Birthday Pictures

I am a total slacker on the picture front, so here are pictures from Kjersti's Birthday AND Danae's Birthday.

You guys are all awesome! I love you guys!!

Sweetest Girls

While I was over at Kjersti's yesterday, I had to take some pictures of the girls in their new dresses!

Kjersti took this last one and it was too funny to pass up! Happy Birthday Kjersti!! Your girls are so cute! I love them both so much! I love watching them play together! You are a great mom and an awesome sister! Love you!

America's Next Top Model?

One of my guilty pleasures is watching America's Next Top Model. Danae and Kjersti got me hooked to it. I really like seeing the photo shoots, and seeing how the final pictures turned out, even if I don't love all the drama. Anyways, on this new season there was an advertisement that the next cycle is going to be for girls that want to model but are under 5'7, so my friend Natalie is trying out. She already filled out all the paperwork and had me take her headshot, a full body picture and a swimsuit picture to send in. I also helped her film a 3 minute video to try out for the show. We don't know if she made it yet, but everyone wish her luck!

My ballot

As tradition, I saw all 5 movies nominated for Best Picture this year. I am so pleased this years with the movies that I saw. They all were really good and gave me different things to think about. It was also nice to see this type of movies this year instead of some of the other crap that the Acadamy has made we watch in the last two years. Instead of feeling hopeless and like nothing matters at the end of the last two movies that won Best Picture, this year I feel like the movies had more to say and more hope to offer. I will find out tomorrow who wins, but here are my two cents.

Aftrer seeing all five movies, I decided that I really want Milk to win. I will pretty much be happy with whatever wins, but Milk was the most touching to me. It even made me cry, and that is hard to do in movies. The movie is based on the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to a public office. For me, it really helped show me the struggle that the gay community has gone through to get the few rights that they have. It was really hard for me to watch their struggle against Prop. 6 when I know that they just lost the struggle against Prop. 8. I loved this movie. I hope that in the same year that we elected a black president, we also have a movie about a gay man win Best Picture. For me, it would feel like a step in the right direction, and a little victory for the gay community. There is really so much more I would like to say, but for anyone that wants to see the movie and hasn't, I wouldn't want to ruin it.

As previously stated, I think I would be happy with whichever movie wins this year. I originally wanted the Curious Case of Benjamin Button to win. It was the first one I saw and I loved it too. Followed by Slumdog Millionare, Frost/Nixon, The Reader and last with Milk. I have so much I want to say, but don't want to ruin, so I guess if you want my opinion, just ask me. I don't know how to rate the movies this year, so I guess I'll just wait and see what happens tomorrow.

Catching up Weekend Exposures

#27: What are you following?



#26 Where is your heart?

#25 What are you giving another chance?

#24 What is your current distraction?

#23 When I trust myself...

Why PhotoShop is our Friend

Here is the picture that I worked on in my Photoshop class today. The original picture was taken inside our house with a film camera. Because it is film, the color is tinted from the inside lights. With Photoshop, I was able to change it back to how it looked before.

I have always been biased against Photoshop. Since I started all of my classes with a film camera, I always considered Photoshop to be for people that took pictures with digital cameras, messed them up, and then went back in to fix them. Since digital shows you the picture in the back, you don't have to take the time to think about everything that your doing beore you take the picture. In this class, however, we are learning about how your eye can see an infinite amount of colors, but your camera can't. When you take a picture of a sunset, it doesn't turn out nearly as nice as actually seeing it for yourself. Photoshop was created to try and add some of those colors back into your pictures. "Fixing" your pictures is what it is used for most often, but it isn't the only thing it is good for.

I am really enjoying this class.

Day from Hell

Maybe weekend from hell is a better title, but one day in particular was pretty bad. So, to start this rant, I have to set up my Friday. Friday I was scheduled to work at Sandy from 9 to 3 and then I was also scheduled at 4th from 5 to close. Of course, I got off late from Sandy and then just grab some food and head to 4th, so I am basically working ALL day. Around 9, we get a huge rush, and I am already really, really tired. Then, I get a call from Sandy that their registers have crashed. I was working with Jenny at 4th, so I gave the phone to her since she has more experience with those registers. Meanwhile, we did an $240 hour from 9 to 10. That is really busy, especially being tired, and with someone being on the phone for half of it. So, by the end of the night, we can't get the registers working again, so Justin asks me to go in an hour early to call the help desk and get them working again in the morning. So, after already working a double, I now have to get up early to go into work to fix the damn registers.

