Nicole's Birthday/Puppy Time!

I took all of these pictures when we got home from PF Chang's because I forgot to take my camera there. And I totally meant to. But I was too busy wrapping Nicole's presents at the last minute (I know, I know), and trying to remember Billy's wallet, and I don't know, I just forgot, okay?

Anyway, here are Dan and Nicole with Otis, peeking over the back of my couch. You can see American Idol on the TV in the background. We sort of had a hard time ripping Dan away from it, but Nicole pulled the "It's my birthday" card and he had no choice but to go along with it.

Seriously, if you are ever on the fence about a picture, try it in black and white. It just has a way of making things look good (in this case, the picture was a little fuzzy). That's why everyone looks back fondly on the past--because everything in the past happens in black and white. Or at least that's my understanding, based on movies and TV.

Here's a color version, because I don't know, I just love my mantle and Billy's grandma's painting so much that I wanted everyone to be able to see the funhouse and I just went with it. And by the way, these pictures really do not do justice at all to how pissed Otie was at having to pose like this. He did a little better when we put a pillow under him and made Billy crouch down behind him and hold up his butt, but he wasn't thrilled about that either.

Neither was Billy.

It's the birthday girl and her puppy! And the cutest shoes ever, which you can't really make out. By the way, I don't do a ton of sepia because I never really know when to use it and I'm always worried it'll come out looking like those pictures where you go in a trailer and put on old Western wear and stare menacingly at the camera while holding your shotgun or something, but then whenever I do use it I end up liking it, so maybe I just need to get more courageous with it.

Ah, this. Remember how I said that one of my goals was to embrace the technically imperfect pictures? Prime example right here. One of Flash's most favorite games in the world is Pants, where he chases Billy down, grabs his pant leg with his teeth, and growls, tugs, and shakes it. This is more or less what that looks like--massively chaotic. I love it. I still can't figure out what the two circles are around Flash's butt, though. Lens flare wouldn't make sense, and I'm not sure what would make that kind of motion. Maybe it's orbs! Spoooooooky! (Not really.)

Here's Billy with Flash in a half nelson, which is one of their moves when they play. Oddly (or not, since nothing bothers him), Flash never really seems to mind. I think it gives him a chance to rest up. And also, I love how this totally captures the cuteness of Billy. Yay for cute boyfriends!

This is just cracks me up to no end.

This is a pretty similar picture but if you're looking closely, you can see that the focus is different--above, the focal point is the teeth, where here, it's the eyes. I'm kind of a fan of the first one, myself, but they're both cute and I like how the bottom one puts more emphasis (because of the focus) on his face wrinkles, because they're more noticeable in that one.

Not to be outdone, here's my gorgeous Ricker watching all the proceedings and actually allowing me to take her picture. People tell me sometimes that I don't take many pictures of her, and I think they think she's the redheaded stepchild at my house. It's really not true, though. She just doesn't like having her picture taken, or a lot of attention on her in general. Plus, she's skittish and the camera makes noises and she doesn't like having her space invaded unless it's in the bathroom. So I do have way more pictures of her than it seems, but many of them are of her turning her head so I can't take her picture, or of her with her ears flattened, or her just giving me that signature Ricker Look of Disgust.

Meanwhile, Flash LOVES getting his picture taken because it means that someone is paying attention to him. In addition, if I'm trying to take pictures of something else, he will get into the frame and not leave until I acknowledge him, so usually as long as he's there, I just take some shots. Plus, he likes to strike poses and I can occasionally get him to do what I tell him to, so he's kind of a good model.

Oh, my gosh. This picture. We tried SO HARD to get the dogs to pose together and they were not having it AT ALL. So finally, I gave two ice cubes to Nicole to tempt them with and we made them sit for as long as we could. Now, two things you should know: 1. Flash considers ice cubes treats, and therefore so does Otie. 2. Nicole is always freezing, so this was a major sacrifice on her part. But I think it turned out cute. For this one, I made all my adjustments to the original, and then I created a saturation layer, which I colorized with a blue tone and then I did an overlay. I don't know what you'd call the outcome, but I liked it and that's good enough for me.

