Aperture 1.4 {focused blur}

Love for a new SONG

Okay the other night I was watching t.v. and a commercial came on with this song:

http://www.myspace.com/foreverthursdaymusic

I looked and looked for it and finally found that it came from "Forever Thursday".  I love it and it just became available at itunes today!  It's another one I can see myself listening to a lot.

Hope to chat with you tonight!

A visit and a chat...

Cole and I had a visitor today.  He came by once last fall just to chat and have a snack and we haven't seen him since.  And then today as if by magic he arrived on our back porch to cheer us up and brighten a frustrating morning. I'm starting to believe he carry's happiness with him. He sure made Cole happy.  We fed him Banana's and bread but he wasn't really interested.  He did give us quite a show prancing around with his feathers up before he left though.  Here is a picture I caught of him as he left.  I wish I had, had my camera earlier so that I could have gotten one of him a few feet away from Cole.

Other than that we got to hang out with some new friends today and I had an engagement shoot which was a lot of fun. 

I wanted to let everyone know about a chat I will be hosting, giving, at?  I'm not sure what you say.  It's at  http://coordinatescollections.com/  Tuesday the 27th from 5-7 pst. That's tonight!  Please come!  I've never done a chat and I'm sort of afraid that I'll be the only one there. ha ha.

Day5

So today I thought I'd talk about movies.  My book list and movie list are pretty similar.  I love period drama's:

Pride and Prejudice.  I think the BBC version is so much better than the new one but the filming and the colors are better in the new one. (ETA...In the comments it was mentioned that they thought that I meant the A&E version of PandP.  So I thought that I'd note that it's actually the same thing.  The BBC made two versions of Pride and Prejudice and A&E bought the rights the second one with Collin Firth to show it in the United States.  But the movie really is made by the BBC, Deidre is right the first one is really old and not so great so don't go out and find that one!)

Wives and Daughters.  If you like Pride and Prejudice you should watch this it is so good.

Our Mutual Friend.  See a trend here?

An Ideal Husband.  Love this movie.  Love everyone in it. 

Twelfth night.  A lot of people have seen Much ado about Nothing but not many people have seen this and it is such a great movie.  I LOVE Shakespeare.

Of course there are all the other great period romantic movies too, Emma, Persuasion
( which is a bit slow but still good), The importance of being Ernest, Lady Windermere's Fan ( which is fairly new with Helen Hunt),

New movies that I like-

I am not a fan of Kirsten Dunst at all, and so I didn't go to see Elizabeth Town or really have any desire to rent it until I moved here to Louisville which is where a lot of the movie was filmed and everyone kept telling that I needed to rent it.  I did, and I still don't love Kristen Dunst but I loved and was so inspired by the movie.  The travel scrapbook thing she made at the end was sooo cool.

Also I am not a fan of scary movies so I didn't ever want to see Lady In the Water.  But Mark rented it and he watches movies for me all the time so I agreed.  And I loved it.  It was such a cool movie and not scary at all. I would totally recommend it.  It was also really inspiring to me. Mainly the commentary extra stuff on the d.v.d I just loved hearing him talk about how M Knight Shamalan comes up with all his idea's and the way that he films things.  It was really neat to hear his concepts.

Old Movies:

I know that I can't list all the old movies that inspire me, there are so many that I love.  But here are a few:

Damsel in Distress-  This is a Fred Astaire movie that I and my sisters were obsessed with when we were little girls.  We had a bad recording of it off of TV and we would watch it over and over.  Somehow along the way it got lost and I having been so young didn't think that I would ever find it again because I couldn't remember the name of it.  When Mark and I first married I for some reason described that movie to him. I think it was something as simple as "We watched this movie and it had Fred Astaire and some girl who lived in a castle in it."  Nice description, huh?  Well he took that and somehow found the movie online and gave it to me for Christmas.  So sweet.

Calamity Jane- Doris Day.  Who doesn't love Doris Day? I pretty much love all her movies but this one was one that we would watch over and over.

Meet me in St. Louis- Judy Garland.  My Dad hated this one because we would watch it over and over and over and he doesn't like Judy Garland but man this movie is quoted in my family so much and it always brings out laughs in us.

Singing in the Rain- Gene Kelly.  Classic.  My Grandma grew up in old Holly Wood. She went to high school with Debby Reynolds and she dated the guy who played Cosmo.  I love watching old movies with her because she knows so much. Plus I was in love with Gene Kelly growing up.  I thought he was so handsome. 

More recent but still a family classic was Thoroughly Modern Millie.  Such a dumb movie but we loved it, as well as Gidget totally cheesy but a classic none the less.

Honestly I could go on and on about old movies.  I spent such a big part of growing up watching the Turner Movie Classics channel. I won't even get into my obsession with Gone with the Wind. Ah, Scarlet. I think a lot of my work in photography and in my layout's carry a underlying piece of my love for all things vintage and romantic. 

