Colleen Lefholz Photography

More squirrels!

2010-04-18T10:54:00.012-05:00

I went to Shelter Gardens this morning. I've never been there before but had a fun time photographing there. Of course I was partial to all the squirrels chasing each other and causing trouble so I thought I would post a few photos from my morning with them.

And the one random bird photo I took. The bird isn't in focus but I liked the moment.

Final Project Ideas for Picture Story

2010-04-13T22:09:00.002-05:00

I've been contemplating a few ideas for my final story in picture story. I thought of continuing my work with the Basye family but then opted out of that. I am going to photograph them more but I feel like I should work on a new story since after all this is picture story and it is my capstone class.

I thought of going to Crane's Country Store in Williamsburg. I've visited there a few times and noticed how it seems to be the spot for town talk/gossip. I remember seeing people sitting outside the store just chatting away and having a good time. Due to the distance, this was just a thought not something I am probably going to pursue for that reason.

My other idea is to work with the elderly in some way. I'm taking a sociology of aging class this semester and it has opened my eyes to a lot of things about the elderly. For a project in that class we have to talk to someone 65+ and ask them questions about getting older and how they feel about that. We can do a video interview, write a paper, take photos etc. I thought of working with video for this since I haven't had much of an opportunity to do that yet. I had talked to David Rees today about this and he suggested adult day care. This sparked my interest so after my meeting, I did some research and plan on contacting them either tomorrow or Thursday to find a time to go out there. I am thinking maybe video interviews intermixed with photographs of them doing their activities. My other thought is to focus on one person and follow them at the day care and their home life away from the day care.

These are the only two ideas I had so far. I know I don't have a whole lot of time but I want to do something I'm interested in and the elderly is something that does interest me a lot.

The History and Life of Columbia Cemetery

2010-04-12T20:25:00.009-05:00

My project is posted on Vimeo.

The History and Life of Columbia Cemetery

As many of you know my picture story class has been working on a group documentary project on Broadway. My part of the project was on Columbia Cemetery. The project was fun yet frustrating at times as I'm sure this happens with any project. I learned so much about the cemetery and Columbia's history as well as what happens after a funeral. I've enjoyed spending my evenings walking the cemetery and meeting people and discovering new things at every turn.

Enjoy!

Boone Life

2010-04-12T20:11:00.002-05:00

My Boone Life runs this week in the Columbia Missourian. I originally found the Basye family by inquiring about photographing alpacas. Teresa Basye has around 50 alpacas and I made a visit out there to photograph. She had told me her son had autism and I decided to go back for my one day story for my picture story class. I've really liked working with the family and I like the subject of autism so I wanted to continue with the story which later developed into my Boone Life. I can't thank the Basye family enough for letting me come out and be part of their lives. I've enjoyed getting to know them and hope to continue work with them in the future. They have been great subjects to work with! :)

Autism Boone Life (click and it will take you to the piece)

I was in the newsroom working on Boone Life when...

2010-04-07T20:58:00.002-05:00

someone came in to tell us that someone was being arrested in the Missourian parking lot. Will and I ran down with our cameras to see what was going on and sure enough someone was arrested. After talking to the police officer, this man was apparently causing a disturbance at Bengals and was thought to have a concealed knife on him. The police did in fact find a knife hidden on his back. Anywho I don't have any terribly exciting photos but here is one from the event.

I made the news...

2010-04-04T21:40:00.002-05:00

I went on a house fire call with the guys from UCFD on Saturday afternoon and just happened to make the main photo on KMOV's Web site. Kris had let me see the inside so I was taking a few photos when he had mentioned that KMOV was taking photos also. I didn't think they would actually use a photo with some random person with a Mizzou shirt on standing in the doorway of this house, but they did.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 28

2010-04-03T18:09:00.010-05:00

I went back to the UCFD today and went on a house fire call with them. It was my first house fire call with UCFD. As with any first time experience there are things I'd do differently etc. but I at least got a few good photos out of the day. The guys were awesome and let me walk around a bit and Kris took me just inside the house when they were done to see what it looked like. It was a fun experience and hopefully I can go back and go on more calls with them. :)

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 27

2010-04-02T21:55:00.007-05:00

I spend a good amount of time at the University City Fire Department today. It was slow in the beginning but things picked up mid-day. I started by going on an ambulance call since the fire side hadn't gotten any calls while I was there yet. It was fun getting to go on a few ambulance calls. It was my first time riding in the ambulance so I was happy I got to take some photos of that. All the guys went to Chipotle for dinner and I tagged along for that too. After dinner they got a call for a brush fire so we headed to that. Finally I got to go on a fire call. :) It was a brush fire but I was plenty happy to just go on a call :) Here are a few of my better photos from the evening.

This is taken as we are driving onto the scene.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 25

2010-03-31T21:13:00.008-05:00

Today after dinner I asked my parents if we could drive to a few local cemeteries. I heard that one local cemetery had "died, kicked by a mule" written on the headstone and so I was in search for that but never found it. I also wanted to go see my aunt and grandpa at another cemetery just a few minutes from my house. We stopped and I found a lot of interesting stones, names and items placed on the stones.

I just liked the name on this headstone.

This is my Grandma Lefholz's parents.

This is an interesting story. From what I've heard, the family used to be able to walk into this and see their relatives but vandals broke in and they had to close off the entrance to everyone. I'm sure there is more details to this but I haven't discovered them yet. I just thought it was cool how it was in the side of a hill.

I'm not really sure what or who this is for but found it interesting. My dad thought it might be a memorial for people who were killed on some ship. (Sorry I don't know the name or any more details.)

I found this to be moving for me. It almost made me cry when taking a photo of it. I haven't seen anything like this at a cemetery before and I've been to plenty of cemeteries lately.

This is just another last name I liked.

This is my Grandpa Lefholz's parents.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 24

2010-03-30T20:41:00.002-05:00

I realized I haven't posted everyday. I've been taking photos but most of them were of the cemetery and well I don't want a bunch of posts with cemetery photos so I haven't posted them. This evening I was sitting eating an ice cream cone and of course my dogs were right at my feet. I miss my dogs terribly when I'm at school so I'm excited to have them around when I come home. The photo I chose is of my dog, Louie.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 22

2010-03-29T21:09:00.006-05:00

I spent about five or so hours yesterday at the U-City Firehouse. I spent some time with them back in January and really enjoyed this group of guys so I decided to make a trip back over spring break. Although they didn't get any calls this time either, (they had a five alarm fire the night before but of course I wasn't there) we all had fun playing in a game of monopoly. I had taken over for someone and thought I was set to win but I came in second :( It was still a great time and was happy I got to take some photos of the guys this time around.

