More Fun with Food Coloring

I'm getting slightly obsessed with food coloring (maybe I'm channeling my niece, Sofia?), and am messing around with it in more ways.  This week, I decided to see what it would be like to add it to the laundry detergent Brian had an allergic reaction to - because if we can't wash clothes with it, what else are we gonna do with it?  The biggest thing I noticed with this was that the drops of coloring stuck more to the surface of the liquid, rather than immediately mixing in.  It was definitely fun to play with.

Sofia, Sofia

Ever since I got back to Calgary from the states after Christmas, I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off - trying to catch up with life in another country while working close to 60 hours a week is a little hectic.  With only a few free hours during the week, a couple of which I'm trying to fill my SD Card with more and more photos, I have been sitting on a lot of pictures to process.  A handful of these pictures were of my niece, Sofia, which I took in my mom's office a couple days after Christmas.  The office has a lot of beautiful space in it, and I was excited to be able to take some pictures there while I was home (the first of many in that space, I hope).  I finally got around to processing these photos today, and I'm pretty happy with the shots I got!  It's always a humbling experience, trying to take pictures of a kid who really doesn't care if you're trying to get some awesome portraits...

And here is one more shot I took of Sofia while we were in Kansas together - I don't really see this so much as a portrait of her, though - rather, a portrait of Kansas' influence on the soul.

Sofia is such a creative, smart, compassionate, energetic person, and she's always been one of my favorite subjects.  I can't wait to see her again!

Mental Floss

It's a new year, and a new me.  I've learned to make clearly attainable resolutions, because the typical vague "working out more often and eating healthier" has never stuck in my mind for more than the first week of the year.  For 2013, I've set a goal to floss every day.  So far, thirteen days in, I haven't slipped once.  My gums have stopped bleeding, and for the very first time in my life, I can't wait for a dentist to ask me if I floss.  "Every day!"  And while I'm trying to remember to floss every day, I find myself thinking about the stuff throughout the day.  Naturally, I decided to whip it out for some photos this week.  

It was a fun experiment, and after a third photo shoot with food coloring, I'm still not sick of it.

My soul will always be...

Brian and I were fortunate enough to be able to travel back to the states for Christmas.  It was a whirlwind of activities and a lo-ot of travel (going from Chicago, to Kansas, and finally to Denver), and it all ended way too quickly.  I was able to spend half a day taking photos at home in Lincoln, though, and I am glad to have these files with me back in Calgary.  

Growing up in Kansas wasn't necessarily the easiest, or most exciting childhood, but I wouldn't give it up for the world.  Kansas has become a large part of who I am - being able to stand in the middle of the prairie, with no people and only a handful of trees around for miles, feeling no difference between 1900 and 2012 in a moment of time, hearing nothing but the wind through the tall grasses, and fully understanding what it is to live in the present - it's the way I was raised, and it's the way I hope to die someday.  I have a hundred thousand more photos to take before I can truly begin to capture the essence of Kansas, but the journey of a thousand miles has to begin with a footstep.

  

Family Calendar 2013

I've been making calendars for my family every Christmas for the past few years, and this year was no exception.  It takes a lot of time and patience, but I am always happy at the completion of my creation.  I've learned a lot about doing them every year, from what people like to see, to getting as efficient as possible with the production.

The first year I made these calendars, I focused around photographs I had taken that year, that I had really enjoyed.  I think my family liked it, but I moved on to use photos of family members throughout the years.  I've also gone from using one traditional photo per month, to including about a dozen shots each month.  I think this is more enjoyable for everyone - especially now that a lot of my siblings are having children.  My sister posted a video on Facebook of her daughter pointing out her aunts and uncles in the family calendar I made last year, which completely melted my heart.

I've contemplated getting these calendars done professionally every year, but I find that it's not a financially smart decision for making twelve calendars.  It's about a hundred dollars cheaper to take the time to create my own calendar (which I simply do in iCalendar on my Mac, where I put in everyone's birthdays, different holidays, and the full moon schedule each year) and print off my own Adobe Illustrator files of photographs.  My only costs are my time, a pack of card stock paper, a couple cartridges of printer ink, and the process of binding at an office supplies store.  I print the calendar on one side of a sheet of card stock, then flip it around and print off the photos.  It takes a lot of time, and patience, but it's worth it to me.  My mom has a binding machine that I've used in the past for my calendars, but this year I decided to knock the whole process out before we went home for the holidays.  My local Staples store was able to bind my calendars within a day, and they even included a clear plastic sheet on the front and a black linen covering on the back.

It seems like every year I make some sort of mistake - this year I discovered after about eight months in that I was printing the calendar part on the top half of the hanging calendar, and the photos on the bottom.  I seem to have an "oh-shit" moment like this every year with my calendars, but I know that I am getting better with the finished product with each shot I take at it.  As they say, you'll be a pro at anything you put ten thousand hours into.  I'm only a couple hundred hours into this family calendar, but I love seeing the progress I make each and every year.  And it's all worth it to see my calendar hung up in my family members' homes whenever I go to visit them.  Not to mention, it makes remembering everyone's birthdays Much easier!