The Hustle and Bustle of Life

So I've taken quite a long blogging hiatus and I am here to let everyone know that I am back! We have been so busy loving life this summer that I let time get away from me and it is August already.  How crazy is that?  I know everyone always says time flies but it just seems that after I have graduated college and gone into the "real world" that time really does just fly.  So I apologize to all you blog readers out there who thought I may have fallen off the face of the earth, I was just distracted by summer:)  I have plenty to share with you including dun dun dun..... me not finishing my 52 a week project.  I have many pictures that would fill up my weeks but I didn't take "one" picture a week so I am going to focus on trying to finish the project and possibly modifying it to better fit what I want to work on like sun flare and silhouettes:) I haven't been able to take photos for close to a month now, and I am itching to get back behind my camera.  I fractured my right wrist earlier and lifting or holding anything with it sent me shrieking in agony.  If any of you photog friends are out there you know how much I must have freaked out when I hurt my right wrist, I knew I wasn't going to be able to support my camera, release my shutter button and toggle between my dials for setting changes with an injured wrist. So instead of rocking a camera I have been sporting a periwinkle blue cast ever since.  My appointment to get my cast off is this Friday, and I have been counting down the seconds until this cumbersome thing is off of my arm.  I am hoping and praying that I will be fully recovered shortly from this injury.  My goal this week is to catch you all up on what I was up to, so look forward to some more posts shortly:)  For now I will leave you with a picture of my favorite subject.

Baking on a Sunday afternoon

This week I decided to take on the challenge of food photography.  One of my favorite blogs is http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/.  Seriously Ree Drummond is awesome.  Here are some of the reasons why I love her blog. 1) She lives on a Ranch.  This may not appeal to most but I like my farm life:) 2) She loves photography and has many amazing pictures from her ranch that make me drool. 3) Speaking of drooling check out her cooking section of her blog amazing recipes! and 4) She is very witty and I love reading all of her posts. 

It was a gloomy Sunday afternoon so I had nothing better to do than clean the house and bake for my husband. (Yea Right!) I could have thought of many other things to do but the house needed to be cleaned and I do love my husband so I thought I would make him some cookies and accomplish my weekly photo challenge at the same time.  So what is the first thing you need when you make cookies?  The ingredients.  This is what you need to make Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
2/3 cup butter and 2 large eggs.

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 6 ounce bag of dried cranberries

2/3 cups wich chocolate chunks (in this case chips)

beat together the butter and b. sugar until light and fluffy

Add eggs mixing well.

Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl.  Add to butter mixture in several additions mixing well after each addition. stirr in sweetened dried cranberries and white chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoon fuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool on wire rack.  This recipe will make about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!!

I really liked this aspect of photography, this definitely will be something I do again!

-Jenn

Spring is on its way.....errrrr.....guess again

This weather thing is getting a little ridiculous. I am ready to wear my flip flops.  Easter Sunday was a great day and had me in the spring mood so while Zac was busy doing "farm" things I trekked into the woods to find some signs of spring that I could capture.  My first picture is of some pretty pale purple flowers that I have never seen before, nor do I know what they are called. :)

The next two pictures aren't really spring related but I tend to love anything that has moss on it and the fungi growing on the birch tree had some neat texture.

These next few pictures make me smile every time I look at them.  They are of our calves showing off their 'spunk' if that is what you would like to call it.  Zac was feeding the cows hay and I was checking the water tanks.  The calves can get underneath the fence so they go wherever the wind takes them.  Much to my surprise I turned around to see this rambunctious crew cruising over the hill and coming right at me.  I am so glad that my shutter speed was up high enough to capture these images and they weren't a blurry mess!

So my 'one photo a week' is turning into multiples because I just cannot decide which one to pick. :) I guess that is not a bad thing right??

-Jenn

Miss Brynn and some odds and ends!

I really need to get on track with weekly blogging.  I am letting my busy life get away from me, and before I know it it is two weeks later! (almost 3 eeek!) So I promised to show you what I was doing with the flowers I was making. Below you will see a little bit of what I have been up to. These pictures are not very challenging...and really are not helping me with my photography skills but I have gotten kind of side tracked and became obsessed with crafting. So hopefully I will be more inspired in the next few weeks and challenge myself a bit more.  I absofreakinglutely (yes that is a word) love yarn wreaths!  I typically see a lot of things and refuse to buy them because I automatically think "I can make that".  This was definitely one of those items.  I went for a more vintage rustic look and since I am very much enfatuated with the color mustard right now of course that was my first pick when deciding on my yarn color.  I am pretty happy with how this turned out. :) I have about 100 different ideas that I would like to try with these wreaths so I'm sure I will be making more.  I also made some headbands for a 6 month old photo shoot I had coming up so the last picture is to show that off.

This past Sunday I had the pleasure of taking pictures of Miss Brynn.  Even if she did not want her picture taken for part of our experience:).  She has the biggest blue eyes and is very curious about everything!  She let me try some of my new props out on her and I think we got some cute photos!  I hope you enjoy the pictures Jackie!

