Photography Website

I've been diligently working on my photography website and it is just about finished. You can view it at Jaime's Gallery. I still have a few photos left to critique and add to the site but the basic outline is completed. I'll keep adding new photos as I finish analyzing my collection.

Over the past week, I've been watching the boxed sets of Charmed while working on my photography webpage and editing some of my photos. In the episode in season 4 about the muses, the muse that the three sisters are trying to save says something very inspiring.... "Art isn't about perfection, its about expression. The key is simply to love it." I think this describes the purpose of my photography. It's the expression of my feelings and emotions. It's how I see the world around me. Hope you enjoy my site!

After I buy a Canon digital slr (hopefully within the next week or so) I plan to really start improving my photographic ability. Outside input will help me be more objective so any comments on my photos will be greatly appreciated, but please be honest in your opinions. I really want to improve my photography skills so all constructive criticism will be appreciated.

To give a glimpse of what my site is about I want to share one of my favorite pics. This photo was taken quite a few years ago but it since it was one of the first images I composed successfully, it is still my favorite even after all the other photographs I have taken since then.
A mockingbird hanging out in an oak tree is not an uncommon occurrence in the country, but this little guy was extremely friendly and let me get incredibly close to him. He was very curious about the camera and posed for a long time while I found the perfect angle for the photo.

I wanted the subject of the image to be simply the bird and his calm curiosity of his surroundings. The diagonal limb of the tree adds a bit of tension to the image. It's almost as if the bird could fly away without any warning. There is slightly more area to the left and top of the image to give the bird somewhere to go in case he does decide to break the tension of the photograph and fly away into the bright summer's sky.

There is nothing in the scene but the bird, the tree, and the sky, so that nothing distracts the viewer from the main subject of the image. The angle of the image is slightly upward further accentuating the fact that the bird's natural setting is detached from ours. He lives his life high above the ground in a tree or flying through the sky and he is only satisfying his curiosity about those living in the world below him before he returns to the sky.

I simplified the image by only capturing the elements familiar to the bird and his natural habitat. The fact that the barn, horses, and collies are only yards away from the tree has no bearing on the image and therefore were carefully avoided when the photograph was taken.

I enjoyed composing this photograph which would not have been possible without the curiosity of this particular mockingbird.

Medieval Wedding Theme

We decided to go with a Medieval theme instead of a Victorian theme for the wedding so that we can incorporate dragons into the decorations and things. My fiance loves dragons and all things fantasy. I still want the colors to be lavender, yellow, and silver - so I know I'm going to have problems finding purple dragons :) . I'm thinking silver dragons might be more realistic to find, but since I'm going to make a lot of the things myself it shouldn't be too difficult to do.

I don't know how medieval we want the wedding to be - if we want some parts of it to be more traditional or to go all out with the medieval theme. I half wish I had thought about it before I ordered the announcements but I can always reorder them :). I don't want the wedding to seem silly but I definitely want it to be very uniquely ours. Maybe we can do a formal, traditional wording for the announcements and a medieval wording for the invitations, especially since people not going to the wedding might not understand the wording being so different.

Changing themes has kind of thrown me for a loop in a way, because I have all these ideas for the Victorian era which can not be incorporated into the wedding at all now. But I want to involve Chris as much as possible, and make this our wedding and not just mine. So we're going with medieval. It's hard to get him to discuss things with me. He'll either not pay me any attention at all and just agree with everything I say, or he'll act very involved and then when I bring it up again later, he won't remember discussing it with me. It's a little frustrating.

I'm reading The Smart Couple's Guide to the Wedding of Your Dreams by Judith Sherven and James Sniechowski and it has some good ideas for involving your partner in the wedding decisions. One such idea is to make dates to do wedding planning things together. This book is basically a wedding planner that helps couples create a wedding that is an expression of the their relationship together. It encourages you to use your creativity to make your wedding uniquely your own, to make the planning process fun, relaxing and stress-free.

I also found another idea on the net that a couple tried while planning their wedding - the bride-to-be put all of her ideas in a notebook and left it where the groom-to-be could look through it on his own time and add his own ideas. I definitely think this is worth trying.

Ordered Engagement Announcements

I bit the bullet and ordered some wedding things today. Now I can't keep changing my mind about everything. Something at least has been settled and completed.

I wanted to send engagement announcements out to everyone who will be invited to the wedding. Since it's going to be such a long time until the wedding, I want to go ahead and announce the engagement and not wait for the invitations to be sent. A newspaper announcement will not be enough (though I want to do that also) since a lot of my friends who are being invited do not live in the same city or even the same state. Besides, sending actual paper announcements to everyone will keep them from constantly asking me when we are going to be married and if we have set a date yet. The answer is "No, just a general time period. In the spring three years from now.” I know everyone means well, but damn if it doesn't get really annoying being constantly baggered about something you feel so unsure about to begin with.

