Meet Petri.

I just upgraded Adobe Lightroom on my computer from 3 to 4, finally! While I was looking for a photo to edit, so I could see if there were different features, I found these photos I took a month or so ago of my old film camera! My good ol' Petri Penta...

Darkroom Photography

This semester one of my classes I'm taking is to learn how to develop black and white film. I'll be honest, I was horrified at first... The thing that scared me the most are the chemicals, which smell awful.   Actually, to be honest, rolling my film scared me the most. You have to be in a pitch black room, where you can't even see your hand in front of your face. I thought she was kidding about this when she told us the first day... She's not.

I went and bought a 60's Petri Penta (right), which looks AMAZING. I love the weight of it and the fact that the shutter release is in the front, not on the top! That aside I had (and still have) no idea how to work it... There's no meter, I can barely figure out how to work the shutter speed, and it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to put the film in. That last one is mostly due to not putting film in a camera for over 10 years though....

The camera on the left is my aunt's Pentax. It saved my life. It's got a meter and automatic film rolling (to put it back in the container). This was the camera I used to get photos to be developed in class today. They turned out really well! I need to stop taking photos of plants, but overall I'm so excited about how well they turned out! Monday we start printing, which I'm nervous again, but it shouldn't be too bad! I just wish I knew how to develop color photos now!

Meet Lori Woolard

I'm not the type of person to tell a lot of information about myself without someone asking. It's not that I don't want people to know things, usually, but I don't like to feel like I'm intruding and making everything all about me. But, seeing as this is my blog I think I'll go ahead and share one of the most personal things I've ever put out there for a class.

My mom has MS. She's had it since I can remember, but wasn't diagnosed with it until I was 15. In the 7 years that we've known she has not had it easy. She went from walking, to occasionally falling, to needing a walker, and then a wheelchair. 

So when I had to do a photo story for my final photography project this story was not at the top of my list.   Originally I had wanted to do the process of professional letter pressing. It's interesting, unique to the people in my class, and my professor had never seen it before. Triple Threat. However, when the scheduling went awry and I only had 2 weeks left till the project was due I decided to use this story. 

My mom having MS is nothing new to me, but sometimes when I tell people I see that look in their eye, of feeling sorry for me. Let me tell you now. I hate that look. It's rough and it sucks, but it's not me in that position of having my freedom taken away. So seeing that look in about half of my classmates today was interesting. Luckily I was half dead from staying up for another project and I didn't even care at that point. 

I've written a lot. I don't even know if who ever is reading this is getting anything out of it, but I hope you guys at least have a little more insight to me and my life. On to the photos. 

I have a ton of photos I took, but these are the 6 I chose for my story. If you guys know anyone with MS or any other illness where that person needs a friend or support please let me know! I'd love to help my mom start a local support group so she can interact with more people! She doesn't get to talk to outsiders much, aside from facebook and texting.

*on an adorable note, Tyler heard me typing and when he found I was blogging he said to be sure to tell everyone that I have an amazing boyfriend {true} who loves me veryyyyy much. Needless to say he woke me up this morning so I wouldn't be late to class after I pulled an all nighter and only got 2 hours of sleep. Did I mention he did it with hugs and kisses on the nose? He's pretty perfect. 

Photo.graphy.

Where I Stood - Oct 26

So I have this theory that you can tell a lot about what someone is doing and maybe even who they are by their feet. I think it could be incredibly false, but because of this reason, and the fact that I like to remember what I was doing or where I was standing at a particular moment I take photos of my feet in that place. Usually it's when I'm happy or especially when I found somewhere I love and want to remember where it is. It makes me feel grounded, and helps me realize it's not just the sky that can make someone feel infinite. Call me crazy, but it's how I think.

My favorite place I stood recently was daring. There is a lake by my mom's house and when the day is right and it's just rained there's a little mini-waterfall. This place is legit. It's my favorite go-to, think place and really it is just all around beautiful.

So why is it daring you ask?! Please look at this photo below and picture me standing in this place with my 1000 dollar Nikon. It wasn't easy to get to either. And I'm hardly coordinated.

