Today I am 28.

I'm working nearly full time, going to school part time, volunteering, and raising two children (the last part with help, phew).

I just wrote the check for our first ever mortgage payment.

Sometimes life feels very .. well, overwhelming.

At the same time, it almost feels like I'm cheating. It really shouldn't be this easy, right? I mean, who changes careers at 28, especially with so much financial responsibility? Especially into such an income-risky profession? Especially to something they Love? Who has the right to be that lucky?

It's my second birthday without my mom. I wish I could call her up and talk about it all. Hey mom; look. I'm a photographer!



Okay, yeah. You can still be proud of me without me sticking my tongue out. :P

Yesterday was a bad day. From the moment I woke up (the husband turned off my alarm so I woke up late), to the nightmares as I was trying to get to sleep. I even got my first ever moving violation. Happy early birthday; I guess?

Today is a good day. I'm at the in-laws with the wee one. He's all about the woods and the dogs. I'm all about the light.




The sun was setting on the drive out. It was all I could do not to pull over every three seconds to take pictures. Unfortunately it's not something you get to do when you have an impatient three year old in the back seat.

Yarg. I fail at communication with authority figures.

Note to self: Do not try to segue. It is not good.

This class is FRUSTRATING me. It frustrated me enough that I even felt the need to encourage the professor to be a hardass. That was extremely difficult to do, and I botched it up royally, but that is how distressing this is. If you don't want to participate, why are you here?!

No; I don't expect everyone to be as excited as I am. Not everyone has denied themselves something they love for over ten years, and then gets to just turn around midstream and go chasing after it. I know this, but...

ENGAGE. Please. People. At least try. Please? I'm trying for you, but it's really easy to get to feeling defeated. It's not like most of us know what the heck we're doing. There's no need to feel embarrassed or as though you're going to sound stupid. Just speak your mind and volunteer your opinion. It's an opinion, not a statement of fact. Hell, if you know the statement of fact, volunteer that. Something, anything but glazed staring.

Yes, yes, I know most aren't reading this, but it's a vent about class in a class blog. Mrph.

Picture. Pictures are good. I wish I could see more class pictures! Maybe I post too many.





Cropped from the bracketing assignment.

Flowers for Alger-- er, Jesse

There's something of an ongoing bit in my class.
The instructor is under the impression that we all like flowers (who doesn't?),
and that we all like taking pictures of flowers.
I realized that I was missing pictures of flowers, and I would hate to disappoint.

So here are some flowers for Jesse.

Okay, so that one's more of barbed wire, but it's about the flowers.

Honest.

Story Time

Today I went on a walk. The sky was blue. There were many circling birds. The sun was bright and sunny. It was hot.








The grass was brown. There was a boy on the trail. Hello boy.





The boy sees a dog ahead on the path. The boy runs. Run boy, run.






Oh no! Look out, little dog! The boy is getting closer. The boy might eat the dog. RUN AWAY LITTLE DOG; RUN AWAY!







The dog turns. The dog growls.


The boy runs away.







Not to be defeated, the boy searches for the dog. He spots the black dog in the yellow grass, then chases him toward the fork in the dirty road. Run dog, run!







The hill was too hilly.

The sticks were too sticky.

The boy was sad.

The boy found the dog resting in the road. "Hello, little dog," the boy said. "Will you watch over me while I take a turn resting?"







The little dog got up and watched over the little boy. They were both very hot, and very happy.







Bigger here.

Blue Halo, Blue Halo; How do I loathe thee?

Even when out in the world doing other things, I find horses that I must photograph. Ha!

I went to the Legion of Honor this past weekend for my art history class. I took my camera along to do some of my bracketing assignment while I was there, and inevitably wound up taking other pictures as well. I wanted some high-contrasted silhouette (with marked highlights) shots, but I need to work on my exposure more. Plus people kept walking up to me asking questions and chatting me up while I was trying to fuss with it. I got frustrated and left.

Here are the two near-silhouettes I did manage to get:

These shots are frustrating in more than just the exposure department, though. Blue halos FTL! WTF, camera. I cry inside. QQ

Even the shot where I wasn't trying to get a silhouette is full of these pesky edgings.

I'm not sure how to deal with that sort of thing except to go in and photoshop it out, but that takes so much time and makes me very whiny!

I can't sleep, so I may as well document.

Yesterday (though kind of like today since I still haven't slept) I took 208 photographs. 208?? In 50 minutes.

Of those 208 photographs, I liked 107 of them enough to let my wife and her trainer pick some shots.

Of those 107 photographs, I felt that 28 were any good.

208 photographs - 28 decent ones. Yarg. Oh well, practice makes perfect? Maybe I can get that ratio higher in the future.

28 decent pictures; one for the blog:

1/320 @ f5.6 . Taken on my D70s with my old Tamron 28-200 . Metadata has it: 190mm.

I think anyone who reads this might be getting sick of horse pictures by the time this class is over. Ha!

pretty ponies

Today was such a long day. My in-laws came. I was tired and cranky and did not take pictures. I should have. Everyone was so happy but me.

I did take pictures of Eagle. I was supposed to take dressage shots of Feather, but Susan forgot. It's just as well. I still don't know what the heck I'm doing. Still, practice practice. I can't wait until I get more knowledge under my belt. I've found that I adore taking pictures of the horses. It's very difficult, though. They're so fast. Especially Eagle. Hanoverians have huge strides.

I took a lot of shots that I was really happy with. I might do some sort of composition with them after the title company on Tuesday. In the meantime, here are some of my favorites. I keep forgetting to convert to sRGB. Yarg.