That 70s Post

I spent yesterday (Saturday) evening caring for the wigs I've accumulated over the years, and then I put them onto styrofoam heads. After some boredom, I started playing with the heads by adding some of my many pairs of glasses and other accessories. Figured that each day for 4 or 5 days I could post a photo of one of the heads, but naturally I didn't get to editing yesterday's photo until today.

During the process, I was getting frustrated with how boring the photos were, so I started clicking on random things. One of them was this crazy rainbow gradient map I'd made for a previous photo of the day, and it was such an insane but awesome look that I absolutely HAD to keep it. In fact, I had to use it for today's photo too. Here's the result.

256 and 257 of 365; Sept. 24 and 25; faux-retro wig heads

Today, my first meeting with the Scarlette|Grey Team (Ohio State's fashion organization). Tomorrow, interview at WalMart's photo center. Now, bedtime since it's 2:14 in the morning. Goodnight!

Angles, Angels, and S'more

Last weekend was a blast. Katie and I met in downtown Newark, where there were practically no people but plenty of gorgeous bronze statues and wonderful murals to take their place. I fell in love with this little ghost town, especially once I came across their example of "vandalism".

249/365; Sept. 17; Yes, those are marshmallows.

The next day was just as great, if not better. Katie and I made some fun jewelry for our Indian-inspired shoot, and my car was stuffed with things for all the models to work with. Unfortunately, all but one had to cancel on us, so it just ended up being a 2-hour shoot with an absolutely breathtaking young girl named Katilyn. I'm actually thankful that it just ended up being her, as she was so pretty and sweet that I couldn't stop taking pics of her.

Three edits of one of my favorite shots. BTW, I made the bracelet and hair accessory!

Since she had a time constraint, we weren't going to have time to curl her hair up for the second half of the shoot. Luckily, I happened to have my trusty brown wig with. It matched her hair perfectly! We just blended her hair with the wig and got started. Here's my favorite of that set.

250/365; Sept. 18; Lens flares added for fun. Otherwise, just played with variations and called it a day.

The next three days were spent in Columbus, so here goes.

251/365; Sept. 19; Church windows. I felt like playing with HDR, but then also wanted a film look, so here's the combo.

252/365; Sept. 20; El Jefe, the epitome of man... and his favorite purse?

I couldn't resist capturing this shot of my grandfather. He is so wonderfully comfortable with himself that he can sit there looking all intimidating whilst holding his wife's purse and shopping bag. Better still, his shirt reads "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

253/365; Sept. 21; More playing with HDR.

The 21st was supposed to be my first day of attending Ohio State University, but instead it ended up being the day I withdrew from all my classes :( In any case, I was on campus. The next day (and still today), however, I didn't feel very much like leaving the house, so the next two shots were taken in my living room.

254/365; Sept. 22; Zoom-panned wall decoration.

Can you believe that one's almost completely unedited? AND it was my first shot?! I was taken off guard when I saw that I actually got the shot I wanted right away. It was taken in Monochrome with a yellow filter since the wall's yellow and the sun is a warm green. The apparent vignette was caused by the darkness of the surrounding room and the highlights and shadows were from my flash. All I did to this was use a subtle Unsharp Mask on the face. O.O  For once, I'm finally believing I'm getting better. :)

Finally, we get to today. My grandfather rearranged all the furniture in our living room, and now I sit much further from the lamp I photographed on September 9th. I'm ridiculously exhausted today, so I've barely left the couch. :( Took this while lying down.

255/365; Sept. 23; The Golden Hour Came Late

In other news, Kaytlin and I are planning a bigger, more public shoot for the weekend of October 22nd, so be looking out for those details. Also, I have a job interview for WalMart's PictureMe studio on Tuesday. Hoping for the best. I could use some good luck on the professional side.

Catching Dreams

I spent almost the entire day editing photos from fun outings that I never got to. It was a nice way to distract myself from being so upset about my lack of sufficient financial aid (and the very real possibility that I will, yet again, have to consider taking a year off to earn enough money for college).

One of the photos I edited was from my Indiana visit in March, when some friends and I joined Sandra's husband at the City Methodist church to celebrate him acing the EMT test. Which version do you like better? If neither, what did I do wrong?

Here are a few of my favorite black and white shots of each girl from the past couple weeks (that I've edited in the past 24 hours, anyway).

My ex-classmate and now partner in crime (literally, if you ask J. Imes), Katie, in action.

My fellow brown girl and new model, Abby. I so want to steal her hair. Watch out, guuurl!

The super-adorable and equally sweet Becca, who I hope to work with more. I love meeting people like her!

The ridiculously gorgeous Emily. No one will ever be able to rock that hair accessory the way that she did. 

The awesome and adventurous girl I can't believe I didn't meet years ago, Ellen. Do you believe in soul-pals? LOL

And, of course, today's photo. It's just a snapshot of part of our newest dreamcatcher, which I'll be using during this weekend's fun Native-American-inspired photoshoot with, of course, the fabulous Katie Dawes!

I cannot wait for this weekend. Hanging out with my friends has seriously been so much more beneficial to me than they could imagine. I'm going to hate when we all become too busy to have these weekends anymore.

Anyway, time for bed! Goodnight, y'all. :)

Random Photo Catch-up Post 2-- DONE!