  What movies inspire you?  And what movies do you love?

Speaking of Inspiration...

I had the fun opportunity to take part in an article for Creating Keepsakes about stepping out of your box and scraping in a way that is different for you. Lisa Ivey, who is great, gave us each a challenge. Mine was to scrap without a photo..something I had never done.  Anyway, the article is full of great challenges and ideas and I love the design!  So, today I challenge you all to go over and get inspired by Lisa's great article.

  You can download it here:

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/article.ihtml?index_field=1881

P.S.  Remember my habit of listening to a song I like over and over until everyone is so sick of it they want to scream?  Well, everyone besides me that is.  I have to say that "The Hat" by Ingrid Michaelson is one of those songs.  So if you didn't find it after my last post go look.  It is soooo good!

Day Three

Today I thought that I'd talk about a photographer who has really inspired me since I first discovered his work.  I've mentioned that I love old movies, right?  His name is George Hurrell, otherwise known and Hollywood Hurrell.  He was a photographer during the hay day of old Hollywood.  He worked with some of the big studios and pretty much any old movie star you can think of.  I can't even say how much I love his work.  So my senior year in lighting class when we  had to choose two lighting styles/photographers and focus on learning how they lit their pictures and spend the semester trying to figure how they did it. My first pick was Hurrell.  He used all hot lights.  They are very different than our modern day strobes. Our school had a bunch of them so I was good to go, but they are old and big and HOT.  And by hot I mean your model is sweating after like two minutes of being in front of them and you have to use huge thick gloves to move them.  But the quality of light is amazing. Here is a website with a few of his photographs:

http://www.hurrellphotography.com/Hurrell/photos1.html

Here are a few of my photographs based on his work from my class( my model was my very pretty friend from high school):

I love looking at past photographers and trying to figure out what they did and then find ways to make it your own. It's like with anything else.  You learn the rules and THEN you find ways to break them and make them work in your own eyes.

  Any one have a photographer that they love? Modern or not?

Inspiration day two

Music.  I will be the first to say that I have never had what you would call a normal taste in music. I've always really walked to the beat of my own drum in the music department.  When I was little I would sit in our living room listening to classical music and pretend like I was a conductor.  Little like age 6.  Not exactly normal.  Then I became obsessed with old movies, right around the same time.  So I love musicals.  And great standards. Even though I was a child of the eighties I've always hated 80's music. I was the oldest and my parents sort of skipped that decade.  My childhood was full of James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkel and the Who.  I didn't even know that Chicago wasn't just a city until I met my husband who informed me that they were a band. lol.  Then we moved to Hawaii and well,  my high school years were filled with R and B, Hawaiian music and Reggae.  So let's just say my musical tastes are mixed up at best. 

   Nevertheless music totally effects my mood and I listen to it a lot when I am shooting or scraping.  Depending on the mood I want to come out in my work. I love using lyrics on pages too.  So here are a few songs that I love and the moods that they inspire.

   Mellow/reflective mood-

First I'll just list a singer that I LOVE right now.  Sarah told me about her and then I heard one of her songs on Grey's and I loved it so much I looked it up that night. Look her up you will love her music!

Ingrid Michaelson - Let go, Take me the way I am, Breakable, The Hat

Regina Spektor- Sampson

Jack Johnson- We are going to be friends ( sorry Sarah I really love all Jack Johnson,  he went to my high school and his music totally reminds me of my time there)

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole- Some where over the rainbow ( this is my Hawaii day's taking over)

The Ditty Bops- Moon over the freeway

Sing-Sing- Come sing me a song

Cold Play- Till Kingdom Come

   Happy playful songs-

Patrick and Eugene- Birds and Bee's ( nothing is happier and more fun than this song!)

Jem- It's just a ride

Mika- Grace Kelly ( Erin had this on her blog, I liked it, it's a little George Michael for me but.....my little boy loves this song.  He dances like crazy to it and know's all the words it's so cute!  This is such a fun song)

Jazz/ coffee shop feeling/ electronic/ whatever- ( good for a cold day spent inside)

Madeleine Peyroux- Dance me to the end of love ( she has such an amazing voice!)

Jamie Cullum-  20 something

Jamie Cullum- Frontin

Michael Buble and Nelly Furtado- Quando, Quando, Quando

Joe Mooney-  A man with one million dollars

Bitter: Sweet-  Bittersweet faith

Bitter: Sweet- The mating game

   Okay, well there are some inspiring songs for you for the day!  I feel so strange not posting a picture.  But alas there is not one for today. Actually, how about this one.  It's my sister.  It goes well with mellow happy music I think!

What are your favorite songs?

