007/365 - Photo Shoot.

Today, I went out with the intition of a sad photo (or what I felt was sad) - I wanted a photo of my bare feet walking away in the snow with a rose falling out of my hand.  I am missing summer today and wanted to reflect that feeling. 

It's amazing how that idea changes once you get out in front of the camera.  I never even really got one that I liked where I was bare foot just standing there (or walking).  Instead, I started to enjoy the fresh crisp air outside and jumped for joy of life.

This one was my favorite closest to my original plan.

I cut my head off. 

007/365.

My belly looks weird and my face looks scared.

P.S.  My feet definitely felt the cold!  Right behind my camera I had a sleeping pad with a towel and my warm socks and boots to slip into as I needed to.  Even with that - I only took a small handful of photos.  Hope you enjoy!

A Big Fat Thank You!

I had a rather strange and wonderful dream last night.  I was camping on my dad's lawn when I decided to go for a walk.  On my walk, I ran into (almost) all of my old high school/junior high really good friends - some of them were as they are now (aka older) and some of them were as they were then (aka younger).

The thing is that I've always moved a lot as a kid so my group of friends was constantly changing, but I actually stayed in the same place during those cruitial years.  Not that my best friend at the start of junior high was still my number one at the end of high school - but I was still friends with them.  I still see their feeds on Facebook and am glad at their success and happiness.

I had a heart to heart conversation (in my dream) with almost all of them, especially Kelly (my junior high best friend - you know the one that "you will always love like a sister...").  She gave me a giant hug and told me that she was proud of me.  Even if it was just a dream, I feel very thankful this morning to every friend whom I've ever had that has helped shape me into the strong and independent woman that I am today.

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P.S.  I have been awesome about keeping up with my self-portrait-a-day (even if this only day 4!).  Take a look on Flickr.

New Year's Resolution.

I always love having a new year's resolution but I've had the same one for the last few years - to have better posture.  I do have better posture now (still not wonderful but I'm conscious of it so it's much improved)!  That being said I've been trying to think of something for 2012 that would inspire my creative juices in the relm of photography.

I've varied up a lot of my work recently - with photographing at my mom's town and doing more black and white.  However, I really wanted to do something out of my comfort zone so the perfect idea is to take a self portrait once a day (albeit a day late for 2012).   (It's not my original idea - it's from Flickr's Project 365s that were super popular a few years ago.  I've been looking at all of Lauren Lemon's photos from her project in 2009 as well as other photographers she mentions as inspiration.  I want to learn what I'm doing instead of hoping that the good luck I've had with my camera just continues by some miracle.)

I hate taking pictures of myself or even have other people take pictures of me.  I've been trying to be better about it (with Graham's help) but I just feel awkward.  I feel awkward when I take pictures of other people - like I don't know what I'm doing.  This should help me take better pictures of other people since I'm practicing on myself.

I already had the idea of taking a self-portrait (with Graham) every day we were on the Appalachian Trail just for shits and giggles.  I won't be able to upload them daily (or probably even until the end of the trail am I going to get around to doing anything with them) but I will save them all during my 6 month hiatus and overload everyone when it's done.

Of course, I came up with the idea while lounging in bed already ready to close my eyes for the night.  So that's what I photographed:

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