day 053. [seniors photos: caytie]

Today marks the "more than half-way point" of doing Senior Photos! YIPPEE!! I'm almost done, but I do have quite a ways to go ... still need to print them, bahaha.

Anyways, today's Senior was Miss Caytie Matthews! The one thing that I really enjoyed working with her was the fact that she does ballet. Just like everyone else though her pictures in the beginning looked ... awkward. But when she started to do ballet poses and move like she would if she was on stage or in front of the mirror in the studio you could really tell that she got more comfortable. When she started to do that though you really got to see who Caytie was.

Just like mostly everyone else, Caytie and I found ourselves at Fort Casey. This was after an obvious fail of trying to find a meadow, haha. But it worked out great because I remembered that there was a meadow out near the bunkers at Fort Casey. It was tons of fun shooting Caytie's "ballet" photos in the bunkers of the Fort. In some of the photos you can't even tell that it's her!! O_O

So after we did the photos in the bunkers we moved to the meadows that were near the bunkers. I must say, she's the first person to not have a place where everyone else has been. Same goes for Allison, ha. When we did the photos at the meadow we did more "smile" type photos. To just have fun though Caytie was just jumping around. Again, she's a ballerina, so she can do that stuff; the others on the other hand, I wouldn't even try to take a photo of them jumping.

We got hungry. We were also tired. So we took a break!

We went to Safeway and got some ingredients for Broccoli Pasta!! :D (If you want to know how to make Broccoli Pasta, feel free to ask my friend Melanie ... or me!). At Safeway I got to see a good friend of mine ... SCOTT ARNOLD!! Dude's a good looking guy, bahaha. So we made the broccoli pasta, and of course ate it.

Taking a break though, we waited until the sun started to ... shine less. Around 7-ish we went to Starbucks to do a "coffee-shop" kind of feel for some of Caytie's other photos. I wish we had more than just Starbucks in Oak Harbor, alas we don't :(

Despite the fact we don't have anything else but Starbucks, we had fun doing some photos! The best part of doing photos of Caytie today was doing some long exposures of Caytie dancing. Remember? She's a ballerina. Well, those failed, but instead we got some pretty sweet shots of her and her shadow doing ballet moves. You'll definitely need to look at those on my flickr! Seriously though, go and check them out, haha X)


You know the drill, to see more click here!

PS. No senior photos until Saturday. It'll be a nice break :)

day 042. [starbucks]

Part of me wishes that today would never happen again, but then again, it was quite the day, haha.

I managed to go to Starbucks today ... three times. For three different accounts. Well, now that I think about it, I went to Starbucks for the same reason twice, but with two different people.
Note to self and readers: When you have an income like I do, Starbucks should be the last place you go daily. In my case of today, it should be the last place you go multiple times.

I was first at Starbucks today at 11:30 meeting with one of the seniors that I'm going to do photos for. Luckily, I had gone running with Allison yesterday so we kind of got the boring details out of the way. So today when we met up it was just to get ideas out and locations as to where we want to do her photos. While there one of our friends showed up. It was really nice to see Keriann just because it's tons of fun seeing her, as well as the other people that are still in high school.

When I was done there, I went home for a bit to just chill and read. But around 3:30 I went to Starbucks again to do my devos. I re-read Philippians 2:1-4 and got some really good stuff out of that passage. I also read the first chapter of Hosea and got some much needed stuff out of that as well. It's good to know that God will always love me no matter how much, or how bad I mess up. But it was a good time spent in Starbucks.

From there I went to the beach for a bit to snap some shots. I might put them on flickr, but we'll see, ha.

The final and last time I went to Starbucks was later at 8. It was to talk with Caytie Matthews, one of the other seniors, about her senior photos and to just get some ideas out there. It was a good planning and we got some really good ideas for shots down. I myself am really excited because Caytie does ballet so we can do some artsy photos as well as the typical senior photos. But yeah, those are the seniors for this year that I'm shooting. I can't wait for you guys to see some of their photos as they grace these pages. Also, just keep an eye out for them on my flickr page as well.

Alright, so I've got an early day tomorrow. Night everyone :)

day 041. [run, run, run]

I was originally going to spend the day hanging out with my friend Caytie Matthews making friendship/hemp bracelets. That time it took for us to change plans was just as fast as when we made them, haha. No worries, we can plan for another day to make crafts. Because the plans had changed for the day I found myself up early wondering what to do ...

I started with a quick ab workout this morning followed by lunch and then I read part of Crime & Punishment. After finishing The Adolescent, I actually have come to like it. It was surprisingly a good book about how the main character comes to finally meet his real father after having lived with his foster parents. I just suggest you read it to understand the full picture.

After reading though I decided to just lounge around before I went out on a walk. It was yet another GORGEOUS day that I had to at least spend some time in. When I got done walking around though, I just decided to lounge around the house and play on the piano for a bit.

