Call it fan art

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We’s got Key’s

Welcome to where we’ll be living for the next year…our tiny apartment in downtown Charleston. Am I excited? Lets see…20 minutes from the BEACH!! Is that enough of an answer? We can walk to the grocery store (fun!), there's a park a few blocks away. There's an art festival about to happen. Settling on a place has set things in motion. Yesterday I was quite sad and worried about it all, but today I’m ready to take it on. I think that’s a sign that God’s prompting us in this direction.

Charley got a job as a baker and cook at a local bakery. I’ll be editing my fanny off for a few months and then searching for a side job…and without further hesitation, here she is:

This is the large main room that will function as the laundry room, kitchen, dining room and living room (whew!). Here she is labeled for your convenience.

This is the front of the building and our parking.

This is the street view if you are facing the building and looking to the right.

The front door.

If you walk in the front door and turn around, here is the kitchen:

eety bitty little fridge!

On the right of the living room is the door to the washer dryer. The door next to it is to our bathroom.

This is the view from the living room windows into our courtyard area (aka juneaus spot.) We’re thinking of just throwing her out the window when she gets too annoying.

…and this looks pretty gross but this is our closet in our bedroom..it’s not rust or mold, it's old paint deposit. We’re allowed to paint over it thank goodness.

The bedrooms and bathrooms are identical on both sides.

The face wall of bedroom two (window toward street).

This is the path that leads to our private courtyard.

Using available light

Usually when I say this phrase, people will think: sunshine, outdoors, window light.

 

The point of my post to today is to encourage you to think of light in creative ways. It’s everywhere and can be accessed. You don’t have to have fancy-pancy studio lights to do some of the dramatic portraiture you can see on flickr and elsewhere.

here are some sources that people often overlook

1. using a car’s headlights. There's some powerful strobes packed in those things! I took this at the wedding last weekend after spotting one of the bridesmaids pulling away from the party tent. I ran to stop her from leaving so I could use her headlights and she politely obliged.

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I really love these headlight shots from my friend snixie on her blog HERE. She is ridiculously awesome at what she does.

 

 

 

 

2. using park/public building flood lamps.  This shot was taken at our state house using the lights in the ground that are used to highlight the statues.

3. street lamps. Light up from above! This shot was from a lamppost out in the country:

4. lit signs Christmas lights or random found outdoor bulbs. This couple had a platter that was signed by their guests. It wasn’t signed until nightfall so I used the available Christmas lights for a portrait while having a guest hold it. If I had taken this with my flash, I would have not been able to read the names.

5. window-shops at night. If you aren’t afraid of a little grain, night shots will force you to get creative. This picture is a little bit out of focus as well but part of me loves it’s ambiguous nature.

6. background lights from a city.

7. lights from underneath or behind for silhouette shots

Or how about lights behind tents for shadows!?

The Window Portrait

As you know, portraits are pretty much based on flattering light. It’s only natural that we take a picture inside, realize it’s not right and gravitate right towards the light source: the window  ( really a few shots under a florescent will send you scrambling away in a flurry).  The “window portrait” is a trick that many many photographers use…it’s like the “go to” area for light. You’ll find this method used all the time in Food Blogs. I used this trick for my picture of boiled peanuts.

So here's the 411: A window portrait= the use of a single window as your natural light source.

You may be wondering, “ but I’ve already tried taking pictures by our window and didn’t get anything special!”. Well, that’s because there's a part two.

Facial planes look best when there is plenty of light bounced into the eyes, and no harsh shadows. THEREFORE, you need to bounce some of that juicy window light back onto the subject using a reflector. Don’t have one? neither do I! For 2 dollars at your local craft store go get your self a plain ol white piece of foam board ( you can use a shiny white poster board too). If you need even more reflection, use some tinfoil wrapped around an old frame.

Posistion your subject (be it food or a person) next to the window. Use your reflector on the other side. Position it correctly with careful observation of where you are bouncing your light. You want some shadows, or you will wash out the face. That’s why this light setup is practically foolproof: one main light source, one secondary. 

As a disclaimer, there is nothing evil or wrong about not reflecting light. A single light source on one side of a photo can create a moody and atmospheric shot. Don’t be afraid to play around with it and try to think about the mood you are trying to evoke. In normal situations however, it’s better to have a more evenly lit shot for faces or food.

A Game called “annoy the dog”

 

Today Mom gave me a pretty bow, don’t I look dashing?

Then I realized how annoying the bow was. I wanted to eat it, but couldn’t

She took it off for me since I hated it so much. Much better!

