33 posts tagged “photography”

One of my benevolent co-workers overheard me lamenting the loss of my lens.  He said he never has time to use his most awesomely amazing badass lens ever and offered to let me borrow it for a couple of weeks.  After I passed out (which was awkward), promised to be his best friend forever and ever (which he respectfully declined), and pinched myself to make sure I wasn't actually asleep at my desk dreaming the whole thing (stranger things have happened), I humbly accepted his offer and floated giddily back to my desk, already composing photos in my head.

The thing that I love about this lens, is that it sees things the way I do.  So many times I have the shot in my head and in my sight but the translation gets lost in the glass.  After looking at these pictures, I think the lens loves my children almost as much as I do...

 

Avery was sick, but she still photographs beautifully...

 

 

 

Allie is pensieve as ever.  And yes, she is my exact clone...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just got the DVD with all of my bridal portraits and I am amazed.  Jennifer Nichols and her husband (http://www.jnicholsphoto.com/) did the shoot at the old cotton mill in McKinney, Texas.  It was about 1,000 degrees, and the air was humid and full of pigeon poop, but they made me feel beautiful and captured me how I always think I look in my head, but never quite look like in real life.  They are very very talented.  If you need a photographer in or around Austin, Texas you couldn't do much better than the two of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like the "Attack of the 50-foot Bride" feel of this one.  It's like straight out of the nightmare of a commitment-phobic man.  "I'm coming to wed you!  RAWR!!!!"

 

 

 

 

Avery started kindergarten yesterday.  She was so excited about her big day that she nearly ran off to her classroom without so much as a goodbye hug.  Allie was equally excited to start the first grade.  She's disappointed that her boyfriend isn't in her class, but I think that's a good thing....

 

Avery is obsessed with Care Bears.  So of course, she had a Care Bear party.  I was worried about her party at first, since she's not in school and she doesn't really have friends her age outside of school, except for her sister.  The only kids we know outside of school are Allie's age and when they're around, then Avery loses her BFF Allie who is off playing with the older kids.  I was envisioning a really sad party where no one came to celebrate with Avery... who is the sweetest little girl in town. 

 

Luckily, her teachers at her preschool let me swing by and drop off invitations to her party.  And holy cow, you'd have thought I just walked in with the Jolie-Pitt twins.  Everyone was so excited to see Avery... all her friends were hugging her and making a fuss and wanted to know when she would be back in school.  (We're taking the summer off.)  5 of her friends were able to come and they had a blast playing at the party.  It was a wonderful success.  And I didn't even have a panic attack when I had to talk to the other parents!  Woohoo!

 

Right before the cake and candles, Avery was really wheezing and needed a breathing treatment.  She asked if she could have her cake first and I conceded since her asthma was in a manageable state.  Of course, as it's time to blow out the candles, I realize that Little Miss Asthmatic is not going to be able to blow them all out.  As I stepped in to help, Allie helped too.  Which pissed Avery right off.  She puckered that bottom lip and was about to unleash a torrent of tears because sister blew out her candles.  Hoping to distract her, I leaned in and whispered in her ear "Hey. You wanna lick frosting off Share Bear's butt?"  Disaster averted.

 

 

This same Care Bear made an appearance at Allie's birthday party (which we held at the same facility) and Avery looked like she'd died and gone to heaven.  The young man wearing the costume, knows not to speak when in costume, because he doesn't quite have that saccharine falsetto to match his costume.  Avery kept asking him questions "Do you really live in the clouds?  What's Cheer Bear like?  Can we get Grumpy Bear some meds?"  I explained to Avery that Care Bears speak in rainbows which are hard for little girls to hear, so I translated the answers for her.  (Yes.  Annoying.  No, but a stiff drink might help.)  So of course, she was super excited that "Sunny" came to her party as well...

 

 

 

 

The first time Avery opened birthday presents on her own, she was 2 years old.  We had a family party at home that year, and I sat on the living room floor with her in case she needed help opening boxes or tearing paper.  When each present was finally revealed, she would take the item in her chubby little hands.  Toys she examined with glee, she held dresses to her front in order to model, books were instantly flipped through.  And after each gift, she went around to each person at her party showing them exactly what she got and why it was so cool.  It was the sweetest thing to see such unfettered gratitude in one so young. 

We opened presents at home again, with family.  Again, I was on the floor with her to assist.  Now that she's five, she doesn't do the elaborate gift by gift show-and-tell.  But her gratitude was still apparent.  When opening every single present, she squealed gleefully and proclaimed "It's just what I always wanted!"  Seeing her so joyful and beautiful and grateful, I knew exactly what she meant.  She's just what I always wanted too. 

My wedding photographer is a genius.  She showed me a couple of pics from the 189 metric buttloads she shot at my wedding and they are fab. 

 

 

 

 

....and there's room for me to hot glue peacock feathers on them!!!!

 

Something Old - family wedding handkerchief that's been passed down 5 generations now.

Something New - do the dress and the veil count for that?

Something Borrowed - this slot is still open if anyone is interested :)

Something Blue - Hooray for shoes!!!!!

 

For my Mother's Day present to myself, I went to Mercer Arboretum with the girls.  My girls have all the sudden become girly and are scared of snakes and spiders, but they were very sweet and let me take pictures of flowers "on every aisle" as Allie put it...

 

One of four bugs the girls were not afraid of (the others being a green ladybug, a dragonfly, and a roly poly)

 

 

We had seen a snake very near here, so I couldn't get the exact angle I wanted as Allie was fretting very loudly about the snake jumping up and eating her face.  I was mocking her for her sudden fear of snakes, until I later found out that copperheads are native to that particular park.  Oops!  Mother of the Year!

