Day 15: dolla dolla bill y'all!

I (sadly) didn't have a dollar bill to use for today's shot. I wanted to do something like origami, but since i didn't have paper, 4 quarters it is:

I decided just to do a macro shot. I used the "cheater" backwards lens trick to achieve the shot :)

*i haven't been home in 2 days, so these got loaded on the same day, but definitely done on time :)

Day 14: nah, i don't like it

So today's suggestion was to do something microscopic, how small can you go? do you have to use a magnifying glass or microscope to see it?

...nah, i don't like it. Plus i don't have a magnifying glass or a microscope, so i don't even think i could get it that small...

PLUS, today i did a portrait shoot with edwina, her man, and her baby (my godson). she asked me a while back if i could do her christmas card, and i agreed, but its not my specialty. I kinda suck at knowing with to do with people as the model, but it actually came out nicely. We went to downtown Disney (even though it was really busy), and wandered through the grand california hotel and the downtown area and snapped shots in front of different decorations.

It was easier than i thought it was going to be cuz it was just hangin out and takin photos every once and a while in different places. Came up with about 6 good shots:

 These are the photos in the template edwina picked:

the caption ended up reading "From Our Family To Yours".

After posting it on facebook, i had a bunch of people like it and one asking if i could do her and her daughter...looks like i'm better at portraits than i thought :)

*i haven't been home in 2 days, so these got posted later, but definitely done on time :)

Tea for 13

Use tea leaves or tea bags (used or unused) or even just liquid tea (in a cup or not) to create something today

I love tea, but i didn't always. Seriously only got into it about 2 years ago. I always thought it tasted like watered down juice. if i wanted water, i'll drink water, and if i want juice, i'll get juice. My dude got into the idea of getting tea and making it, i watched him prep it, and then - what's this? sugar?

Yea, yea, make fun of me, but i never thought of putting sugar in it. anyone i knew that drank tea when i was little (mainly my scottish grandma), didn't add sugar to it, just drank it like that, and i thought it was gross. I added sugar (a lot actually) to a cup and it was DELICIOUS!

I've had sweet tea, and hello, SUGAR! But i didn't know regular tea should have it, stupid American.

So the thought for today was to photograph the steam trails from a hot tea.

I had to edit this one, but those are the steam trails. I had a really shitty set up cuz i didn't feel like going all out (i don't feel good today), so this is just a cup on a white folder, a warm light from the ceiling, and a small book light from behind (to highlight the steam).

It was a tad blurry since i had to get a very small long exposure to capture the steam trail, but this was the best shot i could get. I opened it twice in CS5, once to play with the WB to make it a neutral color, but the steam was blue. And then again to get a warm tone (too warm on the folder), and the steam was white. I layered the 2, warm on bottom, neutral on top, erased the neutral layer's steam to show the white steam underneath. Flattened the image, and there you have it - tea steam trails.

Day 12: Disappearing Act

Word of the day: Camouflage

Had to create something that "disappeared into the background". I decided I needed to do something that had me up against a background and blending as much as possible (i was thinking stripes, but it wasn't working like i wanted it to).

So then i started playing with my off camera flash techniques. I first thought of doing a double exposure, but it was too far off from the concept and just wasn't doing what i wanted. So then i held the  flash at a 90* angle from the lens and looked straight into the lens like so:

but then it was too bright and too much face. So i dialed the aperture down (let less light in) and i held the flash as far behind my head as i could, and looked to my left and got this result:

I liked the look of my face coming out of the shadows (hitchcock?) and decided i nailed the camouflage of disappearing into the background, no?

Day 11: righty tighty, lefty loosey

Today's entry was simple: pick a medium and do it with your non-dominate hand.

If it's too little kid to read, it says: I like writing. It's fun to do instead of typing, but writing with my left hand is really hard. My hand starts to cramp faster, because i'm not used to this. I also like drawing cats: =^.^= meow!

Day 10: water, water every where...

Day 10 made me pursue something i've been wanting to do for a while now: freeze water droplets, splashing in water.

I've researched it and have all the equipment to do it, but i just never set it up and actually did it. I think the only thing holding me back was not having the proper set up area, or way to hang a bag of water in the air and drop it into a pan.

