looking back / facing foward

photo collaboration by Leslye and Taylor

I look back on 2010 and I feel rich in life. It was a year filled with many blessings and new experiences. But there are things in that old year that didn't go exactly as planned or things on the list that weren't quite accomplished . So I look to the New Year - to 2011 - with determination and feel excited for a fresh start and new beginnings.

I hope 2011 brings you many blessings - a year filled with happiness and joy in all that you do.

"For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

- T.S.Elliot

is it early? / is it late?

solo post - L, Nikon

What? It's too early! It's not even Thanksgiving , you say. I know, the autumn leaves haven't even fallen to the ground yet. And no I have not decorated my house (I do my decorating the weekend of Thanksgiving). I'm just doing a little photo shoot for one of my etsy sites – I'm preparing to list a few new items. Do you remember the paper ball ornaments I made last year ? I think maybe I talked about a little bit about a family craft session where we all made these wonderful ornaments out of repurposed Christmas cards. We all get cards that are treasures, ones with special messages from special loved ones, etc, but we also get a lot of cards that have no special meaning to us after a certain time. Through the years I have collected a lot and my mom has collected even more. We are putting these cards to good use by making ball ornaments. They look beautiful on the tree and the best thing is they are very light weight and unbreakable - a great thing when there's a cat around. / It might actually be too late to list Christmas items on my etsy site. Some people think a lot further ahead than I do. But I'm going ahead with it. I am going to list these little journal booklets (Christmas card list, journal, wish list, menu planner, or guest book -whatever you want to use them as) made out of repurposed paper that I get at the office - perfectly good paper that is thrown out for various reasons. I also put a printed 2011 calendar at the front of the books and a few sheets of graph paper just for fun. It's nice to have a little book to jot things down in.

So I guess it sort of is time to start thinking about the holidays whether we like it or not. I bet some of you have already checked off everything on your shopping list? Not me for sure.

P.S. I hope this isn't bad of me to self promote but who else is going to do it right? I moved my ring shop to a different address on etsy so I'm going to go ahead and say it... my rings can be found HERE . They might make a nice gift for someone on your list. wink wink

blue / yellow

L - Nikon / T - Nikon

After we saw these two shots from yesterday, how could we not pair them together. Not deliberately shot together but deliberately placed together tonight.
Two different houses, on different streets, but I think one was inspired by the blue house with yellow forsythia in the side yard and borrowed their blue paint? There were houses of many colors - lime green, plum purple, canary yellow, olive green, slate blue, even bright pink. It makes for a very colorful neighborhood. There is always something new and interesting to see we you visit.
the last time i went to cabbagetown was on a class field trip with my high school photography class. since then, it's had a rough time and 2 years ago was devastated by a tornado. i'm so happy to see people rebuilding - that it still seems to be thriving. unfortunately we were pressed for time so we didn't get time to grab a bite in the cute local restaurant or explore the streets, but i did make some cat friends along the way and successfully snapped some shots for my next photography project!

I didn't see the outdoor dining set that Taylor saw before.

summer / everything's coming up daisies

solo post  but with her image, L - Nikon / T - Nikon

The other day I told you that T asked me to get her permission before posting an image from our photo shoot. Well out of all of them, she approved this one and 2 others – all in the series with the daisies. I love them. She took the photo of the daisies then she went to pick one and put it in her hair – I snapped some photos. Doesn't it say summer – a sundress and a daisies? For me the flower that epitomizes summer is a daisy – their sunny center and pure white petals dancing in the breeze speak of freshness and a free-spirit. Remember the innocent game as a young girl? summer love at camp - he loves me, he loves me not... Well she's no longer the innocent age of twelve but she does have a free spirit that can be refreshing. / these are not her words but what we remembered together.  The last time we were here was to shoot photos for our friend's music CD. The concept included an umbrella. We were getting some great photos, cool shadow images on the white wall and then I saw it – a drawing on the concrete. The drawing was of an umbrella and childlike sun. There happened to be a puddle and some leaves, too. What a fluke! T shot a photo and we used it in the CD package.

delightful / lovely

L - Nikon D60 / T - Nikon D40x Sigma 30mm

“The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of it’s scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its lovliness.”

She looked so cute in her little purple knit hat and her new camera strap that matched I just had to take some photos.
Today we went to the I.C.E. (Indie Craft Experience) festival at Centennial Park. We saw so many things we would have liked to buy and the first thing we saw was camera straps made out of recycled seat belts and vintage fabrics. Taylor fell in love with one that had owls on it. We usually browse the entire show and then go back to what we want the most – we bought the camera straps (you can click on the photo to see how cute it is).
How nice to finally have a blue sky day. After the festival we went by a little location we like for photo shoots – one we had used for a photo shoot a CD cover for a good friend. There was a new colorful graffiti wall, a little plot of daisies, a bright white cement wall, a brick wall with numbers - so many textures and colors. I took a lot of photos but she asked me not to post without her permission - she wasn't pleased with the way she looked in them. oh well I liked them.
Oh and we went to an exciting new place for lunch/dinner called Flip. It was very european in style and the menu was so different than anything we had seen before. First we saw the dessert - Nutella and Burnt Marshmallow milkshake. wow we had to save room for that, so we did what we often do – split everything. We got a Flip burger, vodka battered onion rings and beets and goat cheese salad. We're definitely going back there and next time trying the sweet potato tots with blue cheese foam and red wine syrup and a smoke salmon sandwich with herb cream cheese, arugula, red onions, cucumber and everything spice. Am I making you hungry?

