Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Book: The Photographer's Eye

I have finished my book Betrayed that I started reading Monday 6/20. I finished this on Monday 6/27. Yes this only took me a week to finish. Crazy I know! I was really good so I just keep reading and reading. I love books like that.
Instead of getting Book #3 of this series right away. I decided to put more focus into my first photography book that I need to read.
 I have begun reading The Photographer's Eye by Micheal Freeman.

So far I'm enjoying this book. I look forward to reading and learning lots more from this book. :)

Here's an overview of what this book is about:
Design is the single most important factor in creating a successful photograph. The ability to see the potential for a strong picture and then organize the graphic elements into an effective, compelling composition has always been one of the key skills in making photographs.

Digital photography has brought a new, exciting aspect to design - first because the instant feedback from a digital camera allows immediate appraisal and improvement; and second because image-editing tools make it possible to alter and enhance the design after the shutter has been pressed. This has had a profound effect on the way digital photographers take pictures.

The Photographer's Eye shows how anyone can develop the ability to see and shoot great digital photographs. The book explores all the traditional approaches to composition and design, but crucially, it also addresses the new digital technique of shooting in the knowledge that a picture will later be edited, manipulated, or montage to result in a final image that may be very different from the one seen in the viewfinder.

Features
•Covers both traditional in-camera composition and the new opportunities for picture-making made possible by digital imaging editing
•Shows how to explore situations and locations in order to find the best possible photographic possibilities
•Uses clear examples from real photographic assignments, with schematic illustrations of how and why the pictures work
•First book to tackle the subject of composition and design for photographers
•350 color images from real photographic assignments, with schematic illustrations of how and why the images work

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Babies, Babies!!!

Everyone just loves babies! Over the weekend I got to play with 2 new baby girls. One was a few months old and the other was just 12 days old. They both were so stinkin' cute and such good babies. I thought it would be fun to take pictures of them. I just love pictures of little babies. You never know what kind of expression you can caught them doing. It's so fun! :)

This is Baby Harper Lynne Falls. She was born on June 13, 2011.

I edited this picture by making it black and white then just making her dress colored.
Her little eyes were trying to peek out and see everyone!

 This pictures was also edited to black & white and the flowers just made colored. I loved how this looks!
Doesn't she look so sassy with her hand on her face an a little smile. Love it!

 She was a sleepy baby BIG Yawn!

This is Baby Vera Joanne Schmitt. She was born on April 18, 2011.

This was edited by making black & white and just making the chair colored around her.
Doesn't she look so precious sleeping

This picture was edited by making Black & White.
Her smile is so pretty. Her Uncle Peter was singing to her and she loved it.

Just hanging out on mommy!

This picture was edited by making Black & White.
I love swinging with Aunt Brooke!

I looked forwarded to getting to take more pictures of the babies. I just loved capturing there little faces to see what they were going to do next. :)



Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Float Trip 2011

A few weeks ago I mentioned we were going on a Float Trip. This was my 2nd float trip with the group we went with and it was a ton of fun! This group this year was missing a few people due to 2 of them just having babies! But next year they will be returning.
We headed out Friday morning around 9am to The Elk River in Noel, Mo. It's a little over a 3 hour drive. We got down there set up camp and hung out in the River most of the day. It was just 4 of us till later in the afternoon when the other people showed up. It was really nice and relaxing. Saturday we got up had breakfast and got everything we needed ready for the float. We started our float about 10am and got done about 4:30pm. It was a good day. We had 9 of us floating so we had 2 rafts and tied them together. Sunday we did wake to it raining. We just stayed in our tents and slept till it stopped and we could pack up. At least it didn't rain on us during the float. We had great weather all weekend. It wasn't super hot so that was nice. It was comfortable being outside and the water was cold but you got used to it. On the way home we stopped at Shoney's. We don't have one here in Kansas City anymore. I used to love going to this place for the breakfast buffet. It's still yummy and is great after a full weekend of none stop drinking. Just want the body needs to recover for the ride home. LOL.

The name of the Float Gang (Red Neck Yacdt Club)
Do you see the turtle? We seen many of these while floating down the river
The Girls!
The Boys (They were being silly in this pic)

I'm very much looking forward to next year when we go again. :)

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Book: Betrayed

I have finished my book Marked and I have started the next book in the Series called Betrayed. The first book I really enjoyed so I'm anxious to read more of this series. This series is made up of 9 books so I have a lot of reading ahead of me. :) I just started this book yesterday and I'm already on chapter 8.
I was able to do a lot of reading yesterday because we were at the hospital. My husband's dad was having a single bypass so we were up there while he was in surgery. It was a long morning but all is well and he is doing good. :) So thankful everything went good with no problems.



Just an overview of what this book is about.
Zoey, High Priestess in training, has managed to settle in at the House of Night and come to terms with the vast powers the Vampyre Goddess Nyx has given her. Just as she finally feels she belongs, the unthinkable happens: human teenagers are being killed, and all evidence points to the House of Night. While danger stalks the humans from Zoey’s old life, she begins to realize that the very powers that make her so unique might also threaten those she loves.
I'm really enjoying this series so it shouldn't take me super long to finish it up.



Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Happy Happy Birthday

My birthday was May 31st and my father in laws was June 3rd. So we had a birthday celebration together back on June 5th. We had a yummy dinner of chicken kabobs and some sides. And of course cake for our dessert. Everything was very good! I did have a good birthday this year I have fun filled Stay-cation and some time with family celebrating. I got lots of fun goodies as well.

