You Gotta Regatta!

The new summer Lilly prints are out, and I am completely obsessed with You Gotta Regatta. One thing you should know about me: I fall in love with any and every thing nautical. Anchors, sailboats, seashells, whales, etc, etc. Even though I don't think I'll ever leave these Tennessee mountains, part of my heart will always long for the shoreline. This whole post came about while I was looking to pre-order a Lilly agenda. Last year I used the standard UT one that you bought in the bookstore, but I used it so much that I've decided to invest in a pretty one! Look at that adorable anchor on the cover! 

What's your favorite Lilly print?

Norris Dam

Monday, mom and I took a little drive around Norris and took a trip to the dam. Obviously I brought along my camera. On the drive there and back, I also scored some awesome places to shoot. The Clinch River side of the dam has all these cute orchards and overgrown fields that would be absolutely beautiful in the morning or afternoon. Driving next to the Clinch, I also spied these little waterfalls/streams falling through teeny cracks in the rock. It excites me way more than it should, I think!

Quite ominous, isn't it. 

There were lots of geese hanging around the dam!

I don't know what it was with my camera that day, but none of the pictures from this day turned out as clearly as I was anticipating. I'm going to blame it on the fact that my batteries were low.

Not sure what this is but idk it's cool right?

In other news, I went to the good ol' Wal-Mart and got some film and a battery for the old SLR camera! The battery was ridiculous at $10! It's apparently supposed to last for 55 rolls of film though. Anyways, I went outside and played with it, and it was so fun! The mechanics were so loud and you could hear the shutter and the focus was amazing. I'm super excited to actually shoot someone with it!

Hello GIMP 2.8!

Whoo! I finally have GIMP back! I found the restoration disk for my old desktop and got it running again. Of course the first thing I do is get GIMP back on here! Lo and behold, a new version was released about a month ago. I've been spending my afternoon downloading brushes (the newer versions of GIMP are compatible with .abr PhotoShop brushes!) and fonts, my one true love.

For those of you who don't know, GIMP stands for "GNU Image Manipulation Program" and it is basically a free PhotoShop. GIMP is a must for anyone wanting to get into graphic design or photo editing, but doesn't have the money to purchase something like PhotoShop.If you can do it in PhotoShop, I'm 99% sure you can do it in GIMP. It may take a little longer, but it's possible!

Visit the GIMP website to learn more or download!

Vintage Camera!

This beauty of a camera is now in my possession! This Minolta Maxxium 3000i was my dads in his college years When I first got into photography a couple of years ago, he said I could have it, but he could never find it. Well, we found it, and I now have it! After doing some research, I found that this model was first manufactured in 1988. I found some reviews and photos taken with it online, and it's apparently a really good camera! I can't use it until I get another battery. Of course it has some kind of special thing that's $12. But whatever, I'm excited! I need to learn how to use a film camera too. Oops. I also found my mom's old film point and shoot, so I think I'm going to try and learn on that one. Summer project!

Memorial Weekend 2k12

This past weekend, mom and I headed down to our roots in Coker Creek, Tennessee to stay with one of my aunts/her sisters. Coker Creek is a quaint little town with no city water or cell phone service, so it's definitely a place to go to if you need to get away. My Aunt Wanda lives back in the woods on a few acres (lol like I actually know what I'm talking about) and wow it is beautiful. I think any photographer would love to shoot someone there. We arrived at around 6:30 or so Friday evening, and I immediately started exploring for things to take pictures of because the lighting was perfect.

Do you see this field? Wow!

Memorial Day Sales!

