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 :]

Delish.

Lately I've been trying to get into cooking a lot more. I even bought my first real cookbook. I'm not a great chef, I mean I can make a mean grilled cheese, but other than that and Stouffer's skillets I'm lost. Not to say I've not made some good things over the years, but not enough to justify being a good cook! So this weekend I've set out to cook some better, more interesting things than the usual Ramen and baked Tilapia that me and my boyfriend survive off of.

I'm probably most excited about the dinner I made last night. It's not anything super special, and sadly had no meat (I could never be a vegetarian, I've tried). The photo I took of it still looks delish though. 

Sweet Potato, homemade pasta salad, and peas!

Like I said, nothing fancy, but still so yummy!

Then this morning I had the most fantastic, unhealthy breakfast ever! Tyler made some bacon and sausage while I made orange french toast with a homemade strawberry orange syrup. So yum.

Really, I'm more excited about the fact that I've lost 3 inches on my waist from just eating better (minus the jalapeno Cheetos - hello addiction). I probably should be working out too, but thanks to my life, I have no time. But it's really not bad considering I've only had my own apartment for a month and last time I moved out I ended up gaining about 10 pounds instead of losing anything. No thanks for that happening again... 

I'm totally open to recipe suggestions though! Does anyone know of any amazing recipes they've tried out that are recommended?

VampireZombieAwesome

Oh, while I'm at it, I found these too! haha they made me laugh. We had to make 2 type crime posters as a series. My first one was about putting information in boxes and my second one was about kerning too closely [aka making it to where your type is unnaturally close]

Update to a SUPER, crazy old post.

So like a year ago I posted my vector cell shading project here. I thought it was suppppper awesome. Which, I won't lie, it kind of is... But I made it better for my portfolio. I keep wanting to post the better one, so I figured I may as well!

It still isn't as good or detailed as I want it to be, but I did improve on it!
[you should check out the previous ones]

Pilllow Shmeeellow.

Guess who updated her blog design! Uh, yeah, it's not that hard to figure out.... I don't know why but when I was driving home just this image of a llama eating a couch popped into my head. I know it may or MAY NOT (more likely) make sense. When I go to my mom's house I pass all these llama farms. They are sooooo damn adorable. Really. So I'm gonna go with that. Plus, my secret love for interior design and illustration had their roles too.

Hookay. So I said a few hours ago I'd post photos of my current project. I'm gonna try to explain what we were supposed to do. I'm bad at this, so bear with me.... 

So the goal of our project is to create a 3D invitation, challenging the use of paper and the look of a typical invitation. The event can be anything, fictional or non. So obviously mine is fictional!

So I have a heart for the homeless. Well, most of them anyway. Panhandlers just make me uncomfortable... So I heard a podcast talking about "How Homelessness Works" from Stuff You Should Know. I highly recommend it! It was talking about how 1/3 of homeless people are veterans, which is a awfully high number! So because of this I decided to create an event for the homeless. 

Anthropologie is currently hosting an event for adopting pets, so I thought it would be a good human interest piece they could host as well. Soooo onto making a pillow I went (it was the logical choice, of course).

I came up with the idea of making this from this pillow at west elm. Mine is better though. Just sayin'. It's going to be made out of burlap, have steel/metal buttons, and then the buttons will open to reveal the invite. And to be sure you know there's something on the inside (instead of wondering why you got this *awesome* random pillow) there will be a tag that says open me, leading to the inside.

On the back I really love the style and texture of Dhurrie. So I did a dhurrie inspired pattern on the back with the shape of an ARMY veterans vietnam patch. This will most likely be hand painted, or at least hand drawn out, and printed on muslin. 

So I had all my type copy written up and everything done on the computer.... And then I got my feedback hahaha. It kinda sucks, but I think it's gonna be better in the long run for my entire career. She gave me better advice than any of the teachers there (besides Mandy). They are the only two who have pointed out that between my drawings and the computer I lose everything that is great about my design. 

I am not a computer lover. I freeze, I get too caught up in the craziness of all the options I think. Plus, I'm super hands on, so I'm sure that doesn't help. 

Needless to say, I am trying to come up with a logo for the event. This is technically my working copy right now, although the thumbnails I had made didn't quite translate. The text in the middle is giving me trouble with placement and scale. Plus, I feel like I'm losing the 3 in the shield. It's still being worked on though. 

These were my thumbnails.
Notice the bottom row where I
started running out of ideas...

 So the project is due next Thursday, so hopefully I'll get pictures of this, as well as the first project I had due....

Does anyone else feel the disconnect when they go to do things on the computer or other electronics?
Like even reading a kindle, I'd rather have the book.... 

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!

Project Runway

So I haven't been watching Project Runway the last few seasons because I've been so busy, but I just read a little bit from this blog and I'm in love with Anya Ayoung Chee. I would never be able to wear any of them, but they're beautiful!

Nikon 3100

So after all the hubub of life I forgot to post my photos! I got to babysit my adorable niece a few weeks ago, the day after I got my camera actually! So I decided to have an impromptu photo shoot :] Her Wonder Woman outfit only made it that much more adorable.

Obviously the first few aren't of Kierra....
I just decided to share them anyway.
And now I'm off to take pictures with the handsome boy in the first photo for photography!

Oh, Hey.

Remember a long time ago when I said I'd be using this website as more of a design blog instead of my crazy life? Yeah, I forgot too.... Time to hop back into the saddle...

I changed my layout (or at least the background), so that it wouldn't be blah, and it would have at least an ounce more personality than it did before. Plus, my favorite colors being splayed across the screen won't hurt my feelings any. I really wish I already knew some HTML though, so I didn't have to rely on what blogger can do for me.... I should have that down by the end of next semester hopefully though.

And currently, as my photos are trying to upload on another post that'll probably be up in 20 minutes or so, it will be one of my first posts relating back to design again :]

I'm thinking I may be putting up my business cards I made this summer, updating my flickr, my Behance profile, and a few other things too. Feel free to follow me by the way! Time to revamp. I'm not super amazing at being professional, mostly because I'm not quite used to it.

We'll see how this goes :]
It might get post heavy for the next day or so... I'll apologize in advance....