curiousillusion

When we last left our project 365, this weary photographer was getting very frustrated and tired of having to take pictures, day after day. Luckily, week 30 brought about another trip, this time to Chicago… a place I had always wanted to visit and, thanks to some frequent flier miles that were about to expire, finally got to experience.

day two oh four – traveling… again. The day before my trip, after packing my suitcase. I was very proud of myself… I learned my lesson from Europe, I hated lugging my large suitcase on and off of planes, trains, and boats… this time I only took a carry-on and all my stuff fit in the overhead compartment. :) I even only carried 2 pairs of shoes – go me!

day two oh five – the bean! This should could’ve been so much cooler had al the people not been there. Anyway, someone mentioned this place on flickr and I had never heard of it, but my friend took me to get some pictures and I was fascinated. Awesome.

day two oh six – Chicago. What a skyline. Dang.

day two oh seven – riding the train… After a few days I took a train to visit my cousin and her family in the suburbs, about an hour outside of Chicago. It was fun, she lives in an adorable little town.

day two oh eight – city life. My cousin and I took a trip back to downtown Chicago to go to the art museum (and we ended up seeing Shia Lebeouf and the new chick in Transformers 3)… I have to admit, I really liked Chicago. Really.

day two oh nine – turbulence. The view from the airplane back home. I thought the layers of clouds were pretty neat.

day two ten – lucky penny. I actually got this penny as change while I was in the Chicago airport… this is one of the new pennies, with the funny looking shield design.

And that’s the end of week 30.. it flew by cuz of the trip – I have to say, Chicago was pretty great and if it weren’t for the snow in the winter (and by that I mean a LOT of snow in the winter), I think i’d like to live there. I should probably post more pictures of Chicago and heck, the rest of my trips this summer but this blog has kinda gone by the wayside lately. Hmmm.

It wasn’t intentional but week 28 seemed to be full of self-portraits, more so than usual… Most months I’m lucky to get more than a handful of pictures of me in and this week has 3 (although one is just a partial). And, unfortunately for this blog post, I don’t put self-portraits on this blog, mainly for safety reasons.

But I will post, as always, the other pictures of the week, with placeholders indicating where the self-portraits went… as always, they’re up on flickr if you’re curious.

day one ninety – self-portrait featuring my new pink Converse chucks. :) It’s actually a fun photo, taken in the bathtub, I think it rather came out well.

day one ninety one – ninety nine bottles of… While in San Antonio for the weekend, I went out with a friend for dinner and drinks and couldn’t resist taking a picture of the colorful bottles behind the bar. And yes, I felt embarrassed pulling out the huge D90. :p

day one ninety two – memories, like the corners of my mind… Just a quick little shot of a photo album that I bought, which holds my pictures from Europe. At some point, when I have money, I might want to make a blurb book from my pictures but the photo album was cheaper.. and instant.

day one ninety three is a self-portrait of my new hair color. Not to be confused with the picture below. :)

day one ninety four – still red. This picture I used in a blog post announcing the new hair color, but then I liked it so much I decided to keep it as my 365 shot.

day one ninety five – fading away. I decided to take a break from obsessing over myself and my hair and focus on the gerbera daisies I bought last week, that are slowly dying.

day one ninety six – scenic view.. And the odd picture out of the week… I went with a friend to take pictures of her house that she’s trying to lease, and we stopped at the entrance of the neighborhood to get some shots of the lake/pond with fountains in front. Truly a nice place to live. If only I could afford the rent which is like 3 times my budget!

Still working on catching up with my project 365 blog posts… here is week 27.

one eighty three is a self portrait, actually a pretty neat one if you ask me, but it’s only up on flickr so you’ll have to check it out there. Sorry!

day one eighty four – tranquility. Went to a wedding where the reception was held at a golf course and I thought the fountain and all the trees looked so peaceful.

day one eighty five – red white and blue. For 4th of July, of course.

day one eighty six – the grass is always greener. Just a shot I’ve always wanted to do, although it didn’t come out how I pictured it.

day one eighty seven – wistful. A gerbera daisy that I bought, I liked playing with the picture in Lightroom to make it look more sad and gloomy – in real life the flower is a bright pink.

day one eighty eight – a stitch in time. I started cross stitching again, this is an old one that I started and then put down over 3 years ago. The focus looks a bit soft but I think I’m going to blame it on the Lightroom preset I used. That and it’s really hard to get a crisp shot of a tiny needle!

day one eighty nine – raindropkeh. Went to Target and on my way in, some raindrop covered shopping carts caught my eye. :)

And now I’m caught up! This Friday will bring your regularly scheduled project 365 post… woohoo! Let’s hope I don’t ever get that far behind posting my 365 again!