Let's start with books

Books and I have a great relationship.  I love them. I am pretty much constantly involved with one. I love all kinds too, fiction, non fiction, children's,plays, it doesn't really matter.  I love historical fiction.  And I am ashamed to admit it but I love romance novels.  For the romance and the drama.....not the other stuff. ahem.  So here are a few of my favorite books and here are a few of my favorite creative books:

Love to read them over and over books:

Pride and Prejudice Jane Austin ( I would not be a good romance loving girl if this wasn't first on my list)

I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith ( she wrote a hundred and one Dalmatians too.  This book is also one of J. K. Rowling's favorites)

Twilight and New Moon by Stephanie Meyer( Oh my heavens, how I love these books.  If you read any on my list read these! I made Sarah Champion read them and now half of the scraping world has because she is so great at talking people into things.  Read them!)

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens ( I love this book.  Dickens was such an amazing author and I love reading his words. I feel accomplished when I finish one.  I give a big sigh and think that this is what the English language was meant for.)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho  ( THIS IS AN AMAZING BOOK. I saved it for last on my list today because it crosses over into books that are about creation.  Amazon calls it a fable about following your dream.  I totally agree it's all about finding your path and that path may not lead you were you wanted to go but it takes you where you were meant to be. Totally how I feel about being creative.  I believe we each have our own creative voice, and our own path to get there. )

http://www.amazon.com/Alchemist-Fable-About-Following-Dream/dp/0062502182

Creative books-

So it's not a book but I love Communication Arts.  Super expensive for a magazine but totally worth it.  It's so inspiring to me. 

The Artist's Way  Julia Cameron- This book was so, so inspiring and it was the start of my senior show for my BFA final to graduate. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a creative pick me up.

Here is a picture from my show.  My show was all portraits of people dressed as characters of heroes that they relate to or admire.  I had everyone fill out these huge questionnaires and we had interviews and then came up with each persons concept.  They were all friends and family.  This picture is of my best friend from high school and college.  Matt.  He was so great. He would let me take pictures all the time.  He was up for all sorts of adventures.  But his is an artistically disturbed soul.  And the person he wanted a portrait as was Icarus.  You know the Greek guy who made wings to fly off of an island that the Greek Gods had forced him on?  But he flew to close to the sun and his wings melted.  Well, when Matt told me that.  I was like how are we going to come up with a portrait for that?  What are we going to do for wings? And he said, "leave it up to me."  So I came up with a location and he made this brilliant pair of wings. We called the portrait Icarus Moderno. And believe it or not.  This was shoot on film.  You know before the days of digital?  So it's real.  I did have another friend touch up the shoes after we scanned it in.  Originally he was wearing boots because the water he was standing was about ten degrees.  Yeah, Utah in the early spring.  Cold. But the portrait turned out beautifully.

A world History of Photography-  Did I mention I love history?  This is a text book from my school days.  I loved the class so much.  I just love learning about the past.  I even went on to become the t.a. for it later. I still go back and read about different photographers.

The Hat book- Rodney Smith.  Sigh, my favorite photographer.  I love his work.  Love it.  And seeing this book literally changed my life, artistically speaking. It wasn't highly published but I think you can find a copy used on Amazon.

Russians- Jock McDonald.  Another favorite photographer of mine.  He does a lot of the baby gap ads.  Remember those big close ups with the solid white back ground.  That was him.  We went to see him on a field trip my junior year but he got an assignment right before we arrived and had to leave.  But he left a book that he had self published called Russians.  He traveled on his own time and his own money and printed the book himself.  The portraits are beautiful and you could see his passion in them.  I remember thinking.  "This meant so much to him he made it happen himself" And I took that to heart.  Sometimes, people around you might not think that what you are doing is really special. But if it is special enough for you to go out on your own and do it.  Others will see the beauty too.

Open Door by Peter Brook.  Peter Brook is a Theatre Director. And the book is about theater but if you change the words it relates perfectly to whatever art you like.

Peter Brook uses a term to talk about the perfect theater moment in which the audience and the actors on stage meet to create a life changing experience. It's called the "golden fish" so Mark and I always talk about our golden fish moments. They don't have to be big, they are just something that make us realize that, that moment means something.

Here are a few quotes, that I'll change a little to make it scrapbooking instead of theater.

"A text comes to life only through detail, and detail is the fruit of understanding."

"A true scrapbooker recognizes that real freedom occurs at the moment when what comes from the outside (the actual moment) and what is brought from within make a perfect blending."

"A great work, a masterpiece is in fact presented with the one ingredient that can link it to the audience, the irresistible presence of life"

"Time, which is so often an enemy in life, can also become our ally if we see how a pale moment can lead to a glowing moment, and then turn to a moment of perfect transparency, before dropping again to a moment of everyday simplicity."

Good quote's huh? 

