Tuesday, February 26, 2013

To be, or Not to be: The Start to One Aspiring Photographer's Journey

Last week was a breaking point for me, I realized that in putting down the camera for 2 years (because the new camera was stressful and in moving to California I had/have no friends to take photos of) I cant necessarily consider myself a photographer, yet I get angry when my photography opinions aren't considered.
So I decided, you know what, I need to choose once and for all, is this something I want to do with my life. I need to decide, am I a photographer, or do I just like to snap pics every once and awhile.

Last week I setup a free photo session with a girl I had met a few months back, figured I need someone to take photos of who isn't my husband, and see how I feel about things.
it was supposed to happen today, but got postponed to next week.
but I'm excited, thankfully she is uber excited, but know's my situation so doesn't expect much other then a fun time out taking pics.

The only reason things really changed is because I got a little bit of the burden taken off me, my husband agreed to be a tag team with me and help me with the more technical photoshop side of things, because i know if i'm going to get serious I cant keep using picnik/picmonkey to touch up pics, and in reality, it stressed me the F*** out, especially since I still have to learn my camera. So with Him working on me with that side of things I can focus on just taking pics and figuring out my camera.
Which is huge for me! Because I'm not so good with the technical stuff.

So I started getting excited again about taking pictures.

Then another opportunity popped up, and I really couldn't help but step in. 
My second cousin and his wife are having a baby, and she posted on FB that she was looking for a good photographer and asked if anyone knew of one so she could get pregnancy pics done.
now I've never done pregnancy pictures before, but I felt led to help out anyways, because in all honesty, I needed more experience under my belt, and when it comes to big things like having baby's, and wedding, I figure people want all the pictures they can get.
So I offered to do it for free.
At first I didn't get a respond back, and I told myself, who am I kidding, of course they don't want some amateur kid, who is just figuring stuff out taking pics of them.
but then!...yesterday I got a message back, and she said she talked to her husband and he is really excited about it and would love to set something up further along, maybe in April :)

Gosh did that just make my day... Michael and I are looking at getting thrown out of our apartment, and having to go back to living with my mother and stepfather (whole other story for a totally different time) and here I am by the grace of God, peaceful and excited with these opportunities on my doorstep!

 If its God's will to send us a miracle so we can stay down in our apartment, or to move back up the mountain, either way I see that things are moving forward in other ways, and I really hope they continue to do so.

So right now I'm starting to work on gathering all my past pics together to make a portfolio (of course not all of them, just the good ones) and then at some point my husband is going to help me make a website. Yay!

and ya know, I don't want to candy coat it. We have been going through a lot of crap the last month, Michael getting laid off, looking at losing the apartment and maybe the car, not having the tickets to MI for our best friends weddings yet, its been uber stressful and hard, which were dealing with as best we can.
I just thought i would share my little ray of sunshine poking through the dark clouds with y'all :)

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Valentines at the Drive In


Ah Valentines Day, the day that every girl in a relationship looks forward to and every single person dreads.

I am so thankful that I'm not alone anymore and I have my wonderful husband, although this Valentines day I did not look forward to as much, since our financial problems have not gotten better.
Finally things are starting to look up, but only recently did that happen.

Thankfully I had received a little money to help us be able to get out for V-day, in our current situation I know we shouldn't be spending money, but it really wasn't enough to help us out where we needed it, so after praying about it, we decided to go out for the evening.
We didn't do much, got ready, took some pictures, made a quick trip to the store to grab a couple snacks.


All of that was leading up to our big night at the drive in.
I couldn't believe to find out that just a few miles away was a drive in theater, 3 screens, that show 2 movies every night, only for $7 per person, so $14 bucks for the both of us to see 2 movies! and we had been wanting to go ever since we found out about the place, so we figured, what a great cheap way to spend Valentines day!
So thats what we did. We went and saw Beautiful Creatures and Warm Bodies, and I have to say, other then being in pain and not having Ibuprofen, it was a fabulous night!


Beautiful Creatures was way better then i thought it would be, kind of simple movie, but I felt by the end, looking back, the character development was good, the plot was good, and I was greatly impressed on the love story, it wasnt just another teenage love story that seemed immature, it was actually pretty deep. At first it did seem like it happened all too fast, but then later they did explain it happened over weeks/months and considering there back story it all fell nicely together.
oh, and I LOVED the ending, not a typical ending, but not a bad one either, I cant stand bad endings to love stories.
I don't want to give too much away, I would definitely like to go into more detail about certain aspects of the movie, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone.
One more thing I want to comment on is the religion subject. I was worried at first, I really hate when movies or shows showcase the irrational christians, the "crazy" religious people, but i think by the end it balanced itself out nicely.
I know there are those types of Christians out there, just like there are crazy people in every religion and belief, but I cant stand it when the media makes it out to be like, thats what were all like.
its like saying all atheists are angry, or all Muslims are killers... when its not true at all.
anyways thankfully it didn't cross too far over any boundaries, and balanced back out.
there were a couple flaws, but again I can't point them out without giving things away, so oh well.

I dont think the movie is for everyone of course, but me and my husband really liked it.
as of Warm bodies, that was a great movie as well, on the lighter side since it is more comedic, and I thought he did do way too much talking... I thought he should have made it look harder for him to talk, instead he made it look easy... which I thought was a flaw of sorts, but it was enjoyable and I liked the plot a lot.

All together it was a fantastic night, especially since it was Michael's first drive in and we spent less then $30 for our Valentines date out... I do admit, it was a bit hard seeing all my friends posting pics of the thoughtful gifts there loved ones had gotten them, but considering our situation, I understand.


BTW, the top photo is a design me and my husband did for valentines day a couple weeks ago :)
I think its the best we have ever done! oh and its a crappy photo because its an Instagram photo, taken from my phone :\ ill get a nicer one up later