I'VE FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH MY EDITING! Kind of. At least for this challenge, anyway... -bites lip-
Okay, on to the randomness.

219/365; Aug 18, 2011; Playing with an angel statuette

220/365; Aug 19, 2011; Barely edited flower in a neighbor's yard

221/365; Aug 20, 2011; Gotta love restaurant signs.

222/365; Aug 21, 2011; Bee and wildflowers on a photo walk

232/365; Aug 31, 2011; Otherwise unedited HDR-style tomatoes given to us by a friend

233/365; Sept 1, 2011; Duck? Vintage duck? Taken from the car

234/365; Sept 2, 2011; "The Mile-High Club"

235/365; Sept 3, 2011; Weed in my dog's yard

236/365; Sept 4, 2011; "Think she can see me?"

237/365; Sept 5, 2011; Um... random neighbor's lawn ornament.

238/365; Sept 6; Really interesting texture on a bridge

239/365; Sept 7; Must have had a texture complex those days... Another *ahem* interesting texture

240/365; Sept 8; A wall that must have looked pretty cool to me at the time.

241/365; Sept 9; The view from my seat every night

242/365; Sept 10; I love my friends already. Even If I only met them within the past month. LOL

243/365; Sept 11; Speaking of people I love, these are my favorite people in the world!!! My grandparents. <3

244/365; Sept 12; Creepy little toy that my dog hates. (Small because it freaks me out.)

245/365; Sept 13; Speaking of my dog (LOL! Coincidence, I promise), this is her waiting for Gma to get home. So tyoot.

246/365; Sept 14 TODAY! YAY!; Awesomely distressed foam head in my bedroom.

Okay, hopefully I'll keep up with the editing a little better from now on. But I doubt it, so don't hold your breath... LOL

Random Photo Catch-up Post 1

I had a plan for how I wanted to give these photos to you, but now that it's been well over a month, I don't even care anymore. So these are some of the challenge photos I haven't posted yet. Sorry for the odd array. lol

204/365; Aug 3, 2011; Crystal in Columbus

206/365; Aug 5, 2011; Child playing on a cloudy day in Columbus

209/365; Aug 8, 2011; People-friendly deer in my front yard

210/365; Aug 9, 2011; Photo-crasher in my back yard

211/365; Aug 10, 2011; Child not playing on a sunny day in Columbus

212/365; Aug 11, 2011; Jesus in my basement

213/365; Aug 12, 2011; Interesting plant on a photo drive

214/365; Aug 13, 2011; Power washing the back porch

215/265; Aug 14, 2011; Knick-knack in Grandma's craft room

216/365; Aug 15, 2011; Statuette in my basement

217/365; Aug 16, 2011 (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIL BRO!); Statue found while out and about

218/365; Aug 17, 2011; Vintage weeds and bee during photo drive.

As you can probably tell, I'm starting to enjoy being able to drive around now. :-) More soon! These were all edited in the past 24 hours, so we'll see how it goes. <3

Needs Advice by Sunday

There is a girl from Indiana who really likes my work and is looking for a photographer for her sister's wedding. I'm definitely interested in shooting this wedding (which will be Sept. 8 of 2012), but because I know by then I will still have little or no wedding experience, I told her I wasn't comfortable doing it alone. Of course, I recommended Sandra right off the bat. I also told her I don't know what I would charge, so I would research during the week and let her know by Sunday. She's such a sweet girl, and besides, I am supposed to shoot a cousin's wedding around the same time anyway, so why not?

Well, I've searched my behind off for answers, and as you can imagine, I've gotten nowhere. Thus far, all I can think of as a compromise is to find her a photographer that wouldn't mind having me as a second-shooter or whose work would be similar enough to mine to satisfy her. Do you have any ideas/advice? Should I just throw out something like a $75-per-hour price and find my own second-shooter to give some of the money to?


Anyhow, yesterday I was supposed to post pics from orientation and, since august 5th's photos are to be lumped with a different day's photos, I would skip to the 6th's. So here are those, barely and carelessly edited because I need to get to bed. Sorry!

Waiting patiently for our first advising session at Ohio State.

Pride.

Evidently it rained a little on the 6th. I had to giggle when I saw this because I'm pretty sure I've already taken a photo very similar... Guess I just really like that, um, porch ornament?

Today, I give you the 7th's photo and two almost completely untouched photos from this evening's photo "adventure". (vignetted and shrunken. oh, the editing. lol)

It may have rained on the 6th, but the 7th was sunny and warm!

Speaking of sunny and warm.

I'm still trying to figure out how he got out there. And how he's dry.

Lastly, I wanted to post that one unedited dandelion pic. This is what happens when you crank up the saturation and contrast settings on your Shooting Mode (in my case, Landscape mode is my chosen "default").

Are your eyes shriveling yet?

Time to hit the hay! I have less than 6 hours to sleep before I head out with my friend Katie to see the Ohio State Reformatory (site of the Shawshank Redemption and numerous other famous films). They don't allow "professional" cameras, so my pics will be lower quality than usual. Still, I CAN'T WAIT! AAAAAAH!!!!!

Goodnight. :)

P.S. Happy birthday, Aunty Julie! I love you more than the sun, the moon, and the chicken wings I always beg you to make.