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

Forget about it: a no-photo post

I no longer need advice. Thank you, Sandra, for telling me what I needed to know! I sent a long but informative message to the friend who wants me to do her wedding, and she's very grateful. She'll let me know what her sister (the bride) wants to do as soon as she knows.


As for the Mansfield Reformatory, I didn't get to go because I was in too much pain to do much walking. :( Instead, I just joined my grandparents at a restaurant they wanted to try in Columbus, naively thinking that the only walking we'd be doing was from a parking space to the restaurant. Well, I was right, but seeing as it's Columbus, we had to practically run across a busy street to get to the restaurant. So now I know not to make such silly assumptions, haha. On the plus side, the food was WONDERFUL. I don't even like macaroni and cheese, and I am addicted to their Ultimate Mac n Cheese. I want to say this place was called Eddie's Grille #27 or something like that. Def recommend it, especially if you're a sports fan. TVs at every booth!

Aside from that, I've just been busy trying to update and re-style my résumé. It was a lot harder than I expected, and I'm still unsure of it, so if anyone is interested in critiquing it, I'd be extremely grateful.

Just thought I'd catch you up here (for whenever you decide to catch up as well LOL). I'm still taking my pictures, but editing them is unfortunately getting lower on my list of priorities while I'm trying to straighten out (rather, BUILD) my life and finish up editing photos from Indiana shoots that should have BEEN done. :( I've been so close to being finished for so long now, but new issues just keep popping up. Perhaps this coming week will be calmer than the last few months.

I'll cross my fingers. -sigh-

By the way, today is day 235 of 365. Wow.

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.

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.

Eyesores

FINALLY, tonight will be the last night I post a photo of my class artwork. Tomorrow I will be spending the day with a photographer friend and a few people she's bringing along, so it should be a fun day! The next day, I have orientation for Ohio State. If I don't post that day, it will only be because I am exhausted. lol

Alright, so today's photo... yeeeah, I'm not really going to explain it since the explanation's in the pic. Enjoy!

As for August 2, I was still not feeling well that day, so I took another pic in the yard. Unfortunately, I'm not as pleased with it as the one I posted yesterday. I liked it unedited, but it was freakishly vibrant and hard on the eyes for anyone who's not [insane? tasteless? blind?] me. Since it was so bright, I decided to completely go the opposite route and try a somewhat vintage look on it.

You decide. Do you hate it, love it, or feel nothing at all?