College, goals, and more.

A lot of you know that I started back to school last year. College has been a trying time for me. Let me dial it back a little bit and give you some back ground on the subject.

Right out of high school I was all packed up and ready to attending Oral Roberts University for Vocal Performance. My stuff never left the drive way. Between having health issues and being scared out of my mind, I didn’t go. My parents were very supportive and I stayed home and enrolled at the Community College of Allegheny County. At first I just started taking random classes but then I discovered they had a theater department. I had a great time there. I got the chance to meet some really wonderful people and have a great time on and off stage. Although my theater classes were going well, my academic classes were, well, not so good. When I got pregnant with Aurora I stopped attending school. Being a mom was way more important to me. I was already working full time and wanted to spend what other time I did have with my family.

As Aurora got older and I changed jobs it seemed like a perfect time to start back to school. I didn’t want to just work in a retail job forever and getting my degree has always been something I just wanted to do. I started classes at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division for my Bachelors in Photography in July of 2010. Little did I know when I enrolled that in August we would be packing everything up and moving to Arizona. Somehow through the move I kept my grades up and stayed positive.

This is photo from the last photography class I took. You can see more of my work here. Sadly, a lot of my work was lost when my hard drive died a few months ago.

Everything changed again when little Carolina arrived. Between the two kids and just basic family responsibilities I found it extremely hard to keep up with my classes. I was run down and just tired. I don’t think I turned in one assignment on time and I didn’t participate in any class discussions. I really should have taken a break but I thought I could push through, boy, was I wrong. I commend anyone who has a new child and continues to attend school. It’s really hard to juggle everything.

After a lot of tears and a really bad grade I decided to withdrawal from school. I felt horrible about this. It was like I was giving up. I felt even more terrible because I was spending so much time blogging and I could have been spending that time actually doing homework. It was so hard to get motivated to do anything for school though. Working on my blog has been much more inspiring and helpful. Reading stories from other moms has really been uplifting to me. I want my blog to mean something and to be my full time “job.” I also know it’s important to be educated.

For many reasons I’ve decided that leaving school isn’t the best answer to my problems. I was saying the other day that I felt like every time I take three steps closer to my goals I get shoved ten steps back. What a better way to reach my goals then getting an education to make those dreams happen? Anything worth doing is worth working for. My little big dream is to own my own shop to share my love of handmade goods and artists I adore and I’ve decided to change my major. If I want to own a business I should learn business, right? I think going from a specialized degree, like photography, to business is a smart move. I know it’s going to be super hard but I’m going to push through. I know I have the support of my wonderful family and hopefully you guys too. I’m still going to be doing photography as a hobby; I think that it will make me much happier.

Thanks for letting me rant. I feel much better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest.

So, what are you working hard for?

Lomography: An English Paper.

For my most recent English class I had to write an informative paper. I typically struggled on a topic for papers but I thought of the perfect thing to write about for a chance. I wanted to share the information about Lomography. I love taking photos but Lomography is a really fun way of making a simple snap shoot something super special.

Here’s my paper clack full of Lomo information:

Happy little accidents and double exposures are two of the key components to Lomography. Unlike typical art photography the more blurred and overexposed an image is the more powerful image could be. Every hipster in your neighborhood probably knows exactly what Lomography is. They probably walk around everywhere with their junky looking plastic camera around their neck taking photos of the most random things. A lot of people probably don’t “get it” but a lot of people didn’t understand a lot of art until long after the movement was already over. To understand Lomography you have to understand where it came from and its basic rules.

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In 1982 the Russian Government got its hands on a small plastic camera from Japan. Realizing what they had they started mass production of the “toy” camera. By 1982 the camera was spreading across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Cuba. This was an important move for the future. In 1991 Lomography got its true start when two students in Vienna, Austria came across one of the cameras. They took up randomly snapping images without even looking through the viewfinder. When they brought the camera home everyone they knew wanted one of their own little toy cameras. The two founders of the style started heading into Russia to collect the cameras and bring them back to the growing number of requests for them. In 1994 they decided to start the Lomographic Society International. They were granted space in Vienna and sold over 700 cameras. Unfortunately in 1996 Russia decided to stop manufacturing the camera somehow the Society was able to convince the owner for the factory to continue to manufacture the cameras. Lomography overcame many different obstacles and low times in its past. With the rise of the internet Lomography.com gained international recognition. In 2002 the Lomography World Congress took place and the society was able to display work all over the world to grow Lomography awareness. Continuing popularity of the art allows the Lomographic Society to introduce new and exciting cameras and options for their customers.

