curiousillusion

So April is now over, and that means I have completed four full months of my project. Only 8 more months to go. Ha only. Such a long way to go…

day one twenty – the very hungry bookworm. The end of April, and I had been reading a lot so I wanted to show off the books I completed – all 6 of them. The one on the top I was only halfway finished at the time, so it’s kinda fitting that only half of it ended up in the shot!

day one twenty one – are you my mother?  Found this little baby bird just sitting on the sidewalk, not moving, and he let me get super close to take a shot. I think he was hurt though, eventually he stumbled/run/tumbled away and a few days later I think I found him dead on the side of the road. Sad.  Poor little guy.

day one twenty two – party dress. While in San Antonio for the weekend, one of the shots I got from Market Square. I like the colors here.

day one twenty three – blue bird of happiness. Another bird! This little guy is very skittish and so I ended up getting this shot through the window, because he flew away when I started to open the door. And yes this is technically a blue jay.

day one twenty four – the stillness is beautiful. A flower that my friend/co-worker got from her students for teacher appreciation week. I got some roses but I liked hers a bit better. I shot this against the turquoise-y wall of the hallway and I like the contrast of the colors.

day one twenty five – sweet temptation. One of the THREE yummy desserts that I got for teacher appreciation week from my parents. I shot this in the car, mainly because I was desperate for a shot but I really like the light here. And the bokeh. :)

day one twenty six – roses for the teacher. My THIRD bouquet of roses that I got from my students this week, this I got from a student today. I love teacher appreciation week – last year I didn’t get a thing and this year I’ve been spoiled rotten!

Another week where I don’t know what to say about my project 365. It’s such a hard project to get through, and I’ve been dealing with allergies all week so I’ve been completely drained of energy.  Still chugging along tho… trying to get through it, one week at a time.

day one thirteen – take me out to the ballgame. Astros game with my friend and her fiance. It was such a blast and I’m so glad I brought my camera.. we had great seats for me to take pictures from. Good times.

day one fourteen – sweetness. One of the flowers from my mother’s garden. I love the way the petals look, and the color of the rose. And the bokeh doesn’t hurt either. :)

day one fifteen – my mother’s favorite flower… i think. I used to get orchids for my mom for mother’s day for ages, I don’t know why but she always had a lot of them. When they moved out of the country, she got rid of her plants and then when they got back, Bay and I moved in and so she never got any… until a few weeks ago, when she bought this orchid. I think orchids are creepy… when I look at them, all I see is the little mouth with bottom fangs. Do you see it?

day one sixteen – morning glow. I had been wanting to get a shot of this pond that I pass on my way to work for ages from this angle, with the sun coming over it. I actually wanted to get the colors from a pink sunrise, but this yellow glow works too.

day one seventeen – couch for sale… Been passing this couch for weeks after weeks on my way home from work, just sitting out there advertised as for sale. After all the pollen that’s been coating cars yellow, rain and extreme heat, it’s still just waiting. That plus the sign made me want to take a picture of it – and I waited patiently for AGES until the dresser that was behind the couch (which would’ve made for a not as good pic imo) finally disappeared. I kinda wish I could’ve gotten a shot ON the couch but I’m too much of a chicken.. this is right off the major tollway.

day one eighteen – watching out. This vulture and her baby (think it’s a her anyway) lives outside the break room at work. Or rather, every year she apparently sets up her nest there. Usually her baby is pressed up against the window where we can’t see (someone covered the window with paper), but this time they were kinda more out in the open so I couldn’t resist taking a picture. I made it kinda black and white to hide the glare from the window, although it has a bit of a blue tint. Not sure how I feel about the tones.

day one nineteen – get a new perspective. Didn’t know what to take a picture of today, went looking for some flowers or something and then I got the idea to take a picture lying down, looking up at the tree. It looked better in my head, I think maybe I put the focus on the wrong part of the tree. Still kinda fun tho.

17 weeks down.

