Chocolate Covered Craaaanberries!

I promise I have been taking pictures.  Daily.  I've just not been getting anything I'm happy with :(  But here is something.  Seems like I'm into sunsets/sunrises lately?

I went to Trader Joe's the other day which I found out is the cool thing to do in big cities.  I was really happy with it and I got some great food.  It was insanely busy though.  Large crowds is something I dislike.  So next time I think I will go on a week day maybe during office hours.  But right now I am enjoying some Dark Chocolate covered Cranberries which are soooooo good!!! and would really recommend them.  Anyway...despite the crowds, and getting lost on the way home in the dark, and riding my bike past a urinating man on the bike trail.... it was a good trip!

Some recent photos

I have a couple photos to add today!

What I see on my way to school every morning.

Kind of a weird picture, but I like it for some reason.

Here Brian!! This one was actually me trying a new "technique."  Didn't reeaaaalllly turn out right and the colors got all weird.  But I'll keep trying.  

Listen to This

I will hopefully post some pictures later today.  I am reading a book right now, partly for class and partly for interest, and it has so far has been really informative.  I study classical music with an interest in all kinds of music, and I found what he has to say about music in general enlightening.  He also has a playlist you can check out on iTunes so you can listen to the music he is talking about.  A lot of the music he has talked about, I already have on my list of music to purchase soon.  I am only on the third chapter.... buuuuuut I am going to recommend it anyway.  Check it out.  Listen to This by Alex Ross.

Take off

I've been messing around with Garage Band and my new keyboard a lot lately, but haven't really had anything that I've been happy with.  This song just worked so easily and I am so far really happy with it.  There are some things I want to change already, but I thought I would post what I have so far.  It felt really personal and right the whole time I wrote it.  A really amazing feeling.  I'll post any changes or additions.  I also did some drawing last night....did not go nearly as well :)

Takeoff by leann.dahn

I also wanted to include this picture I took last night.  I didn't include it yesterday because I thought it looked too similar to another picture I posted. But when I looked at them again this morning, I really like this one so I will just put it up now. You might recognize the long building from a previous picture I took a couple days ago.  

Picture Break

I was happy to have a couple walk into my picture.  This was, I believe, a 1/2 second shutter speed and a pretty high exposure.  The picture came out really bright and I think has a cool effect with the lights on the ice.

I always seem to come to this area.  I guess it's only a couple blocks from school, so it's easy.  But I also like the open space.  Must be the Iowan in me.

Took a walk in the middle of practicing today.  Sadly, the middle of practicing was a lot later than originally planned, but it was nice to try to get some night shots.  We have a couple sunny days this week so I will hopefully get some nice sunny pictures.   I had a lot of fun taking these pictures!

An Edit

There. I edited one of the pictures.  What do you think? Better? Worse?

Live music! Everyone watch :)

Took some pictures outside but didn't really get any I'm thrilled about.  Sometimes I find it hard to find a good picture without a subject.  I think this weekend I am going to go on a walk to see if I can find some pretty wintry scenes.

TWO bands that Brian is in are playing in Chicago at the Elbo Room this weekend and I'm finally able to see them. Online. From Boston. Both bands have new music and being 1200 miles away, I haven't really had a chance to hear any of it since I moved so I'm super excited! Tonight is Koplant No and tomorrow night is Slip Silo.  Definitely check them out if you are up at midnight! (or in my case 1:00 EST.... maybe I should take a nap?).

I did come home today to mess around with come camera features with Stella and am really happy with some of the results.  All of the ones displayed here are pictures I didn't expect to get, but I was photographing a live animal.  But I ended up being way happier with these than the ones I kind of tried to stage.  Learning from this, it seems to look much more natural and interesting by just going with the flow.  Pictures that are staged, maybe usually seem staged.  We had a fun little photo shoot and it did seem like Stella liked all the attention.  She definitely likes to put on a show sometimes.

I have only slightly messed around with editing photographs.  These have not been edited at all.  I think that is the next thing for me to start learning.  I was kind of thinking about getting the program Aperture. It is a lot cheaper than Photoshop and I can download it right on my computer from the Apple App store.  Has anyone tried this or have any thoughts?  I would also appreciate thoughts on what you think should be done to make these pictures look any better than they are.  Either by editing, or what I could have done while taking the picture. 

