beach day

I've been trying to blog more frequently. But I won't blog without photos to share. I feel bad sometimes that I gave up the 365 project, but today I was thinking about it and I kind of realized that it's not so much about quantity, but quality. Yes, forcing yourself to take a photo everyday will help you improve, but only if your heart is into it. The project was becoming more of a chore, and when you're forced into doing something, your heart is taken out of the equation, and you don't improve. That wasn't my intent.

However, I do feel some sense of motivation again to photograph more often. It may not be every single day (some days just have nothing much to them) but as often as I can.

Today I cut out of work early to meet my sister and her kids at the beach. They are visiting from Clermont and leaving tomorrow. I wouldn't have gotten to see them again had I not taken a half day, and I'm glad I did.

I would have missed this wave...


And this face...


And this moment. I felt like I can hear her thoughts..."there's so much world, and I am so small". She is not afraid of a thing.


EDIT: Just an afterthought...I haven't done textures in a while. So here's one. Someone on flickr said one of my photos was overly-processed...I supposed they're probably right, but I think it's a matter of taste.

Old Favorites

Once in a while I like to look back at older shots just for fun.

I took this shot on a trip to Oregon one year. My family and I have always taken this trip annually to visit my dad's parents and family. This was taken with my dad's film SLR (which I claimed as my own when I was about 15), Canon AE-1. I think this was in 2005 or 2006. This shot right now means something to me. This year I won't be going on this trip- because of the wedding/honeymoon I don't have the vacation time and I can't afford to not get paid for that long. My dad and my brother will be going alone, and only for a week. This is the first year I'll be missing it and it kind of makes me sad, even though in the past I would sometimes dread going. Things are changing and it's exciting but then little things like this make me reflect on how my life will never be the same, everything as I know it will change, and sometimes that's a lot to process.

This is my niece, Micaela, which my last post was about. She is 4 now. This was one of the very first shots I was actually very proud of. I think the reason for that was because I finally seemed to get that focus in the right place. The film SLR had no autofocus feature and everything is done manually. Not to mention, you can't tell if you got the shot until you used up the roll and made it over to the lab to get it processed. Learning was slow and sometimes really frustrating. But I got a lot from using that old dinosaur. I still love it.

My brother Mark and Micaela. Before he had a job, or a license, or a car, or graduated high school, or anything. He'll be 18 soon. Where does the time go?

My friend Kristin. She is also getting married. This was taken at a bridal shower for a couple of my friends. The thought that now Kristin is getting hitched, is, well...crazy! Time just goes by really fast.

I was going to scan some other older ones that I've never gotten into the computer, like from 9-10 years ago. But my scanner is acting all wonky.

If you want to see some amazing photography/post processing work, click here.

Micaela

My niece. She's crazy.

But she can also be pretty cute.

But, uh...she's still pretty crazy. You can literally see the crazy in her eyes.

I can't decide which processing I like better on this one!

This one...

Or this one?

Lizard

I've lived in Florida almost my whole life and I still don't know what lizards are doing when they do this.

Is he being territorial, trying to scare me away? Is he trying to mate with me? Not really sure.

Flugtag.

Flugtag, according to Wikipedia, is German for "flight day" or "airshow".

Flugtag, according to ME, is the crappiest crap that ever crapped.

It was hot. 100,000 degrees.

It was crowded. For every degree there was a human crammed into Bayfront Park to see this Flugtag business.

(By the way, I may be exaggerating the heat, but I'm not exaggerating the head count.)

It was also kind of a bore. They took too long in between contestants, the announcers tried to fill the time with their attempt at witty banter ("Hey man, I got drunk with these guys last night. Yeah, I got drunk with them too! We all got drunk! Awesome!") and everyone around me was sweating profusely and stinking profusely. Not a pretty sight.

Jared was sick that day. He shouldn't have gone. This is him sleeping on the way there.

This is a building I saw there.

Soccer Fevah

Ok, so, I couldn't care less about soccer.

Sorry. I just couldn't. Televised sports cannot grab my attention. Oh, I've tried. Just to fit in. But it doesn't do it for me.

What I DO like, however, is to watch other people that I actually know play in actual real life! And then to photograph them!

I'm getting back into this. And I'm lovin' every minute of it!

Here's just a few shots.




Just before the kick! (I have no idea who these legs belong to)


Ooof! Gut punch!


You missed. Dork.


He's so cute. Look at him with his mouth open! He can't breathe. Adorable!


And then everyone floated away.