Work In Progress

I've been spending most of my increments of work time rebranding and creating a new blog over on Typepad. It's given me a new appreciation for how much work goes into these things, even for those who aren't spending over two hours figuring out how to correctly code a nav bar. I plan on sharing a full post (or two) on how I decided to make a change, what tools I've used to feel slightly more adequate, and some tutorials that helped fill in the blanks.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon clearing brush from a fence line in our backyard for a background for a banner photo idea. Then I scrapped it. I also hauled (with help from the poison ivy-covered husband) props out to the other side of my house for another banner idea, spent two hours designing said banner idea, and then scrapped that one this afternoon after coming up with a third idea.

It's been quite the challenge but I haven't felt this excited about having learned something technical and complex since college. It feels good to have set a big goal and then knuckle sandwiched it into submission. This may lead to setting more goals. WATCH out.

I'd like to publicly thank Elise Blaha Cripe for offering her class on blog design and saving my night with some post-class assistance in coding. I heart that girl.

I hope you have a lovely Memorial Day. We're celebrating with a handful of neighbors and remembering those who have served and sacrificed for our country. There will be ice cream and a kiddie sized swimming pool involved.

xoxo,
Rachel

TtV on The Road

We went on a little road trip to St. Louis, MO for the Fourth of July weekend to celebrate Sebastian's fourth birthday and I decided it was the perfect opportunity to bring along my Duaflex and experiment. I don't have a contraption made to block out the light so there are heavy reflections on some of these shots. Go with it.

I had to aim carefully and line up my camera edges with the edges of the Duaflex frame so I didn't get too many candid shots. I was able to straighten a few out in iPhoto before cropping but getting things lined up was awkward at best. I think this is another benefit to having a contraption as it can be made to square things up with your camera (I think?). Again, this is new territory for me.

Brett took the one above. Can you tell? ;) I told him to aim a little higher in the future but his grin told me it was no accident. Ha!

We stopped about halfway home so everyone could get out and stretch.

Sebastian was having such a fun time at the zoo, etc. that he didn't notice my Duaflex until the car trip home and instantly NEEDED to see it. He was trying to figure it out on his own and decided that it needed batteries.

I showed him how to hold it and where to look for pictures and he pretended to take photos for awhile but quickly decided my digital camera with it's instant results, flash option, and clicking sound was MUCH more his style. He shot this photo of me from his booster seat (pretend you don't see all of those dirty shoe marks on the back of Brett's seat).

I've got another post coming up with zoo photos and a fun little story about who we ran into while we were at the Science Center but I wanted to share my favorite photo of the trip. The hippos swimming past us as we watched through the thick glass, as gracefully as anything 1/10th their size, were slightly mesmerizing. Like mermaids.

Be back soon.
xoxo,
Rachel

Summertime, And The Livin's Easy

I found my Duaflex the other day while I was cleaning my studio space and realized I haven't been experimenting with it like I wanted so I took a couple of shots around the house. I think I'm going to use it at Sebastian's party to see how it captures people. Little people that don't stand still for very long.

I know some people like to use a contraption but I'm pretty happy with the images after editing.

And here's how it looked through the viewfinder without a contraption and before editing.

And this is how I'm going to do my hair all summer when I don't have time/want to wash it. Two little buns at the nape of my neck to tame the chaos.

I saw Leigh-Ann's new favorite summer hair trick. How do you fix your hair when the temps rise?

xoxo,
Rachel

Mr. Smith and the Wall

Wednesday was a heavy day due to the awareness of so much tragedy going on in Haiti. Brett's family has good friends that have lived and worked as missionaries in a deaf orphanage there for over twenty years and his sister, mother, and grandma have all spent time there during summer breaks so it feels a little less like some far off news story. And Haiti never gets a break from tragedy, it seems.

In our little corner of the world, I made enough venison stew tonight to feed my neighborhood. Which is exactly what I plan on doing! I've got some of the kindest neighbors on all sides and appreciate how generous they've been to our family since we moved here a year and a half ago. The single guy across the street that drives the loud truck came over and hooked up the garden hose to our washing machine hook up while I was in labor so Brett could get the birthing tub filled with warm water. He's handy with anything mechanical and has a great stash of DVD's for us to borrow.

The older next door neighbor couple are always bringing Sebastian treats and leave us the paper every day after they're done with it. This week they brought us a potted Poinsettia left over from their church fund raiser and said they thought Ruby might enjoy it. Ruby's mama does! We ran into them at the downtown YMCA this morning and Sebastian asked where his treat was but they told him they weren't expecting to see him at the Y. We hadn't been home more than five minutes when Dan brought over a sack full of snack packs and told Sebastian it should last him at least a month. Such sweet people.

Then there is our other next door neighbor who lets us borrow his lawn mower and Worcestershire sauce and texts us to see if his music is too loud on Friday nights. He appreciates vintage pottery and we both have too many garden snakes in our backyards.

I bake them all brownies and muffins every few weeks to let them know we appreciate them. This week they're getting venison stew.

xoxo,
Rachel

p.s. Photos procured from my latest TtV adventure.

Learning About TtV

My first TtV shot. I'm a little late on the TtV (through the viewfinder) train but better late than never! I have determined 2010 to be the year I take time to expand my photography horizon so when I read this post by Hula Seventy I decided this was my next adventure. You'll laugh at me for saying this but I really had NO IDEA how these photos were taken. I thought people bought these old cameras mostly for display but that some lucky souls had found ones that STILL WORKED and used THE RIGHT KIND OF FILM to get these photos! (Don't laugh out loud.) SO, imagine my great surprise when I realized I had the capacity to do this, too!

At the moment I'm working with my Brownie Hawkeye. It belonged to my grandmother and is better shape than any other brownie I've sold from PonyParty. (ahhh...PonyParty...) I loosely rigged up a cardboard box and taped it down at the bottom to my camera using book binding tape and stuck my new Canon T1i down the hole and shot a few. They were pretty bright and I'm using the lens that came with camera, 18-55mm. I got a few tips when I posted these photos on Flickr but if you're experienced with TtV and would like to share your knowledge or some more links in the comment section, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it.

I love being this excited about a new creative challenge! I promise to share my progress for those of you who might also just NEED to get on the train.

xoxo,
Rachel