Snow Day

It is dumping in Colorado…DUMPING! So much snow that it has made the news up here. Seeing those reports and reading my friend’s statuses on Facebook really have me homesick. As most know I can take or leave snow in most cases but as I have mentioned here before I LOVE a huge snowstorm. Now some of you may be thinking that late October is too early for a blizzard but we are talking Colorado here. Anyone who has lived there most of their life kind of expect this type of storm this close to Halloween. We are a people who grew up planning our Halloween costumes around our snowsuits. I love the anticipation of it. You hear about it on the news a day or two ahead of the storm. The prediction of amounts are higher than usual…maybe 12”. But as the storm draws closer the amounts grow higher 16-20”. I would always find myself hoping for more. Once there was more than 10” of snow on the ground I would head to the store for supplies. The makings for hearty soups or chili, hot chocolate, and brownies. All the good stuff needed for a snow day at home. My favorite storm over the last 5 years happened in March 2004. March happens to be Colorado’s snowiest month. The storm hit on a Tuesday morning and by noon I closed the office and sent everyone home. An hour later I arrived home to a 4 foot drift in my driveway which you can see in the center of the picture below. My driveway was a little over 75 feet long and I had to shovel away all that snow before I was able to get the Xterra into the garage. Why not just plow right through it like you see in all the winter SUV commercials? I thought about it…but did not have enough space to get up enough speed to plow through 4 feet of heavy wet March snow. We got 36” of snow that day; all of which I had to shovel alone. I awoke the next morning to 24” of more snow. Back into the snow gear and back out to shovel. I missed 3 days of work and had my faithful companion Murphy by my side. The Murph loved the snow. She spent the hours I spent shoveling hopping through the snow and chasing snowballs thrown by the neighbor kids. Damn I miss that dog! So to my friends in Colorado I hope you are enjoying the snow day.

Elena

This sassy cowgirl is my friend Elena. I met her online as we share a mutual love for poking fun at Jenn...the same way she and Jenn love poking fun at me. It is a vicious circle really. It took a triple dog dare; but I finally got to meet her face to face last time I was in Denver. She is an amazing woman and an amazing writer. She has started a new blog. She also happens to be hilarious so if you are in the mood for something clever I think you should check her out.

big three four

Today is my birthday. Seeing as Husband does not bake and I am too much of a snob for store bought cake I made myself some cupcakes. Usually I bake a red velvet cake but this year was in the mood for something new and went with coconut. I used this recipe and they taste like Heaven exploded in your mouth. Okay so maybe not really but with the amount of butter and sugar in these babies they taste really really good. They may not be waistline friendly but it is my birthday and my diet can suck it.

more than yellow

I was reading my friend Rachel’s blog this morning and she mentions in one of her posts that autumn is one of her favorite seasons. She now lives in Colorado where fall looks mostly like this. In Colorado it is not so much fall colors as fall color. Yellow…and a whole lot of it. Now don’t get me wrong…I love the falls in Colorado. Seeing a grove of aspen trees turn gold against a backdrop of evergreens is a beautiful sight. Rachel was born and raised in Seattle and is used to a few more autumnal colors and after spending my first fall season in the Pacific Northwest I can understand why she longs for a little more. The colors up here are breath taking. You have your yellow but there are also reds, oranges, purples, and pink (yes pink). So I grabbed my camera and took a little walk around the neighborhood and snapped a few photos of the changing leaves. Rachel I know it is not the same as being here to see them yourself but I hope you enjoy the colors!