Lately I’ve taken a new approach to this project 365. Instead of stressing about the fact that I’ve only completed 111 out of 365 days so far (leaving me with 254 days to go), I’m looking at the weeks. I take one week at a time, and I think it’s because of these recap posts. I start on Friday, and by Thursday the week is done (project 365-wise anyways). It’s a new routine so by the time Sunday evening rolls around, I think to myself “okay, 3 down, 4 more to go.” And then by Wednesday evening, I’m thinking, “6 down, just 1 more to go. 1 more, that’s easy, you can do it.” And if I look at it like that, 1 week at a time, it’s not so bad. Nevermind that I’m only 16 weeks in, and there are MANY more to go… nevermind that.  I’m just trying to get through this project, any way that I can.

day one oh six – happy fence friday, hubcap edition?  Ha, this was apparently a “controversial” shot, as a flickr group called “fence friday” rejected this picture as not good enough for their group, even though it was a picture of a fence on Friday. Now I don’t think this shot is the best pic I’ve ever taken, but I totally felt the need to defend it against the attack, where someone said it was a “boring” chain link fence with “junk” behind it. Is it weird that I find hubcaps interesting?

day one oh seven – i’ll see you in my dreams… I went looking for flowers using my much neglected 50mm lens and this tree caught my eye. I don’t have much to say after that, it’s not great, although I like the colors, I think.

day one oh eight – knee deep in it. The return of Danbo!  We had a nice thunderstorm roll through in the morning and I couldn’t resist bringing Danbo out to play in the puddles. I wanted to capture more of her reflection but it didn’t work out so well.

day one oh nine – oh, to be a cat. Such a stressful day and I didn’t know what to take a pic of, and then I realized I hadn’t taken a picture of my cat lately. I actually like how this came out, using the 50mm lens with the tones and a unique (for me) angle. Such a nice life she leads. :)

day one ten – yum. Okay, a weak attempt. Long day at work, so I went out with a friend for dinner (Benihana’s, yum!) and while we were waiting for her fiance to show up, we had drinks and “sushi’ at the bar side. Except neither of us are seafood -eaters so this is avocado wrapped around rice. It wasn’t that yum, but the plate caught my eye. And my drink (Benihana punch) was definitely yum!

day one eleven – ring my bell?  Little sleep from staying out late the night before = me having a fried brain and not knowing what to take a pic of. So I pulled out my neglected macro lens and found a cat toy. I kind of like the narrow depth of field.

day one twelve – swanky. Went out for “happy hour” with that guy I met at the bar a while back. It went well, I think, although the area we went to was really fancy and I was taken aback by this restroom.. instead of a paper towel dispenser, there was rolled up towels that you put in a laundry bin after using. I liked all the mirrors and the sinks too. Is it weird that I took a pic of the bathroom?

You know, looking back I was really busy this week and so pictures are still suffering. I need to get back on my game, back to taking pictures I’m proud of. It may be time to look for flower macros again. :)

This week was definitely the worst week of project three sixty five.  I was completely unmotivated, running around everywhere, starting with my weekend in San Antonio. For the first time in a while, my camera got neglected and I didn’t miss it. That’s not a good sign.

It feels so early into the project to be getting irritable and uninspired and I hope this funk will pass over soon.  Meanwhile, you might notice that there are no macros this week – I actually put the macro lens away for the week, gave it a bit of a rest, and tried to use my other lenses.  My 50mm lens and I don’t seem to get along lately, so this week I just used my kit lens (18-105mm).  I might need to go back to my macros tho, I miss them!

Also, along with the lack of macros, you may notice a theme.  This week the unofficial theme seems to be “places”. It started in San Antonio and then continued on.  Kind of different for me, I’m not sure how I feel about it.

day ninety nine – pink and purple.  Caught some gorgeous colors in the sky in the morning… but the pics didn’t come out so well, and I was too busy to take anything else.  Not a good way to start the week….

day one hundred – back in good ol’ SA.  Another busy day, and I didn’t pick up the camera until it was evening and we went down to the RiverWalk.  I took some shots while driving around, and ‘Bama boy suggested this building. He may have had a point… it came out kinda neat. This is the Bexar County Courthouse, fyi.

day one oh one – oh, to live in a palace.  Dreary day in San Antonio.  Yet another busy day. Stopped at this miniature golf place on my way from one place to the next, as this castle had always caught my eye.  Not a great shot, if I had photoshop I would be able to clone stuff out and so meanwhile I say.. meh.

day one oh two – tropical getaway?  The sunrise on the way to work caught my eye and I pulled over to get this picture.  It makes me think of a tropical destination, but in reality it was all of a few minutes away from where I live.