{source}

When the Lomographic Society International was created the founders also set up the 10 Golden Rules of Lomographic Photography. These 10 rules state what the photographic style is all about as well as how to do it. Rule number one is “Take your camera everywhere you go.” Lomography is all about documenting your life as you live it so you need your camera with you to capture important and interesting moments. Rule number two is “Use it anytime – day and night.” Different lighting will give interesting effects on Lomographic film so it’s always good to experiment with time of day images. Rule number three states “Lomography is not an influence in your life, but a part of it.” Like rule number one state’s Lomography becomes a part of your daily life. Rule number four is “shot from the hip.” Get down and dirty with your photography and get angles that you wouldn’t expect from you camera. Rule number five is “Approach the objects of you Lomographic desire as close as possible.” With Lomography you are almost investigating your life and the world around you so you really need to get personal with the photos you take. Rule number six is “Don’t Think.” This rule is all about letting go of your one sided mind and just having fun with your photography. Sometimes it important to through everything out the window and let the wind carry it. Rule number seven is “Be fast.” Capturing movement is a great in interesting part of Lomography. You can tell a story in one image of a truck racing by or athlete in motion. Rule number eight is “You don’t have to know beforehand what you capture on film.” Lomography should just be an unconscious act, you shouldn’t have to think about what you are capturing, you just capture. Rule number nine is “Afterwards either.” This rule means that you don’t even have to know who or what you see in the pictures you took after your develop them, they can be powerful anyways. Last, but not least, rule number ten “Don’t Worry about Any Rules.” This might be the most important rule of all. Rule number ten is all about staying true to you as a photographer. In Lomography it’s important to forget everything you’ve ever learned and enjoy taking the pictures you take and just believe in yourself and the photos you are taking.

Lomography is a personal statement that the photographer takes into his own hands. It’s about shooting from the hip, literally, and not thinking just clicking. The more abstract the photo is the better. Sometimes it’s the rare forms of art that no one really understands that bring a whole new wave of creative people into existence. With Lomography anyone can be a great photography and really enjoy what they are doing.

For more information and examples check out the website: Lomography.com

one year down... how many more to go?!

I just finished my final math test of the quarter, which means, if I pass it I will have successfully completed one year of my new college adventure. It’s defiantly been an uphill battle getting through all of my classes. I’ve cried a lot, wanted to throw my computer, wanted to jump through my computer and shake someone, and I've wanted to give up. I’m really glad I didn’t. Although my goals are different now, I still want to finish and finally have my Bachelors degree. I think it’s kind of crazy that “people” expect kids to come right out of high school and spend a ton of money and time going to college and learning something and then 5 years down the road they find out they hate it and/or they can’t find a job. I think in that way I’m really lucky. Even though I still have no idea what I’m doing at least I’ve had time to grow and learn before starting up again.

My core photography classes have been kind of frustrating for me as well as my regular classes. I either feel like I haven’t learned anything, or I’m learning stuff I’m never really going to use. I have had cases were I feel really empowered by what I’m learning. I don’t really feel like I’m growing as a Photographer yet, if anything I feel like I’ve taken several steps back, but I know I’ll get there again. It’s hard to want to break out my camera for a fun event when I know I’m just going to have to bust it out again and do a project that I really have no interest in at all. I guess that’s what college is though right? They want us to be “well rounded.”

I wanted to post a bunch of photos from my classes, but I could find very many I like enough! You can always look at my past blog posts about my classes and photography! Some of my favorite photos were talking in my Photography 101 class, way before I even thought I was going to be going to school for photography at all. I posted them before, but they make me happy so I wanted to share again.