Around 7 I went to Starbucks to meet with one of the five seniors to discuss ideas, locations, and how I price. I'm looking forward to doing his shots. He really has this Portland kind of feel, which I've recently fallen in love with. I can't wait to show off his pictures on here and flickr.

In the midst of everything I did and everything I didn't do today, I really had an itch to run. I did, haha. I'm not one that likes to run alone so I ran with my friend Allison Duvenez. If you've been reading, you'll know that she's one of the seniors that I'm doing senior portraits for. As for running, I'm not one to run alone and I'm definitely not one to run on a track. Today though, I wanted to run on a track just because it's a lot easier on my joints. I don't mind sprinting on tracks, but distance running ... eh let's keep that to running around town or on a trail, ha.

I forgot, speaking of track I guess I can share with you guys a deep old secret of mine, ha. So many of you know me as this big volleyball junky, and that's because I am. But there was a time where volleyball really was just a sport to me. Ok, so here's the deep old secret of mine: When I was in the 7th Grade running on the track team, and even into my 8th Grade season, I dreamed that I would go to the Olympics as a track runner. I mean I had some pretty awesome times for a 7th/8th Grade Sprinter. That dream eventually died by the time I got to high school. Well, it started to change in the middle of my 8th Grade season. Track is now just a sport, volleyball is now my life and my passion. There, that's like one of my confessions that I may make while working on this blog. Who knows, I might confess more things, ha.

Tomorrow is going to be another beautiful day! Can't wait!!

day 033. [photoshoot]

Today started out with just a mile run. I think I'm going to work on my mile time rather than my overall two mile time. I'm getting it down, but I've still got a ways to go before it's finally down to where I need to be to run that 12 minute 2 mile.

Afterwards, I didn't feel like eating breakfast, even though I should have, so I didn't. Instead I just read a chapter out of The Adolescent. It's surprisingly a good book. Maybe had I gotten past the first few pages the first time I picked it up I might have liked it, but I'm glad I'm in a time and place in my life to just read it. Want to know what it's about? Ask me! :)

Once done with that though I ended up taking some of the bills down to the post office. Besides mailing those off I FINALLY got Tarra's present mailed off to her. Because I know she's going somewhere on the 7th of July, I decided to send it first class which means she'll hopefully get it by Saturday!! I can't wait for her to get it. For those that know what it is, if you leave a comment keep your mouth shut. Please & Thank You :) I hope she likes it, even though it's something that she can refer to whenever she wants.

My favorite part of the day was definitely getting to do a photoshoot of my good buddy Anthony Snyder. It definitely was nostalgic because we did the shoot in the same place where I first ever took portraits ... of him! (So, I know I'm posting up two pictures again, but it's to show difference, if there is any, haha.) The first time we did shots, I actually had no idea how to use manual focus, so I was using auto focus. Also, I didn't really understand how to use my shutter setting, instead I was using the portrait setting that was on there. It actually wasn't until after that first photoshoot did I actually learn how to take advantage of those. The manual focus was sometime while I was still in high school. As for shutter mode, that wasn't until college during a Women's Volleyball game. I realized then that the sport mode was just not fast enough, so then I messed around with shutter!

That first photoshoot though we were really just trying to do something classy. I was just trying to get some "sweet" portrait shots because it honestly was the first time I'd ever done any kind of portrait work. After that ... I was hooked. This shoot though, we kind of were going for the run down look, literally. Kind of that "bad-ass" feel if you want to think of it that way. So what better way to achieve that other than Anthony being: shirtless, looking like a thug (haha), and smoking a cigar. Put those all together and I'm pretty sure that's as run down as it gets. On top of that, my editing skills have totally evolved since then. So not only can I take a photo (in my opinion, you don't have to agree) that portrays a certain feeling, but I can also edit it to bring it out even more!

That was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to possibly doing more shoots with Anthony this summer. Oh yeah, last thing about Anthony, he's the first ever model where I've honestly felt comfortable just shooting photos of someone. Thanks Anthony :)

Once that was done I headed out to a camp ground to hang out with a few friends I went to high school with. It sounds like we were going to do illegal things, but we didn't, haha. In all honesty we were just celebrating my friend Caytie's 17th birthday, which is on July 1st! I found myself being the only guy there, haha. Also, I'm starting to realize just how old I'm getting. I'm almost 20, not anywhere close to turning 20 [6 months, give or take], but I'm getting there and it's actually kind of weird and it makes me feel ... old, ha. I was there until kind of late, which explains why this post is kind of late-ish.

Today was definitely a day to hang out, and it was tons of fun. Looking forward to more hangouts, but I'm definitely loving my personal down time where I can do what I want.

PS. Check out my flickr for some of the other photos from today.

PPS. Sorry for uploading two photos lately. haha. Luckily, the other photos just don't have to do with this project, or they are what I would call "out of date" in consideration to this project.