So I ordered the Garden Wrap invitation from The American Wedding Album Stationery Company and to go along with the Medieval Garden Theme I choose the Linotext font (which looks kind of Medieval) and the lavender color wrap and purple lined envelopes to match the lavender/yellow/silver color scheme of the wedding. They seem like a very professional company (even sent me a free catalog) so we will see how the announcements will turn out.

I also ordered silver heart-shaped envelope seals with Jaime and Chris written in the center from Your Beautiful Beginnings. Hope those turn out OK too.

I'm kind of relieved I've actually finally accomplished something with the wedding plans. I'm still very nervous about the whole idea of marriage. Guess I just need more time to get use to the idea. I'm very glad I pushed for the long engagement though. I definitely need some time to adjust.

Art's Alive

My mom, sister and I went to Art's Alive at the local university today. It was really wonderful to spend some girl time with them since I don't get to see them as much as I use to. My mom now has a full time job at a local craft store and my sister is getting her PhD in Raleigh. We had a great time. Art's Alive is an annual event held by the university for the students in the Art program. It allows the art students at the U a chance to display and sell their crafts (pottery, photography, watercolor, acrylic, jewelry, basket weaving, among other things) and a few local vendors to sell their wares also. It doubles as a aid to the local economy as well as helping the students procure experience while still in college.

My favorite piece being displayed was the "Every Artist...Has a Story". It reminded me a lot of Salvador Dali's work. I love his surrealist paintings of the melting clocks, "The Persistence of Memory" being my favorite. Of all the art I studied in school, his is one of the few I still remember clearly. He obviously made a deep impression on me. Most of his paintings are odd or creepy but I'm drawn to them and can barely force myself to look away. I hope that doesn't mean I'm odd and creepy :)

I bought an earring and necklace set made of Dichroic Glass from one of the vendors. The picture doesn't do them justice, but you can kind of see the multitude of colors. What you can't see in the picture is the way the colors change in the light. Dichroic Glass is a type of colored glass which looks iredescent. The jewelry looks very fun to make. Hope I get to try it.

Afterwards, we went to Ruby Tuesdays for lunch and my mom had me try a psycological exersise they did in her art class. It's called the House-Tree-Person Test. Basically you draw a house, tree, and person anyway you want and the way you portray them tells you alot about your personality. It was very insightful and interesting.
For example:
If you draw clouds, smoke, or sun, you have a warm loving personality.
If your person is close to your house, you feel comfortable in your own home.
If your house has lots of windows you are open to the outside world or if you have no windows you like your privacy.
Large or multiple doors indicate you welcome people stopping by at any time unannounced.
The type of tree you draw would indicate what part of the country you feel more comfortable in. For example, if you draw a deciduous tree it could mean you are more comfortable in the South.
A swing, birds, children's toys, and little animals denotes a playful personality.
A detailed face on the person would mean you're very social and need to look good in front of other people.
A path leading up to house starting small and ending large means a closed personality when you first meet someone but opens up to people as you get to know them.
How much detail you went into meant something too, but I can't remember just now what it was. Anyway, it was very fun and I made my fiance take the test when he got home this afternoon. It was interesting comparing our rendition of the house and how our individual views of our lives differed and how similar they were at the same time.

Wedding Plans

Even though I know I have plenty of time to plan the wedding (May 2009), I still feel overwhelmed. I'll start to make decisions about something only to scrap everything and start over again. The only thing I'm absolutely sure about at the moment is that I want to try to make a lot of the things myself. I love doing crafty things. I just wish I could be a little bit more focused. I do need to start deciding on some part of it pretty soon though, especially if I'm going to make the invitations, decorations, etc.

I definitely want to sew my wedding dress. I've picked out the pattern already. It's Vogue pattern V2717 . I fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it and I knew that it was the dress I wanted to wear to my wedding. Its a simple elegant style which I think will suit me.

One of the best web sources I've found for wedding planning is The Knot www.theknot.com. If you haven't been to their site, you should really check it out. They have all sorts of advice and resources and ideas. Including an interactive wedding checklist and a guest list manager. It's free to sign up. They even have a section called "the nest" with sources for newlyweds.

I'm an amatuer photographer among other things. I have always loved walking and hiking, even as a child, so photographing what I encountered in nature seemed like the proper next step. The trick is convincing my fiancé to leave his computer long enough to join me :) My Peekapoo, Max, is a bit easier to convince as long as he doesn't have to sit still for the camera too much. Seriously, I love them both very much and know I’m very lucky to have such a supporting fiancé and such a cute little dog.

I just recently started my own website. Mostly for my wedding plans but also an offshoot for my photography hobby. The photography part is not completely functional, but as soon as it is I’ll provide a link.