Creative
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Trout Lilies | In Macro
Remember back in February how I photographed trout lilies at Tandy Hills? Well, I finally finished processing my macro shots taken with our 65mm macro. And let me tell you, I think this lens is the sweetest thing ever! The photos were awesome and now that we bought the flash to go with it I’ll be able to do more with lower light conditions, which happen easily when using the higher ‘X’ magnifications. Here they are…enjoy! Today I’m also over at Sprout Dispatch, so come by and say hi!
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Almost-Instant Creative Satisfaction
The awkward mirror self portrait. Followed by the faux day dreaming self portrait. I brought out Big Bertha to work with this yarn. The yarn was a skein of Lang Maxima I received from my mother in law for Christmas. I chose the yarn to work with because I knew it would be fast and get results (creative satisfaction) in the manner I needed. The problem was the thickness. I was going for a cowl initially but there wasn’t enough yarn for that, so I went for skinny scarf instead. After I reworked it a few times, when I realized I wouldn’t have enough for a thicker scarf, I finally…
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The Creative Process
The other day I was lamenting that it is incredibly frustrating that I have my best creative moments in the middle of the work day. Those moments where I think, ‘Man, I wish I was at home because I could really get some writing/art/whatever done right now.’ So, in those moments, in the middle of the day I get excited for my creative energy and inspiration and then, what happens? I go home. And what happens when I go home? I’m hit with being tired, lack of motivation and an overall brain drain from working on projects for clients instead of my own works. I thought about this as I…
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Creativity Comes in Many Forms
A couple weekends ago we finally broke down and bought new phones and upgraded our cell phone plan to include texting. We could text before but we paid by the text not by an unlimited amount a month. We’d eliminated that when we were jobless in order to save some money. Anyway, our cell phones were also from 2004…well we had multiple incarnations of the same phone. Any time our phones would die, Chris would go on Ebay and find a refurbished or cheap one from overseas somewhere. So, I hadn’t had it but a week and it was starting to get scratched. I know you can get screen protectors…
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Macro Magic
One of our Christmas presents to each other with Christmas money we received from family was this beauty a 65mm macro lens. I had yet to play with it so I took it out in the backyard one day at lunch and shot some seedlings, garlic, and dill. It is pretty freakin’ amazing! I love using the reverse macro mounting technique and use it quite extensively, but this lens is crazy! The depth of field has a similar feeling to the reverse mounting, but it seems sometimes I can get more in focus in the whole frame with the macro lens. It will definitely be a working experiment!
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Yarn Therapy
I toiled over this blanket for so long. Its original incarnation looked nothing like this. In fact it was going to be a simple square, half double crochet alternating between the back and front loops in a striped pattern. Somehow along the way I kept decreasing my rows. The first time I did not get very far into it before I unraveled it. The second time I thought perhaps it just needed to stretch out. I do not know what happened. All I knew was that I felt that I had just begun crocheting not that I had been doing it for 9 years. I was dumbfounded. Finally, I scrapped…
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Paddling the Wild Neches | A Review
A few months ago we were in REI when I spotted this book, Paddling the Wild Neches. Having spent the better part of spring and summer working on and around the Lower Neches River near Beaumont I thought it would be a fascinating read. Ever since we did our two thru-thikes I have been intrigued by those who also paddle source to end (or sea) down rivers, particularly relatively unknown or lesser known rivers such as the Neches. I think many people in Texas know about the Sabine since part of it forms the boundary of Louisiana and Texas, or maybe the Trinity and Red Rivers, or particularly the Guadalupe…
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Afternoon with a Friend | Maternity Photography
Last weekend I had the privilege to do a maternity session with one of my best friends. Stephanie and I met while sailing on the U.S.T.S. Texas Clipper II during the summer of 1998, between our senior year of high school and freshman year of college. I don’t recall how we got introduced but she, paired with our friends Michelle and Rosemarie and my friend from high school Erika, all became good friends in college. So, that summer we sailed through the Panama Canal and down through the southern Pacific Ocean and to the Galapagos Islands and here we are in 2011 when she is expecting her first child in…
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The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania | Pine Creek Gorge
A couple of weeks ago Chris and I had one overlapping day as he went to PA to work and I was heading back to Texas. Part of our day together was at Penn’s Cave and the first half of the day was spent at Leonard Harrison State Park and hiking down the Turkey Path to the bottom of Pine Creek Gorge. It was a beautiful hike down as is evident in the photos below. I highly recommend hitting this park up if you are in the area. The trail itself is switchbacked well and maintained nicely. Though I am out of mountain hiking shape and was still huffing and…
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Four Mile Run | Sneak Peak
Since Chris and I hadn’t seen each other for two weeks we were able to get a day off together this last weekend in Pennsylvania. I was being sent home and he was going to be there for a few more weeks. We took off to sight-see around Pennsylvania and ended up at the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. We snaked our way down the trail to see several water falls and then finally to Pine Creek itself. The photo above is just a teaser to the rest I am going to process later this week. I had a bit of fun with this one, it was my first HDR image.…