Kiss.

This is the point where I stopped trying to get her to do what I wanted, but instead decided to work with what she wanted to do.

4 second exposure

Good ol' quesadillas for dinner?  Yeah, it has been awhile.

Thursday Rustday

So today, I brought my camera with me and it was a beautiful and SUNNY day, but unfortunately, I should have known I would forget the battery I left charging at home from the night before.  But it is good and charged now, and I will hopefully get some pictures tomorrow.  Supposed to get 5-8 inches of snow tonight! I'm walking to school super early, so maybe I can get some nice shots of fresh snow on my way.

Yesterday I said I don't really like to photograph man-made things because they don't necessarily interest me as much.  An exception to that are man-made things that have been affected by nature.  Like rust, or peeling paint.  

I'm pretty sure this is my very first picture taken with my camera the day I got it (aww)   

Did find a video I liked today that shows natural decay in an interesting way.  It is really fast paced, but the more I watched it, the more I liked it.  The end was unexpected and well done too.  I like the old ships in this video and even though it doesn't show you any shot for too long, it does give a thorough look at it.  And then the graffiti at the end with the lighting.  Super inspiring.  The music is awesome too.  Enjoy! 

ARAL SEA from Romain A on Vimeo.

Concrete and kitties

Super long day. Left the house at 7 in the morning, got back around 8:15 this evening.  Oh well, at least hopefully I will sleep well tonight.  I did get out to take a couple photos today, but it was so gross outside...I don't know. Nothing really grabbed me.  I managed to get one picture where I liked the lines and the repetition.  But otherwise seems pretty blah. I think normally I like to take pictures of nature and people. Things that are living.  This picture is a lot of concrete, bricks... I guess man-made materials which don't usually interest me as much.  But here it is!

I am so ready for some sunshine.


Almost ended my post like that. But then I thought that sounded depressing and I am so far from depressed! I am studying something I absolutely love from an incredibly inspiring teacher and mentor, Norman Bolter; I have wonderfully supportive, loving, and creative friends and family (check out my mom's awesome blog); and I don't know... life is too short and mysterious and amazing for me to be depressed or worried about anything for too long :) So on that note, I will include another picture I just took of my ridiculous, somewhat hefty cat.

Knits!

I wanted to show off my winter attire. The hat was knit by my aunt Mary, my mom's sister, and the scarf was knit by my mom!! I'm so lucky to have such beautifully made (and suuuper warm) clothes to wear! Boston is warmer than Iowa for sure, but it is still way too cold :)

Cozy Day for Kitty

We are having some crazy snow today.  It has been snowing all morning. Those big huge fluffy flakes that cover everything in five minutes.  I guess later it is supposed turn into rain.  I keep checking my email, but classes are still on.  Well, class is still on. One.
So before trudging outside to the practice rooms, I thought I would take some pictures of cozy Stella.  Forget what I said earlier about her being a patient model.  Today every time I tried to get her to look at me she would run over and bump into me and/or my camera trying to get some love and cuddles.  You can't hate her for that, I guess :)  So after a couple really failed attempts, I waited for her to fall asleep and then take pictures of her then.  Half way through she woke up and gave me the "I can't believe you woke me" stare, but then took a little bath and fell right back asleep.

 This is the best one from the first bunch of pictures I took of Stella.  This is her ignoring me.

Her mouth is open, but I thought it was funny. I think she just got done yawning. Poor thing.

While these photos were uploading, I decided to see if I could capture the size of these snowflakes outside so I went out on the deck and tried to get some snowflake pictures.  

You can see some of the big flakes, but they are HUGE! Hard to capture. I had it set on a fast shutter speed...maybe I should have just kept taking more and more pictures until it worked out.  Any ideas on capturing snowflakes?

LX3

I recently received a Panasonic Lumix LX3 and am so so so unbelievably excited! Now my obsessive picture taking can possibly produce some decent results. I think most exciting for me is knowing I have so much to discover about photography and my camera. I want to be able to capture moments in the best possible way.  Stella, my lovely and patient cat, is my #1 model; so she will pop up probably way too often. Please let me know what you think!  Tips and thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 Thanks to the birds :)