Alright, that's all I've got. Happy birthday, Nicole! I hope you had as much fun as I did. :)

Picture Time!

So on the plus side, I have been pretty much posting three pictures a week. On the downside, they've been all at once, which isn't exactly how I planned it. But still, I am proud of myself for getting out there and accomplishing what the more important goals were, which was to shoot more and to learn more about Photoshop, which I have.

Okay, now let's see some pictures!

Remember the previous avocados? These are much greener, and my guacamole was actually a lovely shade of green, as opposed to yellow. Tasty, too.

I'm sure we're all well-versed by now in my love for fire hydrants. I don't know if this is one or not, but I still kind of loved it and it looked like it might belong to the fire hydrant family. Anyway, I decided to throw it up here with the hope that anyone would know what it was. And in case you're wondering, it was taken in Bloomington, so if you're from there, you're now officially on the spot.

This one is my favorite of the bunch and I'm pretty positive will be going on my brand spanking new LIVE website (go check it out at http://www.sarahbrowndowntown/ if you haven't seen it yet) just as soon as I get a few minutes to adjust the dimensions. Perfect for the whole Sarah Brown Downtown thing, no? And I just love the colors and the broken piece, and even how it's a little crooked. I don't know if you're allowed to say this about yourself or not, but it all just seems very "me".

Okay, now this is a napkin dispenser. (By the way, I just noticed that all of these pictures except the avocado redux came from our little Bloomington adventure.) I took it at the Trojan Horse in Bloomington, which was a Greek place with EASILY the best hummus I have ever had. It was one of those really dark wood places that's kind of cramped and used to be a seafood restaurant, so there were like random ship steering wheels and a fish tank and other such oddities, and as you'd generally expect in that sort of place, the lighting was super yellow. This actually made it feel pretty cozy, but the point of this is to say that when this picture came out of the camera, the napkins looked yellow. Making them look beautiful and white is a total testament to Camera Raw and the temperature adjustment slider. Love that thing.

Taking a picture of this sign with all the paint on the letters faded off garnered me some weird looks from the bank employees, but I thought it was worth it. In the end, I turned this bad boy black and white and it made me feel like something I would've taken in art school, which isn't always a bad thing as I used to have to just go walking around with a camera looking for pictures to take and that was kind of fun.

This little treasure came from Urban Outfitters, which is an obligatory stop on any of my Bloomington trips, although I am generally WAY to cheap for that store. I did, however, snag this little gem for a mere $1.99, and have already decided that when I get bored with it, I'll spray paint it and then I'll fall in love with it all over again and it won't get sent to the Goodwill. Plus, it's a piggy bank, so ... form and function. Also, I put it in front of my two vintage-looking tins that I keep tea bags in because I like them, but didn't feel like taking a picture of just them.

It just occurred to me that I've really only got about a month before weddings start up again, and then it'll probably be mostly wedding and engagement pictures for awhile (with, of course, my occasional trip to the zoo and so forth thrown in). So in the next few weeks, I'm hoping for some serious snow (and icicles!), and to remember to bring my camera to the office so I can take pictures of the giant aquarium in the lobby. And maybe there'll be some cute and Valentiney things to take pictures of too! So it'll be a fun February on the blog, I can already feel it.

Catching Up!

Yay! I finally have some pictures to post! And also, major thanks to Nicole and Dan, for helping me to learn useful technical stuff and awesome Photoshop tricks I would never be able to figure out on my own. They are awesome.

Now, about this picture. Do you know how much my abs hurt after taking pictures of my feet in the air? I was just in the most unnatural positions, trying to get this crazy shot! And I also ordered these toe socks special from eBay to use them on my website. I'm pretty sure they came from China, so ... woo! Exotic! I'm going to lighten the picture up a bit before putting it on ye olde site, but in general, I was pretty pleased with the results.

This is my super handsome baby puppy Flash! (He's full grown, but he's still a puppy to me.) I love this puppy so much! And yes, that's my bed, and no, it's not made. Life is like that sometimes. Or, if you're me, most of the time. Can you even get over how cute that face is?

Same shot in black and white. I like the tones but actually prefer the color version.

