7 posts tagged “photography”

Let's try this again. I had an entire post typed and even had pics and then vox went haywire on me and I lost ALL of it. Ugh.

First off- Happy New Year folks!!

Bart and I celebrated New Years Eve in Austin, Texas. We went to The Gourds New Years Eve Masquerade Ball at The Waterford House Grand Ballroom.  The show was nothing short of AWESOME. The Gourds rocked our socks off to some new tracks off of their new album Haymaker, along with all of their other awesome songs.

Haymaker!

The Gourds

Unfortunately, I made a very poor choice of footwear for the evening(sky high heeled boots.) and was in MAJOR pain shortly after midnight. It didn't help of course that the venue we were at only served draft beer, champagne, or wine. So between the draft beer headache and bloating, and the major foot pain we were out of there shortly before 1am. 

We did however have an awesome time, and it was awesome to see our Austin friends again after not seeing them for so long.  Here are some photos from the evening. (It's a whole collections o click on the thumbnail and you'll be taken to all of the photos.)

The Gourds NYE 2009 @ Waterford House in Austin, TX

 After we left the club we went back to our Hotel room where we had a Hot Tub in the room, and believe me we made good use of that little gem before we went to sleep. :-)

The next morning we woke up and met a new friend of mine I met on Myspace for breakfast, and then drove to Franklin, Texas to see another friend who recently moved up there. On the way to Franklin we passed a few abandoned farms just off the highway and stopped to take some photos that I think came out really neat. You can view the photos here.( it might take me a while to rotate them all the right direction because for some reason they did not upload with correct orientation..weird.)

Abandoned Farm Photos

Since we've been home I've been preparing to do a second Body For Life challenge. My first challenge went so well I'm planning on doing at least 3 back to back challenges this year. It is truly the BEST way to get in shape and stay that way. My menus are made, food is purchased, and I've dusted off the dumbells. My start date is on Monday. YAY!  I'll be posting updates on my Body For Life Blog on Wordpress each day so stay tuned!

I hope everyone had a happy new year and here's to being Divine in 09!!

I don't know why I haven't blogged about this yet...but yesterday's question about best photos of the year got me to thinking about some exceptional shots I got on August 13, 2007 at Warehouse Live in Houston Tx.  We were there for The Gourds Cd Relase Party for their latest album Noble Creatures. It was a truly amazing night filled with lots of good drink, great music, and best of all...I got some GOOD shots!!!

Bart and I have followed The Gourds all over Texas for the past 5 years. They are an amazing bluegrass/rock/americana band from Austin, Tx. Over the years we have become good friends with all of the guys in the band and Bart even printed some T-shirts for them and made stickers for one of their tours. We always get to hang out with them after shows, and I have NUMEROUS autographed albums, and other Gourds Rarities I have collected over the years. I hope you will enjoy these shots as much as I enjoyed taking them...

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It was a magical night....truly magical. I hope to see them all again soon!! Here is a collection with the rest of the photos for you to look through if you want....

The Gourds- Noble Creatures Cd Release Party- Warehouse Live- Houston, TX- August 13, 2007

Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Editio

Bryan Peterson

This book is Awesome...Not to mention that the photos in it are gorgeous. I am learning more and more every day about what makes a great photo.

Mastering Digital SLR Photography (Mastering)

David D. Busch

Digital SLR Cameras & Photography For Dummies

David D. Busch

These two books above are by the same author and therefore have similar information. The "dummies" book is written more for the novice(me).

Complete Digital Photography, Third Edition (Digital Photography Series)

Ben Long

Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-On-One

Deke McClelland

This book is AWESOME! It has a DVD ROM with two hours of training on it...kinda like having my own personal teacher right here at the computer.

Photoshop CS2 Bible

Laurie Ulrich Fuller

This book is HUGE! It will take ten forevers for me to wade through..but I WILL!

Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book

Adobe Creative Team

Since this book actually came from Adobe I decided to start with this one first. It has a CD with it that has lessons and project files....very cool.

So within the next few weeks you should start to see some pretty cool photos and photoshop art! YAY!

Please allow me to ramble here and make no sense...it's just to get it out of my head..

So I got all this badass software..and it's been fun playing in it...really really fun..

My house is a total wreck, yet I can't pull myself away from photoshop..

I picked up my old point and shoot camera today to take a shot with it because my SLR was in my truck...I quickly realized I was lost without a viewfinder...I reached for the lens on the front and found there was none..have I already gotten that spoiled with the SLR? I find I am disappointed with the shots the point and shoot takes now...they seem..almost kindergardenish..is that a real word?

I received a box from Amazon today...

Books..

Knowledge For My Brain

Lots of books..

DSLR photography and Photoshop....my new passions..

I start to flip through the books though and slowly it dawns on me that I might be in over my head...

Will I ever really take the breathtaking photos they show in these books?

You can do THAT in photoshop??

I feel slightly overwhelmed with the information...

Where to start?

Do I learn how to take great pictures first?

Or do I learn how to take the crappy shots I take now and make them beautiful in photoshop?

What if i'm really stupid and I can't learn it anyways and I've wasted all this cash for nothing?

Now i'm going to take a few deep breaths and put all but one book away and start there...

God I hate being ADD.(undiagnosed but I know it's there)

So yesterday I got the full Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium. Let me start out by saying that the only Adobe Software I have ever used is Adobe Reader, and Adobe Photoshop Elements.

So I loaded the package on my computer which includes:

Adobe Bridge

Adobe Acrobat Pro.(Way more than the reader thingy)

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe In Design

Adobe Go Live

Adobe Designer

Adobe Acrobat Distiller

Adobe Image Ready

Whew!! That's a LOT of shit! And all I really needed for my class was the photoshop but I figured if I was ever going any further with Graphic Design I would need the rest...and they sure are fun to play with...especially illustrator, and photoshop.

I must say though...there is a HUGE difference between Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop CS2. I was never that great in Elements(basic batch processing, red eye editing, and stuff was as far as I got) so CS2 is VERY overwhelming to me(hence my enrollment in the class)..I can't wait to wade through the books and figure out how to do some cool stuff in this software...

Here are some of the shots I have done some cool(to me at least) stuff with..

Glowing Edges Cat

This is a picture of me with my new camera...and I can tell already that my favorite thing about Photoshop is the Glowing Edges thing...but I'm still playing and I'm sure there's WAY better stuff in it...I just haven't found it yet..

Windmill

1 comment

This is a picture of the windmill by our pond...

So as I said in a previous post I got a very nice Digital SLR camera for Christmas.

It's a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. 10.1 MP, and I have 3 lenses, a tripod, a nice bag, an external flash etc.

Here are some of the first shots I got with it...

Keep in mind I know NOTHING about photography so these just probably look good to me..

Bones

I took this picture on my front porch. We have one of these guys hanging still from Halloween....I thought it turned out good because the skeleton is so clear but the background is blurry....Plus I LOVE skeletons..

Bessie

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In case you don't know it...I live on a Farm....with cows..this is one of my favorites....isn't she Purdy??

Clickarosa

This is one of my favorite places on the whole property...the pond and windmill.  So peaceful.

Rope Swing Boy

This is one of my favorite photos of all. This is my oldest on the rope swing over the creek. I think it's a beautiful shot. It makes me wanna say..."Wheeeee!"