The 92 is for how old Wayne & I together, but they actually miscounted it should be 93, but that's ok I will take a year off. hahaha :)
This year I got some money so I decided to get me a new strap for my camera from Jodie's Camera Straps and a book called The Photographers Eye. I also got a new flash for my camera from my hubby, a book called the The Photographers Mind from Jordann & Wayne, and some lotions, body wash and a candle that smell so awesome from Shannon, Stef, Paige and Sydney. They smell like Lemon Vanilla from Bath & Body Works. I'm very excited about all my new stuff. My new photography books I'm super excited to read and learn new things!


I'm really excited for my strap. It's kind of personalized to me now. :) The one that came with my camera was getting boring to me so it was time to spice it up. LOL


I still have some birthday money left so I'm still trying to figure out what else I want to get. Either more photography stuff or use the rest to get my hair colored and cut. We shall see. :)


Thursday, June 9, 2011

Weekly Update

I hope everyone has had a great week. Mine hasn't been to bad. My allergies have been way bad this week so that has taken a toll on me. Tuesday I had to leave work early b/c I felt so bad and then Wednesday I decided to go to the Dr to make sure it wasn't anything big coming on. She gave me some Lidocaine for my throat. Oh that stuff is horrible I have gagged on it twice using it, but it does work so I deal with it. She also gave me some nose spray since my nose was so swollen inside from allergies. My throat today feel a lot better, but my nose is draining everything out today so I have been blowing it pretty much all day. Sounds like fun, huh? Not really. :)

Today is my Friday because we are heading out of town tomorrow on a float trip. I'm so excited for this and no allergies are going to get me down! We have been looking forward to this for weeks. We went a few years back and had a blast.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I will post more once I'm back in town and recovered from our fun weekend at the River. :)

Friday, June 3, 2011

Book: Marked

I have decided to start reading a new series of books. I don't do much reading but when I find something I really like I can't put it down. It's very hard sometimes for me to get into a book it has to be very interesting to me. I really enjoyed the Twilight Series so I decided to check out this new vampyre book series. I have read a few others by Nicholas Sparks that were romance ones and I really enjoy his books as well.
I just bought the first book last weekend and started reading it. So far I'm enjoying it. Hopefully I can read lots more this weekend.



Here's an overview of what this series is about....

House of Night is a thrillingly engaging book series that follows 16-year-old Zoey Redbird,
who gets “Marked” by a vampyre tracker and begins to undergo the “Change” into an actual
vampyre. She has to leave her family in Tulsa and move into the House of Night, a boarding
school for other fledglings like her.
It’s within the school’s walls that the heart of the action takes place as Zoey meets new friends,
finds love, comes to terms with how her life will be different now and begins to realize her
awesome new powers.
Here’s the deal though: Yes, Zoey’s a vampyre now. But she’s still a teenager – with all the
humor, angst and confusing feelings any other teenager has.



Thursday, June 2, 2011

Stay-Cation!!

I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend. I know I enjoyed having 4 days off! We had a fun-filled weekend at that. We wanted to do a small weekend vacation someone but decided it might be cheaper to stay home and do stuff around here we normally don't get to but want to. So we had a Stay-cation. It was a lot of fun!
We started off Friday evening with going to see The Hangover 2. We went to the AMC Main Street downtown. We had some drinks before heading into the movie. We could do this because we bought tickets and reserved out seats so we had no worries on where we would sit. This is a great idea! No front row at a new release. LOL
This movie was funny. Not better than the first one but it was good and well worth going to see. I'm looking forward to seeing it again b/c I know I missed some funny parts with everyone laughing. So once it comes out I will have to see it again at home. I had to do this with the first one there was so much laughing I missed some parts. This was a good start to our Stay-Cation a good movie and some drinks to go along with it.
 

 Drinks with some friends before the movie!



On Saturday day 2 of stay-cation....We decided to go to the T-Bones games. It was raining and a little chilly that day but that didn't stop us for going to the game. We headed up early before the game and did some tailgating. Our seats were really good as well. I have never been that close at a baseball game so I was excited! I was very sad that when the girls came out to throw shirts they didn't even bother to throw them to the people sitting close so I didn't get one but I tried very hard by yelling and jumping but no such luck. :(
We did lose that night but it was still a fun night with some friends.




Day 3 we decided to do Worlds of Fun! I haven't been in years so it was time to go. :) We went after 4pm so it would be cheaper for us. It was a little crowed so we had to wait in line for everything. Boo I don't like waiting. haha. It was a little hot too but we did get a water ride in to cool off a little. We didn't get to ride a whole a lot due to all the waiting in line so we will have to go back one day it isn't super busy so we can ride more. I did get my funnel cake I was so excited for! It was super yummy! I love those things.



Day 4 Memorial Day we had an all day BBQ. Shane smoked some yummy meats Ribs and Brisket! Yum! That morning I cooked Biscuits and Gravy to have a good breakfast to start off our day. We had a few friends over to hang out all day and have some drinks then enjoy some yummy food for dinner. It was the prefect day to be outside just hanging out. The wind was nice and it wasn't super hot out. Loved it! It's always a good time hanging out all day with friends and just relaxing out doors. The food was delicious that Shane made. We still have leftovers and have been enjoying them everyday!




We also took off Tuesday May 31st. This was my birthday!! I turned 27. We went out to breakfast that morning but after that we relaxed all day after our busy fun weekend. I sat outside for a little while and read my new book, then I watched some of my recorded shows I was behind on. It was a good day just hanging out with my hubby on my birthday. Last night we went to Texas Roadhouse for my birthday dinner. This is my favorite steak place and it was soooo good last night. Yummy!