My Northern Lights for Inspiration

My blog's kind of like a good old friend that you haven't talked to in a while. Despite the time apart, when you come back together, and catch up, it's just like old times. Somehow, you kind of just pick up where you left off.

But still, my apologies (for my few blog readers). I didn't mean to leave for so long. :( I've been trying to find inspiration and things to photograph...when I realized, I just have to start taking the pictures rather than spending all my time thinking about what I want to take pictures of! (I hope that made sense.)

I've added a few additions to my camera collection--105 2.8 Macro and an SB-800. <3 After a couple months of owning the macro, I've only recently played with it and I'm in love! Not just for close-ups, but portraits as well. Perhaps not the best portrait lens, but it's a good dual-purpose lens for now. :) Until I get my hands on an 85 1.4. As for the SB-800, I used to own an SB-600, but it died on me within months and I never got it to Nikon to fix. :( But it's nice having a flash again and I've been doing a lot of catch up on Strobist to become more familiar with creative lighting.

Anyway, enough rambling. My photo for today comes from discovering a technique called "Freelensing". It's kind of scary since your lens is actually detached when the shutter's released, but you can get some really awesome results. And with the popularity of Tilt Shift nowadays, you can get somewhat that effect on a cheaper budget with freelensing.



It reminds me of the Northern Lights. I'll call this one, "Northern Lights v13.8". :)

As for my frequency of posts, I'm working on it! I know I'll fail at a p365 (and it's kind of an awkward time to start that...almost middle of the year), so I'm not even going to try right now! But I am consciously trying to take more pictures, even if it has to be finding uniqueness in everyday things.

Keep me accountable if you remember to! Send me a mean e-mail reprimanding me for not updating or something. I'll take it well, I promise.

[Enter caption here.]

My family and I have all been pretty under the weather lately...figuratively and literally. We all got sick with a combination of stomach viruses, colds, ear infections, and pink eyes. All of that while we were snowed in. Thankfully we didn't need any emergency visits to the hospital (for the most part...). Anyway, being sick, I haven't been feeling up to going out to take pictures in the snow, let alone play in it! Sad.

Well, this photo has nothing to do with the above jumble of text. It just makes me happy. :) I hope it makes you happy too!

What I also love about this photo is that there is such an array of photo caption possibilities. What would you have it say?

For Me?

I love flowers. I guess that's just the girly part of me that wants her man to surprise her every now and then with a classic gift like that. And I'm not even talking about expensive roses and orchids and...I'm not well-versed in flowers at all. I just prefer the simpler kinds, like daisies and...those green things in the photo below... Anyone know what kind they are?

Merry Christmas!!

This winter, my family and I will be heading to Pittsburgh to celebrate the holidays! I've never been to Pittsburgh (minus Fallingwater...is that Pittsburgh?), so I'm very excited to see what it's like on the other side of the state! I'm hoping for lots and lots of delicious food, warm toasty fireplace fires, and just a great time with family and friends. I'm NOT hoping for weight gain and food comas, though I have a feeling those are inevitable, at least for me.

I may be taking a blogging break for a little bit because as soon as I get back from Pittsburgh, I'll be heading to NYC for the week! So expect some personal pictures when I return. :)

Merry Christmas!!

The Santos Family

Here are some more pictures from my previous post of the Santos Family--Melissa, Alex, and Jared.

Meet Rocky!


After leaving the luxuries of a heated home, we headed out into the cold outdoors to Melissa's grandma's cute little farm! And to our pleasant un-surprise...it began snowing!!!


Kissies for Daddy.


Since it was so cold, they had to find some way to stay warm! :)


I love this family!

FIRST SNOWFALL OF THE WINTER

I loooove winter...but only because of the snow. If it was just cold all the time, that wouldn't be fun. But I had a shoot today with Melissa, Alex, and Jared (and their own little pet farm), and we got to go out in the snow and play a little bit. I've only briefly, very briefly, looked through the photos and this one just stuck out. I absolutely adore it. I snapped it when we were getting in our cars, ready to part ways! So it almost didn't get in the mix of photos!