My first avocado I ever cut open! I got a whim to make guacamole, and you know me--I do like to indulge the whims. I really didn't know what to put in it, so I just bought some stuff that sounded good, busted out my handy chopper, and went to work. It turned out pretty good, but as you can see, I didn't quite let the avocado get ripe enough because I couldn't wait. Still, yellow guacamole is tastier than you might think. Possibly because all you can really taste is the garlic. :)

Okay, now this is a picture from my brunch last weekend at the Buehlers'. Blue milk! Pretty crazy! Except really it's just the glass making it look blue. And it's not mine. I kind of hate milk, passionately. Don't get me wrong, I like dairy products--cheese, ICE CREAM, but something about the texture of milk grosses me out immensely. Plus, I worked at a Ritter's Frozen Custard in high school and would regularly come home smelling like sour milk. Oh, and I worked for like two weeks at a coffee shop in college, and I also hated the smell of steamed milk.

Anyway, enough about my weird milk thoughts and just let me say that I loved the bubbles in it. So pretty!

This is Meghan, the Buehler's kiddo, and she is THE SMARTEST child I have ever met in my entire life. I hadn't seen her since she was a baby, but she is amazing and I love her madly. I have another picture that is totally out of focus of her making a hilarious face, and I may have to post that one later as well. Also, she may have taken over as best behaved child I've ever met. I feel totally fortunate that me and Billy have friends with such good kids.

Here is Meghan in some awesome light, looking very eyelashy.

And you know, usually I am more of a "color" girl, but I really LOVE the black and white here. This is definitely my favorite picture I've done in awhile.

Alright! So that was more than three pictures, which is awesome, and maybe next week I'll spread them out a little bit more. Or not! Anything can happen!

On Goals

So it was/is my goal to post new photos three times a week, but I haven't so far. I prefer to not think of it as "failing" though, and instead to think of it as "not succeeding--yet."

I have been taking pictures all weekend though with this goal in mind. I'm waiting for my good friends/Photoshop gurus Dan and Nicole to get back into town and to show me a couple of things. I have pictures of the world's smartest baby, my rainbow toe socks, and the very first avocado I ever sliced open on the way. And let me tell you--they are just as awesome as they sound! :) So hang with me, I'll have it going on before you know it.

Cass

So I have to say that I have been really unusually busy this past week--things from the Bridal Show have really gotten rolling and I've been going to meetings and appointments like crazy. So I have not yet gotten to the picture I need to take for my website and the suspense builds, but I did still want to post pictures and try to learn some stuff.

Thankfully, in the midst of being busy, I've also had some significant time to sit down with Photoshop and peruse the internet for free actions that I can download. So for this one, I have revisited an old favorite picture and used the Urban Acid action on it. (I forget where I got it, but it's a pretty easy Google.)

Okay, so here is the original of Cass at Matt and Kim's wedding. Obviously the picture has some fuzzy edges and I remember when I first saw it that I almost deleted it, but I just kept loving it so much that I couldn't bring myself to do it. The color is also a little funky, being under fluorescent lights and all, but especially if you know Cass, this is kind of a perfect picture of her. But even in spite of loving it, I've never been totally satisfied with it and I keep trying to think of stuff to do to it, so basically every time I learn a new Photoshop trick, I bust this picture out and give it a go.

This is the result with the Urban Acid action. I really like it, even if I can't really explain why. I think it just gives it more of a surreal look, or perhaps enhances an already surreal look. Something I did learn about this action as I tried it on like ... a zillion other photos is that it doesn't always work really well on people, especially if they aren't the focus of the shot. It seems to add in some serious yellow and/or green (sorry for all the technical buffs out there--I tend to be more on the artistic approach side of things, messing with stuff until it "looks good" and not really crunching numbers to figure out why) and therefore seems to work better on warmer toned pictures. I also have a feeling that it would be most awesome on buildings, but since I dont' take a lot of pictures of buildings, I'm not sure.