Here are just a few selects that I chose to post from the monopoly game.

Choosing their piece

Kris and Dave

Kris ended up landing on the income tax quite often and I usually landed on free parking so it was nice to get all his income tax payments. :)

Here was my pile of money that I had going. Unfortunately it disappeared quite quickly after I took this photo.

Here was the pile of money Kris had at the end. (he won btw)

Missouri State Penitentiary Tour

2010-03-27T22:48:00.008-05:00

My friends Andrea and Tim joined me for a tour of the Missouri State Penitentiary (MSP) today. I was really looking forward to this. I like this weird/creepy stuff. ( I mean after all I am doing a project on a cemetery so it shouldn't surprise you that I wanted to go on this tour :) It was a two hour tour that covered a lot of interesting history of the MSP as well as famous inmates who served time here.

A hallway in the MSP.

This as well as a few others in this post were taken in the oldest part of the MSP.

A cell in the MSP.

I am afraid of heights but just had to go up to the fourth level and take some photos.

The gas chamber.

Sitting in one of the chairs in the gas chamber.

Tim and I sitting in the chairs in the gas chamber.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 16

2010-03-22T21:31:00.005-05:00

Calin was trying to find the basketball game on television on Saturday and he finally spotted me taking photos.

Jason came prepared with plenty of snacks while watching the basketball game in the newsroom.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 13

2010-03-22T21:27:00.003-05:00

Some of the contents of Laura's purse. She was searching for her usb to show photos in class.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 12

2010-03-22T21:21:00.002-05:00

For Tim's EPJ project, he took video of him shaving his head. Here he is showing me the video while watching it again himself.

Squirrels!

2010-03-22T14:08:00.003-05:00

I've been working on my project at the Columbia Cemetery and in the process I think I've managed to tick off a few squirrels. Here are a few of my photos...Enjoy!

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 11/broadway project photos

2010-03-15T21:25:00.006-05:00

I walked around the cemetery for about 45 minutes today while I had a break. I took a longer lens with me. I was hoping some people would be out but no such luck in that area. I was able to walk about half the cemetery just looking for neat stones, unique names, something different I guess. I don' t think I'll use any of these photos but just thought I would post some anyway. I did happen to see a headstone that had stones on top of it like we talked about in Picture Story today. I found that interesting and snapped a quick photo to post.

This is the headstone I found that had the rocks placed on it. As people visit, they place rocks on the headstone. As I understand this is Jewish tradition from our discussion in Picture Story today.

The cemetery is right next to Grant Elementary School and while I was walking, the kids were on the playground playing.

I love squirrels. I was happy I had a longer lens with me today so I could snap a picture of one. This one spotted me as he was sitting on top of a headstone.

And he spotted me again taking his picture, this time in a tree nearby.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 10/broadway project photos

2010-03-13T17:41:00.007-06:00

Today, I decided to go work a bit on our class documentary project on Broadway. As some of you know I am covering the Columbia Cemetery. I knew they might be doing some work since there were two funerals today and I showed up at just the right time. I drove around and found Tanja working at one of the graves. I got out and snapped a few photos and talked to her. Her husband, Alan, was off getting some more fill dirt for the graves. I was excited to get to photograph this because I feel like this is something that people often don't get to see.

Tanja waits as her husband, Alan adds more fill dirt to top off the grave.

Tanja walks beside her husband as they head to the next task.

Alan lifts the plywood off the ground to make way for the dirt to come in.

Alan reaches down and adjusts the casket to make it straighter.

Tanja watches as her husband adds dirt to the grave.

Tanja works on evening out the dirt.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 9

2010-03-13T17:38:00.004-06:00

Jessica waiting for the equipment window to open.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 8

2010-03-13T17:35:00.002-06:00

Tim was in the lab working on fixing something on one of his older cameras so I decided to snap a photo. He looks so focused on fixing his camera in this photo.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 7

2010-03-13T17:32:00.003-06:00

My parents and my aunt came to visit me today. I haven't been able to make it home at all this semester because I've been so busy with school work. My mom brought up some of my favorite things from home including vess soda. I love vess soda because it is cheap and tastes good too. I was so excited to get this, the cookies, malted milk balls, and pez candy from her.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 6

2010-03-10T20:52:00.003-06:00

Today I went to the Columbia Cemetery again to talk about my project with the people who run the cemetery. I did have success in my talking and got lots of good information from Tanja Patton about regular people who visit there which was very helpful. Grant Elementary's gym class often uses the cemetery as their "track" so I'm excited to get photos of the kids running in the cemetery. I plan to spend a lot of time here just parking and walking the cemetery grounds looking for neat/old graves, people walking, visiting, grounds work etc. I did see a recent grave that had some St. Pat's balloons and a photo placed with it. Tanja had told me that the family had recently placed these items there so I snapped a photo. There's just something about cemeteries that I love so much. I love seeing what people place at their loved one's graves. It can let you into a bit of what the person might have been like or how important they meant to everyone. I hope to post more photos within the coming days as I visit the cemetery and will post them.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 5

2010-03-10T20:50:00.003-06:00

I was sitting down in the photo lab waiting for my assignment when I took this photo. Rita's capstone class had part of their character profile due the next day. Rita was helping Charles with his edit in this photo.

More Deer Classic Photos

2010-03-10T20:22:00.005-06:00

I thought I would most some more photos from the Missouri Deer Classic that I took this past weekend. Enjoy!

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 4

2010-03-09T17:17:00.002-06:00

Laura and I took a walk to Ragtag so she could return some movies. I have never been to Ragtag before but enjoyed walking there with Laura. We stopped in at Uprise Bakery and Laura got a cinnamon roll and got me a turtle brownie which was delicious.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 3

2010-03-07T23:26:00.010-06:00

Today I went to the Missouri Deer Classic at the Boone County Fairgrounds. It was a a lot of fun and I learned a lot in the process. The highlight of the Classic was the bear that they had there. I got to go up close and get some neat photos. A big thanks to Jeff Watson and the bear, Brody, for letting me take their photos and letting me up closer so I could get good photos. Brody is a Kodiak Grizzly bear. Jeff has had had Brody since he was eight weeks old and has trained and raised him on his property. Brody has been in movies, tv shows and on the cover of National Geographic.

I also took other photos besides the bear which are posted on the Columbia Missourian Web site.