So today i found that if i hang a bag from my open dresser drawer and set everything up on the floor, that i could accomplish this feat :)

So i set up a black t-shirt under a clear casserole dish. the flash is bounced off a white folder and just started firing away. I had a hard time getting the full drip. A lot of the shots were just ripples in the water, so i had to mess around with shutter speed and just continuously fired at the streaming drops.

 so out of the first couple of shots, these were the only in focus and not just ripples, but i didn't like that you could see the etching on the bottom of the dish, it was too in focus and took away from the drops.

so i put the camera's white balance on florescent (turns the white to a blue tint) and took some shots, but didn't get any great in focus ones.

Then i decided to bounce the flash off of a red piece of paper while also on the florescent setting, and success!

These were the 3 best shots i got. i think i want to attempt this again, maybe on a table top surface, cuz crawling on the ground started to hurt my knees. possibly even try it tethered so i can see the in focus or not right away, the view finder is deceiving.

*note-this is technically a day late, i was super busy yesterday and didn't get home till after 2 in the morning, so yesterdays post was posted a today (a day late). today's post will be on in a little.

Day 9: remix

So my dude and i were out late last night and i didn't get a chance to look at day 9 until today, after i already ate. It said: "make something with your breakfast before you eat it". Well i ate flaming hot cheetos with cream cheese (its delicious, try it), and didn't do anything with it.

So the book says i can do whatever the fuck i want if i feel like it, so since i already couldn't do the breakfast thing, i had to do something else.

side story: I have a gluten allergy and have to eat gluten free foods. My parents sometimes suck at being accommodating to that, so tonight was no exception. They ordered pizza from the place i loved before i couldn't eat it anymore, and usually they get an antipasto salad just so i get something out of the deal. But it always sucks, cuz all i can smell is the amazing pizza as i eat rabbit food.

The worst person to be against eating gluten free with me is my dad. He refuses cuz he's ignorant about it and doesn't know exactly what's going on, even when i explain it to him for the millionth time. I've tricked him into eating gluten free lasagna once. I didn't tell him it was gfree, just that my dude made it, and he ate seconds. Then i told him it was gluten free and he was like "oh, hmm...", and doesn't put up as much of a fight.

So tonight was no exception, pizza was ordered, but this time, no salad. my mom says "there's salad in the fridge". Oh you mean that prepackaged crap that's super plain and i have nothing to add to it? nice dinner comin my way.

I just don't understand why we just can't go completely gfree, everyone eats gfree pizza or pasta or sandwiches, whatever. But no, i get my own separate thing and just have to deal, it sucks. I have to eat salad tonight? fuck that, i made my own pasta, only took 15 mins(ish), and you guys can kiss my ass.

So instead of making something out of my breakfast, i decided just to dedicate this blog entry to gfree food. It's good. REALLY good when you find the best stuff.

Take a look at that. can you tell it's gluten free just by lookin at it? no. you think you could tell the difference if you ate it? probably not, it just tastes like al dente pasta. and the fact that its in this amazing vodka sauce, its delicious!

I hate that people make gluten free into some fad or a "get skinny" diet. It's actually the complete opposite of a diet, you eat a ton of carbs - potatoes, rice, corn - and end up gaining weight. There's veggies and fruit of course, and meat is all good (as long as its not marinated in something i can't eat). I just wish my parents would get fully on board.

The worst part of the 'semi on board' of them is that my mom and brother eat my stuff sometimes. Not the full meals, just my snacks - my cookies, my chips, my granola bars. I caught my mom eating the last of one of my granola bars last night, and i was livid. It's my stuff. Not because i'm hoarding it, but because its the only shit i can eat. when they eat it, and i have none, I'm out, that's it. They can eat everything in the pantry, i can't, and it's like they don't get it.

I finally had it last night and told them all exactly that. That when it's gone, I have nothing to eat, and they can continue eating everything in there. My dude is the only person that is accommodating and will eat gfree with me. He makes food for me, he goes places that only i can go and doesn't complain, because he knows he can go anywhere else he wants if he wanted to, but i gotta eat too.

