lindsay's exiled vox

photo fun

With all my photo organising and playing around in photoshop, I plan to eventually make a post comparing versions of my edits so you can see what I've been up to, and the changes that are coming through in my style. But for now I wanted to share a fun thing I made tonight. I had a bunch of half-decent pictures from a self shoot I did a month or so ago (trying to get a new headshot, but it just won't happen without decent lighting, which I can't afford). I ended up playing and making faces. Tonight I decided to use some to make a mock photo booth strip. And since photo booths aren't very common anymore, I had to make the pics look like I had them a while, complete with dirt and tears.  Whaddaya think?

mock photo booth

love-love. Lindsay

7000 and improving

I have had my camera for a little over two years now. In that time, despite going through periods of neglecting it, I have still managed to amass over 7,000 photos. This does not include pictures of family or anything. These are just my photographic dabblings. Many are attributable to my trial and error style of shooting (Take a picture, see that it didn't come out just right, adjust something, take another). And if I don't delete something right away, I don't delete it. Needless to say that my hard drive is already pretty full. So I have been working on the task of sorting, tagging and deleting (or rather setting aside to be deleted after I burn them to disk - just in case I change my mind) all 7,000 said photos. ...I'll be at this a while.

What is intriguing me while I go through this process is that it is very easy for me to see how my skills have improved. Especially when going through the photos from the first month or so after getting the camera. Of course the images were bound to improve as I got better at handling the camera's controls, but I also found that the pictures I liked and was proud of at the time, I now think are quite dull. I can't figure out why I liked some of them so much. Then there are others I didn't care about, but now, due to the fact that I am also getting better at photoshop, I can see potential in them that I didn't catch before. So I guess my biggest improvement is not so much technically (or not at all technically, truth be told) but rather in my artistic vision. And that makes me happy, because the primary reason I always liked photography was that I wanted to create art, but can't draw. It's nice to find that there is way, albeit entirely subjective, to measure my progress to this end. ...Now which of my current photos will I think are dull two years from now?... ~__^

calendar number two

I had asked my sister for her opinion on the last shot for my calendar, mentioned in my previous post. I didn't go with her suggestion, but her insistence on a preference for a more whimsical fare inspired me to make a second calendar. I had been going back through all my photos (I've taken over 6,000 in the past two years) to find the right shot for the first calendar, and in doing so I found quite a few that I'd totally forgotten about. Some really cool ones. I don't know how they ever slipped my mind. Anyway, my second calendar is lindsay's whimsy and can be found here:
http://www.zazzle.com/lindsays_whimsy_2009_calendar-158099007970092448

And these are two of my favourite shots featured in it. I may upload a few others to my flickr later, but for now you can't go wrong with a couple strings of rubber chickens!

so hungry it's not even funny

one for jimi

Thanks for the inspiration K.C.!

love-love. Lindsay

all seattle, all year long!

Just arrived! Newly created! Buy my calendar!
Just follow this link:
http://www.zazzle.com/seattle_up_close_2009_calendar-1589638542059888

You know you have to keep track of the days somehow, why not do it with some of my best shots from around Seattle?

I've also got two new Christmas cards, featuring Pike Place Market.
So visit my zazzle store now!

make custom gifts at Zazzle

These are just a few of the photos you'll find inside:

sunset squared

rainbow run

Glow

Proceeds go to someone hit by the economy's stupidity.

...Otherwise she'd just buy copies for her family for Christmas and surprise them. Sorry. The gift will have to be the work itself.

love-love. Lindsay

decked out market

Pike Place Market, like most public spaces, is now decked out for the holidays. I swung by tonight real quick and got a couple shots in. It was rainy, though, so I didn't stay long. I will probably go back and try to re-take the second shot without a person in it so I can make it into a card or something. But, with the first shot, I think I now have my December photo for the 2009 Seattle calendar I am going to sell on zazzle. I still have to make the final selection for the other eleven, but I hope to get it done this week. So stay tuned!

market lights

holiday market

me and myself had a grand old time

I haven't been posting much lately, I know. *Bad Zoot, Naughty Zoot!* I don't know if it's just my attention span, or the fact that I hate the way I have to sit at my computer (an arm chair that I am tired of and a t.v. tray with my laptop on it, which is too high for comfortable typing), but I have been playing with my camera. A lot. Of course, then I don't have the attention span to sit at my computer and edit and upload all of my photos, but every now and then one will get through. If you haven't seen my flickr yet, please check it out. (And if you're on there, please leave comments. I love feedback. It gives me direction. I don't actually know what I'm doing yet. ~__^ ) I've also embedded a feed widget in my new widgetized vox side bar. But it's not very good. It doesn't fit, and the ones that do don't seem to work. Still you can see right here on my vox when I've added to flickr.