Brody and Jeff staring at one another.

Jeff is spitting into Brody's mouth.

Jeff got Brody to stand up for me.

A portrait of Brody.

Jeff sits on Brody's back immediately after he feeds him.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 2

2010-03-07T23:13:00.003-06:00

I photographed the Mizzou vs Kansas men's basketball game on Saturday. I was really excited for this game because these two schools have such a huge rivalry between them. Although Mizzou lost, it was still a fun game to experience.

30 pictures in 30 days take two-day 1

2010-03-07T23:04:00.003-06:00

My picture story class decided to try another 30 pictures in 30 days. I was happy to do this because this project forces you to take a photo everyday which is something I hadn't done in the past. I did start on Friday but didn't post on Friday or Saturday so I'm playing catch up right now. Here is my photo from my first day.

I went to Columbia Cemetery again to try and talk to the people who run it. The sign said open but I knocked and rang the doorbell but nobody answered. I drove around the cemetery and didn't see anyone either so I think I will just have to call and set up an appointment to talk to them. I noticed this bird as I was driving and stopped to take a photo. Not the best photo in the world but I like birds so I'm posting it.

Day 27

2010-03-04T19:09:00.002-06:00

This photo was also taken in the photo bubble. I was captioning photos when Greg Bowers brought in a young gentlemen for a tour of the newsroom. The boy was adorable and just had to take a photo of him for my photo of the day.

Day 26

2010-03-04T19:07:00.004-06:00

This was taken in the photo bubble as Joel was adding a quote from Josh on the site overheard in the newsroom.

Day 25

2010-03-01T11:33:00.003-06:00

I went cemetery searching on Saturday with my friend Andrea. We were originally just going to go to Boonville and explore that town but soon figured out there wasn't much to do there. We took a lot of country roads to different places. I would see a sign pointing to somewhere and would just follow it. Along the way we found a bunch of country cemeteries and of course we had to stop at them. They were very fascinating. We found Sappington Negro Cemetery in Arrow Rock that was fascinating because in it the slaves/servants and their families that served Sappington were buried there. I hope to go exploring once a week to someplace new. I like just driving around with no particular place to go.

Day 24

2010-03-01T11:27:00.002-06:00

This was taken on one of my two visits to the capitol within a few days. I had never been before so I enjoyed my time walking around and taking photos.

Day 23

2010-03-01T11:26:00.000-06:00

Day 22

2010-03-01T11:25:00.002-06:00

Day 21

2010-03-01T11:24:00.002-06:00

Day 20

2010-03-01T11:23:00.002-06:00

Day 19

2010-03-01T11:17:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted in a while for my 30 pictures in 30 days. I have been taking photos each day just haven't had time to post them so I'm taking the time now to post them all.

One-Day Story

2010-02-24T14:01:00.007-06:00

For my one day story, I spent some time with the Basye family. They live just eight miles outside Columbia, Mo. on a farm. Teresa and Mike are the parents and Josh, 4, and Emily, 3, are their children. Josh has autism and was the focus of my story.

Day 18

2010-02-21T23:00:00.004-06:00

This is the Basye family. They were the topic for my one day/five points of view story. Mike and Teresa are the parents, Josh is 4 and Emily is 3. I really enjoyed the time I was able to spend with them and very appreciative that they let me into their home to photograph their lives. I learned a lot and I'm hoping I can go back soon and photograph more. These aren't necessarily the photos that will be in my project but they are photos I liked so I thought I would post a few for everyone to see.

Day 17

2010-02-21T22:56:00.003-06:00

Tim was nice enough to walk with me to Chipotle on Friday and along the walk we found this random photo. Tim named her Emaline and she is now on the wall in the photo lab.

Meeting after POYi

2010-02-19T11:31:00.002-06:00

These was taken at class discussion over POYi in RJI.

Day 13

2010-02-19T09:30:00.002-06:00

Day 14

2010-02-19T09:23:00.004-06:00

I just happened to be walking out of RJI on a cold day and saw the ice forming on the glass and decided to snap a photo.

Day 15

2010-02-19T09:17:00.002-06:00

My curiosity took me to go to the Columbia Cemetery the other day. We had discussed covering this for our Broadway documentary in my Picture Story Class so I thought I'd check it out. I have a fascination with cemeteries (odd I know). I like to see who is buried in them and look at the ornate headstones. I did go into the office and get a map and a list of the famous people that are buried there so hopefully I can go back this weekend and find the peoples graves just to see what they are like.

Day 16

2010-02-19T09:12:00.002-06:00

Today I went over to my friend Tim's to work on a 30 second video project and decided to snap a few photos of the cookies he was making. I don't remember the name of the cookie but they were delicious. :)

30 photos/30 days

2010-02-17T11:20:00.005-06:00

I haven't been good at keeping up with this. I had photos to post but the card they were on went missing. Over the past three or four days I've been taking extra photos each day to make up for the lost photos.

The first set of photos is from Fastnacht (the German Mardi Gras).

one day story proposal

2010-02-14T23:24:00.002-06:00

For my one day/five points of view I would like to go back and work with a lady whom I photographed alpacas for. I learned a lot about alpacas, the caring, feeding, shearing etc. from her the day I went out. She mentioned that she had a son with autism and I would like to photograph what her daily life is like- taking care of kids, animals, daily housework etc. I imagine this is not an easy task so I would like to go back and see how she does it all.

I briefly talked to her when I went out there about photographing her son. I wanted to make sure that I could photograph her son and her family and she didn’t have a problem with that. I need to call her tomorrow to set up a time to come for a day and make sure she would still be willing to let me into her home. I'm thinking of going there on a weekend day because that will allow me to get a whole day in instead of a partial day with me being in classes.

Day Nine

2010-02-11T14:52:00.004-06:00

Sarah Gibert, MU journalism student.

Today I had an assignment for Vox to go take photos of the Get Lost Bookshop located at 8 South Ninth Street in Columbia. I have never been to this place before but it turned out to be a cool little shop. Here are a few photos from my adventure there. The only other thing I would change is to wear proper walking shoes. I walked from the Missourian and had a nice walk except for the fact that my feet were killing me.