takin' pictures

The thing I wanted to be most when I was little was a Solid Gold Dancer. I could not think of any thing cooler. Those skin tight outfits, big hair, high heels and legwarmers…oooooh leg warmers. Dancing around with hunky bare chested guys was also a plus (a big one). But alas Solid Gold was cancelled and I had to choose a new dream. The first semester on my freshman year of high school I took the Photo I class. It seemed like a fun class that would not take much effort. So borrowed my mom’s Canon AE1 and I went about the class with that attitude and I did not do well. The teacher had a little chat with me at the end of the semester. She told me that she could tell that I half assed my way through the class and thought that I could do better. I took the class again the following semester. I opened my eyes and put a lot of thought and effort into the images I wanted to produce. I found that I loved photography…and I was good at it. For a better part of a decade I never went anywhere without my camera and I spent as much time in the dark room as I could. I had a good eye and there was not one thing I did not love about the process. Most of the money I made in my crappy part time job went to pay for film and paper. I knew this was what I wanted to do as a career. I worked hard and built a strong portfolio. The School of Visual Arts in New York City and the Institute of Art Chicago wanted me to come to their schools…and I wanted to go. But I got distracted. Now I can’t remember by exactly who or what but it caused me to put my camera down. I think I was somewhere in my mid-twenties when Jenn went back to school for photography. She would show me her work and would sit there thinking “I can do that. Why am I not doing that? I should start shooting again. I SHOULD GO TO SCHOOL!” Then I would find a 101 lame excuses of why I can’t or blah blah blah I suck. But I did pick up my camera again. I was traveling quite a bit at the time and was snap snap snapping away. I came home from one two week trip in the UK having shot 23 rolls of film. Again I got all caught up and put my camera down. Then everything went digital. I had a new excuse…I could not afford the camera I wanted. “I would totally get back into photography if only I could afford the camera I wanted”. I have had several point and shoot jobbies and would get a good image here and there, but that never stopped me from bitching about if only I had a better camera. If only… Jenn came out to visit in August and let me shoot with her Canon 20D. I started to fall in love again. I wanted one! Then out of the blue I get an email from Jenn that one of her friends is selling a barely used 20D with a lens for next to nothing. I get all excited and contact the friend and then sit back and wait to hear the camera is mine…ALL MINE BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! The response I got was not the one I expected. Someone had beaten me to it by 10 minutes. 10 MINUTES!!! I was crushed. Husband was there when I found out I had missed out on the opportunity and saw how upset I was. He did his best to comfort me. Little did I know that he was hiding something up his sleeve. Turns out ol’ Husband was once again in cahoots with Jenn on a little Melinda sneak attack. About two weeks later while on the way home from the gym I get an urgent text from husband that FedEx is on the way to our house with our new phones and I was to rush home to sign for them. I pull into our neighborhood and see the FedEx man on his way out. I flag him down and as he hands me the box he asks if it’s anything fun. I tell him its new phones to which he respond he does not think so. I look down at the label and it is from Jenn. WTF?!?! I rush inside and call Husband to ask him what is in the box. He tells me to open it…and sitting inside is the 20D. Turns out that Husband was the one to buy it out from under me as an early birthday present. What a sweet, giving, loving Mr Sneaky Pants. He wanted me to have it in time for our trip to Colorado for a friends wedding. I am having a fun time getting used to the camera. It is so different from what I am used to. Are there nicer cameras out there…sure there are. But I am off to a good start. I am finding that I am a bit rusty (understatement) and am not sure what my point of view is yet. I took over 645 pictures last weekend of which I maybe like 20. I did manage to get one image that I think really captured the intimacy of the moment. I think I may be off to a good start.

Married? Married!

Elope Pronunciation: \i-ˈlōp\ Function: intransitive verb Inflected Form(s): eloped; elop·ing Etymology: Anglo-French aloper, esloper to abduct, run away Date: 1628 1 : to slip away 2 : to run away secretly with the intention of getting married Yeah...sooooooo...there you have it. Husband (aka Fiance, aka Boyfriend) and I got married last Friday, October 9th 2009 at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Golden, Colorado. There was no fan fare and we both wore jeans. There were maybe five people that knew what we were up to. In a way we wanted to have it be something that was between just the two if us, and the lady that took our money, and well Jenn cuz she was there too snapping photos, but really it was just a moment for me and him. I got myself a good man and a cool new last name with one of those little squiggle things above one of the n's. ©2009 Jenn LeBlanc Oh...and mark your calender for June 25th 2011 because we are going to have one hell of a party when Husband get back from doing things overseas that I am not allowed to talk about.

iPhone camerabag app

About a month ago Jenn sent me this link to a story by Melissa Lyttle, a photojournalist out of Florida. All the photos in the story were taken with her iPhone using the Helga filter in the Camerabag App. The Helga filter mimics the vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other distortions found in photos taken with the cheaply made Holga cameras. I loved the way the images Melissa used for the story looked and decided if and when I got an iPhone that this would be the first app I got. Well as it turns out Fiancé’s cell phone died this week which resulted in us combining our cell phone accounts and him getting a new BlackBerry and me a new iPhone. These images are nothing special and are a little out of focus (I know) but are just used to show how the image changes when the different filters in the Camerabag app are applied. Original: Helga: Lolo: Magazine: Mono: 1962: 1974: Cinema: Infared: Fisheye: I can see the possibilities to have a lot of fun with this. The only thing I am disappointed about is that there is supposed to be an “Instant” filter that takes Polaroid style photos that isn’t there. Between all the photography apps and the Canon 20D (more on this in a future post) Fiancé got me as an early birthday present I foresee a whole lot of picture taking. UPDATE: Turns out that Instant is there and I just had to go into the menu and turn it on. Not sure why it was the only one turned off but matters not. Here it is… Instant: Thank you to @jcpretro for pointing that out to me! Also found out you can layer the filters. Head is exploding with ideas.