Well, that's it for today.  More tomorrow.   Oh, I'd love to hear what books you love and what books inspire you? Please share! 

So maybe I should change this blog's name to, "all the things that can can go wrong for a poor college student family"  No?  To long?  You might change your mind after this post. I think that I have mentioned several times that we currently live in a house that is over a hundred years old.  I always thought that I would love to own a old house some day and restore it to it's former glory.  Now I know that will never happen.  As something goes wrong in this house almost every week.  This weekend it was the heat.  There was a leak in the basement.  I noticed it when I went down stairs to do laundry and I called the owner to let them know.  He was out of town and said he'd be around to fix it when he got home today.  No big deal right?  Wrong.  The leak was the from the radiator system and slowly over the weekend one by one we lost heat in each of the rooms.  Until last night we lost all heat.  It was 18 degree's last night so, it was pretty cold.  We decided to bring all the mattresses in to the living room where we have a fire place and we all slept on the floor near it.  It wasn't to bad and the boys thought it was quite an adventure but I am tired and sleepy.

  Our heat is back, and life is getting back to normal, which is good.  But this blog is starting to make me realize that I have a pretty boring life.  Not much to talk about.  So I decided that this week I'd try to post each day.  A new list of different things that I like, that inspire my artistic endeavors.  Things like music, movies, books, projects.  Why?  I don't know.  I guess it would be good to have it listed somewhere because it changes so often.  Also, I think it's fun to see what inspires other people.  As an artist I find that little things, a line in a song, a descriptive word in a book, the way a cinematographer films a scene in a movie.  They can set me off on a grand creative adventure.

Love it!

I know a lot of people don't love Valentines Day, but I pretty much love any holiday because in my family growing up my parents tried to make every holiday special and full of traditions.  Valentines Day was no different.  In fact it became one of my favorites.  Why?   Because each year for as long as I can remember my Dad wrote each member of the family a Valentines Card and left it on our pillow, and my Mom would leave candy or some sort of treat so when we woke up it was there waiting.  My Dad is probably like a lot of other Dads.  He's not a big talker.  In fact the running joke in our family is to quote his most common phrase " Very nice".  Dad, how do you like my dress?"  Very nice.  Dad what do you think about my new haircut?"  Very nice.  Dad do you think I should choose photography for my major?"  That would be very nice. Hey, he learned quickly that in a household full of girls "very nice"  was the safest answer for everything.  But each year on Valentines morning we would receive a detailed letter about why he loved us, and the things that we had done that year that he was proud of, and what he hoped for us for the future.  I loved those letters,  actually I still love the letters.  Because now he mails them to us.  Each year.  And I love it.  I have every card he has written to me safely hidden away from the fourth grade on. And this year Mark started that tradition for our boys.  And I love him for it!  So I guess what I am trying to say is that I am a very lucky girl to have such wonderful men in my life.

As for the rest of Valentines day Mark and I were in charge of the games for Grant's v-day party and we had a blast being.  Grant has recently admitting to liking a little girl in his class named Monique.  She is here with her family from Korea and she is a girl after my own heart.  At the party she was wearing the most creative outfit.  It included pearls, a big headband, a scarf, a sweater and a bolero jacket over it with bright pink tennis shoes. Nice!  I got a picture of them together but I don't know her parents so I won't post it here.

Here are some other pictures from the day though:

One of the little girls was very concerned that Cole wouldn't have a valentine so she quickly made him one and he loved it!  So sweet.

Here is Grant with his chocolate cupcake face.  I made the boy's tee-shirts for Valentines day.  Elsie actually drew the words and the heart for me and I printed them out on iron paper.  I'll learned a lot from this first try and I'll do things differently next time.  You know, like get tee-shirts that actually are the right size. ha ha.  Oh, and they say "Dream Date" on them.

 

Here is Mark reading a story to the kids. Look how into it both he and they are!  He is great with kids.

Here is Valentines Dinner.  Heart pancakes with strawberry's and whip cream.  Lovely.  It was a big hit with all the boys in the family.

I need to also say that since Mark had the play that night and I had a church activity we knew that we wouldn't get to see each other or do anything together so last Monday, my sweet husband surprised me with a homemade dinner after the boys went to sleep and bought me one of my favorite movies!  He has been home way more this week and it has been heaven!  Hope everyone else had a great Valentines too!

It's that time again...

More headshots.  Mark is fast coming to the end of his life as a student and the beginning of his life as a professional actor,  or starving artist, which ever you prefer.  I prefer the former of the two titles and so we have begun to prepare him for upcoming auditions. Anyway, I thought I'd post two of the different looks we have shot so far. 

This one is for when he has auditions for an edgy role.

The second one is for when he has a nice guy audition.  I think he is pretty dreamy either way.  See Dad. I really am using my lights!  Are you proud of me?