Day Eight

2010-02-10T22:37:00.003-06:00

I wasn't quite sure what my photo would be for today until I got a text from my friend Jeff. He is in the Journalism program so some of you might recognize him. He is a reporter for the Missouri women's basketball team. Anywho, the game wasn't on tv this evening so he had to listen to it on the radio in his truck. I found this quite humorous when he sent me the text and decided to see if I could take photos of him taking notes and listening to the game while sitting in his truck. He was nice enough to let me come take photos and listen to the game. It was interesting to listen to the game on the radio vs watching it on tv. It reminded me of the times when people used to listen to ball games on the radio before tv entered the homes. It was a different experience getting to visualize the game in your head as you heard it instead of seeing it on a television screen. Thanks again to Jeff for letting me take his photo.

I obviously had to use strobe to light my photo. It wasn't easy seeing as I haven't really used my strobe much since last semester. Most of the time it showed up in my photo on the window behind Jeff but this was the only semi-decent photo of me using strobe. I hope to get out and explore more with my strobe to get re-acquainted with it. :)

Day Seven

2010-02-09T21:32:00.003-06:00

I know I skipped a day. My day six picture is missing for the moment and I have to find out what card I put it on. The picture for today is of John Foley, a professor at MU who has two endowed professorships. I photographed this for an article that will be running front page tomorrow. Josh told me it would be running front page. No pressure, right? :)

Day Five

2010-02-07T21:39:00.008-06:00

Today I had planned to go photograph some alpacas. It was a blast. They were very friendly animals and it was funny to see their reaction to my camera when I was taking photos of them. This is something I would love to go back to and photograph and the lady is more than willing to have me come back whenever I want. The top one is my favorite. I like the teeth showing.

I'm posting more than one photo of this because I had so much fun with it.

Day Four

2010-02-07T21:32:00.002-06:00

I'm late at posting once again but I had three assignments for the Missourian that lasted all day yesterday. The photo I chose is one from the Beauty and the Beast meet. It was a challenge to shoot but I learned a lot from it.

Day Three

2010-02-06T00:40:00.003-06:00

I'm a little late a posting. I took this picture outside of Jesse and decided to experiment with blurring a bit. I waited for some cars to pass and took the photo. Not necessarily too happy with the result but it is something I would like to explore more because I haven't tried this much in photos.

Test Answers

2010-02-05T11:06:00.001-06:00

I took this off my brothers work blog (Williams + Paddon) and thought it was funny so I thought I'd share

http://wpsketchbook.blogspot.com/2010/02/test-answers.html

Day Two

2010-02-04T18:03:00.004-06:00

So today it started snowing. I didn't have much time to take a photo but knew I wanted to capture the snow somehow. This isn't the best photo but I liked the snow on the leaves. Hopefully this weekend I can go out and really explore and take some cool photos.

30 pictures in 30 days

2010-02-04T10:42:00.002-06:00

For my capstone Picture Story class we are to take and post 30 photos in 30 days. I'm looking forward to it because it gives me a reason to wander about with my camera and should be fun. I'm already a bit behind on posting. I had to shoot the mens basketball game last night and didn't get out of the newsroom till 12:30 am. I did take this photo yesterday at the game.

Updated Photo Sequence

2010-01-31T21:04:00.009-06:00

Of course with any photo there are things I wish I could have done differently. I really wanted to go to another nail place and take photos but time didn't allow that this past weekend. It is something I plan on doing in the future though. After the first go around in class, I wish I would have gotten behind the manicure lady and gotten more of the face of the customer. It would have been a different angle but something I didn't think of at the time. I was conscious of it when I took more pictures of a jeweler for a VOX assignment. I feel like I experienced new things in this assignment. I had never been to a nail place before or watched someone get their nails done so it was something new to see. One of my goals this semester is to experience new things and go new places that I've never gone before and to push myself as a photographer and journalist. I'm working on breaking out of my quiet shell and this assignment helped a bit in doing that. I'm still not sure about the ordering of the sequence. I might take out the check writing photo because I feel it isn't necessary in understanding what is going on. You get the picture of what is happening from the other photos and that photo takes away from the rest.

Long lost photo..

2010-01-30T11:46:00.003-06:00

Actually it hasn't been lost for long. I took this photo when I followed U-City FD and it was on a different card than my other photos but alas I found the photo of Dave to post on here. Nothing terribly exciting, just folding tarps from a house they had a fire at.

Princess Nails Salon Sequence

2010-01-28T18:42:00.005-06:00

My original idea for my sequence was to go to a laundry place. I went to one and waited around for a while but nobody came so I had to think of something different. I decided to go to Princess Nail Salon off of Grindstone. I have never been in a nail salon before so this was something new for me. Rose Smith was nice enough to let me take her photo as she was getting her nails done. I had walked in on the beginning of her getting her nails done and stayed till they put a color on her nails.

Jeweler

2010-01-26T20:42:00.008-06:00

I did some photography work for an assignment with a local jeweler. He makes his jewelry from start to finish. Starts with drawings then carves the design out of wax and casts it etc. Its an interesting process and I'm excited to go take more photos with him.

More Photo Sequences

2010-01-25T12:26:00.002-06:00

Here are some links to photo sequences that another photographer has done.

http://www.amishphoto.com/picturepages/1964sto.htm

http://www.amishphoto.com/picturepages/2188%20SL.htm

http://www.amishphoto.com/picturepages/511.htm

Photo Sequence

2010-01-24T20:58:00.004-06:00

So I had to come up with a photo sequence for my class. I tried to think of various ideas and drove around for a good long while and just had a block. So as I was pulling into my complex, I saw this bird and a few more were in the trees so I pulled over and snapped a few photos. Not really what I wanted but I think once I think of more ideas things will come to me.

First week of classes

2010-01-24T18:38:00.003-06:00

First week of classes are over. I've realized a few things in that week. One is that I will be incredibly busy throughout the semester. I have both staff and picture story this semester. I'm determined to do well in both classes and hopefully add some photos to my portfolio cause my portfolio needs a lot of work. A second is I need to stop stressing about things. Today I had to go enterprise for my staff class since I didn't have any assignments. I thought of a bunch of ideas but they were more things that could be developed into stories. I went through about seven ideas I had and none of them worked today. Places were closed, didn't exist, or nobody was there. I did find a story on alpacas that I am going to follow up on this weekend hopefully. One of the things I'm really going to try and work on this semester is being more vocal in classes. I'm always a quiet person, afraid to say things in class. I realize this won't work in some of my classes. I really want to be more open in my picture story class because I can probably get a lot out of the class. I love the book we are reading in that class now and I'm taking notes on it so I can hopefully add to discussion. I related a lot to the perfectionism chapter because that is something I stress about. I want my photos to be good and get frustrated if they don't turn out the way I want them but I have to realize that not every picture you take is going to be good. Learn from those photos or learn something for next time. I feel like the more you try to be perfect with your photos, the worse they turn out to be.

