TV's, sofas, and lots of money

Today I got a text from Brittany that Rooms To Go had a sale if you buy a room you get a free 50" plasma HDTV. What? Seriously? To the internet I went. Well yes indeed this is true. So I showed Steve and waited for him to say "Are you kidding?" Then he didn't. He said Hmmmm. And he actually wanted to go look. Holy crap, did my husband get stolen and replaced with this imposter?
Off we went to the local Rooms To Go and looked at all the packages picked out the pieces we wanted, and then I thought "ok now he's going to pull the plug...game over...go home." But he didn't. We got it. All of it, sofa, chair, cocktail ottoman, end table, lamp, TV console and.....a 50" TV. I guess the world cup in HD was just too tempting!

House Hunting

The million dollar question: do we want a new house and do we want it now? I guess it depends on who you ask. Me? Yes, absolutely lets do this! Steve? Mmmmm, maybe, yes, eventually, etc.

The latest issue: do we spend more now, build and get everything we want? Or spend less up front, get something that needs remodeling, and spend the money over time to make it what we want?
I;m all about efficiency and being happy in my surroundings. So I say pay up front get what we want. How long will this process take? Only time will tell.

New Camera!!

So a dear friend of mine decided to sell his Nikon D200. It had all kinds of goodies with it, including a battery grip! DH and discussed it and he agreed I could buy IF I could sell my Nikon D40. My D40 has been such a wonderful camera, and I definitely wanted it to go to someone who would really appreciate it. And it did, the proud new owner is one of my friends at work.
I was free to buy the D200. I LOVE it!! It's amazing.
I also learned something new: Kinetics. Kinetics is an experimental photographic technique in which the photographer uses movement resulting from physics to create an image. I attempted this by zooming in to the object during a long exposure. I had fun trying it out. My object was my silver jewelry box with my engagement ring in the center, and the box was on black satin place mats. The first version came out looking like an x-ray, pretty cool. But then I amped up the blacks and the contrast and got this eye catching image:



SO fun!!

The Ritz

I stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota for a conference this past week. Their grounds were beautiful. I took a few minutes one morning to walk around and take some photos. This is one of my favorites.

Honeymoon

Steve and I were married on April 18, 2009. On April 20, 2009 we set off for our honeymoon to Mexico. It was my first time leaving the country and I had a great time documenting it. The sunsets were amazing. I wish we could be there now.

Been a while!

So It's been a while since my last post...a year? Whew. My wedding took precedence over everything else in my life. Although I was taking photos it was mostly of my wedding projects Probably only interesting to to me. Ha ha. So I may throw up a couple of shots for this post instead of one.

My first one comes from a wedding of good friends that occurred two weeks after my own wedding. Andrea, the bride, made a beautiful cupcake stand (in lieu of cake) and I took this photo as the sun was setting.



This next one was taken on a trip to Boston to visit my besties Janice and Jason. This is a long case with Chinese scrolls that is lit up. Taken with no flash inside, I just love how it turned out.

Antique Water Faucet

I have my first photo that I want to print and frame! I absolutely love this photo!! I have started to volunteer at the Matheson Museum, helping Jess with some administrative stuff that with her incredibly busy schedule she just can't get to. I went up there on Saturday to work on some things, and while I waited for her to get settled I decided to take some photos of the Tison Tool Barn and the Matheson House. I came early and had about 45 minutes to kill. I got some great shots, including some of this antique water faucet.

Once at home I put them into the Mac and started to play with it in photoshop. I was originally trying to make variations of it to try out a technique called "HDR" which I was unsuccessful at. And one of the variations was this photo. I amped the contrast all the way up and added some brightness. That was all. And the color was amazing. It just popped, and became so vivid. Check it out:



As you can see I have also started adding my signature "lesliedigs" to my photos. This lends some sort of copyright function to them. I try to make it blend in as much as possible without taking away or becoming distracting from the photo.

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