Candlestick Making

These photos were taken last week, Jan has been very much into turning candlesticks and I love seeing how happy it makes him. Most of the photos are long exposures (about 3 seconds), and I'm very happy with how they have turned out. I'm excited to be finding myself as a photographer again. I have been very inspired lately... by everything around me!

 The other day I developed a new roll of film, and after Christmas I'm going to get back in the darkroom... Finally!

 I don't have much more to say, other than I want to continue exploring the woodshop. Hope everyone has a lovely holiday.

snow SNOW

These are some photos that I took last week when we got our first real snow of the season. The last one was just a dusting that I was really excited about.

The first three are all about the lines that this kind of weather brings out.  I have never really noticed all of the lines that are all around in nature.  In the summer they are camouflaged with leaves and greens.  With snow they are highlighted.  I love how insane the lines the first photo are, and how orderly the lines of the apple tree (4th photo) are.  Of course I had to include the obligatory photo of Gracie.


 I spent the day knitting, and watching "White Christmas" (it's on Netflix!). It's apparently going to snow up to 14 inches tonight, and I'm feeling very meh about that. I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't have to be at work at 6 or 7 am. I hope my manager calls to let me know if I need to go in and what time, I am so anxious not knowing what's going to happen! Here's to hoping you all are enjoying your weather, whatever it may be.

Thanksgiving 2013

This week I have been feeling as if the world has been spinning without me. I started getting sick on Saturday and I've been in this hazy head-cold world since then. I really wanted to develop a new roll of film, but I just have not had the stamina!

 These photos were all taken on 11/28/13, before and after dinner. And that photo of Gracie is the first I have taken of her where she is posing in front of a tripod, and following my command to stay!

 This week I'm looking forward to getting back on my feet photo-wise, working on holiday gifts and finishing Jane Eyre! (So good.)

In the Woodshop

I have been having a lot of fun playing with my 50mm 1.4 manual focus lens lately. Here are some shots that I have taken in the past few days. I have recently been inspired by the wood-shop and I think that I will be spending a lot more time down here photographing. There are so many interesting nooks and crannies! I'm planning on bringing my lights and tripod the next time I'm here, I can't wait! Darkroom update: I have not worked in a while, I still need to buy more chemicals. I'm planning on ordering some this weekend so that they will be here before the holiday! I have a roll that I cannot wait to develop. I also can't wait to start making prints for end of the year albums :)

 (ps- join the fun!)

 

Self Portrait Flip

This is something that I have been wanting to do for a while, it's a little freaky but after I got the idea I really couldn't get it out of my head. This morning when I took these I was a bit lazy, clearly my face isn't looking as straight on into the camera as I thought it was, and the lighting is not even.  I think that this would be best taken with strobes. It was really bright facing the sun, making it hard to keep a straight face. left side right side I really did think that my face was more symmetrical than this!

Don't mind my messy kitchen.  Now I need to take some time to clean that kitchen!

Goals

Do you ever feel like you never complete anything? That's how I've been feeling lately. I feel like I have so many things started and not enough time or money or PATIENCE to get anything finished! Patience being key here, in this age of technology I have been feeling my patience grow thinner and thinner in all aspects of my life.

So here are some new goals to work on:

-work on patience

-finish website update

-make more effort to keep in touch

-meditate regularly

I'm not setting a time for when I want to have these goals accomplished by because they are more of a lifestyle change in general, well except for the website update, that happens this weekend!!!


And because I cannot post without photos, here are some I took yesterday after our first "snow" of the season.  I use quotes because it was just a dusting.


Well I'm off to get dressed, hope everyone has a lovely day, whether it's cold or not!

Engagement: Mandy & Reuben

At the end of September I had the pleasure of photographing Mandy and Reuben in celebration of their engagement.  This was my very first engagement session and I can't wait to photograph more couples! These are my favorite four photos, to see them all head on over to my smugmug page.