I'm pretty sure the fact that I not only didn't drop my camera in the lake (while standing on the incredibly unstable log), as well as the photos I got that day make this one of my favorites "Where I Stood". 

The Red Barn

For anyone who knows me, I used to be an interior design major. I would like to think I changed my major, but it keeps following me around. It's like the stalker that you think you put the restraining order on, but they're still always lurking. Charming analogy, I know.

So Tuesday when we finished our 3rd assignment for Graphic Design 2 it was all I could do not to break down into a happy dance! But alas, I can't dance, and I'd be too embarrassed to even try, so I sufficed with playing a lot of Doctor Mario and watching Voyager to celebrate.

This project has been the bane of my design existence for the last month. We had to take the exhibit they had at the barn and redesign it to be better, easier said than done.

Their current exhibit. 

The main attraction of the barn. 

Since the barn has been around for so long it's a second home to the community. They love that barn. So our concept was to make it feel more like home for the guests and people who work there. We did this by dividing the barn into "rooms" where the history would be seen, and selecting awesome furnishings for the space.

So then when someone walks into the barn they'll see this! Except more realistic and with more information. 

Overall, I don't think it was too bad, but I'm excited for whatever our next project will be. I don't feel like I learned a lot from that assignment, besides the fact that my presentation seemed to get better! woot woot! 

There's more photos of the barn and the project on my flickr, red barn album if you wanna check it out! The photos aren't top notch quality, but they'll give you an idea of the space. 

Caterpillar Day

Today I was down by my moms house so I decided to go to my favorite spot at Lake O to take some photos! It was partly for photography, partly for personal. Um it turned out kind of awesome. I saw 4 furry caterpillars, all in different spots, all different colors. My favorite little beast is the black and yellow man on the flowers up there. He was posing the hell out of my photo shoot with him! I really wish I had my telephoto lens, cause had to get (almost literally) face to face with this guy. I've always been told furry caterpillars are poisonous. I'm pretty sure after googling it just now they all aren't, but there's NO WAY I want to find out.

The orange man at the top is pretty rad too! He was hiding under my car, but I was gone long enough I'm pretty sure he got out from under it before I could run over him (fingers crossed). 

I mean I know they're bugs, but their furry factor makes them adorable. Like little insect kittens! haha okay, maybe not, but still. 

I sat down to watch Venture Brothers with Tyler after I got home, and oddly enough the episode was about Doctor Venture turning into a caterpillar! 

So strange, so strange.

Now, because today was so good, I'm declaring caterpillars as my good luck charm (but only furry ones). 

Out of the Drought

This weekend, after what felt like YEARS of not having rain, it finally rained! For two days strait actually. It was so refreshing and calming. It just makes me more and more ready for fall. After the second day of rain I noticed something in my apartment.

It was/is not okay. I called to have it fixed and I'm pretty sure they haven't done it yet, but it also isn't dripping, and dried up by this morning. I'm kind of, sort of hoping to get a cut in rent for my troubles of having to deal with it considering I've only been here 2 months and it's getting crazy. 

Needless to say I got a few AWESOME shots of the night sky!

This is what it looks like on a normal unclouded night

This is what it looked like last night. 

One of my other favorite shots I've gotten of the sky lately was during a sunset a few weeks ago. 

The one thing I love about Oklahoma is definitely the variation in sky we see. 

Was anyone else thankful for the rain!? It was incredibly lovely. 

Photo Assignment 1

 I will not lie. My photography skills are not where I'd like them to be, being as I'd like to be a pro photographer. I wish Oklahoma had more interesting things  to photograph. I want to find a nice, beautiful wheat field. I know that seems like it would be easy, given it's Oklahoma, but it's not. At all.

UPSIDE:

• One day I will live in New York, Amsterdam, Portland, Boston, Austin, anywhere that is not Oklahoma [and has a nice, large city] 
• I'm also in a photography class, so my photos will also get better. I do think they've gotten better already though!

I have taken a few photos I like a lot :]

These photos are for my depth of field project! [Shallow and Great] - I'm pretty sure it's called great dof at least haha probably something I should for sure learn by the end of it...