Today's entry wasn't exactly creativity, but it's sort of fitting and been on my mind.

Day 8: New book

Today's direction: Transform an old book into something new, by cutting, folding, gluing, and so on.

So last night on our nightly walk, I had the idea of going to the flea market and getting old books and making cut outs with them (like when people cut a whole through the pages to stash a gun in it). This morning, the flea market was out (we were gonna go with my friend and she got sick) and then it just hits me: comic books!

I just saw this flash in my head of collaged comic book pages with the POW! or BAM! bursts painted on top. I already had canvas and panels, but needed to find some old comics to destroy/create.

There's this random, shitty bookstore in the mall that we stumbled into a couple weeks ago, and I remembered that they had shit loads of comic books. So we ventured to the store and there was racks and racks and boxes and boxes to choose from. I decided i wanted the newsprint, old style comics, and that i wanted as many bright colors as possible.

Found more than enough, but chose 3 that worked best, and came home and got right to work.

Here's the comics before and my set up:

I went through them and ripped out the pages that caught my eye first, and cut out a bunch of boxes.

I then just started arranging them. I made sure i had enough large, medium, and small ones on each panel, and started gluing (mmm, rubber cement). I thought the newsprint was going to bleed a little, but luckily, rubber cement is the shit and everything stuck and stayed perfectly.

I haven't added the POW!, BAM!, etc. paint yet, i'm actually debating if im going to actually add the paint. I think they need something, but i really like the look of the collage. Maybe i'll just add little bubbles or something, that's to be determined, but for now, i'm excited about how this deconstructed book came out :)

Day 7: stencil/logo

One week in! YaY me!

So today, i decided to tweak the suggestion. The book says to make a stencil and use it in your work. I decided to fix my photography business' name (for when it's actually up and going).

I went from 'One and Only Taryn Photography', to 'Taryn Marie Photography' (i liked how it flowed), to 'Taryn Thornton Photography'.

I made a small logo and it was sketchy, but i perfected it:

ta-da!

Now, I wanted to actually make a stencil out of it, but i don't have stuff to do it today. I will eventually make it a stencil, but for today, it's just the logo :)

Day 6: fruit

"Look in the kitchen and work with the first fruit or vegetable you spot". Well that came in handy when i went to go get an apple to snack on.

The honey crisp = best apple EVER.

I don't remember the honeycrisp being around when i was younger, but a couple years ago, i spotted a new variety in the apple section. Bought a couple, devoured them, went back to get more but they weren't there. It was like it was a figment of my imagination...or i'm being overdramatic and they were a seasonal apple, whatever.

So i researched them and discovered that they're only in our stores around here from octoberish to februaryish *sad face*.

So on the last outing to the store with my boyfriend, Henry, we spotted honeycrisps and bought a couple. Today I looked in my book, and the directions were to work with a fruit, so of course, honeyscrisp it is!

The first thought that came to mind was a shot like a Snow White esque holding out an apple in a shadowy, dramaticly lit room. This is what i produced:

I even painted my nails for it, they were pretty beat up ;)

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings! (I try not to read ahead)

Day 5: Collection...and no it's not cats

For day 5, the book asks "what do you collect?". Easy. 

CAMERAS!

Seriously, I have a weird obsession with cameras. I want all kinds of weird, vintage, rare, fancy, high tech, giant, tiny CAMERAS!

I've had this obsession growing since I was little. My grandpa and his brother were big photographers (his brother worked for Kodak for a while), and the first good camera our family had was from him. Then when I got older, senior in high school, I took my first black and white photography class and I got hooked. The darkroom, the chemical process, the black and white tones, EVERYTHING! I was obsessed.

So when I graduated and I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself, I went to community college. I enrolled in a full load and hated it. I wanted to do something with either english or art. So i took a creative writing class, and i liked it, but i wasn't that excited. I also took a digital photography class, LOVED it (the teacher not so much, but whatever).

