How does this happen??

I'm never really sure how it gets to this point-until last weekend it had been almost two months since I'd picked up my camera.  I never understand how this happens!  Photography is a huge part of my life and I like to think of it as an integral part of my identity and yet this happens once or twice a year-I go a pathetically long time without taking photos.  I really don't like it.

I could easily come up with reasons (read as "excuses") for my lack of photography time and yet none of them seem valid enough.  I'm busy, I'm exhausted, I'm stressed, I've got errands to run....the reasons just keep on coming and even as I write them I find them to be pathetic.  All of the reasons that I don't take photos are the same reasons that I need to take photos.  I'm busy and stressed and exhausted and going to focus on a beautiful flower or an amazing landscape would surely help with the exhaustion and stress.  And yet, I just can't do it sometimes.  Perhaps its one of those "absence makes the heart grow fonder" situations; at least that is what I'm telling myself.

So last weekend I went to one of my favorite Madison spots-the Arboretum.  I love the Arb and there is no shortage of great photo ops.  Below are a couple of the photos I took.  Not necessarily my best-but I don't think they're too bad for the first time out in quite a while.  I am certainly hoping to get back to my desired routine of a photo trip/task each week.  We'll see how it goes!

 

Vacation!

Well I suppose it is finally time to post some photos from my vacation!  It is hard to choose which ones-between our two camera's Matt and I took about 700 pictures.  So I have decided to just post some of them periodically on here.  Since I'm incredibly hungry right now (I really should be cooking dinner rather than writing on here!) I've decided to post some photos from our last day in Munich.  These were taken at the large and wonderful Viktualienmarkt. Enjoy!

Too Long

It is amazing how quickly time goes-especially when you are supposed to be consistently doing something once a week!  I'm slightly surprised at how hard it is to find time to write a post and take pictures every week; as always, life seems to get in the way.

In the past two weeks (honestly, I can't believe its been two weeks!) I haven't had time to go and take pictures.  Work has been crazy busy and I've been traveling every weekend visiting family before my much needed vacation.  In last weekends travels to Michigan I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Detroit Science Center.  We took some nice touristy photos and those are what you see below.  As a side note, the DIA is wonderful!  You could easily spend an entire day there-and we plan to the next time we are in Detroit!

It turns out our fun new camera has a "museum" setting!  How cool is that???  It works amazingly well.  There is no flash so there's no chance of damage to any artifacts....but the pictures still turn out pretty well!

This is a close up of the door in the picture above.  It is a really amazing carved wooden door from West Africa.

The Science Center had a really cool human sized kaleidoscope like area that you could go in...it's really cool but hard to take pictures in!  Hence, the multiple attempts.

Now I am just going to be honest-there is probably not going to be another post from me in a while as I leave for vacation next week.  But, I will take lots of photos on vacation and make sure to post them here once I get back!

Spring!

Oh how I wish this posting meant spring has arrived in Madison-sadly it has not!  I am beginning to succumb to spring fever.  I keep getting teased by these nice sunny and moderately warm days.   So this week (and trust me...I know it has been over a week since I posted-I'm hoping eventually I will actually get on the once a week schedule I hoped for) I took some pictures of a lovely Gerbera daisy we recently bought for our apartment.  On a side note-it is so lovely having living things in the apartment.  I'm always amazed at how much a plant can brighten your day.

So the pictures are below-I hope you enjoy the nice bright orange.  And just think...spring **should** be here soon!

A Challenge

This week has been one of the most beautiful I can remember ever having during the middle of February.  The temperatures have been in the mid to high  40's and even hit 50!  Plus of course there's been all the excitement up at the Capitol which has brought a whole different type of beauty to my week.  With all of the excitement and gorgeous weather I must admit I have been neglecting my camera.  So I decided to remedy that neglect today.

Part of my reasoning for making this resolution and starting this blog was to challenge myself to take different pictures than I normally do.  So in keeping with that idea my challenge this week was to find things to take photos of in my apartment.  In the past most of my pictures are all things found outdoors-a lot of flowers and landscapes (and animals...I really like going to the zoo to take pictures!).  My subject matter this week turned out to be an antique bench I currently use as a coffee table and a glass jar that was originally a candle holder that now functions as a change jar.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the bench picture-it definitely is a type of photography I'm not used to taking.  Hopefully it will get better with more practice.  I do like the jar pictures a bit more.  Let me know what you think!

Why?

Before I go too far I just want to warn you that I have never really considered myself much of a writer- so please keep that in mind as you read and be kind :)

So now that that is out of the way-why am I writing this?  This is the beginning of a new year's resolution.  My co-worker and I have decided to challenge ourselves creatively this year.  We both love photography and as a way to encourage our creativity and hone our skills, we have decided to hold each other to posting at least one set of new photos each week for the next year.  Now I will admit this was not our first idea.  Originally it started with posting a new photo each day...we then realized that with our hectic lives this would never work.  So making our goal a bit more realistic, we came up with our current plan.

My current photographic philosophy is that the way you find things in nature is the most pure and beautiful they will ever be-so why mess with it?  I don't, as of yet, edit or alter my photos.  I can see this changing in the future but for now I like to go on an adventure, find something beautiful or cool, and take pictures.  It's pretty simplistic but it works for me.  I'm hoping that over the next year my abilities will continue to grow and I will learn to see things in a more creative and abstract manner.  I have some other goals for my photographic endeavors, which I will share later on.  But for now, I just want to make sure that I don't let life get in the way of doing something that I love and is all my own.

Now that you know a little why I'm doing this and how my current photographic philosphy works, lets look at a couple pictures!  The first two pictures were recently taken on my day off.  I knew I had to take some photos but really didn't want to leave the house.  So, I found something in my house I thought might work well for some photos and started shooting.  Some didn't turn out too bad and I actually kind of like the simplistic nature of just having a teacup as the subject.  I hope you like them...

This last photo I will admit is not from this last week.  It is one I took on a recent trip back to my hometown.  I love this photo even though it is a pretty basic one.  It's just a picture of a reflection in an ornament my parents have hanging in a tree outside of their house.  I love that it captures me and my parent's home.  Easily one of my new favorite photos.