i n • p u r s u i t

These photos were taken sometime in mid-May. Just a little everyday goodness. :) My sweet little guy. He so desperately wanted to be able to sit up that day, but kept falling over, hehe.

{EOS Rebel XS | Superia 400}

This is one of the few photos I actually sat and waited for. These ducks were hanging out, sometimes ducking their head underwater for who knows what. So I focused and waited, eye to the viewfinder, for something interesting to happen. This is much better than getting a photo of a duck butt. Canadian geese. I tried to make some noises to get them to look at me, but they were too busy.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin   Mike and I went up to Michigan at the end of August to spend a few days with family.  My main camera of choice for the trip was my Minolta x-700. Some people still think I'm crazy for using a film camera when I could be using digital. ..don't you know that you can take hundreds of photos without spending money to develop them?! But I don't care, I love shooting with my Minolta. These couple photos are just shots from around my MIL's house. Right next door is a soybean field. There are fields upon fields in that part of the state. Mostly corn and soybeans. There are also really pretty weeds growing in the ditches. It's not me cultivating a flower that makes it a thing of beauty. God plants pretty flowers wherever he wants--even in the ditches. :)

took this photo of a couple getting portraits done

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.

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...

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...

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...