i n • p u r s u i t

Leica M9-P Digital Camera ($7,995 body only) Tiffany: I want a Leica!! Mike: aww, I like-a you.

took this photo of a couple getting portraits done

By now, Bella is used to having a human who often has a camera stuck to her face. When we first got Bella, the camera scared her. She'd hear the shutter and run away. Now? She's a pretty tolerant doggie and will sit for me, so sweetly, until I'm done taking her photo. And how do I reward her? By taking photos like this: love the fisheye effect!

If you'll recall, I painted my nails using the new L'oreal Paris Color Riche nail color 10 days ago. I spotted the display at Target and was drawn to the 10-day promise. I picked up the base coat, top coat, and nail color in Violet Vixen (500). I got home and couldn't find any reviews about the polish, so I decided to write my own. Read the first half here . So, did the nail polish live up to it's promise? Truth be told, I didn't even make it to the 10-day mark to see if my nails would last that long. Why? Because these are photos that I took on Day 6: The polish on the nails on my thumb, first and middle finger (of both hands) were chipped. The ring and pinky finger had some wear, but no chipping. I think the pinky was chipped on the other hand, though. It might seem like minimal chipping, but this is only after six days! From a polish that said it was guaranteed to last 10 days. And yes, I did the base coat + color + top coat. I returned

Street photography is making me be more friendly to the people I see while walking around. When I'm downtown, I smile at just about everyone I pass, just to see if they'll smile back. I was trying to take a photo of a bird up in a tree when a couple walked by and looked up in to the tree. I smiled and explained what I was doing. Normally, I might just smile and not say anything. Normally, I wouldn't be taking a photo of a bird using a film camera. Anyway, they said something back, I don't remember what. We started chatting about photography and film and film cameras. And, of course I took their photo! Then, the gentleman asked if he could take my picture with my camera. Sure! We all know I love getting my picture taken.

An adorable little rescue I saw downtown. 

Yeah....you know that new camera I was talking about? It's got this "miniature scene" effect and I love to use it for photos of all the things. Including outfit posts, I suppose. Don't hate on me. Just wait for the fish eye photos. They are so coming. About this outfit. Well, the top is pretty familiar, no? I know I've worn that cardigan and belt in that exact same way a few times before. The skirt? Oh, don't you love that skirt, Mary? It's such a pretty skirt. It's my sister's. She bought it in Canada and I'm keeping it safe for her. ;) I've actually had it in my closet for a while, but it was pretty hard for me to figure something that I felt comfortable wearing out of the house. A red maxi skirt it a pretty loud statement, I think. I think the basic cardigan & white tee balances things out. And the scarf (a gift from my friend Jessica. It's from Ethiopia!) ties it all together.

Monday morning, I got coffee with R. She's getting married in a few months. IN A CASTLE. Yes, a castle. Before we parted ways, I asked if I could take her photo. Or perhaps I told her that I was going to. Either way, she obliged because she's such a sweet friend.  I had my camera with me and 1/2 of a roll of film to finish off, so stayed downtown to take more photos. I saw this guy sitting on the rocks above the waterfall and knew I had to take his photo. I tried to somehow get a good shot without him realizing I was taking this photo, but couldn't. So, as I walked by, I just asked if I could take his picture. It was easier than I thought it would be! I wanted him to look out over the falls, just as he had been before I interrupted him. I tried to tell him to not look at me, but he couldn't hear me over the rushing waterfall. That was okay because I had found that 80% courage somewhere and managed to ask a complete stranger if I could take his pho

I saw this red umbrella about a block away and knew I had to take a photo of it. I really popped on the dreary rainy street. So, I found the perfect spot, held my camera up to my eye, focused, and waited for her to walk through my viewfinder. I wish I had waited just a bit for her to be between the last two trees, but I'm still very happy with this photo. Shortly after red, I saw this other umbrella. I was walking behind her, so I tried to keep up, focus, and meter at the same time. No decent composition going on here though. {p.s. I'm taking a page out of my sister's book and moving my comments over to Disqus. So, if you don't see old comments from previous posts, don't worry! They are still there, just importing.}