Although I might have to go revisit a picture I took while I was at Herron and try this out. I think as a photography gift to myself, I'm going to buy one of those sweet looking journals that looks like it came from Lord of the Rings (you know, where you tie it shut with leather?) and make notes of the pictures I want to take and what I want to do with them after. I've been feeling really creatively inspired lately, so I need to stockpile it for when I need inspiration.

Donkey

Okay, so this is the first in what I hope to be a long and fruitful ongoing project, where I post different pictures three times a week (that's my personal goal) in hopes of stretching my photography muscles (photoyoga?), trying new things, and learning some stuff.

Alright, so this is a donkey that lives on my mantle. He's one of those little push toys that I always loved but never had as a kid, so Billy got him for me in a dollar bin at Target and he's the cutest thing ever. And he moves really well, except that sometimes his head spins around like in The Exorcist.

Anyway, about the picture. I chose the donkey because I wanted to try to make a picture look sort of old-timey and he seems like an old-timey toy. The right side looks pretty washed out on the PC I'm using right now, but it's not so bad on the Mac. Donkey is still looking okay though. I desaturated him, but not all the way, and added a diffuse glow filter. And added some blue to the color balance. This was the end result, and I love it. I would totally hang it in a kid's room or something, if I had one of those. (Kids or rooms. I live in a studio.)

Family Pictures! Jamie, Jon & RJ

Man, I have not posted in forever. And here I was, all set to be awesome at it through the winter! But then Christmas happened, and well. You know. Christmas. How can you possibly get anything else done?

Anyway, speaking of Christmas, I took these pictures just before for their Christmas cards. Jamie and Jon are actually friends of Billy's from way back, and when I first met them, Jamie was very pregnant with RJ. So we get to see them fairly often, and I have to say, RJ is THE most well-behaved, good-natured kid I have ever been around. I've only really seen him get mad once, and that was when Jon took a beer bottle out of his reach. (Oh, the humanity!) He's also the first child and first grandchild on one side, so he's VERY good at getting his picture taken.

This one was probably one of my favorites, in no small part due to the perfectly coordinated outfits. Also, as someone with a hopelessly oval face, I am totally jealous of Jamie's chin and jaw. Sigh.

Here is a perfect example of RJ really working it for the cameras. He was pretty hilarious, because when he was in a shot by himself, he would go all Glamour Shots/senior pictures on us, and pose like these were going in GQ or something, but whenever anyone else got in the picture, he would throw himself face down on the floor, occasionally sticking his butt in the air. There were a ton of pictures like this from that afternoon where he was hamming it up like the baby supermodel that he is. I hope the grandmas got a couple of these.

This is the only one that we actually got Lucy, the dog, to sit still for. She is a wild woman. Also, you can tell a little bit from this picture that she has one brown and one blue eye. So cool! And, because I don't think that it shows here, she is a big dog. When I come in the house, she is always extremely excited to see me and stands up and wraps her front paws around my waist. It's nice to be loved. I don't think she realizes how big she is, though, and she likes to stand on the back of the couch and see what's going on. When she does that, Billy calls her Lucy the Mountain Goat.

A nice one in front of the fireplace. Oh, and that reminds me. This picture led to a lengthy discussion between Billy and myself about how RJ's foot looked like one of the marshmallows in Count Chocula. I had initially said that it looked like a foot marshmallow, and Billy gave me a funny look and told me that marshmallow wasn't a food, it was Count Chocula's head. I pondered this for awhile and decided that he was probably right, and that did make a little more sense. So ... moral of the story, I guess you just never know what kinds of things you're going to learn about kids' breakfast cereal while taking pictures ... ????

A closer shot in front of the fireplace. No Count Chocula commentary for this one.

Oh, this was probably my favorite, even though it's kind of crazy and out of focus. RJ was hitting the point where he kind of needed a break, so I told Jamie and Jon that it was cool, and I'd just take one or two of them. Well, RJ, star of the show that he is, wasn't having it, so he climbed his way back in like a little monkey and taking no prisoners (as Jamie's hair would indicate). I just love how natural it looks and how everyone seems so entertained. And really, I think you can look at this picture and just know what kinds of things I like to remember about life. Hopefully other people feel the same way. :)

And here was the end result of the climbing. Totally worth it, I think. What a gorgeous trifecta!