So i decided that semester: i wanted to be a photographer. Plain and simple, that's what i want to do. I understand it more than anything else i'm into, i love the freedom it holds. Plus, i feel like i'm good at it. My grandpa thought so too, and invested in me by buying me my first REAL camera: a nikon D80. More professional than anything i've ever touched, and i figured it out quick. It was meant to be :)

So Since then, i've worked and gone to school, day in and day out for 8 years, studying photography all along the way. I figured much of it out myself, my grandpa helped out with a bunch too until he died in 2008. I made it my mission to get into CSULB and study for a BFA after getting my AA at my community college, unfortunately CA had budget cuts and *ding* you guessed it, arts gets cut first. THAT'S a whole other story for another time...

So I've been collecting camera's for years now. And since i want to be a photographer, i figured that's an ok obsession to have ;) So here is my collection of camera's (and yes, i use them all):

First up, my first camera that i played with and learned manual controls: the pentax k1000

Great camera, super easy to use (probably the one manual i use the most), and the awesome strap that isn't a repro, it is straight from the early 80s, thanks gramps ;)

Next, my instant family:

the Polaroid One Step SX-70 Land Camera

my good friend actually gave this one to me, she has a much better land camera and didn't use this one, and gave it to me out of the kindness of her heart. Which also led to draining my bank account in my obsession and needing the film. Thanks maria ;)

I also bought a Polaroid One Step 600

Bought this one myself. The Impossible Project (click if you'd like to be obsessed too) had a giant sale on 600 film, so i needed a camera, found one for 10 bucks, obsession grows...

Next, i really liked the newer Fuji instant camera that came out, so obviously i bought it and shit loads of film:

Super fun to play with, love the colors it produces. still gotta figure out the distancing sometimes cuz the view finder isn't where the picture actually lines up, so sometimes it's a little wonky.

Next up is my pretty (old) baby, a Kodak duaflex ii :

this snazzy friend i found in an antique store and snagged it for a reasonable price. It's film is expired (220), but 120 can fit if adjusted. Also, this little bad boy makes an appearance on the cover of my very own book :)

Next beauty is a more recent purchase: Lubitel 166B

Bought it off etsy for a steal. The guy had the original manual and gave me a photo of his, taken with the camera (flowers, really pretty) as a thank you. It's been tough to go FULL manual (no light meter and you have to set everything), but i feel like its making me think more and take better pictures.

Now comes my prized babies, the cameras my grandma found and gave me after my grandpa died:

A Nikon F and a Pentax MX

These cameras mean a lot to me. My grandma had a hard time with my grandpas passing. It took her a little over a year to let me come over and go through some of his stuff. He had drawers and drawers full of old slides and negatives and his big camera bag had these 2 beauties and a couple lenses. I will never get rid of these and I use them with care and love :) (not like i trash my other cameras, you get what i mean!)

Little toy cameras are the shit, don't let anyone tell you different. "They take shitty pictures", they're MEANT to take not so great pictures, its experimentation and it's FUN! I have 2 lomo cameras, one i don't have a photo of cuz it's in storage and I can't get to it, but its a blue fisheye plastic lens camera and its fun as hell to use.

The other one is my Diana F+:

i have the flash in storage as well, but its the F+, i promise. This was bought on a whim and a payday and i love it. I used it with black and white film at the San Juan Capistrano Mission and LOVED the uber contrast the plastic lens and light leaks created. Fun camera!

Last but not least, my pride and joy. The Nikon D80:

this guy has gone with me everywhere. Since my grandpa bought it for me, i've slowly bought all kinds of accessories to accompany it; lenses, flashes, remotes, etc. It is what makes me happy in the world, not just cuz its an awesome camera, but its what started it all (technically i had a tiny kodak that i got for christmas a couple months before, but it was a shared camera with my mom and was a 5MP dinky thing that my mom ended up breaking).

This camera is what pointed me in the direction of "career". I never thought of a career in photography till i had taken my second black and white class. My grandpa asked me if i was serious, i said, "dead serious", and this little guy was given to me to pursue my dreams. It's got over 12,000 shutter clicks (with an average lifespan at 44,000+) and it's only the beginning. 

OH! WAIT! I forgot:

This little guy is what takes all these pictures ive been loading on here. My little canon powershot SD1300 point and shoot! It comes in handy and is way better than the Nikon P&S i had. That one broke in less than a year and the company won't fix it, even under warranty.