 

 

This baby fern was my favorite.  So tiny and curly and delectable.  This is the picture straight out of camera, and I love it.  I almost NEVER love pics SOOC.

 

And here she is with a minimum of tweaking.  She's so pretty.  I think I'll call her Fern.

 

 

The standard, cheesy rose picture.  I wish you could smell them... they smelled somehow like raspberries.

 

 

No idea what these are called, but I want to stick googly eyes on them.  Not because of any SNL Christoper Walken obsession, but because they just look like they'd have such personality, right?

 

 

This flower looked thirsty when I first shot it.  I've been reading Blurbomat alot lately though and wanted to post-process it out of reality.  Actually, I just post-processed it into hydration.  Everyone's happy this way.

 

 

I love flowers that look like party decorations.  And I really love pretending I have a macro lens, even though I don't.

 

More to come as I edit them. I got a lot of really good shots.  One thing I love about Texas is that even when it's a million degrees outside (read: 92 with 92% humidity), there is always so much green, so much shade, and so much lushness.  Is that a word?  It is now.  

See what I mean about trying to write?  I'm going to stop that now before anyone puts an eye out.  Instead, lets look at pretty pretty pictures together, shall we?

 

Thursday, Linz and I got to go to an exclusive bridal event at Hotel Derek.  I'm not having my wedding there, but I'm down for free hors d'oevures and martinis.  We practiced different wedding planning related gestures to use while talking about other things.  And we looked adorable and shadowy.

 

We had a couple of martinis and came back to my place to eat dinner before having a girls' night.  Getting ready is always fun.  Beware of flared nostrils.  They are massive and deadly.  Do not try this at home.

 

Ron took the obligatory pre-launch photo.  But Linz and I watch too much America's Next Top Model, so we were doing commercial, catalogue, and couture poses, while giving good neck and - of course - smiling with our eyes.  Shown here is couture.  (Linz is a national sternum and collarbone supermodel, clearly.)

 

Yes we're very silly.  But not quite as silly as Ron who was trying to attack me with a blood pressure cuff.  Sphygmomanometers: As fun to say as they are to play with.

 

We had a fun evening, which was much needed by all. My mom watched the kids for us, so Friday I watched them for her so she could recuperate.

Saturday, the girls and I went to the new park in downtown Houston called Discovery Green.  It's trying to be the Central Park of Houston.  It's usually really really fun, but it was pretty crowded on Saturday, and my little clones were too anxious to play very much.  They were however eager to smile pretty :)

 

We also got to check out these half sphere thingies (their technical name, of course).  Supposedly, one person sits in one, the other person in the other, and through some sort of sound wave trick, you can hear each other using normal voices even though they appear to be very far away.  Once we were there, I discovered the magical trick is proximity, as they're not all that far apart.  I was underwhelmed.  But they make for a nice picture backdrop anyway...

 

 

 

Sunday was church and babysitting.  Linz took Cayden to his first Astro's game and baby Prestyn stayed with us.  I've never gotten to take many pictures of her, so I indulged.  She is at an adorable age where she's just learned to clap and is quite proud of herself.  I love 10 month olds.  If I could give birth and have them instantly be this age, I'd have a dozen more.

 

 

 

 

She also has the prettiest eyelashes.  I'm not entirely unconvinced that she isn't hiding an eyelash curler in her crib matress and furiously crimping away during naptime.  She moves a ton so it's hard to capture the majesty of her eyelashes, but I gave it a good shot anyway...

 

 

 

I'm off to finish my weekend by cooking turkey spaghetti, playing Webkinz with the girls, watching the Simpsons, and trying to not think about all the wedding stuff I need to be thinking about.

I'm an artist.  There's a difference.  I don't know what it is, but there's surely a difference and I most definitely fall on the artistic side, right?

Okay, so I was watching Top Model tonight, painting my toenails as planned.  They had a pretty cool photoshoot and I was lamenting the fact that my camera was still in the shop (see post below) and then I remembered that I have a scanner!  Years ago, I did a self-portrait series on a scanner and they turned out badass.  I've lost the pics since then, but I was inspired.  (Also inspiring?  Katarzyna's new haircut.  I must have it now.)

I finished the episode, dragged out the beautifying paraphenalia, and tarted right up.  Now, this time the scanning was harder.  I thing because last time, my scanner was light enough that I could just pick it up and hold it up to my face.  This time, not so much.  It's heavy.  Therefore, some truly amazing shots were ruined because I had the audacity to breathe and fog up the glass.  Even though my face wasn't touching the glass, my damn diet coke breath kept ruining things.  I eventually figured out how to hold my breath, and hold still long enough for the scanner to do it's work.  I got some interesting pieces.  (See how I did that?  I called the pictures "pieces."  Only a true artist would do that.)

They are as follows....

 

There's something kind of creepy yet serene about this one. 

 

 

This one just looks straight up creepy.  It's hard to smile pretty while hovering over a scanner and trying to not breathe.  So hush.  And yes, I'm a teeny bit obsessed with photographing my ring.  I keep having dreams/nightmares about it.  Don't ask.

 

And just a little bit of cheese for ya.  This was the first one I did and I never could quite do that expression again.  But I like it.  It looks hopeful.  I wish I could keep it on my face and in my heart at all times....

 

Urgent!  Do Not Open!!!!

 

Ack!  Um, okay?  Which is it?  Is it urgent?  Or do I not open it?  Or do I urgently not open it?  And if so, how?  My brain hurts.

This label was affixed to a box I received in the mail.  It was a 3 month supply of Avery's asthma meds.  I could operate a pulmonary intensive care out of my downstairs bathroom with the amount of albuterol they sent me.  It's awe inspiring.  And... clearly... urgent!