Anywho those are just my thoughts for the day and things I want to fix for this semester.

Photography Block

2010-01-23T14:37:00.002-06:00

For my capstone class we have to shoot a sequence of photos. Not that hard right? Wrong. Well I'm just having a photographers block like writers have writers block. I did some driving all around today. Drove out in the country and through town looking for something that would spark my creative juices but instead I got nothing. I get this every once in a while and it is frustrating. Add to the fact that it is raining outside makes it harder for me. As I pulled into my apartment complex I did see some sort of birds eating some food someone left on the ground so I pulled my car into a near spot and took some photos of the bird. Boring it seems to me but I had to take a photo of something otherwise I was going to go crazy. I got a few photos of the bird walking closer to the food, getting some food and then kinda walking away. It is a sequence but not a very good one. I have some skating sequences from my internship that I could use but I want to go find something new. I guess my task tomorrow is to go find that.

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do to help my photographers block? I'm up for whatever suggestions you all have.

First day of my last semester!

2010-01-19T17:59:00.002-06:00

So the last semester of my college career is in full swing (well almost..lol) I had one class this morning and my photo shift from 3-9. I've been tired lately which isn't a good thing with the busy semester I'm gonna have. I'm really excited about my last semester here. It is going to be the toughest yet but I think I will learn a lot and have some great stories and photos come out of it. I already have a few story ideas in mind that I would like to work on, I just need to contact the people. I want to do some more work with the U-City fire dept if I can this semester. I want to go back and shoot some portraits of the guys in their uniforms in front of the truck when the weather gets warmer. I just bought a book that has portraits of the NYC fire fighters that I'm excited to get and maybe get some inspiration from that.

Anywho that's all I have to say for now.

Stay tuned for more updates and photos throughout the semester!

University City Fire Department Adventures Day Two

2010-01-15T11:36:00.003-06:00

As some of you know I decided to spend another day at the U-City Fire Dept. I really like the guys there so I came back for a second go around hoping to go out on a call. No such luck with a call. I was there for a while and not a single call. I'm beginning to think that my luck has run out :) It made for a long day but I brought plenty to keep me busy. I didn't take any photos because there wasn't much to take photos of that day.

Maybe one of these days I will get back to spend a few hours there and see if we go out on a call. I would really like to go out on a call there, but luck doesn't seem to be on my side with that.

University City Fire Department Adventures

2010-01-06T21:03:00.003-06:00

As some of you know, I'm trying to do little side projects to keep me busy over Christmas break. I thought I'd continue some of my work with various fire departments. I worked with Columbia last year, St. Charles last week and University City this week. I really enjoyed my time with U-City FD. They were a great bunch of guys to hang around with and get to know. I'm hoping to go back on the 14th of this month to spend another day with them. Hopefully we can get a call this time around. It would be cool to do a summer long project on the crew. I'll have to see if they will have me back for that one..lol :) Anywho, the following photos are what I took the day I visited. We didn't get any calls that day but I did get to go around and see a bunch of burnt out buildings which was neat to see. I also took some pictures of the guys cooking (I don't even think they know I took the photos, I was being sneaky.) They aren't of great quality but that is because I wasn't using flash at all. If I used flash that would have been a dead giveaway..lol I hope to post more photos once I work with them again.

Dinner Time!

We drove by a bunch of burnt out buildings and I took this one from my seat in the fire truck.

Inside a place where they train.

Chatting inside the truck.

Stopped to help a lady push her car.

Project Presentation on Officer Frey in EPJ

2009-12-07T11:20:00.002-06:00

Today I presented part of my project on Officer Frey. I had just two little parts done for it. The first part talks about the explosives and the second part is about the search at the football stadium. They are right after each other in this presentation but they won't be like that in the final project. I also don't have ambient audio of Enzo and Officer Frey yet. I have some but I am getting more later this week.

Here is the link to the project so far. Not even near completion yet but this isn't a bad start.

http://web.missouri.edu/~celr62/enzoproject.html

Enjoy and leave comments on what you think!

Final EPJ Project Update

2009-12-02T08:15:00.003-06:00

My final project with the MUPD k-9 officer is almost finished. I have to present what I have so far on Monday in class and get feedback from my fellow classmates. I am meeting today with Officer Frey to take photos and get audio of a demonstration/ q&a thing he is doing with Enzo for figs. I was excited that he was doing this because if it turns out good, it is going to be my second chapter for my project. I am meeting with him Friday to get some portrait shots. I am enjoying working on this project a lot and glad I chose to do my project on a k-9 officer. I have most of my photos picked out that I want to use and have to still go through the audio and get some of that organized. I'm hoping today will provide good audio and I also want to try and incorporate some of that too.

Start of Thanksgiving break

2009-11-24T19:07:00.002-06:00

I just got back from Georgia early Monday morning. My group for Advanced Techniques decided to cover the SOA protest down in Columbus, Georgia. We followed a group of four MU students down there and covered them at the protest. It was a fun time. The car rides seemed to last forever though. I really don't want to be in a car for that long again..lol

We arrived in Columbia Monday morning and by the time everyone was dropped off, I didn't get back to my apartment till 4:30 am. I had an interview with Officer Frey's supervisor at 10 am that morning so I knew I would be running on little sleep. After my interview, I had to run to pick up my laptop from the shop and then had to meet Officer Frey back at the station at 11:30. It was a busy morning but I stopped in between and got a carmel frap. from Starbucks which kept me moving. I got home around dinnertime, hung out with the parents for a few then hung out with Erich for a bit.

I had to be to work this morning at 8. way too darn early for me. I used to be more of a morning person but I hate the mornings now. I never want to wake up before 9 now. Thankfully there are only a few more weeks left to the semester. I was excited to be back at work but then again it's work and if I had the option, I wouldn't work but I know that will never happen. I made lots of Turkey cookies. I am sick of making them..lol. They are easy to make but I can only make so many before I get sick of them.

Over break I have to work on two ten page papers and a book report. Not really that excited to do any of them but they gotta be done. I have to also start working on putting my project on Officer Frey together now that I have completed an interview with him. Just thinking of all the work I have makes me not motivated to do any of it.

Multiple Flash

2009-11-18T21:35:00.000-06:00

Andreea Dane, a senior at Stephens College, poses in a dance position on November 18, 2009 in the dance studio on the Stephens College campus.