Anyway, I digress. I'm sleepy. For the reason I am posting. Tonight I got bored and invited myself over for tea. ^___^ I got along so great with myself I think I'll have to hang out with me again. Hopefully I won't begin to bore myself down the line, but for now I enjoyed my company.

This is my first attempt at cloning. Too bad the lighting in my apartment is so lousy. I did what I could (it was practically red when I started.)

tea and gossip

And just in case you need some background music... might I reccommend:

I & I

Taja Sevelle

love-love. Lindsay ...& Lindsay

zucchini

I felt it was time I post an older photograph. And since it is spring, what better way to start than with my grandfather Skeet's blooming zucchini?

This was taken at least 5 or 6 years ago with my Pentax Asahi on real black and white film, so hard to find these days. (Not that "colour-process" B&W. Don't get me started on that. If I hadn't switched to digital, I'd be going crazy for lack of real black and white. Well, when I can get that camera to work, that is.)

By the way, I am looking into finding the perfect site to display all of my photographs in all their glory. User friendly, comment-able, navigable, but most especially, nice to look at, perhaps even customizable. If you have any ideas, let me know. Because if you don't like to look at the site, my few loyal readers, then who will?... I mean, besides me. Besides the typical flickr or newer similar zooomr, I am looking at photoblog or tabblo. I know, me and all of my websites. Just smile and nod... go with it for a while. I'll give up eventually.

love-love. Lindsay

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insomniacking

After much thought and consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the earth rotates much too quickly. Imagine a world where the day was no less than 36 hours long! Just think of all that you could accomplish! You could wake up at a reasonable hour and go to work all day - the work day may have to be extended to 10 hours to keep life in balance, but think of the extra pay - then you would still have time to run your errands, and go to whatever event you are dreaming of, but still be home in time for dinner. Then you would still have plenty of time do get more done after dinner AND still get maybe 10 hours of sleep before getting up at that reasonable hour again. And with so much sleep, dawn will seem like a reasonable hour.

For me, right now, I have plenty of time I suppose. But I am too awake after a mere 16 hours of activity. My body is still in its peak performance mode; my brain still calculating all that I would like to do. So I stay up until 3 or 4. Then I don't wake up early enough for that 16 hours to even be close to a decent bedtime. Oh , I still try. But uselessness gets the better of me. If I'm going to be awake anyway, I'm not going to waste that time lying in a bed, I'll get up and do something! So every now and then I sleep only on alternate nights.

And so here I am. Almost 7 am, blogging. It is times like these, however, that I realise I do love the morning air. I wish I could sleep and then wake up to enjoy mornings.

But I have a solution. It will take very precise timing on the part of each and every inhabitant on the planet - even animals, if we can train them right. However, I think it just might work. We will pick a date and time, then EVERYONE jump west at the exact same moment, like when you scuff a carpet flat. We may have to jump a few times, as each leap will only move the planet backwards incrementally, but persistence pays off.

But while we work to coordinate this effort I invite you to enjoy some pictures I took a couple mornings ago... when I was still awake, and decided to go up to my roof.

Click on this lovely banner (now on my vox) to visit my picasa album.

Have a fantastic morning!... Then take a nap.
love-love. Lindsay

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i caught a crow

Every now and then insomnia rewards you. I actually went outside at 7:00 am... because I was still awake... up to my roof... and I remembered my camera. Then I met the crow as he landed on the weather vane of another crow.

Which way the wind blows

space needle banner

Banner - lilacs & needle

The sun was shining on my roof this morning. Then I noticed for the first time that we had lilacs up there! So I snapped a photo and made it into a banner. If anybody out there is longing for a pretty smelling bit of Seattle for their vox, let me know and I will share.

love-love. Lindsay