I've been wanting to try my hand at street photography for a while. It's so intimidating, that I've been putting it off for quite some time. Now that I'm only working one day a week and haven't been getting any business, I decided that this was the perfect time to dive in. Or slowly tip-toe in. Either way... Last week, I dragged my dear friend Steven downtown for a photo walk. Me with my Minolta x-700, he with his Canon Rebel dSLR.  Eric Kim says that "street photography is 80% [courage] and 20% skill." I'm still working on that courage but I was determined to muster up the courage to take photos of strangers. I just started out by just taking photos of things that caught my eye. The first thing I saw that caught my eye was this red dress in the Clothing Warehouse display. Gorgeous. And she can't tell me to not take her picture. Then we walked past this construction. My first photo of strangers. Poorly metered, but

So, in one of my magazines the other day, there was an article about shellac manicures. At the end of the article, it was mentioned how there's a Revlon Color Stay nail polish that works wonderfully and actually stays put for 11 days (through toddler taming and dishwashing). For those of us who, you know, can't go get a shellac. I want to get a shellac manicure! In the mean time, I headed to Target. The Revlon Color Stay said it would only stay for the full 11 days if used with the proper base & top coat. Which, of course, they were out of.  Then, I walked by the new L'Oreal Paris Colour Riche nail color. The bottles were almost $2 cheaper a piece ($4.99 vs $6.79) and they had a better selection of color AND the base coat & top coat I needed. L'Oreal Paris Colour Riche nail color ad promised that the color would last for 10 days. If It doesn't, I'm so going to return these. I do NOT need another purply-pinkish chippy nail color.

I know this isn't exactly a pushing the fashion envelope type of outfit. It's about as basic as it gets. Jeans & a white t-shirt. This basic combination has for quite some time been one of my favorites. This is a GAP tee and I have several white t-shirts (s/s and l/s) from the GAP. I just can't get enough. The jeans are from the J. Crew outlet (and I bought them a Plato's Closet). If I could wear these jeans everyday, I would. They're the perfect fit and length. You know what else I like? The fact that I'm wearing my favorite sandals and a short sleeve t-shirt in this photo. Why? Because it was taken about a week or so ago. Yes. Sandals in JANUARY! Unfortunately, it's gotten much colder of late and I've been wearing boots and a coat. My coat is cute, but when I sewed the buttons back on, I sewed them on the wrong spots. So it's kinda wonky when I button it up. Oh, I am SO ready for spring. This is the necklace I'm wearing

You might recall from this post , that I've been playing around with film photography. And, if you'll recall from this post , I bought myself a Minolta x-700 camera for my birthday. The photos below are all photos from my 2nd roll of film taken withe the Minolta. What happened to photos from the 1st roll? Well, I advanced the film to far and now it won't wind. I sat in a pitch black closet trying to shove the film back in the canister manually, but was only able to get half of it in before it just stuck.  (I'll probably take that half-a-roll of film to get developed just to see what's on it. And hope the people at the camera store don't laugh at me too much.) The other day, I took my camera outside to practice. Practice focusing, mostly. I'm not great at manual focusing and there isn't any auto focus on the Minolta. There is a special screen through the viewfinder, though, that really helps me get sharp photos. I'm kin

This  may possibly be one of the WORST photos of the two of us ever. So, sorry about that Leo. But happy birthday, big brother! You're one year closer to thirty! And I'm glad we've become such good friends. :)

I'm trying to come up with a rewards system for fans of my facebook page. I was talking to my sister about this today, trying to come up with some ideas... "You could give each winner a gold fish." She said. I actually like that idea. It's incredibly quirky. Apparently, I'm quirky. Two people told me that this weekend. Quirky in a good way. Then she said, "I just said that because I looked up and saw my goldfish." We talked for a bit more. "Oh, you could give the winners mascara!" "You're just looking around you room and saying what you see!" "No I'm not! You could give them a RUBIK'S CUBE !"

This is the look of forced submission. Starting to struggle... This is what we call the "crazy eye"

Some months ago, my friend Jaclyn lent me her Canon Rebel Ti . A film camera. I think the last time I used a film camera was probably about 8 or so years ago. And I've never ever used a film SLR in my life! I've only gone through two rolls of film. When I first got it, I shot a roll of film in a week or two. I promptly put another roll in the camera, took a few photos, and the camera spent a few months on the shelf. Well, I bought myself an old Minolta x-700 for my birthday and decided that I needed to finish up the roll in the Canon. Well, picking up the camera again, I really loved taking photos. And you know what I really loved? Getting the film developed and seeing all the pictures! Here is just a sampling of the pictures from those two rolls of film. Of course there are photos of the G kids! I took the camera to work a few times. They wanted to know why they couldn't see the images afterward I took the picture. Isn't this pretty? It's a photo t