Week 26 marks a turning point for me in two ways: first it marks the halfway point of the project, and also it marks where my project LAST YEAR started to go downhill. So far I think I’m holding up pretty strong, although it’s rather early to tell. :p

day one seventy six – raindrops on… Sunny and raining, go figure. :)

day one seventy seven – Wall-E is SO cliche… Another picture for the cliche group, a shot of Wall-E. Not very exciting but I wasn’t feeling very creative.

day one seventy eight – i’ve got my eye on you… My trip to the museum led to this great shot of dinosaur figurines, I really like the depth of field and how just the one in focus is staring at me.

day one seventy nine – this is what summer’s about. A lovely summer day spent in the garden, enjoying an ice coffee from Starbucks and a new book from the library… perfect!

day one eighty – not just another flower picture. An interesting looking flower found in the garden, identified as a passion flower. Bizarre, no?

day one eighty one – smile. Having a good day, had to let the world see it. :)

day one eighty two is another self-portrait so that’s up on flickr.

And that’s that. The end of the first half of project 365! To be continued…

Still playing catch up with my project 365 posts… here’s week 25. I find this week slightly less exciting now that my pictures aren’t from England or Italy. :p

day one sixty nine – creepy crawler…

day one seventy – flip flops are *so* cliche… For my friend’s cliche group on flickr, I had just bought some new flip flops (my first pair since college, I usually don’t wear traditional flip flops as I don’t like things in between my toes) and had to think of a shot for them.

day one seventy one – you spin me… A cop out of a shot. I was spending all day making videos using my vacation pictures and burning them to disc… this is a DVD that I was burning some too, and I liked the colors.

day one seventy two – “if you can’t beat them, join them.” I got carded at the movies the other day, someone thought I looked 16 (and I’m really 28). Instead of being insulted and vowing to try to appear older, I thought “eff it”… I’m not going to stop wearing cute headbands or bows in my hair just to look my age. Although maybe I should…

day one seventy three – “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep…” Went to a retreat to pick up something for my mom and the woods made it look so far away from the middle of the city.

day one seventy four is another self portrait of me, this time with my mask from Venice. It’s up on flickr, plus I’ve been using it as a twitter and foursquare icon, I love it so much.

day one seventy five – focus. I’ve always liked the colors that are INSIDE the lens of a camera, and I tried to capture it. I don’t think I did well though.

And another week done. Whee. :)

Still playing catch up on my project 365 posting… here’s week 24. Awww… more Italy pics. :)

day one sixty two – coliseum.

day one sixty three – trevi fountain. Beautiful, no?

day one sixty four – pompeii.

day one sixty five – frascati. Our last day in Italy, we went on a vineyard tour and I thought this place, outside of Rome, was the most beautiful place ever.

day one sixty six – home sweet home. Happy kitty. Also known as tired Ari, who couldn’t be bothered to take a more interesting pic.

day one sixty seven was a selfie of me, and you know how that goes….

day one sixty eight – memories… Aka, a macro of a stack of photos that I printed out from my trip to Europe.

And that’s week 24. Hmm. I think I’m still a few weeks behind on the blog. Hey, at least I’ve been taking my pictures every day, right? :)

So my return to blogging didn’t go as awesomely as planned… heaps of people didn’t fall on their knees, immensely grateful that I graced this blog with my presence.  In fact, I got all of one comment yesterday… Cammy I love you. :)

And so it is. But, since it’s summer vacation and I have, oh, really, NOTHING going on… we’ll see if I can get back into this blogging groove. And what better way to start than by catching up with my project 365 pictures. I think I’m like 3 tragic weeks behind, but to maintain order, I’m going to keep doing them week by week. So here’s week 23.

day one fifty five – happy fence friday, uk edition. For the wedding I attended, we ended up staying the weekend at this really nice hotel, that had some great grounds. Friday evening, while everyone was having drinks (and yes, so was I), I wandered around with my camera and found a fence. See, even in England I’m thinking about dang flickr groups like Fence Friday!

day one fifty six – happily ever after. I don’t have many pictures from the actual wedding because we weren’t ALLOWED to take pictures, so this shot was while the couple was posing for pictures for the professional photographer. I love the groom’s pose, with his hands behind his back, and I love the bride’s look. And I love her dress.

day one fifty seven – simplicity. Freaking cop out shot. What happened was, the day after the wedding we went back to the parents of the bride’s house for tea and and an Indian buffet… and we ended up just talking and talking until it got late. And I think I was all photographed out from the wedding that this was the only picture I shot. Ah well.

day one fifty eight – london bridge is… Actually I’ve been informed that this is Tower Bridge, not London Bridge. Either way, I like how it looks in front of the sun.

day one fifty nine – burano. Italy!!  This is a little island called Burano, a short water bus ride away from Venice, and it is well known for it’s brightly colored buildings. I thought it was absolutely beautiful and was convinced I was in heaven. I was, wasn’t I?

day one sixty – high tide. St. Mark’s Square, in Venice. My brother and I had got done meeting up with some random Australian guys that were on our tour, and they had been drinking (sadly, I just watched for the most part) and we crossed by and found this sight. We were so excited to see St. Mark’s Square flooding and I was just in love with the reflections.

day one sixty one – night falls… Our first night in Rome, my brother signed us up for a tour down the Tiber River. Or so I thought. Actually it was a dinner cruise. And all they served was seafood, which I don’t eat. Anyway, at one point they stopped the boat in the middle of the river and everyone was wondering why they did that. So you could take pictures, of course!