Our group went to Stephens College to photograph senior dancers. I had two great teammates, Tim and Alex to work with. It was frustrating at times but a good experience.

Balance/Fill Flash

2009-11-14T10:59:00.001-06:00

The Lewis and Clark Boathouse, located in St. Charles, Missouri, displays scenes from the time of Lewis and Clark. On the level below the displays is a replica boat of what Lewis and Clark used on their journey.

Here is my take for Balance/Fill Flash assignment for Advanced Techniques.

Me in a firesuit

2009-11-13T12:01:00.000-06:00

I was looking through photos that I have taken and ones that have me in them searching for a new facebook profile photo. I came upon the photo of me in a firesuit taken last semester after I finished a project on a CFD captain at station 1. I had to chuckle a little because it was fun to see what it is like on the other side. You really have to be in tip-top shape for this because after all the gear was on me, i could barely move. The oxygen tank combined with all the clothing weighted me down quite a lot. I enjoyed doing this project. I learned a lot about the fire department and got to know some pretty neat fire fighters. Enjoy!

Multimedia Video for Advanced Techniques

2009-11-10T16:10:00.000-06:00

http://www.viiphoto.com/video.php

It is the Paparazzi video.

Adventures with Officer Frey

2009-11-08T19:06:00.001-06:00

Today I spend a good amount of time working on my video project and taking photos of Officer Frey and Enzo. In case you don't know, I am following Officer Frey and Enzo and working on a project on them for my EPJ class. It has been so much fun and I have learned a lot. Today we were walking to the Quad to take a portrait photo and Enzo met another little friendly dog. The other photo is one I really like of Officer Frey and Enzo.

Enjoy!

Color Correction

2009-11-05T15:15:00.000-06:00

Betty Youtsey, secretary at MUPD, sits at her desk while talking to Officer Brian Frey on Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Here is my color correction. This was a horrible assignment for me as I didn't do all the requirements but here is my photo.

Multimedia Critique

2009-10-31T14:07:00.000-05:00

I chose to go to VII’s web site and critique one of their projects. I chose a project entitled Paparazzi because I thought it might be interesting. I thought it wasn’t interesting at all and boring. I don’t like how they opened the project with two men talking. You can’t see but the torso of the guy in the green shirt and that is very distracting. If they would have moved the camera a little bit down or something it would have been better cause you would be able to see the guy’s face. I just don’t know that it really fits in with the project terribly well. Focusing on the guy’s green shirt instead of on the face of the guy in the car is really bothersome also.

Some of the people in the project don’t talk English at times. Those parts just disinterest me because you don’t have subtitles or anything to tell what he is talking about. If you are going to include someone talking in another language you need to have a voiceover or subtitles to help the viewer understand more. When you get to the part where they are in a noisy place talking about Jack Nicholson it is hard to hear the voices of the people over the sound of wherever they are.

I feel like as they go from scene to scene it gets choppy. There are no smooth transitions from one part to another. The project starts using a subtitle in the middle, which I didn’t understand because you could understand the person talking. There really was no need for the wording at the bottom.

Overall I don’t really understand the concept of this multimedia. Yes it is about paparazzi but I feel a much better job could have been done. The video wasn’t of that great of quality either. I felt like they could have focused more on the rush of getting to photograph a celebrity or shown more of the paparazzi following people to get the point across. At times, I feel like this same project could be told in stills and audio.

The user does have control of the project by play and pause buttons at the bottom of the screen. I’m not sure how this fits in with VII’s website. It does talk about Mexican paparazzi but I don’t see how that fits into the site. The site seems to have more moving pieces or more important issues and I feel like the issue of paparazzi isn’t as important as other multimedia they have on the site. In the above paragraphs I talked about what I would change and what I didn’t like about the project.

Painting with light

2009-10-29T13:45:00.001-05:00

104,625 patients have been wait-listed for organ donation as of October 29, 2009. Everyday, 17 people die from waiting for an organ donation. The four most needed organs are the kidney, liver, heart and lungs.

Single Flash

2009-10-22T07:41:00.000-05:00

Officer Brian Frey trains with Enzo on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at MUPD located in Virginia Avenue parking garage. Each day Officer Frey works with Enzo on bomb tasks. Officer Frey will put Enzo's leash on the door handle while he goes in the other room and hides the bomb material for Enzo to find.

Single flash was difficult. I'm not really happy with my select but felt my other photos had shadows and hotspots so I chose this photo because it seems to have a relatively even distribution of light and not really any hotspots. It isn't the best composition by any means. I shot this at iso 100, bounced flash off the white ceiling, shutter speed of 1/125 and f5.6.

Multimedia Critique

2009-10-18T21:42:00.000-05:00

Here is the link to the video.
http://video.on.nytimes.com/
You have to scroll down to "Turning Rockets into Roses."

The video I chose to look at is called “Turning Rockets into Roses.” It is on the NY Times Web site. I chose this video because the title of it stood out to me and made me want to know what exactly turning rockets into roses was all about.
I think this story is very appropriate for multimedia. I think that if this story were a written story you wouldn’t have the same effect. This story needs to be told with visuals and audio so people can understand it better and see exactly how this man does what he does and why.
I did have control of the project when it was playing. I could play and pause it and also make it full screen if I chose to do so. I could also control the volume. A progress bar was at the bottom to show how far through the project I was. The navigation and design were clear for me to follow and the design was simple which I liked.
The overall color scheme of the project is simple. When you view it on the page you have a medium grey background. The one thing I wish they did is when you click on the video that it would go to its own separate page to view. If you just want to view it on the screen you have all this writing around it that makes it distracting. You would have to put it in full screen mode if you didn’t want to have all that extra.
The audio for the most part is clear to understand. Since this man is from the Middle East he is a little hard to understand at times. The images are clear on the smaller screen but on the full screen they are a bit blurry but that is expected most of the time when you go to full screen to view a video.
I wish they had focused on the positive part of this man making roses out of rockets. They included one woman who didn’t agree with what he was doing and it was out of place to me. She was the only one they interviewed who objected to what he was doing. I just think it detracts from the focus of the original concept of the story.

Metal Assignment

2009-10-12T21:39:00.000-05:00

Mr. Metal kneels down while holding his head in his hands. He couldn’t figure out how to get his head to stay on his head so instead he just decided to hold it. A red butterfly came along to comfort him in this day of sadness.

