends into the good light and tell them to smile. 

I really loved how the photos turned out. I took like a hundred photos. The new lens worked marvelously for the portraits. 

The happy couple!

I'm super excited for their upcoming wedding, not only because I'm a bridesmaid but also because I can't wait to take a million photos. 

I can't believe my robotics job is almost over! I just have a couple days this week, a week off, and then a couple days more then it's over! Then I move out of the apartment, go to Houston and apply for a visa, and then get ready for the weekend!

It's a wonderfully busy summer :)

As always, thanks for reading!

SoCo 54!

So a couple nights ago I took a break from obsessing over homework to watch some Friends. 

Because I needed some joy in my life, and Friends is kind of the perfect solution. Even though I've seen almost every episode, they still crack me up. Perusing the internet still on my Photoshop kick, I ran across a couple cool editing techniques and decided to try them out. [[I kind of realized that my whole Friends comment is particularly relevant to anything....but I had to share...]]

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

 
I used this tool called Content-Aware Scale, which allowed me to shift the main clover down, toward a better spot. I wasn't thinking about rule of thirds when I took the picture, and the main focus was too much in the center of the photo.

BEFORE:

 So I had thought this photo was kind of boring, which nothing special to it. But, I liked the green colors so I decided to try and spruce it up a bit.

AFTER:

 I still can't decide if I like the black and white edging or not....but I like the overall changes.

One more!

Before:

 I loved the delicate beads of water that were hanging on the spiderweb, but I wanted to make the photo pop more.

AFTER:

 Et, volia! I like the final product, with the heavy contrast and colors.

In other news, the last big party of the semester, SoCo 54 was last night. So much fun! They always go all out on the decorations; I wish I had some pictures of the club scene to show!

The dress was Brittany's-- a perfect 70s dress for the 70s themed party.

As always, getting all dolled up was half the fun.

Anyway, on paper I have two days until Thanksgiving break but it does not feel like that. Before I leave campus I will have finished my differential equations take home test, turned in my Physics assignment, and taken my Physics test....gahhhhh...

As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Dewdrops

More fall break photos!

Last year, my fall break photos were dappled in warm sunlight. This year, the weather was cold and windy, which drastically changed the type of photos I could take.

Not in a bad way, though. I love taking pictures of raindrops.

Another thing I love is editing photos-- I thought I would show you a couple before and afters of my fall break photos.

Before:

 
After:

Before:

After:

I've fallen in love with a new set of actions that I use for like, everything ;) I have no clue what they are called-- or where I found them. I have like fifty actions that I downloaded and then never used. Until now.

 In other news, we found a little turtle, burrowed in our back yard, ready to hibernate for winter. Until we woke up it while digging a hole.

And then preceded to ooo and awwww over it for like an hour. :)

So cute! Hopefully it went back to hibernating for the winter.

Football! I was so excited that this year, one of my team's (Red Wolves!) games fell over fall break. I've haven't been able to go to a game in foreeverrrr so it was nice to be back. :) And we won. Which is always good. Also, I was able to hang out with some friends I also haven't seen in foreevvverr.

Football and friends. What more could you ask for?

Anyway, I'm back at Hendrix now, trading in the blissful break for a ton of homework. Which I really should get started on....

Thanks for reading! :)

Home Sweet Home

Wednesday marked the beginning of Fall Break. Hendrix is awesome in that it breaks up the normally week long break of Thanksgiving into two days now, and then three days later. It's nice to have this little breather, about midway through the semester.

Anyway, I woke up this morning to the sound of crashing thunder-- which is possible the best way to wake up. Well, it's tied to the morning I woke up the sound of birds singing. That was pretty nice.

The pouring down rain dashed my plans of getting some morning pictures. Instead, I watched the rain fall as I sipped my coffee, reveling in just what a drastic change it was, being home. Once the rain stopped I headed outside to get some pictures.

If I were to write a paper on my stance about proper lighting conditions (which I wouldn't, even writing that title I feel a little bored) I would definitely include rainy/cloudy days as unappreciated beauty. I admit, I'm obsessed with light just as much as the next photographer, but don't think that just because you can't see the sun, there is no beautiful light to be found. Mostly I loved shooting this morning because of all the rain drops that clung to the flowers, reluctant to succumb to gravity.

There was a beautiful, blooming rose bush-- one that I've been taking pictures of ever since I began my foray into photography as an art form.

Another rule that I just decided to make up: don't discount flowers just because they are dead. There is beauty in more than just the pretty blooms of life. ((wow I'm starting to sound a little metaphorical here))

I like the harsh black pods of these long dead flowers.

Funny story on the next photo, I had just pulled into the driveway after a two-ish hour drive. I got out of the car and was about to go inside when I caught a glimpse of the flower below, the warm sunlight playing against the velvety purple. I had one shoe on, was cold, and wanted to go see my parents but before any of that I tore through my suitcase to find my camera, certain that the light would die out before I could capture it. Wishing I had left my camera case out, I pulled out my baby and snapped a few shots.

 I kind of love the results. I played around with the editing, trying to bring out the diffused light, and the laid back, purple vibe of the scene.

Anyway, I am off to relax! I'm hanging out with friends today, and then I'm going to a Red Wolves football game this Saturday-- so excited! It's been far too long since I've been to a college football game.

Thanks for reading :)

500 Miles pt 2

Missed Part one?

Where we last left off, my friends and were taking a jaunt through the woods.

The Lovely Adventuring Group

It was a brisk, early fall morning and we set off down the trail.

Our progress was slowed by the fact that every time my eyes spotted something pretty I had to stop, pause, and take copious amounts of pictures.

My friends were nice enough to wait as I snapped shots of the bridges, the views, and even the pretty leaves.

We took a few detours off the beaten path-- we hung out on this little rocky outcropping for a little bit, gazing into the forest.

We were running off the fuel of a couple of muffins taken from the motel lobby. The beauty of nature, though, distracted me from the fact that I was missing lunch. And I never miss meals.

It was just so nice, to be out in nature. Such a needed change from the stress of daily college life. Instead of worrying about physics; obsessing over differential equations, I was relaxed, just enjoying life.

Look at that view! This was the largest overlook we found-- the view was just amazing. I might post a panoramic later. It was very lord of the rings-esque, with the undulating forest, hidden streams just barely peaking out through the trees.

No one wanted to leave; we lingered even after the rain started to pick up.

We knew we had to leaven soon-- it was late and we didn't really know how to get back to where we parked the car.

Yeah, my friends are kind of crazy. ;) What you don't see is us yelling, before, during and after the picture was taken, at Dave to put her down. Also, you don't see how close we were to the edge.

All for the shot?

It was only after we were fairly soaked that we reluctantly left the quietly peaceful overlook.

After little difficulty, we found our way back to the car. Flipping through the food options on my awesome GPS we settled on a cheap, authentic Chinese restaurant.

Sadly, we couldn't escape the burden of a heavy homework load forever, so we headed to a local Barns and Noble to get some work done.

Once again, thank you Dave and loose Facebook regulations.

After a brief dinner (where every football game on was featured on one of the copious tvs. aka, amazingness), we headed to find the slam poetry finals!

It took a little effort, but we somehow managed to find a place to park, and make our way through the U of A campus to the student union, where the competition was held.

The finals were, in short, kind of amazing. The poems were touching, insightful, and funny. Well not all at once I should say. I should've taped some of them-- they were all so good!

After the finals were over, and a winner declared, we started our late car ride back to the wonderful world of Hendrix.

And that, my dear friends, is how our first ever college road trip of epicness happened.

Thanks for reading :)