So there's the collection (so far). Eventually, i'll buy more. I've already got another one on mind (and on the x-mas list). And i will one day own a hassleblad and a leica, i WILL! Just not now, cuz at those prices, i could get a used car.

Day 4: mission accomplished

Day #4 gave the idea of taking a 5 minute walk, stopping where you were, making something and leaving it there for someone to find later. While that sounds cool, I don't live in a rural enough area to "find" something cool within a 5 min walk from my house.

But what's cool about this book i'm using's tips, you don't have to follow the ideas to the T. so i modified it. I decided to make something ahead of time, take a walk and leave it somewhere. so now my problem was thinking of what to make. i didn't want to make something with any kind of value. i live across the street from a high school and they're not the nicest kids (yes i know i sound like the grumpy old neighbor, but these kids suck), so i didnt want to make anything that was just going to be defaced or destroyed.

so then i remembered those "take one" signs that people have made, like "take a mustache" and the pull offs are little mustaches, and i wanted to make something like that. couldn't think of anything good. so then i thought of leaving a note for someone to find with a cute quote or joke, just to make someone smile when they find it, a fortune cookie of sorts. So i looked up some quotes and found a funny/weird one, wrote it on a piece of paper, folded it up and went for a walk.

the note: 

 

i wrote it super quick, so my mouse looks pretty haggard, but then i folded it up:

and went for a walk.

side note-my dude hurt his back. we normally go on about a mile walk a night, but he couldn't go very far last night. so on our walk, we pass a new homes construction site every night that has tractors and things, and i decided to leave it somewhere over there for some guy to find in the morning.

as we were walking up to the site, there was a huge tractor parked right in front of the newest built house:

(little dark, but it was 1 in the morning, gimme a break)

i climbed the steps and placed the note on the seat:

...and then scurried away :)

This morning, my mom, grandma and i were going shopping and drove passed the site. I saw that the tractor had been moved, and smiled to myself, hoping someone found it and passed it around the crew ;)

Day 3: paper...?

*note: this was supposed to be posted yesterday, but my scanner was being lame, and i got pissed. plus, a walk and a nap with my dude got in the way, so day 3 was posted today, technically, day 4. day 4 will be posted later, after my dude and i take our walk (that will make sense later).

So my task for the day was to "make something out of paper, but don't use scissors, glue, or draw on it". So my first thought was to do tear art (made a whole 'book' once back in 10th grade, so i'd say i'm an old pro at it), but then in brain storming a tear art piece, it hit me-SUN PRINT! DUH!

A sun print is made with light sensitive paper being placed in the sun. with objects on top of the paper, the negative image emerges as a print, after paper is rinsed under water for 1 min. it's a pretty cool process, and i had been meaning to get back into darkroom photo techniques for a really long time (i have a darkroom supplies sitting in boxes waiting for room).

So i had bought a kit a while ago from art supply warehouse (best place ever if you live in orange county, ca), and it was probably the last good, hot, sunny day in CA till winter really kicks in, so i decided to make some sun prints:

So there's all 3 :)

this is the first one i did:

It's rose bush leaves and this other bush's tiny leaves. the tiny leaves didn't come out so hot, and i thought the rose bush leaves we're just big splotches.

The next one i did:

this one if a bunch of different leaves and some flowers. the pink flower (bottom left) was fairly see through, that's why its got a light blue shape and not white. and the twigs i found seemed to be too thin (like the tiny leaves from the first print), so i needed to try something else.

when i was taking a black and white photo class in college, one of the first assignments was a 'photogram' (basically a sun print, but you use a darkroom and enlarger, not the sun and water), so i had some ideas from when i did it back then. i remembered my jelly bracelets and ipod headphones made fun shapes/lines on the print. So i went in my room to see what i could find and came up with some head phones, a faux pearl necklace:

what was pretty cool was that the sun was setting, so the shadows stretched a little, creating bigger pearls and giving this cool depth to the print. the whitest, whites are where no sun hit the paper, so the gradient the setting sun's shadows made looked really cool.

i'm actually really proud of myself for having included photography in today's challenge :)

Day 2: inspiration

The journal entry for today was "what's your favorite animal?" and that's a no brainer: CATS! I am the "crazy cat lady". Seriously, ask my boyfriend. I have so many cat related things that to say them all would take too long.