Then it was payback time for bow. Bow has to DIE!

But Mom wasn’t done annoying me. She tied it in a tree where I couldn’t get it.

 

Mom didn’t tell me how stupid I looked.

New things

Charley and I are about to embark on  a journey for something new. He has wanted to leave town for a while now, tired of the slow drawl of southern Columbia. I grew up here, my friends and family are here, and I was less than excited to leave. Compromise is as you know a large part of marriage. He waited a year and a half with me here as I got used to being married and such. Now, I think it’s  time for something new.  We have decided to go to Charleston (which won over Seattle and Texas). It’s a great food community for charley to find work, its a beautiful place to live and it’s not so very far away from the ones I love.

Last week we spent two days looking at apartments and houses. It’s not as easy as it sounds to find a place that fits our needs. Accommodating the dog is an extra challenge. One place we came to look at was a super cute yellow house in the heart of the city with vintage heart of pine floors. Unfortunately when we turned into the street there were about 8 people in the road that gave us a “you don’t belong here” look. It was also conveniently located next to a liquor store with bars on the window. More humorously still, we opened the “false” door to the front of the house and realized that there were no steps to get to the door. It was vetoed and the search went on.

I’m a really big fan of this one house that has a teal bathroom. Cute huh?! A lot of the houses downtown are funny because they are down tight one lane roads with no parking. Great house, but you have to walk a block to get to your front door! Some of them were affected in the earthquake so the sides are bowed and walking indoors feels like a ship deck.

There was a Loft that we especially liked and got the okay from the person to go  see it. We showed up and awkwardly found out that someone had already moved in. We walked a few blocks over and saw a house with a for rent sign on it. We peeked in the windows to find a gorgeous living room with dark hardwood floors and a fireplace. It was a block away from our “price range house” so we googled it only to find that it rented for $3,000 a month. EEP!

This will be  a new experience all around for us. If you’re our family or friends, we appreciate your prayers and we make these decisions. We are holding out for affordable, safe housing (and to be really picky, a place for Juneau to run around outside). Charley has two job interviews tomorrow as well, one which would be full time pastry chef (his dream job).

 

And what will I be doing? Good question. I’m ready to find a job that offers some stability to my lifestyle. I’m tired of being on the road, and even more tired of photography. RIP photography business: it’s getting killed currently ( a long drawn-out death). My last client is in 2012, so until then I have to drive a bit farther. With this new found freedom I’d like to focus back on Art. I don’t think I will be able to paint full time, but I will be starting a series that I have been brainstorming through for some time while possibly working retail. I’d love a job at a gallery or antique shop and there’s one about every five feet in Charleston, I might just have a chance.

Good bye Cola, Hello Charley-town!

Awe

Anyone who’s ever been around a six year old for over five minutes has experienced the forever flowing stream of curiosity. What's this? How’s this work? Why can’t it do that? Explaining their question is usually followed by another question. It’s  a refreshing way to think, and a reminder to me to be excited about things. A child doesn’t doubt his thirst for knowledge, he just seeks it. As an adult I find myself holding back in my interest in things, because I’m simply to burnt out or don’t think anyone cares. I’m not saying I should go back to my bouncy six year old mindset, but it helps so much to go through life with an awake spirit: one that wants answers.

While shooting today, I watched these kids stand in awe of a chef cooking a steak at a restaurant. Spellbound, they never stopped to consider that no one else seemed to care..that across the globe people were cooking steaks and plopping them on plates to be eaten, a normal routine. In their eyes he could have been a five star chef trained in France when in reality he was probably “just a dude” trying to make a little money. However their awe and attention made him light up in smiles and probably made his mediocre day a little better because someone had noticed his work.

Car vs. Steed

 

Day two of road-trip-adventures-for-the-sake-of-photography: after a fun shoot involving horses and x-box controllers, my car broke down on the way home. It could have been bad, but God was definitely watching out for me. The engine overheated and stopped suddenly, but while I could have been going 60 mph on the interstate, I had pulled off the ramp. A very sweet couple helped me push my car out of the road and gave me a ride to McDonalds. The hubby was still at work so my awesome dad and brother came and picked me up. Nothing could be done for the car so we came back to look at it the next day. My uncle fixed the hose and we got it home in one piece so the engine can get repaired by my super cool uncle. And because of this  I learned three things:

a.) God is awesome

b.) Family is awesome

c.) Cars and driving stink

I did have a lot of fun taking pictures of the horses in the fields where we were shooting. I think they are one of the most beautiful animals in the whole world. I wish we still drove these instead of cars!