By the way, taken on my D700. The bokeh and the colors are SO yummy! MMmmmm. :)

Thanks Melissa, Alex, and Jared for letting me take your pictures today! I'll post more up soon!

Thanksgiving Festivities

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I had a lovely time making my food belly with delicious food in the company of great family! Even though it was an overcast and wet day, I still went out with some relatives to take photos of their kids in the park. The shoot didn't go as planned--kids wanted to run all over the playground and wouldn't sit still, then they got cold and wouldn't sit still, then they got tired and wouldn't sit still. Oh well, you gotta roll with the punches! I managed to snap a few pictures, and here are just a couple for now.

This is Nikki, blowing kissies like her daddy told her to.

Her little brother Brandon, who's a little too small for the swing, but luckily his overly large coat kept him in there pretty snug. :)

And this is Alice...at least her cute boots! You'll meet her later.

Sorry!

So it's been a little while since I've blogged...sorry about that! To try and make up for it, here are some old(er) photos that I haven't put up anywhere. :) Please enjoy!

This is my grandpa, my dad's dad, Cason's GREAT grandpa! I love my Yeye(grandpa in Cantonese)'s smile in this photo.

He used to love this chair--now he won't sit in it for more than 5 minutes!

And he's also outgrown his cute little shoes we put on him just about everyday. :(


Can you tell I love my nephew? :)

Birthday Blue

Sometimes I just get bored and find things around the house to photograph. Who DOESN'T do that right? On the eve of my birthday, I decided to play around with ring shots, but of course without having access to a macro lens to take these said ring shots. AND I didn't have an engagement ring to take pictures of. But, thinking it was appropriate for my birthday, I took ring shots of my ring with my birthstone! :) And my hat that I never wear but desperately try to find places to wear it to. I told you I was bored.



On another note, there's a baby toy downstairs (that belongs to my nephew) that apparently started malfunctioning this weekend, which I didn't know about and found out after the fact. But last night, it went off and my first thought was, "Is the ice cream truck passing by outside??" Of course this would be the first thought ANYONE would have had past midnight. But I saw that no one was downstairs and all the lights were off. All I saw was the glowing red light and all I heard was the happy-when-it's-during-the-day but creepy-when-it's-at-night jingle going off. Oh man, FREAK ME OUT! It's going off now and I just have to laugh at myself how I am still such a big baby sometimes.

Thanks for reading through this nonsensical post. :)

Cason and Fall Leaves

So if you've looked around www.thirteeneightphotography.com, you've seen the baby in the "little ones" section of photos. Well, that adorable little cutie patootie is my nephew! And I certainly do take lots and lots of pictures of him. This weekend, I had another opportunity to take photos...in the leaves! A cute little face and beautiful fall colors to surround him with! Here are just a select few from that session!



The picture that I took after this one (not shown here) is his daddy pushing those leaves away from his mouth. At this age, he puts everything in his mouth!



We also put him in his cute little Halloween monkey outfit, but he started to get grumpy. :(

Website!

So I've added some new photos to the website. I'm still working through editing a couple weddings. Progress has been a bit slow because everyone in my house is sick!! That's 6 people (including 1 baby) all sniffling and coughing = spreading more germs in the air!! Luckily for me, I seem to have the least severe symptoms, though I think it's slowly creeping up on me.

Anyway, here's a peek at some photos to come from Alen & Cyndi's wedding!



And who doesn't love spinning? This little girl sure didn't hesitate to in her pretty new dress!

The start of something new...

If you're here, it's likely that you've come from my photography site! I'm glad you're here...but I'm not quite ready yet! Things are still being set up around here if you couldn't already tell. Please excuse the...barrenness while I finish getting everything together.

Cheers!
jen