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.

Aw, Nuts!

248/365; Sept 16; Peanut in an oddly lit bar

Ohio State still hasn't gotten back to me, and Welcome Week starts on Monday, so I guess I'm not going. :-( Monday was supposed to be the day I went to campus to get my parking permit, locker, transfer credits straightened out, and some fun time during all the WW festivities. Doubly sad.

Oh well! Tomorrow's another day. I've applied at a couple more local photo studios and am hopeful. Also, tomorrow I get to spend the night at my friend Katie's house. We'll hopefully be taking some shots of her gorgeous baby sister dancing, preparing for Sunday's Native-American-inspired shoot, and just being our silly selves, so if I don't post for the next night or two, it's only because I'm busy taking a ton of pictures (or resting from it). :D

Now, just for fun, I'll throw a few of my favorite shots from my shoot with miss Brandy Cruz née Gilbert.

Dawes, Ortiz, and the E's

Today was an absolutely wonderful day, even if it did end with me sobbing uncontrollably. My friend Kaytlin ( Katie Dawes Photography) and her two friends Emily and Ellen came from over an hour away to do a just-for-fun senior photoshoot.

We started off at the same barn where those awesome vintage cars were (see http://xolexo.blogspot.com/2011_06_12_archive.html), but come to find out, the property was NOT abandoned, and the neighbors were far from friendly. They called the owner and gave him our license numbers, and he was SUPPOSEDLY on his way, but after waiting half an hour to no avail, we left. However, I did leave the man a message with my name, number, and a heartfelt apology for the mistake.

Once we left, we went straight to the Muskingum river for some more photo fun. Here are my favorite shots of the models:

Ellen lying on the mossy ground. She was possibly the most daring model I've ever worked with, and that's really saying something. :) Thank you, Ellen!

Emily sitting on a rock in the river. She, like Cortney (of my church senior shoot), never stopped shocking me with her adorability. :) Thank you, Emily!

I wish I had the time tonight to edit a photo of Katie, but don't worry, you'll see one soon. Don't think you got off that easy, Kaytlin!!! ;D

In case you were wondering, the owner of the property did end up calling me back, and though his voice was so sweet, his words were anything but. I couldn't stop crying for almost two hours after speaking with that bloke due to a cruddy mixture of my already overactive emotions, a lack of antidepressants (ran out yesterday), sleepiness, guilt for my misunderstanding and accidental offense, and overwhelming sadness about the fact that a property so beautiful will go unappreciated. Regardless of how uncalled for his name-calling and harsh words were, I was wrong for assuming the property was abandoned. I have learned a valuable lesson from this day:
     Don't just assume that a burnt down property strewn with rusty old ivy-ridden vehicles that obviously haven't been cared for in years (and, for the record, has not ONE "private property" or "no trespassing" sign) is abandoned. If you're going to shoot somewhere, RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH!

On the bright side, that man did mention a nearby, similarly aged hotel that IS open to the public [while he was calling me an idiot, mind you], so I will definitely be checking into THAT. To every dark cloud...


As for August 3rd's photo, I'm going to leave that for another day because it involves multiple photos and this post is already far too long. Instead, I will give you August 4th's photo, taken by a pier during a break from some random ride. I will probably edit it properly in the future, but for now, I hope you'll enjoy the 2-minute edit. Goodnight!

P.S. Chloe's comment has not gone ignored. I intend to post the unedited version of the dandelion pic in a post with less content.

The Anticlimactic Return

I've finally edited my blog photos from the past 21 days now that I'm home in Ohio, so here they are. Note, I was without both of my cameras for three separate days, so I do not have photos for those days. On the other hand, there are far more than 21 photos here, so I hope you don't get as tired of looking at them as I am! Lol.

July 3 and 4:
was at my mother's house, so I photographed some of her products. she loves working with glass

Unfinished mosaic table

Candy dish

July 5:
my first ever Railcats game with my awesome friend Liz!

Obviously used the crappy lil Cybershot. lol

July 6 and 7:
went to my uncle and aunt's lakehouse in Michigan. it was amazing.

July 8: forgot silver camera at the lakehouse, forgot nikon in my aunt's car. :(

July 9:
got the nikon back from my aunt, and then we visited a couple of the babies in the family.

July 10:

took some last-minute family portraits of my cousins. shoot seriously only lasted a few minutes, but they were so great. Love those cousins of mine.

July 11:

happy birthday, Aunt Linda and cousin Geri! otherwise, had a beach shoot with the Best family (no, i'm not playing favorites. their name is Best. :D).

July 12 and 13:

generic flower photo days. I'm fairly certain I went to Deep River Water Park one of those days, but I didn't take my cams there for fear of being robbed lol

July 14:

went to my cousin Geri's house with... well, more of my cousins (i'm latin. you'll get used to the million cousin thing LOL) to swim. such lazy little ones!

Ziggy lounging under the table

Juliana doing the same

Gabriella taking a break

Anissa taking a tan.

Obviously, I've started to get bored with plain old editing. Luckily Geri had these lawn ornaments to fulfill my need to play.

July 15:

photoshoot with a new girl named Brandy. she was such a sweetie. :)

July 16:

my cousin Travis's open house. cheers, TJ!

Admiring this boy's freckles while he watched the other children splash about in the pool.

July 17:

left Gary that afternoon.

Thanks for the fun, Aunty Angie.

July 18 and 19:

both cams were packed away while we were exploring Lafayette (namely, while we were looking at homes and finding the good restaurants lol). didn't want anything happening to them while we were at the hotels. no pics for these two days

July 20:

home sweet home! creepy little statues greeted us.

July 21:

very sleepy day. didn't feel like being fancy so snapped the butterflies and went back to my lounging. lol

Yesterday and today:

apartment hunting in Athens. turned out only to discourage me more than i even expected, and now I'm pretty much just at a loss. no idea what i'm doing anymore. on the plus side, i found a really creepy plant to take a pic of, and came across a little statue that's just like one Geri has. it was rather exciting to see.

Pardon my blowouts. Exposing for the shadow doesn't do the highlights any good!

Now that we're all caught up on 21 days (3 of which I will tack on to the end of the year, I assure you), I'm heading to bed. Goodnight, sweethearts!

His First

Today's photoshoot was of my friend and aspiring model Tremont Turner. I will be taking more photos of him next week, but today, we stuck with just the beach. It was a really fun evening, and I can't wait to edit more from this shoot! Until then, here are two to tide us all over. :)