day one oh three – reflections. I’ve had my eye on this pond for quite a few months, I see it every day on my way to work.  Today I had a few minutes to spare to pull over and get a pic.  Unfortunately I didn’t have more than a few minutes.. I would have liked to get out of the car and take some pics from a different angle to get more colors. Maybe one day.

day one oh four – splash zone.  Field trip to the Children’s Museum meant I had a lot of fun taking pictures, for a change. My favorite part was the water part, and there were so many pics to choose from, but for some reason I like this one the best… shows all the splashes of water, and the color.

day one oh five – gutted. This building caught my eye quite a while back – it was a car dealership that caught on fire.  I had been meaning to take a picture of it ever since, and this week a fence that had been surrounding it was taken down.  I decided this was my opportunity. Plus it completed my “week of places” theme that I kind of had going on.

And that concludes week 15.  I hope I can find my groove again, I miss it.

Week 13 was rather an interesting week for me.  I started experimenting more in Lightroom… both with adjusting settings on my own, and with some new presets (which are unfortunately completely addicting) and I started really liking the pictures I was producing.  At the same, the pictures that I was loving weren’t doing so well on flickr and it was rather disheartening. But then I remembered that I’m doing this project for me, to better my photography skills and change the way I look at things.  And that’s the mindset I want to carry into month four… posting pictures of things that *I* like, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Easier said than done though.  I tend to worry too much about other peoples’ opinions.  But I digress…

day eighty five – happy fence friday, new fence edition. This is a new fence that my work installed this week, and my first thought when I saw it was “oooh Fence Friday”.  Project 365 has brainwashed me.  Anyway, played around with the tones in lightroom, added a little cross processing preset..

day eighty six - green and gold.  A flower I found growing in a field when I went to the park.  I really liked the colors, especially in the background.

day eighty seven - baylor proud.  My ticket from the Baylor-Duke game, and the ribbons I wore in my hair.  Even though Baylor lost, I’m still proud of them… and still glad I got to go to the game.  (The rounded corners are a result of the Lightroom preset I used… I like the tones that the preset gave the picture but I’m not sure how I feel about the rounded corners.  I think I kind of like it. Maybe.)

day eighty eight - when bokeh takes over the world.  Got stuck for about 15 minutes on my way to work, thanks to an accident we were not moving at all.  I’ve always liked the way the trees looked along this road, especially with the sun peeking through so, since I had nothing else to do, I took a few shots.  The focus was set to manual from the day before and I didn’t realize it – so this shot was an accident.  But I like it.

day eighty nine – caution.  This caution tape was all in front of my work building for no apparent reason and I couldn’t resist snapping a few shots as I left for the day.  I had fun processing it and I really like the colors that came out.

day ninety – ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.  I was originally taking some pictures of some flowers when a ladybug caught my eye.  Not this ladybug, the first one I saw was too fast for me.  But this little one was just hiding out in the tree, staying extra still – just for me. :p

day ninety one – breathe in, breathe out…  These blossoms are covering a bush right outside our house and, since nothing else inspired me today, I decided to take a picture of them.  Not very exciting but I did have fun playing with it in Lightroom, to get the background colors to appear the way they did.

And that wraps up three whole months.  I have completed 25% of the project.  I feel like I’ve accomplished so much… and that I still have such a long, long way to go!

Week 12 of project three sixty five.  I surprisingly don’t have much to say about my pictures this week.

day seventy eight – the paintbrush. Home from Alabama and the first thing I do is take pictures of flowers again.  Man I’m original.  I just can’t resist them… and the bokeh here makes me think of a painting!

day seventy nine – you are the key to your own success.  It was a cold, rainy day and I didn’t want to go outside for a shot so I was looking around for something to shoot. Then I remembered a fortune cookie that I got at the airport, since my plane back from Alabama arrived 30 minutes early and I got Panda Express while waiting for my mom.  I kind of like how this came out.  And the fortune is perfect.

Day eighty is a self portrait of me so, as always, you’ll have to check out my flickr page to see it if you’d like. :)

day eighty one – you’re taking pics of me again?  Didn’t know what to take pictures of, luckily my cat is always around. :)

day eighty two – little one. Playing with a teeny blossom I pulled off the tree and my macro lens.

day eighty three – swing.  Rain rain… equals droplets.  Which equals me crouched on the floor outside the house looking for the right one to photograph.  I wasn’t thrilled with this one but I do like how the background came out.

day eighty four – the flowers are in bloom at starbucks.  Or at least on MY cup.  I spent quite a bit of time drawing these flowers, but the shot didn’t turn out like I hoped.  When do they ever?