Nick Brandt Photography Critique

2009-10-04T17:52:00.000-05:00

Colleen Lefholz

Photographer Web site Critique

The photographer’s Web site I chose to look at was Nick Brandt. He is a nature photographer and that is something I am interested in so I thought I would evaluate his site and maybe get some ideas for my own.

I like when you first go to his page it is very simple. There isn’t a lot going on to confuse the person looking at the site. I first clicked on portfolios and visited that section. I did like how he had his photos at the bottom and you could click on to view each one. I like having the photos at the bottom, I think that is something different but I wish you could just scroll through them with your next and back keys on your keyboard instead of clicking on each individual one to see it. That just would make it more user friendly for me. The site does have buttons to go back to the home page, which is a good thing so people don’t have to constantly click the back button.

He has all the tabs that people would want. He has a portfolio section, books he’s written, contact information, reviews and links. I really think the white background works with his photos also. If he had a dark background, his pictures would get lost I think. His pages are clear to understand and all have navigation, which is key in a Web site.

Lighting Diagrams

2009-10-01T13:59:00.000-05:00

Single light source.

Multiple light source

These are the lighting diagrams for my classmate studio portraits.

Classmate Studio Portrait

2009-10-01T13:52:00.000-05:00

Eve Edelheit has a vibrant personality and loves to smile. Edelheit is wearing a yellow scarf and bengal bracelets that she bought while on a trip to India.

Eve Edelheit loves to travel. She has been several places around the world including her favorite place, India. Edelheit has been to India three times, most recently visiting this past summer. Edelheit has learned more about herself and about her photography while in India. Eve is in her silk blazer that she had custom made in India on her last visit there.

My partner for the studio portrait was Eve Edelheit. Here are my two photos that I chose to turn in. Lighting diagrams to soon follow.

Below is my self-critique of both the video and portraits.

Classmate Studio Portrait and Video Critique

The classmate studio portrait assignment was one that was fun to do but very challenging. Eve and I both had to do a lot of thinking when things weren’t working correctly. One of the main problems I had was with my camera. I had the sync cord in the proper place on my camera and on the speedotron but it wouldn’t fire for some reason. I tried Eve’s sync cord and it wouldn’t work either. That first day of shooting was mainly Eve since I had to take my camera to the camera store to figure out what was wrong. Turns out I can only use the smaller speedotron because the other one has too many volts for my camera.

Figuring out how I wanted to light Eve wasn’t difficult for me. I experimented by placing lights where I wanted them to be and took a picture to see how it was. I metered before I took the photos and most of my photos were taken at f13 with a shutter speed of 1/125 and an ISO of 100. Sometimes the light was too bright on her face and I had to move the light back a little or have Eve move back further so the light wouldn’t blow out her face.

I found that using the gray background never really worked well for me. The pictures really washed out her face and showed no shadows at all. Eve and I did a lot of thinking and trying to figure out settings on our camera that might change that but in the end I just switched to the black background because I liked that one best. I tried pictures on all three but black was the best for me.

If I did this assignment again, I would want to explore more with the gels. I tried two pictures with that but wasn’t getting it right away and didn’t want to use my photos up on trying to figure it out. I didn’t really get the two lights like I would have liked. I feel one light really worked well for me but when I added another light, the photos just weren’t turning out like I wanted so that is something I want to go back and figure out. I want to be able to use two lights well and I think if I could have taken more photos I would have been able to figure it out.

The video assignment was easier than I thought it would be. Eve and I set up two lights diagonal from each other with the black chair in between them. It was a good set up that had good shadows on her face. Since we didn’t have the wireless mics, we had to use the shotgun mic on top of the video camera. For some reason it produced this buzzing in one of the ear buds. It was really annoying but we didn’t know what was causing it. I had to do a few takes on this because her first take was over a minute so she had to cut it down by a lot. If I were to do this assignment again, I would definitely use the wireless mic because I think that would cut down on the buzzing.

I also included my meter testing takes that Rita told me to redo and submit again.

Final Project Idea

2009-09-20T20:09:00.000-05:00

Final Project Idea

Last semester for Fundamentals of Photoj, I did a project on a captain for the Columbia Fire Department. I had a lot of fun with that project and got to do some pretty neat things that your average person doesn’t get to do or see. The person I did the project on suggested I do something with the police department. I thought about it but I knew I would be severely restricted in the photos I would be able to take. So I thought of an idea that still has to do with the police department but that would not be as restricted as following an officer on calls.

I thought it would make a neat project to do something on the K9 dog and officer that the MUPD has. I feel like a story on the dog and the officer would yield many different opportunities to take photos and gain audio. I could do something on the relationship of the owner and dog because that is very important and could get some good audio from that. I also think it would be important to show how the dog is trained and the tasks the dog performs.

I have to contact the MUPD (I plan to do that today). If I run into any problems then I will have to choose something different but I don’t foresee any problems.

Media Organization Critique

2009-09-20T18:04:00.000-05:00

For my EPJ class, we have to critique a media organization's Web site. I chose NBC news.

ABC News

I looked at the ABC news Web site for my critique on a media organization. As with all news Web sites, it has a lot going on. As a reader, it is sometimes hard to figure out where to start if you don’t have something to grab your attention right away. I did like that they had a big picture to the left of the site that went through three major stories of that day. That is something that will grab the readers attention. I also liked how at the top on a little bar they had ‘must reads.’ For the reader that is in a rush and just wants to see major headlines without searching through the whole Web site to find them, this is a nice thing to have. I also find it useful to have a toolbar at the top that lists all the different sections so you can click and it will directly go to it on the page. This is something we discussed in class and might be helpful on my Web site.

The content is very much updated and understandable. The links are easy to find but I hate how you have to click the back button. I wish things would open in a new page and I could just x out of them instead of hitting the back button. I feel the site is as organized as a news Web site can be. There is a lot of information and stories to read but with a media organization this big, it’s hard to just cut things out. The colors seem to go together well. There are no funky or odd colors. The colors are soothing to the eyes.

Portrait Assigment

2009-09-17T10:34:00.000-05:00

For our next assignment in Advanced Techniques we had to find a portrait of someone that reveals something about their character. I found this portrait from photographer Michael Mueller. I think it is of Joaquin Phoenix (sorry if I spelt it wrong or it is the wrong person but that is who it looks like to me. The name of the person isn't listed.) It just looks like he has something deeper going on that we don't know about.