At 8:00 the next morning, I get down to Sandy and look at their registers. We still don't know how, but somehow they managed to delete the entire menu off of the registers. All the buttons, EVERYTHING. I call the help desk, tell them the problem, and they put me on hold while they try to sort it out. Meanwhile, I have 5 cake orders due out at 11:00, so while on hold, I have to get all of those done and I have 4 more after that due through-out the day. So, 11:00 comes and goes, which is when I have to open. I'm still on hold. (with occasional updates so I know they haven't just forgotten me) I have to explain to customers why I am on the phone, that I don't have a register working, so I have to write down their order, figure out the total witha calculator, and either get cash or a check from them, or write down their credit card number to charge later. Really, really not a pleasant day for me. To make a really miserable day sound shorter, basically, I was on hold with the help desk for 7 hours before they were able to get my registers up and running again for me. And even then, it took me longer to figure out how to make my credit cards run again. To make things worse, it was a Saturday after all, so I was REALLY busy. So busy I really wanted to cry. I kept sending Justin texts with updates, and he was trying to keep me calm. I found out later, that he was calling the manager too to get her in there since he could tell that I was freaking out.

After I finally got everything sorted out and some of the stuff caught up for the day that I needed to do, I started on my cakes. Sandy had been so busy the last couple of days, that I was down to about 10 cakes left in my caswe that normally holds about 30 to 40. So, Jennifer and I double-teamed it to get the case full again. I built, she frosted and I decorated. We also have to both stop occasionally to help with customers since it was so busy all day.

I worked about 14 hours on Friday and 14 more hours on Saturday. Then, this morning, after going to the gym, I get a call from Courtney that she is really, really sick. She can't stop throwing up, and there isn't anyone else that can cover for her. So, I came in, even though I was scheduled to work at 5 anyways. So, today I pulled another 12 hour shift. Needless to say, I am really tired. At least it should be a decent paycheck.

Photography for Missy Part 2

Sorry it took me so long to finally get these pictures up. Between both days of doing pictures for Missy's wedding, I took more than 650 pictures. It took me a while to pick which ones to use.

This has been such a wonderful experience for me. Since this is the first wedding that I have been paid to do, I was really nervous and didn't know exactly what to expect. I think the wedding pictures I take turn out great, but I have always just been an extra photographer, not THE photographer. I was worried about being able to pose everybody and I was scared that I would forget to do something that they would want later. Tasha didn't get all of the pictures that she wanted from her wedding, so I really didn't want Missy to experience the same thing.

Instead of having a guest book to sign, they got the pictures I took framed and had people sign the mates around the pictures. I thought that was an excellent idea. And I got to show off my pictures to everyone. :)

Especially since they blew up some of them to be really, really big. I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but they blew this picture up to be a 18x24!! It was so cool to see my pictures shown like that.

I took my job very seriosuly and made sure I got pictures with everybody that Missy wanted. Here she is with her bridesmaids.

Jesse with his Groomsmen.

And all of them together. Next came the family pictures. We did Missy's family first. The Bennett's:

I also got pictures of Missy with all of the little kids. They kept coming up to me through-out the night asking me to take their pictures. They were really cute.

Then I got all of Jesse's family. He has a really big family, so we split it up to each of his sibling's families and then put them all together in the end. The Hadley's:

Then I added the Bennett's back in so that they could have a picture of both of their families together.

After that, we had to do the cake. Missy's aunt made it, but that room was SO hot with all of us in there, that the cake started melting.

After the recption started, I stood across from their line so that she could have me take pictures of them with friends that came. When the line slowed down, I took more cute pictures of them together. They seem really happy to me, and I am so excited for them.

Next came throwing the bouqet.

And the garter. (Missy had to show him where it was.)

And some more group shots for good measure. :)

By then, the limo had arrived, so Missy changed into something else before they left for their two week honeymoon to Mexico. She also handed me an extra $50 for doing an excellent job. She said she would highly recommend me to anyone. She kept thanking me all night and told me that I saved her wedding. It was really sweet.

Congratulations Missy!! Thanks for taking a chance on me and letting me do your wedding photography. You make a beautiful bride!!