#41 Springtime

#40 Mini Cherry Cheese Cake's

recipe courtesy of Bakerella

#39 Stella's Got Her Grove Back

#38 Card from Mom

#37 Have a Seat

#36 Rain Rain go Away

#35 My Name is Mudd

New Lens!

I'm super excited to take some pictures and get caught up with my photo project. I found a lens that is zoom and wide angle. It was still rainy and cold this weekend, so I didn't get to try it out like I was hooping.

I am behind on my photo project and need about 41 photos to get caught up :) It is also odd that when I was trying to take a picture a day it was kinda stressful, but thinking about taking over 41 photos doesn't seem as overwhelming. Already it has been a good learning experience.

I have been forced out of my comfort zone and need to apply some time management skills as catching up is a theme for all areas in my life. Which causes me to wonder if time management sills are really a set of methods or procedures employed to be more productive and efficient or is time management just a matter of coping and doing the best one can do to achieve a goal or task?

#34 Full Moon

#33 Brrrrrrrrr it's still cold outside

#32 Rusted

#31 Flower

#30 Moon

#29 That take our breath away

#28 Drafting

#27 Hydrangeas

#26 M

#25 Chandler

#24 May your angel by by your side

#23 Grandma Joe

#22 Self-Portrait

#21 A Fraction of the Whole

#20 Stand Still

#19 Assets - Liabilities = Owners Equity

#18 Old Desk Drawer

#17 Banana Jello

Revised 365 Day Photo Project

Ok, so the 365 photo a day isn't feasible for me...posting a picture a day lasted for about 7-8 days. I still plan to take 365 pictures specifically to post by the end of 2010.

Earlier this past week someone suggested that I should print the photos and make a book. It never occurred to me that I should do so, but I agree that a photo book would be a neat thing to have.

Today elizabeth taylor frandsen, showcased her portfolio that she had made at Blurb. I checked out the site and decided when the time comes I might have a 7X7 soft cover book made. It's nice sometimes to just fall into something, while there are the other times I aimlessly search with no answer.

How easy was that project? 1. Someone gives me idea 2. Someone else finds a merchant that prints photo books for a reasonable price (especially for 365 pages) Now I'm starting to think that loading all 365 pages will be a real treat at the end of the year. Maybe I should download the software now and add the pictures as I go along with this project.

By the way, elizabeth taylor frandsen is my favorite photographer. Her passion and creativity is more than evident within each one of her photos. Her photography inspires me. It makes me want to go to Utah, so she can take photos of me and Z.

#16 Kelly Green

#15 Window Treatments

#14 Always Carry a Spare Pin

#13 No Water Needed

#12 Cause and Effect

#11 I wonder where you are

#10 I'm Rooted

#9 The Eve of the Roof

MCP Actions and Drop It Modern Contest

Check it out!

#8 Trailing

#7 Pink Stanley

Week 1 Reflection on 365 Day Photo Challenge

Since the sun has already set by the time I come home, it has been challenging to photograph objects because there isn't any natural light. This causes harsh shadows and reflection from shinny objects. Hopefully the lack of natural light will inspire more creativity.

#6 Restless

#5 Bubble Wrap

#4 Poppy Tulip Chintz

#3 Water Pitcher

#2 Tree Trimmings

#1 Brrrrr It's Cold Outside

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

For the last couple of weeks, I've been organizing stuff in the house. It was a little overwhelming going through the closets and stuff. We were using the laundry room or rather laundry area as an overflow storage for our clothes. Normally in a laundry room that wouldn't be a problem, but ours is not enclosed. The laundry area is right off the kitchen, and the dishwasher is also there along with a door to the outside. All organizing brought me to what I would like to start doing more of for 2010.

My Goals for 2010 ~ seriously it's already 2010????

Photography Goals
~Organize and delete photos on computer

~365 day photo project

Personal Goals
~Monitor what I buy more closely

~Budget a little more

I am loading PSE 8

I am soooooooooooooo excited. School is over and now I have time to use my early Christmas gift. I have seriously been going through withdraws!

DPS-Portrait ebook

Just got myself the Portrait ebook from DPS. Can't wait to read it.

Should have known better

Today was my niece J's baptism. She wore the same baptismal dress my aunt, my mother, my sister, and I wore at our baptism. My mom was very delighted that J wore the dress. Close family members including babies, toddlers, ornery boys, grandpa's, grandma's, great, and great-greats, too along with aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered together to share the moment and a brunch. For November, it was an unseasonably warmer day.

Many images to record, but no click, click, or flash, flash for me because neither of my two camera batteries were charged! I tried to get another battery, but noooooooooo the few places I could get one in the one horse town didn't have any. As soon as I got home I ordered a car charger for the en el9 battery. I plan to carry it in my purse, or I will get two and put them in both of the cars for the just in case moments. I may even get another battery, so I can have 3. It feels a little excessive though kinda like buying two chargers for the cars.

I guess it's just been a little hectic and I haven't really been taking as many photo's as I would like. I never even used the trial version of PSE8 and it has already expired.