But anyway. So, I knew "cat" was going to be my inspiration, now it was a matter of figuring out how i was going to create something. And since I've been in my crochet kick (and getting better if i do say so myself), i decided to crochet a kitty :)

now, when you google "amigurumi cat patterns", there's some shitty ones out there. Then i thought, "oh man, how cute would a hello kitty look as a amigurumi?!"

*googled*

"oh, i was right. DONE!"

So i found the best pattern, wrote it down, and got to it. For some reason, i had a hard time focusing on my stitch counts, cuz i got lost a few times. Thought i back tracked enough to have solved the problem, and it still turned out ok. Maybe not according to the pattern, but it's done, stuffed, and cute!

vola!

oh! and i know its technically the third day as i'm posting this, but funny story (sorta). So as i was completing the final stitch to attach the bow, i looked up at the clock and it was 11:59pm. Technically day 2. But then i got side tracked into catching up on our DVR stuff (Walking Dead, hello!?), so i'm posting this in the early hours of day 3. I'll really try and not put these off, but no promises.

Day 1: first step is the hardest

And so it begins. Today's instructions from the book say: "The first step is the hardest, so start small today and make something that fits in the palm of your hand using only the materials in your immediate environment."

So I've been attempting to make creepy amigurumi dolls, but I had to start out reminding myself of the basics of crocheting. The first couple of attempts of the doll's head were horrible, but as I was sitting here, starting small today, I noticed one of the flubs I made sort of looks like a mouse. *boom* crochet mouse can fit in the palm of my hand.

Now I knew one dinky, sort of a mouse would look stupid, so i added a post-it ear with a thumb tac and put one of my (MANY) lucky cat statues behind him. Added a cartoony "YIKES!", and there was my first creation:

TA-DA! Yes, it's cheesy. Yes, it was shot on my bed. Yes, it was super simple, but it's just day 1 :)

Day Zero

Yesterday, while on a random outing with my dude (Henry), we ended up at good ol' Barnes and Noble. We had been out getting food and didn't particularly want to go home, so we went and browsed the books.

We always end up in the same spots - the magazines, the discounted items, the art books - but this time, I found a book I hadn't seen before. The title is 365: A Daily Creativity Journal by Noah Scalin, and however weird this sounds, it was calling to me.

Along with the 365 book, I also purchased a crochet bible, because I was also attempting to finish that skill i started, roughly 6 years ago (so of course I don't remember shit). I got home and dug into the crocheting book, without even looking at the 365 book (yes, i ignored the call). The next day, while being bored with the college football my brother had on, i dove into the creativity.

The subtitle on the book says, "make something everyday and change your life" and I have been looking for a direction to go in recently (whole other personal shit that i'm not going to bore anyone with), and there was something about this book that said, "here's your starting point". The author had done a 'skull-a-day' project where he, well, made a skull everyday. In some way, shape, or form, he made a skull, documented it, and posted it (skulladay.com).

Now, I have already attempted a '365' project back in 2010-2011. I did a photo-a-day project. Since doing the project, the hard drive on my laptop and back up external hard drive went kaput *tears*, and hence, I've sort of lost the motivation. This book sorta pushed me to think about attempting another project. I'm kinda teetering on if i'm going to do a photo-a-day again, or create something daily and photograph it, or hell, maybe ill try my hand at self portraits again. Either way, I'm going to be making something, EVERYDAY (*cross fingers*) and posting it on here.

I've titled this entry as "day zero" because i'm making it my "brainstorming" day. Figuring out the direction (not the complete year, because i sort of suck at planning in advance, but the gist) of what i want to accomplish. I know for a fact, photography is going to be involved. Not just cuz i gotta post something, but because it's partially what i want to focus on. I think for now, i'm just going to complete the daily entries in the book and document them, see what direction that takes me.

ONWARD!