It’s been a long, ugly winter. I cannot wait for spring to arrive and banish the snow and ice that we’ve been plagued with here in the City of the Seven Hills! In a small effort to make spring arrive faster, here’s a photo taken in the spring of 2009 to infuse a bright splash of color into your day!
That said, the first bit of furniture moving is set to occur this weekend! My fiancé starts his “new” job on the 27th. Later than I was hoping for, but I’ll take what I can get!
I saw this link the other day about a book that details ways to become a better photographer. I am going to purchase it, details forthcoming. I like that fact that it covers us amateurs with point-and-shoots as well as those of you who have better equipment, but just aren’t quite sure what to do with it yet.
In the meantime, I will be moving, again, shortly. Seems like every time I get settled something happens and I’m boxing my life up again. This time, hopefully, I can stay in one place for a while. While moving is a pain, the good of it is that I will be back at my old job again, and my fiancé is coming too, getting a transfer with the company he works for. Everyone gainfully employed and we don’t have to wait until the weekends to see each other. I, for one, am excited about the prospect. He, on the other hand, doesn’t like change and is nervous about everything. But I suppose I can understand, because a lot is changing for him. For me, it’s going back to my hometown, and to things I’ve done before, whereas for him it’s a new city, a new store, having to make new friends, the works. At least we are not going to be too far from his friends though. Then there’s that whole getting married thing that we are also starting to prepare for. I think I am more nervous about that than anything. In the end, all shall be well. (I hope!)
Ten years. That’s a long way to look ahead, myself being one of those people who doesn’t even plan two days ahead. I learned this behavior from my father, who says he learned it from me when I was born. Nearly 30 years ago, my parents decided that they were doing well enough that it was time to try for a baby. Nine months later, my mother went into to hospital to deliver me unto the world, and my dad called in to work to say that he wouldn’t be in because of the occasion. His boss told him essentially “Congratulations, but when you come back, you’re laid off.” Ouch.
Looking down the road, I will be married (next year); I hope to find one decent full-time job, instead of juggling two part-times in order to get 40 hours a week. I hope to get this online vintage shop thing I’m trying to do off the ground. I’d like to be living in Arizona by about then too, but that isn’t a high-ranking priority. If it happens, it happens. I hope to continue being creative, and I’d like to learn more about photography.
What do you hope to do?
I’ve decided to sell vintage wares online, giving over yet another chunk of my time to hopefully-profitable endeavors. This, of course, requires photographing the items to be sold. I have a love for old glasswares, so I’m going to have to photograph them a lot. So here’s my question for you photographers and vintagephiles out there: What is your best tip for photographing clear glass items? (Or any glass items for that matter?)
Remember that partially-buried old sedan I posted awhile back? This is the brightly-colored beacon that led me to it. Tried out some new editing techniques on this one.
It is a gorgeous day outside, and I intend to spend a bit of my break outside with my camera. Off I go!
Got a big shipment of new CD’s from Amazon yesterday. (Yes, I am a dinosaur who still buys CDs.) Since I was gone all day yesterday, today is my first chance to listen in on them. I put in “Lon Gisland” by Beirut and it has played through about five times already and I don’t want to change it. It’s that good. The song the prompted me to buy it is “Elephant Gun”, although I’ve discovered a new favorite in “Scenic World”.
Link to the video for “Elephant Gun” on youtube!
Beirut’s sound has a very vintage French/European feel to it. It is a good blend of many styles. If you enjoy The Real Tuesday Weld, I think Beirut would constitute a treat for you.
I’m a sucker for horn music. Got any suggestions?
It’s been foggy out the past few days, and as such, my drive at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to Springfield was interesting, to say the least. At times, I could only see a few yards in front of the car. I was paranoid that cows had gotten loose and were in the middle of the road and I’d hit them because I couldn’t see. Fortunately, no future roast beef was harmed during my commute. This experience made me miss the fog lights that my father and I installed on my old Honda. When I was in high school, we lived by a cliff overlooking the Ohio river. Sometimes the fog was ridiculously thick. So we put some fog lights wired up to a lighted toggle switch on my car. The advantage of this over the standard-equipment fog lights on my current car, is that I could drop down to marker lights only on the stock lights, and run the fogs. I can’t do that with my new car, the regular headlights must be on in order to utilize the fog lights. I might see if it is possible to rewire this.
