Somebody You Love

Obviously, the theme for the day is the title of this blog post. Why? I have no idea. Probably because I'm 100% uncreative when it comes to making an appropriate blog title! Oh well.

The day came& went. I had planned on grabbing a quick shot of the boyfriend while he was here to eat supper but that failed. I went to the barns& to grab a quick tea while still managing to capture no one that I loved. I love my mom. No, seriously. She's great. So I snapped a photo of her about 20 minutes ago but it cannot be saved. I took it wayy underexposed, the focus is off slightly& it is filled with noise. Awesome. I had planned on throwing my dog in the light box but momma informed that Squirt isn't a 'somebody'. Is she right? I don't know! Since the photo of her didn't work out to well, I figured I was using the dog anyway. He doesn't mind posing. Except that the entire time he gives me a death stare& tries to walk away. Sucks to be 5lbs ;) His reward is sleeping in my bed. How does something so small occupy 60% of my bed? It's insane.

Since there was no other living creature in the house besides my momma& my dog, I am stuck giving you guys another photo of him! I have some shoots of actual humans coming up next weekend so there's always that to look forward to if you're starting to get sick of my dog. Then again ..how could anyone ever get sick of him?! Plus today is day 9 of this challenge& I haven't included a photo of him since day 1! I would say I'm doing pretty darn good for not overloading you all with photos of the pup. Especially if you had any idea how many puppy photos I had sitting on my computer.

Autumn colors are slowly but surely arriving in Cape Breton! I cannot wait to get out& try to grab a few decent landscape shots. I hate landscapes. I love this islands fall colors. It's such a dilemma. I'm 100% still on my hunt to master landscapes ..I'm just failing miserably! At some point over the weekend, I'm dragging the boyfriend out to some location to try& snap a few shots. I wish tripods were easier to transport. Like telepathically. Hike to a gorgeous spot then think 'Tripod, arrive.' and POOF- it arrives without me having to drag it around. I actually sort of feel like that with the camera until I get a decent camera bag. The one I have now has no strap so I have to carry it in my hand. Awkwarddddd. I also need an ND filter. I should get on that soon. It would be fabulous. Why is it the more I learn& want to accomplish in photography, the more it's going to become expensive?! 

Busy!

Had a crazy busy, but awesome, Thanksgiving weekend! Hope all you bloggin' folks out there did as well. I'll give a quick recap with some photos taken over the weekend. Let me start out by saying that I didn't give up on my 30 day photography challenge ..I have the photos they are just still on the camera and/or not edited. Sorry! I promise to catch up tomorrow, sound good? Sounds good to me!

So Friday I went to the boyfriend's house to hang out with some cutie pie little kids! We colored, took some photos& had ice cream. I would say it was a successful evening for sure. I managed to snap a few quick photos of the family for my boyfriend's mom. They came out okay ..wish I had of known before it was dark though so we could have taken them outside& had lots of fun with them! I had a photo of sweet little Fiona but that's being saved for a photo challenge, Until then, here is one of the family :)

Tada. I went from never taking photos of more than 1 person before last week to jumping to 11. No biggy. Except that It was so hard to get everyone looking! I think I might need a little more practice with this whole 'group' photo experience. Not to mention I still feel a little silly when people want me to take their photo because I'm scared that they will hate the results& think I'm insane for wanting to get into photography more. I'm hoping they will be at least moderately happy with the results. The kiddies are cute as pie so, really, what more can they ask for ;)

After that adventure, I did a barn weekend. It was fun. Sunday Lila (the one we just broke about 5/6 weeks ago) went out for a trail ride with someone who doesn't ride often& came back out of the woods with no rider! Oopsy. Time for boot camp, little Haflinger! Off she went to the round pen with me. Her nerves were completely shot! Every time my legs even came close to her sides, she bolted. So unexpected but the smoothest bolting ever. Can't wait to really get them going good! She finally got over her giant overreaction to leg pressure& went along fine. She's quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I love everything about her, especially her color. I'll try to snap some photos of her tomorrow. For now, enjoy a photo of Marley& I, taken in August!