That is all for this week! Check back next week:)

--Jenn

Baby Carson ::4 Weeks old::

My pictures of the week are featuring an adorable little boy named Carson:)  His Mom and Grandma brought him over for an afternoon of fun.  He was a little stinker and sure made us work for the pictures.  Carson "seasoned" me in newborn/baby photography.  We definitely had many laughs with him.  My husband came home about halfway through the pictures and we joked around with him that it was his turn for a "shower".  Needless to say his eyes got that deer in the headlights look and he couldn't believe that such an innocent looking boy could have managed to piddle on all three of us.  It still makes me giggle just thinking about it.  This just solidifies that I love taking pictures of babies even if I do get peed on:) I hope you enjoy the pictures Kelli!

I love some honest feedback :) After all, this blog is to help me improve my photog skills so comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated.

<3 Jenn

Glue guns are a girls best friend :)

I did not take any pictures last week.  So now I am completing a 53 week (err Jenn was distracted week) project.  I am hoping not to extend my "photo a week" project any longer than 53 weeks but I am not making any promises.  So what has been distracting me?  This pretty puppy.

Say hello to my little friend.  This could quite possibly be one of the best Christmas presents I have ever received. (Thanks Mom :) Love ya! Now I will stop stealing yours)  Back to the distractions.  I. Like. To. Craft.  Plain and simple.  It is a big stress reliever and oh so much fun to say hey! I made this:)  I have a slight case of ADHD when it comes to crafting.  I get so excited and get too many ideas running through my head that more often than not I bite off more than I can chew.  So my pictures are to show you a few of my "pretties" I have been making the past two weekends.  I have soooooooo many more to make! On to the photos:



Tune in later to see what I eventually do with all of them:)
-Jenn

Things that make my heart sing.

I am blessed with a wonderful family.  I know everyone says that but mine truly rocks:) It never fails that a night spent with my family ends up with lots of rolling on the floor laughing moments.  A new addition to our family and who I am featuring for my last weeks picture is Warren.  I cannot believe this little man is already 3 months old!  He makes my heart swell every time I see him, and me being the emotional sap that I am finds him so perfect that he makes me tear up every time I see him.  I absolutely love watching my sister and brother interact with him.  It is an amazing thing to see how much they have changed and grown since Warren was brought into their lives.  Enough with my gushing about my nephew and onto some pictures.

Look at that CRAZY red hair and big blue eyes:)

I am so ready for spring!  This week's picture is inspired by Spring:)  I love fresh flowers and I end up buying them for the house quite a bit.  I stumbled upon some daffodils and just had to have them.  I also am in love with antique stores.  I frequent a nearby antique store at least every other weekend to see what is new and I love going to new antique stores and just browsing for hours.  I am also a bit obsessed with milk glass.  I just love the way it looks, so when I went to the antique store to find the perfect milk glass vase for my daffodils of course I ended up buying three:)

I am a bit obsessed with photography blogs and blogs of all sorts lately.   My ultimate goal in life would be to create a business where I can work from home once my husband and I decide to start a family.  Since the sound of a shutter releasing is probably one of my favorite sounds it would only be fitting that I consider a photography business.  I am hoping that I can develop my hobby into something more...eventually whether it be part time or *cross my fingers* full time. Getting back to my ramblings of photography blogs, one of my new favorite blogs I am following gives wonderful advice.  The photographer boasts to shoot what makes your heart sing and I think that is the best advice you could give anyone who enjoys photography.  So what makes my heart sing you ask?  Newborns!!!  I realized when I took my nephews newborn pictures that capturing a new life in the first few days of welcoming them to this world was something I could do 24/7.  So this is something that I would love to pursue.  So I would gladly accept people to volunteer their perfect little ones to model for me:)  Please e-mail me at Jenn00717@gmail.com if you are interested! Or contact me on facebook.  I also have some fun ideas for a one year old photo shoot.  So if you know of a little one turning one soon feel free to contact me as well:)

On a side note...tomorrow is Monday. Ugh I despise Mondays.

That is all for now!

-Jenn





Photos 6 & 7

Last week was Zac's birthday.  To celebrate we had family over for dinner.  I made Lasagna (which was amazing) and a chocolate fudge cake with peanut butter, butter-cream frosting.  YUM! is all I have to say. I will definitely be making that frosting again.  I wanted to get a few photos of the cake and since we had his dinner on a weeknight there was no possible way to get a daylight picture of the cake.  I struggled to get a picture that I liked and I chose to show you two versions.  The color version and a black and white conversion.  Next on my to-do list for photography is to understand white balance.  With the help of photoshop I was able to adjust the photo so that it looks similar to what it actually looked like, but I need to learn how to do this in camera as well.  Here are the photos from last week:

I struggled with ideas of what to take pictures of this week.  I finally settled on a new pair of earrings that I have recently fallen in love with.  Detail shots are some of my favorites so these were right up my alley.  I used our screened porch in our back yard to hang the earrings and some scrapbook paper to hang behind them.  Once again I am posting more than one photo because I could not choose just one:)

This first one was my favorite.

 I have figured out how to use storyboards and I love them!!

That is all for now! If you have any idea suggestions for my weekly photos I would love to hear them. :)