Saturday, February 23, 2013

New Year, New Camera

So far I have felt like I'm just not doing jack shit in regards to the arts, but it would seem I've got some good reasons for that. Firstly, I'm exhausted because I'm building a proto-humanoid inside of me, and I did not realize how much that was going to trash my concentration, energy level, and calm.

I have ideas for sketches, paintings, drawings... but I'm so exhausted they never make it to the paper. I just can't focus, I can't remember to go downstairs and open up the paint tubes, or I worry about the turpentine messing with my kid somehow, or the ammonia in the watercolor resist.... and it just never happens.
I was told the other day that in months 4 and 5 the energy will come back, but I still have a month and a half to crawl through until then. I don't really have it in me to sit down and draw. Or paint. Or knit. And nobody seems to understand this and keeps asking me to do shit like that for them. So I have just flatly started turning everybody down.

It's good, though, that I have this swank new camera my beloved gave me for Xmas! Because I have been working with it for the past 2 months and have actually managed to get some very nice images out of it. It's been my one creative outlet that I can handle right now, and I'm tickled pink that it's actually also looking GOOD, to boot.

So here is one of my first shots with the camera, on Xmas morning:


This is one of the photos I managed to take a few days later during the family post-Xmas get together:


Not too bad, but the colors are just crazy. We start to see I figured out how to mess with depth of field, though, and that's where I started getting strong compositions.
 And then I finally figured out how to put it on MANUAL, and adjust the focus, and that is where things REALLY got fun!






I'd say that's quite an improvement in a short amount of time. There's more work to be done, like checking light levels (I still have problems with blow outs from daylight, and the flash wanting to go off when it doesn't need to, etc...) and learning the finer tuning of this beast, but I think it will hold me over nicely and make for an excellent "point and shoot" for a few years to come.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

FINALLY. I CAN POST THIS.

I am pregnant.

That is all.

I would show you a picture but I forgot to upload it and anyway do you really want to see an ultrasound of the inside of my nether-regions? We barely know each other! And it's just a black dot right now.

Anyway, I'm excited. This morning I got to see it again and it HAS A HEART. I MADE SOMETHING THAT HAS A BEATING HEART. WHAT THE FUCK.

Anyway, hope your Friday was pretty awesome. I'm just blindly running DNA code over here, myself.