Tada. She's great. It only took Crystal months& months to get these photos uploaded! If you're reading this missy you're lucky I'm easygoing! They are so cute. She was such a good girl this evening! Isn't her mane fabulous? Fun memories. This was also the evening I spent a solid 40 minute jumping& trying to hop up on her from the ground! The little mare was so tolerant of our antics that it was almost hard to believe. If I was her, I would have just walked away from me! Crystal got some great photos of me attempting to get up on the pony's back. Here is my most favorite:

Clearly, I got some height! This is awesome. You can almost see it on her face. That look of 'I'm not sure you two are entirely sane. I am, however, going to play along because I am a nice, well mannered little mare.' Thanks, Marley! You provided us with lots of laughs that evening.

Oh so much fun. Now the colors are out in full force in Cape Breton. I'm hoping perhaps to convince the boyfriend to go for a drive to a waterfall sometime soon so we can get some really great portrait shots. We did do a scenic drive& look around today but, of course, I didn't have my tripod. I am quickly learning tripods= essential to landscape photography. Now is the perfect time for me to get my 'one gorgeous landscape photo' mission accomplished! I want one gorgeous waterfall with autumn color photo. I am determined. I may even head out tomorrow with the pup. Frig it, eh?! It could be some kind of hilarious adventure. Where I get lost. And make the boyfriend come get me. Yup, sounds about right.

Nike

[Before the post relating to the topic ..don't forget today is Monday! That means that there is a new post up on Rounder! Drop Sarah some love!]

Nike is one of my true loves. Seriously. It is actually ahead of Lulu lemon. And considering I only wear Lulu& Nike to workout in ..that makes Nike pretty special. I broke in my new Frees today with Insanity day 3. They are delightful. Here is a photo for your viewing pleasure:

[via]

Yeah. They are a thing of beauty and they help me survive Insanity. Tomorrow I'm on day 4& doing a 5k run ..may be running the Fiddlers 10k in approximately 6 days. Have I trained for this? No. Do I really think I should do it? Not really. Does this deter me at all? Nope. Why? I have no idea. At the very least I'll be running the 5k. A little disappointed that I am not doing the half marathon but oh well ..I will be doing one in the spring. I am determined! 

So aside from my deep love of Nike, I also promised you guys some photos of Meghan from the photo shoot. Granted, no one commented on my last post (are my comments working? I'm really paranoid since Disqus seems to be screwing up on me..) so it probably doesn't matter. I like them though so you're all being subjected to them!

Check out shots all around the world!

Communal Global

So there you go. Three of the 33 shots from my second attempt at a photo shoot. What do you think? I love them and can really start to see myself improving. Funny how that old saying is true& practice really does make perfect (or at least better)! Who knew. I will admit I hated practicing when I first started using my camera because it was really hard to figure out all the settings and such but now that I have that under control? I love it more than ever! Especially small objects, people and animals! I'm trying super hard to learn to love landscape photography (as witnessed by my last few attempts) but I don't. I will continue until I can at least take a decent landscape photo though. Again, determination. It gets me every time! 

What are some of your favorite things to photograph? I'm trying to expand what I take photos of (haven't you all noticed how well I'm doing to NOT flood you with photos of my puppy) and learning along the way. Do you ever get to stop learning?!

Disqus

So I made the move ..I switched my comments over to Disqus. I don't know if it's just only sort of working or what but sometimes I get the disqus comment section& sometimes I get the blogger comment. I'm hoping that it will sort itself out with time. For now I'll sit here& wish the rain would stop while watching Say Yes to the Dress. This time the little sister is really mean and talks like she's on hard drugs. She looks about 14. I'd punch her ..but that's just me!

Aside from being completely unproductive I really have nothing to say. I am going through horse withdrawals& the lady who owns Shyann will not email me back. I got called into work this weekend at the store ..and yes, I did quit in April. Interesting how that works, isn't it? Not that I mind because I do love the store& it's super easy work. The boyfriend& I are heading to Halifax on Sunday so should end up being a good weekend. The kind of weekend where there probably won't be much blogging from me due to not having an internet connection/ being off the island! How are you guys spending your post-Labor-day-weekend weekend?