I'm off to work on the layout of that page now, I'm hoping to have it done by the time I have to go to work, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen...

Blog Changes

Hello all,
I'm making some big changes around here.  I've changed the title of my blog to MEO Imagery to match my website/business of the same name.  I'm really trying to inspire myself to be bigger than I am.  I want a reason to make beautiful things, and I'm hoping to gain the readers/viewers to help me along the way.

I have been thinking of starting a new blog for a while and I've settled to updating this one.  I am tired to not putting effort into meeting new people (the internet if full of them!) who share my passions, and making up excuses to not be creative.  I want this blog to be a place where people can share ideas about everything, that's why I'm going to start using the Disqus platform for blog commenting.  I don't want to have to approve of blog comments or have you type in cryptic messages to prove you are human.

I want my MEO Imagery blog to primarily focus on photography with some side posts on things like art and knitting/crafting.  Let's be real, what I'm really looking for is something to encourage me to shoot and develop at least two rolls of film per week, and somewhere that I can chat about knitting, of course!

Please leave me any and all feedback that you have, I want to hear it!

-Marissa O

PS- Day 4

30 day self portrait challenge

Day One: I love the details I can get with the 50mm on my Dx camera.  I love noticing the wrinkles in my shirt that I don't notice throughout the day.

Day Two: Gracie in my lap.  I took this while holding the camera way above my head with the focus all the way in.  This is the best one I got.

I am so excited to take more and work in my darkroom more.  I'm tired of excusing myself.

a day in the garden

I had a day off last Friday and I spent most of it in the garden.  Here are some pictures of the beautiful flowers Jan's mum is growing, and one of Gracie of course ;)

feb 14th

I took a few portraits this day as well, I'm thinking of editing them and posting them on flickr.  We shall see.

snow day

So much snow it's unreal.  Well it feels unreal but it's actually real.  We got over 2 feet!  It was quite fun walking through the streets and not being afraid of cars.  Though there were way to many people flying down the road.  I took some pictures for a few panorama's.  I'm experimenting... if they turn out okay I'll post them up here either later today or tomorrow :)

Old Furnace State Park

I took myself on a date to the park yesterday, it was quite fun and there were only two creepy people, so that's good.  I am actually very surprised with all of the photos that I took.  I love most of them, so picking five was actually difficult this time!

These are in the order that I took them, no PS.

I honestly can't pick a favorite, but I'm leaning toward the last.  That ice is amazing... I can't wait until it snows again,  I am totally going back out there!

purse post

I know you are all very excited.  But not as excited as me to be jumping on this "bag"wagon.  Hahah, wow.  I was not even planning that... it just happened.

Here's my purse, well my at the moment purse.  It's a Coach bag, from the 80's I think.  I got it really cheap at the SalArm for $6!  It's great quality, I love it.

I actually had to find my phone wallet and keys and throw them in here... I just keep stuff lying around all over the place.

So much stuff!  I can't believe all this stuff fits in my bag and I carry it around.
There is stuff in here that I never use, like the knife, but instead of going through my things I just stuck everything back in the bag.

Things in my purse :
two pomegranate lip balms *
two pennies*
one set of ear plugs (I have very sensitive ears)
sunglasses
receipts
rubberband*
advil/ibprofen
glasses case
wallet (it's so blah I know, I want a cool one)
keys
Bermuda circle cards!!
Nikon CoolPix point and shoot camera
knife (I live in a sketchy area and put this in my pocket when walking to work... not that I would know what to do with it)two beaded keychains*
one HB drawing pencil
pencil sharpener
pen
nail file*
someone's business card that I thought was cute
phone
thumb drive 16gb*
*-I had no earthly idea that this was in my purse

close up of the awesome circle cards.  

close up of my awesome keychain that is actually a bracelet that didn't fit me .... that my friend brought for me from Kenya.

Please let me know if you do a bag post because I love them.