Holidays

monthly recap: December

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December was an insanely busy month for me. I really didn’t even want to think about it until I looked back on my December photos and remembered a few pleasant things that happened last month.

First of December, packages started arriving in the mail…I didn’t have time to put on shoes! Present!
package waiting to be snatched upbare foot prints in snow

I bought my first pair of snow boots. Anytime I came across snow before, I had to barrow someone’s old, worn in, straight out of the 70s boots with odd length shoes laces. And trust me, the length of shoes laces matter. Size matters.
first pair of real snow boots

What was the first thing I do in these boots? I shoveled snow for the first time. Sweating in 20 degree weather doesn’t feel right.
snowy, snowy pathshoveled path

Ryan let me open my Christmas present early. I know my finger isn’t on the shutter button this is THE moment it came out of the box. Pre-instructions knowledge.
christmas present - lomo camera

I walked to the park with my new shiny camera and took pictures. Although this was a quick shot with my phone. You can check out pictures I took with this camera here and here.
washinginton park in Denver

Instead of a tree, we had a Christmas nook.
Christmas nook

I am happy to announce that I got a job!! I work at Ryan’s office; his boss offered me an assistant/office manager position. I like that we have a lot of lunches together and go visit him whenever want. It’s lovely. And we carpool, which is amazing because we currently only have one car. Here is the view from my room.
view from Denver office

For the first Christmas ever, I mailed out holiday cards. I bought them from Wit & Whistle. It was cute with an Owl on a tree and said “hoo hoo hoo”. Anyway…they were a hit.
Christmas cards

Right before I left, I visited the salon. I love my hairstylist and salon. No after pictures, but hey, you know what I look like.
at the salon

I packed the best rolly of my life. I fit so much crap into my new pretty carry on! I wanted to take to make a list but found time didn’t allow. But it would have won awards.
packed rolly

The morning of my flight, I woke up at 4am, to walk into a fresh 8 inches of snow to the bus stop.
tracks in 8 inches of snow to bus stop

Later that day, I flew in a 13 row plane to Missoula Montana where I sat in a window seat with a piece of garbage window. It made for a shitty picture. Exhibit A:
view from tiny plane

When I arrived, my aunt made fresh almost roca and I got to devour the crumbs. Best part of my trip.
home made almond roca crumbs

Lastly, I enjoyed my charismatic nephew playing (sort of) the piano.
nephew playing

steph

a Christmas on 35mm film

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I took my new Diana F+ mini with me on my Christmas holiday to Montana in hopes of capturing candid family photos on film, just like the photos my mom has at my age. They look like they’re having fun and didn’t have time to stop and pose.

But, the ones that actually turned out were indeed all posed pictures. The candid ones were either blurry, or dark, or didn’t look good to me for whatever reason. It’s obvious I still need practice with indoor photos.

double exposure - Christmas morning

This picture is my favorite. I accidently double exposed it as it was the last frame on the film. One is a posed picture and the other isn’t with a beautiful stream of Christmas tree lights. I love it.

Action shot - Throwing cousins on the couch

This was my best action shot. My older cousins were taking turns throwing the little cousins on the couch. Tthey loved it. As you see in my cousins face here.

Land scape/outside - Peir on lake and mountains behind

On our way from one Uncle’s house to another on Christmas Day, we were asked to grab some vodka. The only place that was open was a little local tavern. While my uncle ran in, my aunt and I ran across the street and trespassed onto some lady’s property (that was inside her house near a window but didn’t see us) and ran onto her small dock to snap a few pictures of Flathead Lake. Because we jumped out of the car in a panic, when we go to the dock, I didn’t think to adjust my shutter and/or aperature before snapping pictures so these photos got way too much light.

Lighting issue - burrly and not enough

To be honest, I’m not even sure what I did wrong here. This was right in the middle of a strand okay pictures. Although I kinda like it.

Overall, being in Montana for 9 days was too many. I love and enjoy my family’s company but there was a point where I didn’t want to be there any more. I wanted to sleep in my bed, lounge on my couch, watch my television. The flight from Denver to Missoula is only 1 hr and 45 mins so I am eager to fly up there for 3 day weekends more often instead of one 9-day trip in almost 2 years.

Also, we went skiing and I filmed one of my runs. It’s almost 9 minutes long so I want to cut it down before I show it you. I haven’t been skiing in years and I felt like it came back pretty quickly. Like riding a bike.

steph

Happy New Year!

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I got back from Montana a few days ago. I took almost 5 rolls of 35mm film while I was there. I am so excited to get those developed and show them to you!

I usually don’t do New Year’s Resolutions but I would like to set some goals for myself instead. Here’s a list of goals I’d like to accomplish for 2012:

  1. Blog more – I don’t blog regularly or often and I’d like to change that. I’d like to get on a schedule and stick to it. I have a moleskin laying around that I’m going to turn it into my blog post ideas book. Last year I posted 111 entries and I’d like to surpass that this year.
  2. Exercise regularly – Before I started my new job {oh ya! I got a job!! More on that later}, I exercised 3 days a week and went to a yoga class one day a week. Since starting work, I love sleep too much to exercise in the morning and too tired and hungry to exercise at night. But I got to fit it in there somewhere. Not to mention that my back has been killing me daily, and exercise will help that. I haven’t felt 100% since the accident and I’d like for that chapter in my life to be over with (it’s been over a year now…).
  3. Cook and Bake more – I cook sometimes and I bake even less. I’d like to get in the habit of cooking meals more regularly and trying new recipes at that. Baking takes me a long time because I’m slow and precise but before anything is even in the oven, my back hurts. Which leads me back to goal #2.
  4. New blog design from scratch – I feel like I understand HTML pretty well and CSS only enough to make things look nice. But I’d love to learn how to create code from nothing.
  5. Visit family & friends – Last year, I didn’t really visit anyone. We stayed with Ryan’s parents for those two months during the summer before moving to Denver, but I wouldn’t call that a visit, more like an extended stay. I did drive to Las Vegas to spend time with my Aunts and cousin for a girls weekend. But I think that’s it. Oh, I almost forget I spent last week in Montana. So that’s 2 trips to my family and 1 to Ryan’s. I don’t think that’s enough. More trips!

Here is a picture I snapped with my phone while I was out skiing with the family. Here is my cousin and me on the chair lift.

Skiing with Cousin in Montana

steph

my first Lomography camera: the Mini Diana F+

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Ryan presented me with this neat little camera before Christmas so I had time to perfect it before spending the week in Montana. And I just got back my first roll today!

It was successful in that it was unsuccessful and I’m learning from my mistakes.

First off, none of the pictures from inside my home turned out because I had the aperture set to N instead of B. Apparently, N doesn’t stand for night time, quite the opposite. B is for night time and N is for day time. So all my pictures inside were too dark and didn’t turn out at all. Huge bummer.

However, some of my outside pictures are quite beautiful. Another lesson I learned was to advance the wheel properly, or remember to advance the wheel at all. As you probably suspected, I had a lot of double exposures and even one triple exposure. Sad face.

Some of these were taken in our backyard and the rest were taken at a park close by.

snow on porch
double sun in trees
goose in park
goose on pond in park
geese foot prints and geese
steph in park

steph