Anyway, the point of all that was that it got me thinking about lights, and I remembered this old photo that I took of a parking lot light that someone had ran over at a friend’s apartment.
I apologize for being an absentee the past few months. I’ve moved and taken two jobs, so that’s been eating up a large chunk of my time. I plan to come back in force after the new year, when hopefully my hectic shedule has died down a bit. In the meantime, here is a teaser from my new hometown.
This ivy grows on many of the historic downtown buildings. It turns a lovely bright red in mid-fall.
There is a lot of interest to be found in an old surface. The ways that time alters something new into something old when no one interferes in the process leaves a unique mark on the world. It makes you think, because if there were suddenly no one left to keep up our edifices and machinery, how long would it take before it all crumbled away to dust? (I’m aware that there is a show on television that covers such subjects, but I don’t have cable and rarely watch TV, even when I do.) I discovered this lovely doorway on one of my wanders about in Historic Downtown. The weathering and time have taken away a lot of the finish on the lower part of the door, leaving a greenish blue tint behind them.
A weathered entryway.
Of course, I have altered the image to bring out the blues a bit. This was taken on a day with a cold grey sky, so the colors didn’t come up the way I would have liked.
In other news, I worked two short shifts at the bistro yesterday, and have discovered that I am no longer used to being on my feet for long periods of time. Of course, the brand-new shoes probably didn’t help much. Today I am driving down to Cincinnati to pick up some laundry and other things. Not looking forward to all the driving, which is probably why I am procrastinating by posting all this. But there is good cause for all these long posts. I’m attempting to get used to doing larger quantities of writing each day, as I intend to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I need to get myself in gear here, as I need to work on the outline for the story some tonight. Good idea, I think, to have some of the story thought out and committed to paper/binary/whatever, so that I have less chance of hitting Major Writer’s Block. I’ve never written a fiction story before, and other than blog posts, the longest thing I’ve written is a haiku. So this is definitely going to be a challenge. Better give myself every advantage I can. For those of you unaware of NaNo, the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It’s not really a competition, as long as you hit the 50k mark, you win. I think having the challenge will help me to really complete this story. Wish me luck!
Although the lighting wasn’t optimal for photography on this particular day, I went ahead and did some shots. Sometime, when I get a good sunny day I’ll have to set out early and capture some of these things in better lighting. Of course, being autumn in Ohio, who knows when that might be. In the meantime, here is a very nice shot of the side of The Caroline building leading into the square:
The Caroline on the Square: Troy, Ohio
In other good news, I landed myself a part-time job. Now, I need to locate a dwelling that suits me. I may just try to do online sales of my photography and handmade jewelry and craft sort of things as well, once I get myself established up here.
I’ve got a wedding to attend this halloween, and it’s a costume/masquerade theme. I don’t really have a lot of cash to go blowing on a new costume, so I’m going to wear this red formal gown that I picked up for cheap at a Goodwill last year, and a nice masquerade mask. I’ve checked out etsy and saw some stuff I liked, but I can’t really afford $100 for a mask. So I’m going to make one for myself. I’m guessing I’ll be making one for Jeff as well. I’m looking quite forward to it! It’s been awhile since I’ve been really excited at all about a project, or much of anything. Hopefully, things will keep heading in an upward direction for me!
I'm definitely in the ranks of the amateur photographer. Capturing the world through image is one of my favorite things to do. I love to explore this planet with my amazing fiance. Recently I got turned on to TtV photography, and it is my new favorite technique. Some of my other hobbies include making jewelry, hitting yard sales and thrift shops, antiquing, driving around aimlessly, stargazing, ogling antique and vintage cars, and reading.