summer greens

L - NikonD60 / T - Nikon D40x Sigma 30mm lens

I'm so glad we did our photoshoot the other day. This nice grass field is now gone - cut to the ground – no more whispy wonderful grass. / i help my oma with a photoshoot of a little boy today. she usually takes the photos herself but since i was here i helped. i have to say we had a hard time getting him to relax – he didn't pose like a natural 6 yr old boy.

relaxed / uptight

L- Nikon D60 55mm, sooc / T - Nikon D40x Sigma 30mm lens, sooc

tut tut it looks like rain
We had a photo shoot yesterday and got a few keepers plus some serious ones and some silly ones. T is a good model – she knows how to pose. She's very comfortable in front of the camera as well as behind. Me, on the other hand – I'm not completely comfortable in front, or behind, the camera but I'm trying. I desperately want to learn how to be comfortable in front of the camera but I never know quite how to stand or sit or smile. I think we'll have to keep trying all summer until I get it right.
There are more attractive photos than these but I thought it was funny how similar, yet different, these two images were. It shows how relaxed T is and how stiff I am. She knows her best angles, I do not. I shoot in auto mode and she shoots in manual mode. We had brought the umbrella along in case of rain but decided to use it as a prop. We discovered it worked really well in hiding my brillo pad hair. Another thing we discovered after uploading was the drastic difference between RAW setting as opposed to jpeg fine. Her camera was set to jpeg fine and mine to RAW. It makes a difference in the saturation of the image. I have had mine set to jpeg fine and have been somewhat puzzled at the high saturation of pinks and greens in my images. Not until we compared the two did we discover this difference.
I'll post more on my flickr later.

a bright day

sneak peak - L & T

This was a delightful day in my eyes. It began with church and a meaningful sermon. Then after reading Shutter Sisters post on inspiring movies in cinematography, T and I got excited about having a movie marathon with several of the movies mentioned. Because it was starting to cloud up I thought it would be a perfect rainy day activity, so I went in search of a few movies – namely Great Expectations and How to Make an American Quilt – I couldn't find either one of them. Just as well, because by this time the sun was shining nicely. We decided to go to the abandoned lots we had been eyeing for days. There is a street closeby that all the houses been torn down in preparation for road expansion – the lots have been empty and the grasses growing high. For weeks I had been telling T about how perfect this location was. One of the first things I wanted to do when she got home for summer was to go shoot some photos in there, but the weather has been so rainy we were afraid of swamp land. Well darn if they didn't start cutting the grass Friday. But, there are still a few lots with some tall grasses so we went there today. We brought her pink chair... We had such a great time taking pictures of each other. We stayed a long time enjoying the sunshine and the peacefulness of the surroundings plus we felt completely comfortable – no worries of being caught for trespassing, etc. Hopefully we got a few shots worth posting. If not we'll be going back.
Afterwards we went out for an early mexican dinner in hopes of eating outdoors but the bottom dropped out just as we got there. No worries, we had a very charming waiter and the food was excellent – chips and salsa, fish tacos and lava cake to finish it off.
Now for the movies I did rent – both of them were horrible. Better luck tomorrow finding Great Expectations.

blue skies / gray skies

L - Nikon / T - Nikon, one year ago today

It was so cold today it felt more like February than April but looking at the forecast it looks as though we will have a sunny and warm weekend. I'm looking forward to it.
T's phone, it turns out, is fine but somehow the internet service didn't get hooked up so she can't send photos to me. That's got to be fixed or I'm afraid this will become a one-sided blog. Tonight I asked her to send something from one year ago. One year ago we were on spring break. We went to Hilton Head with sun bathing in mind, but the weather was chilly and not the best for enjoying the beach. So we had to think of alternative activities. We had fun rummaging thrift stores, ate out at great restaurants, took a 1 hr boat trip to Daufuskie Island and explored the island by golf cart, even went to a spa to have a massage and facial. Turned out to be one of my favorite spring break trips. We took a lot of awesome photos and just had fun being very spontaneous. Do you have a fun spring break you'd like to share? / this photo was taken on our trip to hilton head island one year ago, exactly, for spring break. however unfortunate the lack of sun was for my tan, it was nice for photographs.
we bought this wedding dress at the local salvation army on the island for twenty dollars, went to the beach on that cold and steel-gray day and shot a lot of photos. we had some onlookers but i didn't even care, it was fun. i used the tripod and remote for some of them and mom shot some - we came back with many i was happy with but, as is often the case, not until afterwards did i think of some other things i wished i had done with the shoot - wish i'd pushed a little further, know what i mean?