I am such a cheap-o. Friends are constantly telling me that I'm going to be a great mom because of all the deals and bargains I find. This morning I woke up to at least 5 emails from different stores letting me know about all the Memorial Day sales ('Merica!). American Eagle in particular is having free shipping and 40% off everything. I knew immediately I had to take advantage of this. There is this pair of shorts that I've had my eye on since they were first put on the website. Originally, they were $37. With shipping and tax, the total would have come to around $45. I really wanted these shorts, but being the broke college kid that I am, I've learned to be very frugal with my money (or lack thereof). So I didn't get them. A month later, I check the website again, and these shorts are on clearance. Now they're $30, but once again shipping and taxes would make them around what they originally were.

But, today I took advantage of the $19 off (40% off of $30 is $12, plus the $7 standard shipping fee) and purchased these beautiful shorts for $19 and some cents! This is the first time I've bought something for myself besides gas and food in quite a while, so I don't feel so bad about it hehe!

Photo editing fun!

So I don't have PhotoShop. And I don't have GIMP installed on this laptop. (This laptop isn't even technically mine). How do I edit photos? I rely heavily on online editors. My go-to was always Picnik, but it sadly closed. Although, I think you can access a simple version of it on Google+? Now I use Pixlr.

Pixlr offers a sort of simplified version of PhotoShop with it's main photo editor. You have a toolbox with basic functions like dodging, burning, sharpening, blurring, etc. The toolbar has a few drop down menus where you can access levels, curves, brightness, contrast, exposure, etc. This program also allows you to create layers and it has one click editing things, much like PhotoShop actions.

Concerts

Even though Knoxville is the third largest city in Tennessee, the biggest concerts that come through are usually country artists. Not that I don't like country, but it's not my biggest cup of tea. However, sometimes dear artists come through and I get lucky enough to get to go, and of course I bring my camera! These are not the best because of the concert lighting and having to zoom in and use a high ISO.

Matt Thiessen from Relient K playing their acoustic show at the Bijou in December 2010. This was actually taken with my old Sony CyberShot.

My friend Cassie had an extra ticket to the sold out Taylor Swift concert at Thompson-Boiling Arena on July 1st, 2011 and I took her up on the offer to go see her for free!

Fleet Foxes/Bon Iver Medley

Some wonderful person decided to put together a little medley of popular Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver songs and goodness it's beautiful.

Up Close with Nature

One of my favorite things about the PowerShot is how beautiful the "macro" setting is. Obviously it's not true macro photography, but the setting puts a beautiful depth of field behind a close up shot.

Lauren

The campus at UTK is so beautiful, and the fall colors only enhanced it. I desperately tweeted that I wanted to shoot someone and dear Lauren took me up on that offer. I titled this set her "officially unofficial senior pictures."

It was quite sunny so I had a little trouble with the harsh shadows, which made editing a little trickier, too.

Meredith

Last summer after I had gotten familiar with my camera, I took Meredith to downtown Knoxville and did a little photoshoot. This was the first time I had ever really "shot" someone and I was so nervous and excited. Such a mix of emotions that day!

We started out in Market Square, taking advantage of all the green leaves.

Current Setup

Alright, so just as an overview, I'm going to post my current camera and then post a few of the pictures I've taken with it.

I currently have a Canon PowerShot SX20IS, which is basically a pretty powerful point and shoot. I bought it a year ago with some graduation money to help get my feet wet with photography.

My plan right now is to hopefully save up and get a Canon EOS 60D and start a lens collection.

Hello, interwebs!

First post on this new blog! It's been a while since I've been on Blogger. I've been quite the Tumblr addict for a while now. But I've decided I need to get into a ~~professional~~ blog. (Notice my use of tildes. So professional.) So, as an overview, here's what I hope to accomplish on this blog:

• photography
• crafts
• baking? (aka edible crafts)
• clean and organized documentation of my college experience and delving into the professional world
• reviews of music and movies and TV?

I don't really know at the moment. My ultimate goal is to be one of those cool ~everything blogs. I also want this to be a sort of document of my progression into photography and my progress. Maybe I'm setting myself up for failure, but whatever. I've had a hard time keeping up with blogs in the past, but hopefully I've learned something from Tumblr.