I really want to work on this more and more. I want it to become enjoyable again and not just a burden. I’m really glad that I cut my schedule down to part time for a while. It will really be a nice change! I have a week off until my next class starts and I have A LOT planned! I just hope I can get it all done!

On a side note I just want to thank all the lovely bloggers that were out at the Arizona Blogger Meet Up this afternoon! I’m really sad I wasn’t able to attend the dinner but I’m so glad I got to share some tasty wieners out of a truck with you guys! ^_~


Cheers to Chelsea, Danielle, and Kelsey (and everyone else) for putting this whole thing together! I have so much to blog about this event, stay tuned!

thankful for a positive project.

Today was the first time in what feels like a LONG LONG while that I've been happy with a project I worked on for school. I've been getting extremely frustrated and discouraged by everything that has to do with college lately, but this really perked me up.

We had to experiment with changing saturations/hue of a selected part of an image as well as black and white function. Here is how it turned out:

The oringinal image
Black and white adjustments (and my favorite!)
Saturation Adjustments

I hope this gives me enough push to stay positive at least until this set of classes are over. I haven't found anything positive in my math class yet, but I'm pretty negative about math.

Thinking positive thoughts...

how it feels to go back to college...

This semester of classes has been really challenging, and I just wanted to express how I felt about it. I made this little video on the ups and downs of college.



Well, if anything, this made me laugh. ^_^

I ain’t no fashionista.

Yes, I know the title has horrible grammar, but I couldn’t help myself.

Recently I’ve come to a conclusion; I don’t have the best style in the world. I try and pretend like I’m “hip” and “trending” but I fall pretty short of all those cliché terms. I came to another conclusion after I realized my lack of style; I’m okay with that. When I go clothing shopping I tend to go for comfort more than the latest styles. I prefer my jeans to a skirt and my flats to high heels. It’s not that I don’t like fashion or I don’t have a style at all, I’m just a little lazier about it.

Now here comes the mom card. I am the proud mother of a soon to be three year old little girl. Most of the time I’m having tea parties, dancing, and playing outside, all of these acts don’t really constitute for a cute floral pattern dress and sexy vintage kitten heals. I know it’s an excuse a lot of mothers use as to why they where sweat pants and hoodies all the time. I’m glad to say I am at least a step above wearing my pajama’s all day, but sometimes I just want to wear my tye dyed Dave Matthews Band t-shirt and call it a day.

I’ve never really had the best fashion sense in the world either. When I was a little kid I wore over sized jeans and huge t-shirt, most of the time those t-shirt has wolves on them or they were my soccer shirts. I hide a lot behind my clothes. As I got older I started to express myself more and more through my clothing. I went through a crazy stage of black eye liner and leather pants. I have had my hair dyed blue, green, platinum blonde, and there was an attempted orange that failed and I was called “Tang” for a long time. I also had a pair of bright orange pants that I wore almost religiously. They were so comfortable and loud! I miss those pants a lot now that I think about it.

Above is a photo of my two best friends from high school and myself. Please note I am the one in the orange pants... yeah... I know... they're awesome ^_^

As I went on to college my style didn’t change a whole lot. I still wore my dark make up, but I switched from wearing bright colors to wearing black ALL THE TIME! I wore a red shirt one day and my theater Professor was actually shocked and stopped in the middle of class to comment on the color. I also wore a spiky belt at all time, which I still have but I never wear.

I'm not 100% sure what I was doing in this photo. I know that we were rehearsing a scene for a play. I wore the zebra t-shirt a lot in college. Who doesn't love zebras?

As I got older my fashion started to change and I just became a pretty average person. While working at a salon I started to try a little harder, mainly because I had to. I did my hair, learned how to do my make up, and dressed nice. Most of the time I was told I looked like an elementary school teacher, which I think it pretty nice, but a far cry from my former style.

This is my sad little shoe collection. I wear shoes hard so I go through them really fast. I have to mention my Crocs. My dad bought them for me for Christmas this past year, and I have to say they are so comfortable! They are a close second to my old vans, I wore those shoes till they talked to me.