And that’s the end of week 23.

Another week of project 365… made more exciting because part of it is set in England! :)

Okay day 148 is.. a work in progress. I took a self-portrait and posted it and then later in the evening took a sunset pic that I much prefer… but I need to process it. So I will have to finish it when I find the time.

day one forty nine – waiting… Aka waiting at the airport. I like the repeating lines of the chairs, and the tones here.

day one fifty – bursting with life. day 1 of being in England, this is a flower from my friend’s flower garden.

day one fifty one – twisting and turning. day 2 of being in England, this is another pic from my friend’s garden. This time it’s a view of the top of her garage. Lazy pic, I know, but it makes me think England somehow.

day one fifty two – rainy day in london. I love this pic. Love. This was after Harrods, we were sitting at a coffee shop and I was looking out at the people walking past in the rain with their umbrellas. I like this couple walking off, sharing an umbrella, with the stereotypical telephone booths next to them… and the processing makes me think vintage. I might actually print this pic out maybe, I like it that much.

day one fifty three – Big Ben. It was a very busy day of shopping and not really sight seeing, so I grabbed this shot of Big Ben as I was walking by. It wasn’t a great picture day but it’ll do.

day one fifty four – Bath. I waited very patiently for this picture, there were all these tourists milling about, standing in my shot and I crouched down and waited til they were gone. I think it was worth it.

And that’s it for week 22. More pics to come! :)

Another decent week of project 365. I kind of think maybe I’m getting back into the swing of things?

day one forty one – go on, you know you want some.. Ice cream!  I love ice cream, yum!! My friend and I got some after work the other day, and I had to take a pic of it. I took a similar pic last year but I think this one turned out better. Cuz of the macro lens. :)

day one forty two… is a self-portrait of me. So it’s not on the blog, sorry!

day one forty three – #1 fan. This is from the Astros game I went to… I actually asked the girl to pose her foam hand for me because it was so hard to get a spontaneous shot of her holding it up. I like how I got the crowd bokeh and part of the baseball field in.

day one forty four – happy bench monday, last week of school edition. This is an idea that I’d had in my head and decided I had to do before school was finally out. Not very well composed but I’d packed up most of my stuff already.

day one forty five – drippity drop.. Morning dew lately has meant a lot of droplet opportunities. I played a LOT with this in Lightroom to change the colors around, hee hee.

day one forty six – reflective. While at a park after work, this heron (or egret, I think I’ve been told) caught my eye… and let me get really close. I like how it looks like he’s gazing out to the water.

day one forty seven – slow and steady… Just a snail that was climbing up the wall by the front door. I moved him to the floor and tried to get some shots of him, while swatting away mosquitoes that were attacking me.

And another week bites the dust, bye bye week 21.  Week 22 should be exciting… with pictures of England!!

I had a realization the other day, or maybe not a realization, but I just felt resolved. I was looking through flickr and seeing people working on their SECOND project 365 and I felt like such a loser that I hadn’t finished even one. And I just felt like, that’s it, I’m going to complete this one. I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care if my pictures turn to crap, I will complete my project 365 this time around.

We’ll see how well that works out. Easier said than done, right?  And to be honest, I’m hoping my pictures don’t, in fact, turn to crap… but I need to keep in mind that a year is a long time and not every day is going to be a winner. As long as I’m trying, that’s what counts.

And on that note, I’m kind of actually happy with this week. Yay me. :)

day one thirty four - let a little sunshine into your life. A flower from my mother’s garden, sound familiar? :) I played with the processing in post to get the blue tones in the background.

day one thirty five - bokeh dots are so cliche… for my friend’s cliche flickr group, I played around in a parking lot til I got big dots bokeh that I liked.

day one thirty six – essential beach accessories.. This was from my trip to Galveston, I found these flip flops just lying on the beach and I had to lie down and get a shot of them. I actually arranged the flip flops this way, they weren’t set up this neat!

day one thirty seven – playing coy… A magnolia from the tree in my neighbor’s yard. Actually, my new neighbor who I have yet to meet, and who arrived home while I was standing in her yard, taking pictures. I’m sure she thinks I’m odd.

day one thirty eight – here’s lookin at you. This little lizard was waiting by the front door when I got home from work. I spooked him a little and he started to run away but he stayed long enough to let me get a few shots.

dau one thirty nine… is a selfie of me, with my new Duaflex camera. Go to flickr to check it out. :)

day one forty – consolation prize. While clearing out my classroom I came across these, they were a birthday present from the assistant principal. Way back on my birthday, back in February, he came to my classroom to take the teacher’s aide (who I share with the other kinder class and first grade classes, but she often gets pulled to sub). I was all, “but it’s my birthday!” and he goes, “it’s your birthday?” and goes away for a bit. Then he brought me these chocolates… and I was all, “I just want my aide!”

And thus concludes week 20. Hmm, 20 sounds like progress. Yay progress. 32 weeks to go. *falls over*