Freezing Cold

Well, it's the last day of January and it's subzero. People in WI had schools and activities closed down yesterday. Not just my city - but way up north and to the west. That's a lot of kids at home. Today there are a few to the north that are still locked up ... mostly private ones.

What does that mean for me? Means I can't go outside with my camera equipment at all!

Live-in Model

My niece moved in last month and I now have a live-in model. Hooray! Great for the practice of Senior portraits and glam shots. The downside ... is I would prefer she learn that people have different shapes and that everything shouldn't be skin tight. Therefore I started putting her in my clothes ... which is definitely going to be bigger on her but she's still thin, and looks thin, even if everything isn't stretched over her frame. Know what I mean?

So here she is, in one of my sheer tops. I did her hair and makeup and we headed out to a local track. This is about an hour before sunset and the sun is at my back.

I got a new camera. Yae! I now have a Nikon D80 that is not terribly different from my D70s (which my sister now owns). But I was having some issues with focus. The camera would tell me it was focused but my images afterwards ... tell a different story. So I scrapped about 5-6 more scenic shots. This one, actually, wasn't terribly sharp but I liked the pose and the way she's curving with the track in the background. So even though it was bit soft, I used that to go with my image. I softened it more so to exaggerate it and then added an antiquing effect.

At the end of the month I have two shoots - one engagement, one senior portrait. Lookin' forward to it!

Birthday Past

Had the birthday party weekend thing. Went up north and had a couple fires, as you can see.

I also presented my friends with some gifts. Go figure - I'm the one giving presents on my birthday. Anyway, I made 4 boxes of "stuff". Everyone got a handmade book and DVD of the events. Shenan also got a framed pic of her and me from back in the day and one of her mom with her horse. George got a framed pic of him and his horse. Adam got a book, DVD, and a music CD. And Puppy (last but not least) got a book and DVD. I don't have any frame-able pictures of the boys.

Been Awhile

Hello Blog - I've been neglecting you. I have been diligently working on creating my new website. I am just about done ... at least the difficult part of figuring out all the gallery options is done. I just need to spend a little time at home with my hard drives now ... and get all my showable work up and ready.

Hmmm ... no new revelations in my photography lately. Though I have been getting my "discount" orders out. I bought some packaging to dress up my full-priced items as well.

Nothing else too exciting to report on at the moment. I hope I get some Seniors soon ... I'm excited! I wanna work!!

Been There ...

I have been feeling really anxious about getting photos done lately. Things just don't seem to be taking a very productive turn. I'm motivated just like everyone else by money ... but I've been offering my services to close friends and family for free just so I can my practice in. I don't think people are taking me seriously. Appointments are missed, randomly rescheduled ... Oddly, my first two people ... have so far been the best! I would have thought it would have progressively gotten better ...

So, out of desperation I asked my sister to come over last night. I worked with her for about an hour and I was happy with using my new lens on some of them ... but I'm not having a whole lot of fun in post. Am I getting good enough at shooting that I don't need to do a whole lot any more ... or am I running out of things to do the images and missing things that should be done?! Help ...

I should have worked more on getting my manual settings with my prime lens. Because when they are very close (like I'm physically close to the subject) I don't like the DOF it manages when I'm in shutter priority. They look good - I think - when I'm a bit farther back. Like this image ...
I'm seein' the colors are little weird on this one too ... The internet creates another variable! Argh!

Looking Up

I awoke to this in my driveway on Saturday morning. Sometimes things just happen ...

Now today ... there are 2 foot drifts there. But for a few hours before things melted ... Someone left two hearts for me to find.

Not Much New

There isn't much new to report in the way of photos. I haven't been working on them this week and I don't have any new shoots scheduled. However, I do have tentative plans for 2 more friends to get in and do some portraits. I want to have enough good images banked (oh yeah - AND have model releases) to be able to assemble my website. I know I need to have something "out there" that advertises what I can do ... instead of just relying on faith.

So with all the recent good weatheredness (yes, I made that up) I still feel like pullin' up "warm days" pictures. Here is my car. Top one is obviously the before ... my mother took this picture. And when I got ahold of it made a few changes and made it a bit more "about the car" instead of all the clutteredness of the background. Things that could have made this picture better - different angle, being higher up, and having the shadow fall under the car instead of in front it. But I do think that given the starting point - this isn't too bad of an ending point, don't you?