The unofficial theme of the week appears to be colors, as each picture appears to be uniquely colored… at least to my eyes.  Purple, black, pink, blue-green, yellow, blue, brown. I kind of love it.  I also think that this week, week 11, was the most diverse when it comes to subject matter.  A trip to Alabama will do the trick, I guess!

day seventy one – purple.  I hadn’t taken any pictures all day (had something in mind and it fell through), so last minute I turned around and caught this view out the window. Yay, purple sunset saves the day!

day seventy three – Hi, I’m a Mac. After waiting for what seems like forever (I’ve wanted a MacBook for I think 3 years or more, I’ve been waiting for months to for the new one to come out… still hasn’t been announced so I gave up), I finally went and got my MacBook Pro.  It is instant love, and I am definitely happy with it.

day seventy three – feel the light. A neighbor nearby got these flowers to put by her front door and I couldn’t resist busting out the macro lens and taking a few shots.

day seventy four – awww. While in Alabama visiting my friend Beth, I couldn’t resist taking pictures of her adorable son.

day seventy five – amber waves of something… Still in Alabama, this broomstraw (as it is apparently called) caught my eye in the sunlight.

day seventy six – abandoned. This is from the abandoned house that Beth and I explored.  I have a lot more pictures from this outing and I can’t wait to post pictures of them – expect a blog post or two about this trip next week.

day seventy seven – beauty and the beast.  Last picture from my Alabama trip, this was taken on the way to the airport.  I was taking some pictures of the railroad tracks when this rusted barbed wire fence caught my eye.

In February, my pictures started to look the same since I had that “soft, delicate, pink” theme going on.  Last week my pictures started to look the same too, since I kept photographing flowers.  It wasn’t really a conscious decision, but my pictures this week are a bit random… which is nice.  At least, I think they are a bit more random? 

day sixty four - Happy Fence Friday. I’ve seen fence Friday done before and for some random reason, wanted to participate this time.  These are the bars on the fence around my parents’ community.  They’re really high up so I had to switch the camera into live view mode and hold the camera over my head to get the shot.  I keep thinking it would look prettier with a blue sky (it was cloudy) but some people say that the shot is nicer without it.  Go figure.

day sixty five - you are beautiful.  I got this idea from the shutter sisters webpage and the card itself is from kindovermatter.  What happened: Saturday I spent the afternoon shopping and right before I left the mall, I snuck into a dressing room and pretended like I was going to try on a dress.  As soon as I got in, I stuck the card on the hook, snapped a few pics and left.  I wonder what happened to the card after I left.. I hope that it got left there for a while and made it smile.  Expect to see some more shots as I do more card drops in the future.

day sixty six… is a self portrait of me.  So you’ll have to visit my flickr stream to see that.  Sorry!

day sixty seven - viva la fedora!  Some people on flickr were taking pictures with a fedora and I was told to try it out.  When I saw someone got this fedora from Target, I had to go get my own.  I was just playing around but I kind of think I dig how this shot came out.

day sixty eight - “It’s a beautiful day… don’t let it get away…”  The return of the crystal ball.  The fuziness of the picture kind of bothers me because it looks like I’m holding it against a window but I was actually stretched up to the sky and then I flipped the image.

day sixty nine - sweet like candy. This picture looked nicer in my head.  I kept seeing this tree that looked like it had pink blossoms and I finally decided to check it out, even though it was on church property on the side of the road and I was feeling self-conscious about taking pics in public.  I want to revisit this shot once it is more in bloom, as I think I have a better idea of how to shoot it.

day seventy - i was caught in between all you wish for and all you need. I’ve been loving taking pictures outside lately, does it show? :) I thought I saw one of these on the side of the freeway as I was driving home so when I got home, I set out to look for one. Voila!

I had a thought the other day, about project 365.  Actually, a series of rapid, contradictory thoughts.  It went like this:

Yes, I had a complete conversation with myself.  It happens.  This one stemmed from the fact that this week I’ve just been having so much FUN with my pictures.  Not just for project 365, but in general… I’m loving being able to take my camera everywhere thanks to my pretty camera bag, and I’m using my camera everywhere too.  I’m hoping this excitement stays around for a while.