I couldn't copy the picture to post on here so I will post the link. It is the fifth picture from the left.

http://www.mullerphoto.com/portfolio/13506/

Tungsten and daylight settings

2009-09-08T11:10:00.000-05:00

In doing this assignment, I noticed that it had been about three weeks since I had actually used my camera for an assignment. When I first started shooting, I didn’t think to check my ISO. I realized when my photos weren’t really turning out how they should that I didn’t change my ISO from the meter calibration that I did in the studio. I did go back and shoot again some of the pictures with a different ISO setting and it seemed to work better. I haven’t extensively used my camera for an assignment since I got done with my internship a few weeks back and I wish I would have used it between these times because I seemed to forget to change settings, etc. on my camera. It was only after I took the photo, I realized to change settings. I just think I need to get back into photography mode of shooting.

I shot the beginning of some of my shoot with 100 ISO. This was because I hadn’t changed the setting and I had a low f-stop setting. After a few shots, I changed my ISO to 400 and worked around an f-stops of 8-11 depending on how the light was. In shadowed places, I used a lower f-stop and if it was really bright I used higher but most of my photos were in that 8-11 range. My shutter speed stayed around 1/125. For the first photos I took it was slower around a 1/30 but that was slower than I wanted.

When I did the meter calibration, I did it the way we were supposed to but didn’t get the results I thought I should have. I had my ISO setting at 100 and the tungsten setting on but my camera wouldn’t go below f 5.6. When we did the demonstration in class, the demonstrator’s camera went below that. My photos just showed up darker that I thought they should be.

I learned of course to check your camera settings all the time before each photo which I knew before but for some unknown reason forgot in the beginning of this assignment. I thought the tungsten setting created a different effect on some of my photos that I liked better than when I took them on the daylight setting. I hadn’t used tungsten before so that was something new I learned.

LIfe as a Captain

2009-05-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Hello all. It has been quite some time since I last posted. I have been working on a photography project on Captain Jan McCrary. He is a captain at fire station 1 here in Columbia, Missouri. I spent a little over a month at the station. I got to go on several calls with the department and do some behind the scenes stuff that not everyone sees. I am posting my final cut of photos. Enjoy!

Spring Break is almost here.

2009-03-18T10:07:00.000-05:00

Spring Break is upon us and I am excited to have a week off! This semester has been hectic and hard working for the Missourian and also having classes and other obligations. I am working over break decorating cakes and on Thursday I will go up to see Erich. I am excited to see him. I miss him terribly when I'm here at school. I have lots of photo stuff to complete too. Photo class and the Missourian take up huge amounts of my time I feel like I am constantly going and never have time to do anything. Tonight I am working my final GA shift of the month from 6-10 pm so I am hoping to get a lot of catch-up work done.

My most recent article was on Emily Younghouse whose mother is battling cancer. I was really excited to do her story and her family has been wonderful. She was excited about the story too which made the story turn out better. I bought copies of the Sunday paper yesterday because that was the day my story was in the paper. I looked at the sports section and there was a big 12 story from basketball and i was getting ready to turn to the inside pages to find my story but my story was on the front page along with the big 12 stuff. It was the only other article on the page so that made me super excited. Here is a link to my article .

Story on metaphysics

2009-02-19T10:56:00.000-06:00

Here is a story I did on Stephens swimming coach Laura Wacker. She is the director of the School of Metaphysics here in Columbia. I learned a lot from doing this story and enjoyed learning about something I was not familiar with.

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/18/finding-your-purpose-life/

My first published article!

2009-02-03T12:59:00.000-06:00

Here it is.
Just go to the link

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/02/bond-unlike-others/

The beginning of another semester...

2009-01-28T14:42:00.000-06:00

This semester had a rough start for me. I was frustrated with a lot of things but they seem to be coming together now. I'm excited to write my first story and have it published in the Missourian. I think that is always exciting for people to see their work published. The Missourian is keeping me busy along with all my other classes which is a good thing. I also have my computer to keep up with. I have to take it back in so they can put my files on my new hard drive. That is another hassle that I didn't want to deal with but it has to get done. I'm hoping this will turn out to be a good semester and that I can really get a lot out of my reporting class. Only time will tell that though.

Internship

2009-01-14T21:16:00.000-06:00

I got a call today about the Suburban Journal Internship. I got it! I'm excited. I think from this I can learn so much and I am excited to do that. I need to get a camera which I knew and that is one of the first things I am going to look into when I get back up to school.

I leave tomorrow for Columbia. I am leaving early so I can hang out with my roommate, Andrea. I'm excited to go back, a little excited for school to start. I'm excited to get my books so I can look through them. I love getting my books and getting to browse through them.

That's all for now.

Meeting with the Journal tomorrow

2009-01-12T17:15:00.000-06:00

I called Roy back from the journal and we set up a meeting tomorrow for 12:30. I'm not really nervous at all which is good. He said I would need to have my own equipment and I told him I had a digital camera but was looking into getting a new one. I plan to talk to him tomorrow about that and see what he suggests.

Hopefully all goes well!

Pictures I Have Taken

2008-12-29T17:17:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures that I have taken recently that I thought I would post for people to see.

The first picture is a picture of my dog, Haley. I like this one because you can see she had been rolling around in the grass that day by the little pieces on her face. It is a different angle and that makes it interesting to me. The next picture was taken on Mizzou's campus across from the J-School. I thought the rocks on the bottom framed the bottom corner well and thought it was a different shot.

The third picture I like because I think it is a cool waterfall shot. I think I took this at the Botanical Gardens if I remember correctly. The next picture is just a different view of the columns at Mizzou. The picture of Billy Currinton I couldn't figure out how to rotate so it just ended up sideways. I have a version of this without the red-eye that looks much better. I like this one because I think it is a good portrait shot of him in concert.

The last picture I like because the flamingos are in the bottom corner and at first you may not see them but I think they add to the picture.

Knitting

2008-12-18T21:15:00.000-06:00

Tonight I started to learn how to knit. It is something I've wanted to learn but never did. Erich's mom is teaching me. She knits really cool stuff. Last year she knit me a hat and scarf. It took some getting used to at first to figure out how all the stitches go but once I got the hang of it, it was easy. I'm excited to learn more and to actually make something instead of just practicing. I looked at books today at Barnes and Noble and they had a cool book on knitting little bears and knitting clothes for them. It looked really cool to do so maybe once I learn I can go back and get that book and make some of those.

My First Post

2008-12-07T14:42:00.000-06:00

So I am knew at this blogging thing. My brother gave me the idea to come here and set up a blog site, so here I am. Hopefully this will be used to post some of the pictures I take since I love to do that.