This was my last night attempt at a landscape shot. It's crooked and I did absolutely zero post-processing. I think that means I don't really like landscape shots! Kidding, kidding. It's just more that I am getting frustrated with not being able to make this work out. I will get there ..sheer determination will get me at least one fabulous shot- especially with the autumn colors arriving soon on Cape Breton island! What do you think ..is there any improvement?! Eventually I'll create some kind of slide show from my first crappy attempts at landscapes up to the day I finally get my stunning photo ;) I have a feeling that slide show is still a long way off! Although I am taking the advice you guys gave me. This photo was shot with the following settings;

1. ISO- 400
2. F-stop- 39
3. Exposure- 15s

Obviously, I lugged out the tripod for this. I also took some photos of the beach earlier in the day ..I think I mentioned that? Well they got uploaded last night& I spent some time trying to save them from their fate of ending up in the recycle bin. I couldn't manage to make them worth anything ..other than a cautionary tale of how easy it is to take horrible photos! I did, however, manage to get one shot of a piece of sand grass. Or sand wheat. Or something. Bonus points to the reader who can tell me what the heck it is called!
Enjoy your Thursday everyone :)

Ouch!

Can I preface this story by mentioning that September hasn't been my best month ..and we're only 1 week in.

8:00AM: Wake up thanks to neighbor mowing the lawn. Remind myself to never leave my window open all night again.
9:00AM: Give up the fight to fall back asleep& make breakfast.
9:30AM: Check facebook, gmail (mail me back Shyann's owner!!) and, of course, the blog.
10:00AM: Grab tripod& camera to take some photos!
10:15AM: Unhook pup from his tie out& put him on his leash to come with me.
10:16AM: Notice dad leaving the garage.
10:16:30AM: Realize dad doesn't notice me..
10:17AM: Get run over by my father in his new red Civic while he was backing up.
10:18AM: Sheer panic over the camera that was flung halfway across the driveway!!
*Time line is approximate.

Maybe dad was just trying to get mentioned in the blog? May have been feeling some jealousy since I talk about Mom& her blog way more. Either way, it was funny plus he felt bad so he gave me $25 gift card to Boston Pizza and two pieces of his cinnamon gum!! I feel so loved. Has anyone ever run you over with a vehicle? This was my first time and I can honestly say it was scary. Plus I left a dent& some scratches on his new red Civic. Sorry, dad!

Bright side of this whole story is that my camera survived being flung! That is really amazing. The UV filter cracked but that's what; $5? No biggy. We still did a trip to the beach but my photos sucked. My determination to get a decent landscape shot is overwhelming and I'm heading back there later this evening to try again. I do, however, have a shot from last night. The sunset sucked but hey, determination at its finest. I learned taking photos of landscapes is HARD. What did you learn this week with your photography; Click it up a Notch wants to know!

YouCapture

Not super spectacular but whatever! Oh I also uploaded these photos as Aug 7th instead of Sept 7th- Oops! Enjoy your day, I hope it's less excitement-filled than mine. At the very least I hope you don't get run over ..too bad no one hoped for that for me before I got up this morning ;)

Landscapes

I keep trying. Really, really hard. It does. not. work. I want to be good at landscapes. I really do. I like landscape photos. I don't LOVE them but I do wish I could get a good shot every now& then. Tonight we had a pretty beautiful sunset. I have a pretty beautiful backyard and the sun sets over the pond ..so I went to try to capture this. I failed. I failed miserably, actually. I have photos to show you guys of how bad they are ..I think I should probably stick to people and animals. And whatever can fit in the light box. I love the light box.

So back to things I can't do.. landscape photos. I didn't even bother to edit or watermark these. You wanna steal some seriously lackluster shots of a sunset? Feel free. Does anyone have tips or any websites to learn from? If the answer is I need a special lens -I'm out. I do not like landscapes enough to want to fork out some serious cash for a new lens ..although it would be good to know if a special lens was needed so that I stop trying. Actually, that would be fabulous. Just lie and tell me I need a new lens so I don't feel like such a failure.

Yeah. It's not even 'alright'. It's barely decent. I wonder if I should have shot with my tripod? I'm not sure ..I know I definitely forgot to change the aperture from 4 ..oopsy. Thankfully, the sun sets& rises every day so I have another 2 chances tomorrow. At which point I will try again, only more prepped than ever for my looming failure. Oh my. Do you shoot landscapes? Do you find any joy in it? Were you good from the start? I'm finding the more I try& the less I succeed that it's becoming like having my teeth pulled. Which isn't fun. So now I'm off to watch Hoarders because hey. I can't take a landscape shot but at least my house isn't being condemned either. You can't have everything, eh?