26 August 2009

My new mango candle...


I wasn't kidding about only being up a night, was I? Lol :)

17 August 2009

Another terrible shot. This was one of those "Oh crap, I forgot to take a picture today!" kind of days. Taken only with overhead incandescent lighting, and I forgot how to adjust my white balance.



On the upside, I made zucchini bread muffins for the first time and they came out fairly edible

12 August 2009

(Click for full view)



Lisa's (my boyfriend's mom) 50th birthday was today! And her awesome "AARP" cake fits perfectly into my four-day theme.



This was also my first time testing my new camera in less than ideal lighting.


I'll have to try it again... I don't like the results that I got, and I couldn't remember where in the menu I can change what lighting I'm in.




You can ignore the rest of this if you don't want to hear me whine :)


I have the rest of my pictures taken up to today's, but I literally have no time to upload any more than what I've done today. Wednesday is my last day of class and we have a presentation. I just got the data from the last person today, and it was supposed to be handed to me on Wednesday. I had Wednesday off, and most of the day Thursday to finish everything. Now I work 8.5 hour days for the next three days and don't have time to work on the project.

Ugh. Don't ya love people?

06 August 2009

I love how you can see where the little pieces fell and bounced at the bottom of the photo. :)

I know I take too many outside pictures. It's just too pretty, sunny, warm, colorful, and bright outside to be taking indoor pictures! :D



Here, I was playing with my ISO levels (50) and using backlighting.

12 July 2009

I had forgotten to take a picture today... But when I got in my car after work, I looked up and there was my shot :)

03 July 2009

16 June 2009

The college student's lightbox.


I worked for about an hour and a half on this yesterday (after I found everything). It was inspired by Strobist. Everything you see there I found around my house. The sides are made of tissue paper, and I have taped velcro strips to the inside so that I can use cloth pieces after I get everything set up.



As of today (6/17) I have purchased some posterboard which works MUCH better than the sheet I was testing with yesterday. I also grabbed some white poster paint while I was at the craft store and I plan on painting the inside of the flaps, at the very least. Eventually I also want to replace the lamp on the right with one similar to the one on the left.



You'll see in today's picture that I've tested it already. Beyond painting the flaps, I am considering trying brighter bulbs (if my lamps will take them). Someone on Strobist's post mentioned that they put white foam/poster board on the top on the inside to better reflect the light. I am stuck between whether I should do this, or purchase a cheap taller lamp to add some lighting from the top window. Any ideas?



If you're interested: here's another view of the box from today, with the posterboard. I did not edit the white balance on purpose, to keep the same colors that I see there.

5-30-09

Before I post my picture for today:


Happy 23rd birthday boyfriend!



Okay, we can continue now. :)





Playing with the pre-set night setting on my camera. That is one little light off of our dryer. It was actually really hard for me to get a good picture, because I had to cover the other lights with my left hand and try to hold my right hand steady.


I could have covered them with tape, but alas I am too lazy for that.


Also, I was actually trying to write "hi" with the light, but failed spectacularly.


Last night I was trying to get my camera to produce a good bokeh effect (I just learned that look that I love has a name!), but I think that my aperture is too low (f/3.0). I also cannot manually set it with my camera. Sooo I may need to wait a few years until I get my second love (an SLR) before I can practice that. I'm glad I'm learning these things before it's time to chose which SLR I want to purchase!

5-21-09

My 6:45 am pictures continue to surprise me.


I think I'm more creative when I'm a zombie and can't think well enough to walk upstairs.

5-12-09

Finally: Good lighting! :D

I'm really happy with how this one came out.

Plus, I got a nice reflection in there!

It would have been better if I had taken the time to wipe the table down, but I don't know that my boyfriend's mom would have approved of me going around cleaning her house, lol.

5-11-09

Beanie Babies! These are the two that started my family on a long love-affair with Ty products.

Instead of doing homework Monday, I decided that I wanted to do a little photoshoot of our Beanie Baby bears. I ended up pulling ALL 130+ of our regular sized Beanie Babies out and spent an hour taking pictures of stuffed animals.

I'm not sure what this says about me. Moving on...

This is the last picture in the ones that I have so far that I'm going to say this: Bad lighting. In this photo, it's coming from the window behind the Beanie Babies, when it was overcast outside. And while I turned the living room lights on to try and balance it out with a warmer light source, it didn't seem to work.

I have a full set of these to edit and post on Flickr. I'll add a link to the set when I get it all finished, probably in a few days.

5-10-09

Again with the terrible lighting. From the month that I've taken pictures so far, I have already realized that lighting is the biggest hurdle in my way.

The lighting here also came from the French doors. It was overcast (rather than sunny like in yesterday's picture), and I used my flash. Now that I think about it, I should have turned on the lamp above the table as well to balance out the two harsh light sources that I was using.

This weekend + me = terrible photos.

5-9-09

I have mixed feelings about this photo.

Pros:
- The placement of the objects within the frame.
- The reflection (which apparently I'm addicted to right now).
- My dog is adorable and can close doors.

Cons:
- The placement of the lighting caused the entire photo to be grainy and washed out.
- It was over processed in Photoshop in my attempts to make it look good.
- It's in black and white, when I would prefer to have this shot in color.


I really wanted to capture Missy closing a door, but with the French doors I think it's going to be hard for me to get the photo. I'm lucky that my camera caught the action on this one.

4-22-09

I learned how to hit golf balls today.

Keith and I both thought I would totally suck at it, but I didn't do too bad.
I would definitely go try it again. :)

On the picture: The exposure is totally off. It's hard to get it right with the overcast Washington weather. Even if you're armed with Photoshop. The grass wouldn't turn green, and the golf balls were all washed out. But I like the overall composition of the photo.