I still like pretty things and I’d love to wear dresses with lots of pretty accessories and things but it’s just not practical at this point in my life. I am going to make it a point to try and look nicer every day. I think it’s important for a woman to feel like she looks good when she looks in the mirror. I don’t think I’ve really done my hair or put make up on in five months, and I think it’s a good time to start. I don’t plan on going over the top; I’m just going to try to avoid the t-shirts more often and wear something cute, and maybe slightly stylish.

This is one of my more stylish outfits. Its very comfortable of course. The necklace is from a great seller on Etsy. My friends bought me it for my wedding present and I wear it all the time. Rock My World Inc. was able to take my finger print, my husbands finger print, and out daughters finger print, and made a beautiful heart pendent. I love it

I think there is this stereo type for a lot of blogger, crafters, and artists. Somehow we are supposed to be very fashion forward stylish individuals. I think a lot of times that is true. I do really enjoy blogs where people post their outfits of the day; I read a lot of them daily. It gives me a little inspiration to try something new myself. I wouldn’t expect that to be coming from this blog anytime soon, but I’ll keep reading and following them myself.

This is another outfit I wear a lot. I got the shirt from Target when I was pregant with Aurora but I love it so much I still wear it. It's not a materity shirt, it's just very flowing.

What are you opinions of fashion? Do you have any horror style phases that you went through? I’d love to hear about them!

Aurora was helping me with my little fashion photo shoot, and wanted me to take pictures of her too. ^_^
Aurora in her fairy dress, isn't she lovely?

While I was lining up my shoes Aurora went, and got all of hers and put them in a line too.

finally finished with finals!

I could not be more tired/excited/over caffeinated right now! I finally finished my finals. I feel like these two classes that I just finished took forever to end! I think it was the anticipation of have a really long break. I need it so bad! It’s been a really crazy year.

I’ve been working at the kitchen table for most of these classes. It’s slightly uncomfortable and has good lighting to it keeps me semi focused on doing school work!

Time for a Celebration! Etsy Style:



seven olives
I drank a lot of tea during these past couple of months to keep me going!
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jessgonacha
If I wasn’t so tired right now I really feel like I would be glowing!
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OneLittleRedFox
This guy just looks like he’s going to a celebration!
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dazeychic
This is one of my all time favorite art prints and I try and remember it. Every time I stumble across it I giggle a little inside, someday I’ll own it!
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Happy Trails!!

new inspiration.

As many of you know I started back to college this past July. So far it’s been going really great and I’m learning a lot! I’m sorry, did you say, learning it college?! Go figure! I think I might be retaining some really valid information for the future. I’m currently enrolled in my second Art History (well this one is technically Art Survey) class. Not only do we get to learn about a style of art but one of assignments is to create art. How cool is that?

During the course I’ve gotten to study some really amazing artists but one that really stood out to me was Henri Matisse. He’s one of the founders of Fauvism and a very versatile artist. If you’ve never heard of Fauvism it is a style of art created in the early 1904s and was so shocking to audiences at first it was called “fauves” which means beast. Not only was he one of the founders of a style but over the years he was constantly evolving as an artist. In his later years in life he had surgery and wasn’t able to sit up and paint he could only lay in bed so he created paper cut images. Nothing could keep this man down he always had to be making art. I think that’s really admirable. It’s really inspiring to look at his artistic metamorphosis and I love each phase he went through.



Women Reading 1894
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Woman with a Hat 1905 (an example of Fauvism)
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The Plum Blossom 1948
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The Sorrows of the King 1952
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These are just four of his the massive number of his works. I hope I may have sparked your interest in something you may not have known before. Fauvism inspired me to create this painting, well it was also my assignment, but I still enjoyed doing it.


Daisies


Happy Trails!

photo opportunity

For those of you that don’t know I adore photography. While I was at Community college I got a chance to take a really fun class that got me started, I’m supposed to start class online next week but the online school I’m going to likes to drag their feet and I have no idea if I am starting or not at this point but oh well. I just wanted to share a few of the photos from my class and may get some feed back? Eh?

"women"

"the t"

"almost flew all the way home"

"wild berry"

"up against the bars"

If you'd like to see more check out my flickr photostream. Thanks for reading!