Shallow [f 5, 125, ISO 100]

Great [f32, 125, ISO 100]

We also had to do Sunlit Studies of how different types of sunlight affect people's faces. This explains my boyfriend exactly. :D

And then we got to get creative. I really want to redo these, but it was a good idea in theory! We had to take a motion shot, but these fun park rides don't quite go fast enough. It was way too fun not to attempt though!  We had to have one blurry of the person, one blurry of the background, and one still shot of everything. 

And then I just had fun taking pictures of this handsome man :]

It's a littleeee dark, but I'm still learning :]

UPdate on Ashurst Photography

EDIT: 

I'll be re-posting these later, they need an update. Sorry!

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So I took new photos of the cards I made for Jennifer Ashurst Photography, and theyyyy look better. By a lot. I have to fix a few things on them, but viola!

I've changed my layout like 18 times the last few days, and I still hate it, but I'm about to tweak a few things, and then this weekend hopefully completely revamp it... I have a few ideas of what I want to do.

I was taught something else today, that I hadn't really thought about.... 

It's pretty ground breaking for me, and mayyy change my design style a lot [because only like 10% of what I designed I was happy with the final project]

I'm also gonna get on later and post a few sketches and designs of my current project going on in school. I'm ridiculously excited about it. 

Jen's Business Cards

EDIT: 

I took down a few photos. I'll be re-posting these later, they need an update. Sorry!

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A few weeks ago I was asked to do photography for a photographer's wedding... Not intimidating at all, right?... Although it would have been crazy stressful sadly, it fell through. 

However, this did inspire me a little to get back to a previous project. I had designed some business cards for her over the summer, which I decided to revamp and work on a little today. I need to retake my photos because my apartment has crappy lighting, but I'll let you guys see my before and afters. The logo stayed the same, which I wish I could tweak it a bit more, but it's not actually anything she's using so I've got time.

I started out with the logo, I knew I wanted something pretty script like. The only thing she wanted out of her cards were the words: fun, artsy, classy. 

Obviously this is awful and was only a sketch

I actually like this one much less than the computer sketch I had...

Which is why I completely re-rendered my logo!

I had also played with this (gag) camera image, which was really generic and awful. I had originally wanted to integrate a J and a P into the logo with the camera, it's basically impossible for my mind to get around.... 

So on to new ideas! After trying to figure out what to do with the front of her card, Jen told me she wanted a damask, because if I've learned anything working with her, the girl loves her damask! Added bonus: it's pretty classy. 

By then, I had finally figured out my logo for her (thank goodness)...

Then I moved onto working on the damask cards. I think they're okayyyyy. But I don't settle on okay. Or at least I try not to.... I'd like to think I'm getting better though, so obviously my perception of "okay" will change. If not I may as well change my major now.

ANYWAYYY. When I woke up this morning the Ashurst folder on my computer had these two solutions for my "finals" (above). Meh. So instead of doing my Physical Science Lab Manual, studying, or working on the 18 other things I have to do (including work, in which I will be paying rent with, whoops) I re-amped her cards. 

I wasn't fond of the idea that a photographer would have business cards without a photo on it though. This is why I made 2 versions. A different version of the damask cards, and a version I personally would like to use. (How is someone supposed to know if you're a good photographer without a picture?) Most people will not be willing to go to that website sitting there on the last line of your card without a little preview or incentive to know they aren't wasting their time. Time = Money. Seriously.... 

DAMASK CARD (updated)

 PHOTO CARD:

Also, I learned today, well I learned several things.
a. Taking a photo of your work will aways look better than seeing it flat on the screen. (I'm pretty sure we work dimensionally, and photos add that dimension)
b. When doing a reverse for a logo you most likely shouldn't do it reversed on black, because it's super harsh on your eyes. Really I hadn't thought about reversing a logo anyway, I've only heard of gray scale checks, but it makes sense.

So because my lighting is awful (it's 11p.m. in an apartment with florescent lighting 14' up - AKA not conducive to well lit photos without blur) I will be taking more/better photos of all of my work tomorrow. 

 I do think it looks better than it had before. Any comments to help it further or to even, ya know, say how awesome it is are welcome and suggested!