Photoshop Elements 8

Well looks like Adobe is releasing Photoshop Elements 8. I am in process of downloading the trial version from Adobe!!!

Doing cartwheels, round-offs, and having photoshop withdraws

I am holing on to tonight because the weather is just relaxing. I did cartwheels and round-offs with the neighbor girls. Let me just say that I felt the round-off just a little in my upper thigh.

About the photoshop withdraw...I got a new computer. My vintage 2001 Dell with 2gb of operating memory (1gb of which I had to install) and 34gb hard drive space was just not working so well. Especially when I was using RAW format.

I will admit that I do like the thought of RAW and I was able to edit a few photos, but I'm really not at the point that I know what I am doing. I think for now I will use JPEG and work on learning the proper techniques including aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lighting, and composition. Understanding Exposure, Understanding Shutter Speed,Learning to See Creatively, Understanding Close up Photography, and Understanding Photography Field Guide by Brian Peterson are amazingly easy to read and understand.

Anyway with the new computer I do not have photoshop and I am having withdraws. I do edit some using PSE, but mainly to crop or use some of the actions from CoffeeShop. Since I still have so many picture in RAW format, I can not access them unless I use something like Microsoft Live Picture viewer or something and that is just to much work.

CoffeeShop has a tutorial on how to create watermarks, and I am interested in working on making one. I am reluctant to get PSE7 because I have a feeling as soon as I do, Adobe will release PSE8 or something. Apparently you can download one PSE7 license on two computers, but for some reason it does not like my serial number.

Next weekend my sister wants me to take some family pics with her husband and baby j. My other niece baby K is having her 1st birthday, so I'm going to take pics there, too. I'm sure I'll figure something out with photoshop.

Gma and Baby J

Baby J

Glad I did it!

Well Photography class is over. I am majoring in Business Administration and realistically should have used the the 4 credits towards accumulating 21 credit hours of accounting. Sometimes it is hard to be impractical, but I am so glad I decided to take photography rather than extra accounting classes.

I decided that in Spring, I will be taking Photography II. I chose to take it in the Spring rather than next summer, because I will have 5 months and a couple of seasons rather than 2 months to find things to photograph.

It was a challenge trying to balance the principles of photography and stretching for creativity. For example I really like the creative use of depth of field. Like when a flower is in focus but the back ground is thrown out of focus. The professor really didn't want to see much of that kinda of stuff at this point. He wanted sharp focus and proper depth of field.

So basically I made it harder than it needed to be because I was really searching for things that I could photograph. The best assignment that really made it things start to click was the lighting assignment.

For the assignment we had to choose one thing to photograph during different times of the day. So if you are looking for somewhere to start I would suggest doing just so.

I chose a set of railroad tracks near my house. One of the 5 or so times I went to the tracks, it was 8 am or so and lightly raining. Later on in the same day it was wet from the rain but sunny. I also thought the closer I got to the bridge that was over the tracks, the better the pictures would be. The professor actually liked the bridge from afar and I agree.

The click of the shutter release or rather lightbulb!

Some things are finally clicking! Initially my attempts to find some interesting things to take pictures were thwarted by the thick vegetation, which just makes a messy picture. I think it looks ok, but certainly not what the professor is looking for.



So I decided to one of two parks I thought I'd be able to find something interesting...like maybe the rose garden. The roses are in some serious need of someone with a green thumb. I headed to the other park I had in mind.

I decided the bridge over the pond would be a good place to start and took a couple of photos. There is a "waterfall" or rather little spillway from an elevated part of the pond into the lower part. I just couldn't get the "waterfall" to have the softness. I went home to look at one of my photography books to determine which shutter speed would achieve the image I wanted.

I headed back to the park at 7:30 or so. With the light a was less harsh, I set my shutter speed of 1/4 and I was able to achieve the effect.



Here is were it's starting to click....I changed positions away from the water and as I was focusing the camera and filling the frame, a little girl came and sat down in front of the bridge. It was too cute, until I reviewed the pictures at home. She is blurry in all the other pictures, because I captured her movement using the slow shutter speed at 1/4th. REMEMBER TO CHANGE SHUTTER SPEED.

I am hoping that maybe a few of the film pictures with the little girl will be decent. A few more kids walked through at one point. Maybe I will be surprised with the way they turn out.

mcp actions blog Tamron lens give away!

mcp actions blog is hosting a Tamron lens give away. Click on this post and find out how to enter the give away!

mcp actions Tamron giveaway

mcp actions blog is hosting a Tamron lens give away. Click on this post and find out how to enter the give away!

CofeeShop Giveaway!

I stumbled upon CoffeeShop while looking for tips on Photoshop Elements 6 and what a great blog!!!! (Not just saying so because of giveaway-just sayin'!) Oh by the way there is a giveaway for a blogger template. Go to the blog and add the CoffeeShop button and add a comment. I've had the button on my blog for a few months but I am putting it in this post anyway.