A Warm-up | miscellaneous

Apparently, my last post was in July.  I really haven't shot much, as I've been focusing more on teaching since then.  Today I felt a need to try shooting again, and, boy, am I rusty. 

 

Customized Teacher Bag by Whitney Jude | accessories

My messenger bag I've been using to cart around all my university and teaching books, etc., was bought in 2005 and has been wearing thin for a while.  It was also too small for all of my teaching stuff for a day at work.  For the past few months, I'd been looking for a replacement bag, but my best options were too-small diaper bags without secure zippered compartments.  I'd been looking on Etsy for a few weeks, but hadn't found something suitable.

Then, I came across Whitney Jude's bags.  After a lot of measuring at my end, and conversing with Whitney, I decided to order a bag from her.  This was the first Etsy item I'd ordered other than digital crocheting patterns.  I was a bit hesitant.  For all the customizations I'd requested (and, there were several), Whitney was able to accommodate every one of them.  She charged me an extra $15 (approximately, with the exchange rate) for the customizations, which I was more than happy to pay her. 

Here is the original bag listing.  I had offered to write a review on here about the item and her services, to which she responded, "I would absolutely love it if you did a blog post about the bag. :)."

After checking the mail every day, it finally showed up today.  I am very excited to finally have it in my hands.   In the end, mailing it from Maine to Manitoba took exactly one week.  That's pretty impressive. 

The only thing I would have requested differently (if I could go back in time), would be to request that the fabric for the outer pocket (the side of the bag that's against my body) be reinforced so that the pocket wasn't as floppy-feeling.  (But that's my fault for not thinking ahead.)

Thanks, Whitney!  I love my new teacher bag.

(Go check out the bags she makes.  They're pretty awesome.)

Yellow Roses | flowers

Single White Rose | flowers

Purple Calla Lillies | flowers

Lady A | portraits

Yesterday, I picked up my first wireless remote.  I don't know why I didn't get one sooner.  Well, actually, I do.  They can be rather expensive.  However, I looked around online and found a small, inexpensive remote that has great reviews from other photographers who have bought it.  Since I still had a gift card for a local camera shop, I was able to get it for free!  I tested it out this afternoon, and it works beautifully.  Couldn't be happier, especially considering how little it cost

Also, I am turning thirty in a few weeks.  (And I am not impressed.)  I plan to take some decent photos while I'm technically still in my twenties. 

Lady C | portraits

self-challenge 1

Someone close to me got on my case the other night about not having posted anything lately on this blog.  So, today I decided to create a challenge for myself to get motivated to try something new.

I wanted to shoot in monochrome (I shot jpegs to save a bit of hassle, so there are no original colour versions), which I had done for the first time a week or two ago.  We have a huge livingroom window that lets in a lot of light, so I assumed I'd look for things to shoot in the livingroom.  I found myself wandering into the kitchen when I was looking for letters to shoot.

I turned on active D-lighting to the highest setting at one point (a function I briefly read a sentence about this afternoon while quickly looking up monochrome settings), and messed around with my ISO more than usual.

The challenge was written before I picked up my camera, and I went through the list in order to get it all done.  My main two rules I made were to shoot only in monochrome and to use only natural light.

Here are the results of my self-created challenge.

If you are curious to know what I shot to make the word "love," I'll tell you.  But only after you guess at least one guess per letter.  The L is easy.  You can see the whole object for the O, but you might not know what the item is.  The V and the E are both parts of something, just like the L is.  I had to be more inventive with finding a V (you'd think that would be an easy one, but it was hard!).  I'll wait until there are a few guesses posted in the comments section of this post before telling you what the letters are made from.  You can post your guesses anonymously if you like - makes no difference to me! 

I have never shot letters before, but I've always thought it's kind of neat.  I guess I thought it would be hard to be creative with finding angles that would work.  It was much easier than I'd thought it would be.  I chose my word first, though, so that I wasn't trying to make a word with random letters after uploading the files.  I would consider shooting an entire alphabet in the near future...

Ps - Photoshop, you can't trick me.  And don't ever switch to dpc ever again.  Me-1, Photoshop-0.

Lady J | portraits