Anyway, on to the pictures…

day fifty seven – 28 and feeling great… My picture for my birthday.  I didn’t spend a lot of time on this shot, and it shows.  Two confessions: 1) I bought myself the cake, and the candles, especially for this picture and 2) the #8 candle is actually white.  I realized once I got home how white does not photograph well, so I had to change the color of the candle, and I didn’t do a great job.  Oh and confession 3… I didn’t eat the cake.

day fifty eight – in the middle of it all… My mom bought this gerbera daisy the other day and I couldn’t resist playing with it and my new macro lens.  I love the colors and detail it captured.

day fifty nine – spring arrives with an explosion.  Okay, I have to confess… this is my favorite picture that I’ve taken of this project.  Hands freaking down.  I absolutely LOVE the colors the macro lens picked up, love the detail, love the focus.  Sorry, that sounds like bragging but… damn.  And screw Explore, because in my eyes it totally deserved it. :p

day sixty – after the rain.  My first picture of March… looks a lot like the last picture of February.   But I was trying to capture some droplets (obviously didn’t work out) and fell in love with all the green.

day sixty one – “Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.  Every day, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.”  Quote by Dr. Seuss.  And now my pictures are starting to look alike.  I’m just happy to be shooting outside, to not being stuck in a pink theme, and to have a fun lens that picks up all sorts of colors.

day sixty two – the birds sing to welcome the sun to another day.  I decided I had to try to “spice things up” and quit taking pictures that were looking all the same, and these birds caught my eye while I was waiting in the Starbucks drive thru.  Oh and, gotta love that I’m not doing a pink theme anymore, but pink keeps showing up anyways.

day sixty three – bloom.  And back to flowers.  I found these blossoms on the tree at work, I swear they just appeared overnight, and I had to take pictures of them.  I think the crop is odd, but I like the flare at the top left corner and didn’t want to lose it.

And there we go.  2 whole months, or 9 whole weeks, completed.

So I was totally loving my pink theme… until this week.  This week I kept seeing things I wanted to take pictures of that weren’t pink.  It started frustrating me.  But I pushed past it and managed to get some pics that I liked.

day fifty – for peace.  This was the most random thing ever. I just got it into my head that I wanted to take a picture of an origami crane. Problem: I didn’t know how to make one. I looked for directions online and spent 30 minutes trying to make one.  After I made it, I was talking with a co-worker and I liked how the light hit the phone and so that’s why the phone is in the picture. I told you… random.

day fifty one – I wish I was a butterfly… You’d think this was a pink and white theme, because these two colors keep appearing in my pictures.  I just like how clean and simple pink and white seem to be, and I’m starting to find myself loving the color combo. If I could decorate an apartment right now, it would probably have this color scheme.

day fifty two – tied with love.  See, told you – pink and white again.  This ribbon replaced the string I was using to hang pictures on my wall. It didn’t come out how I wanted it though… I like the bow but I don’t like how it looks on the right side of the pic.

day  fifty three – glittery sparkley bokeh love. Meh.  I had a better idea for a pic with glitter but it did not come out well.  I’m not a fan of the tones in this picture at all, and I wish the bokeh would have been more emphasized.  But this was before the macro lens, and I was just using macro filters (hence the natural vignette that occurred).

day fifty four – for every season… there is chocolate.  Now these tones I DO love.  I was inspired by a similar (but much better) picture that I found on flickr.  The colors photographed really brightly, I think because my camera was on a vibrant setting but I sucked the color out in photoshop and I love how pastel it looks.  And I also love that it’s NOT just pink and white here… there are colors, but I’m still sticking to the pink theme.

day fifty five – twinkle.  Again, you can see my rebelling against the pink theme.  Here there is pink (those are twinkle candy lollipops) but since the day before was cloudy and rainy, I loved how blue the sky looked and so I had to put the lollipops against the sky.  I’m tired of shooting indoors!

day fifty six – look closer.  I heart my new macro lens.  Funny thing: I kept trying to take a similar picture at school but the pencil wasn’t looking right (I think my sharpener sharpened it funny).  When I got home I tried it again using pencils I had at home and I like how this came out, especially with the soft white of the sheet and the blue of the window in the background.

And thus concludes week eight (I’m not including yesterday’s pic because it’s not part of week eight and I like to be organized).  Only 3 more days left of the pink theme and then… March!  Already!