13.365 The Good Times

13.365 The Good People, originally uploaded by Counter Clockwise Musings.

Man I miss Ireland. When I was in college I was so lucky to have the chance to spend a month abroad. I got to travel to Ireland, England, and Wales. All three places were... beyond description. Just amazing. There are days where I just get terribly nostalgic for that month. That's what this picture is about. That and how sad I am that these two are the only stamps I have in my passport. I'd love to add to that sometime soon.

For this shot I cross processed it and added the lightest of vignettes. I rather like how it turned out.

12.365 Snow Globe World

12.365 Snow Globe World, originally uploaded by Counter Clockwise Musings.

It hasn't stopped snowing in close to a week (which I know is no big deal in a lot of places, but here in Tennessee, it's definitely something). Some days it's no more than a flurry, enough to cover the road with a dusting. Other days, it just doesn't stop at all. It's beautiful and terrible and magical. But I have to admit that I'm mostly just tired of the snow.

I really like this picture. I love the textures. The bark on this tree is just beautiful and phenominal. The shot has an Orton-ish type effect, but with the blur taken out and the effect rather faded. I happened to just take this shot at the right time, so for the most part, it's as it was.

11.365 Bar Nights

11.365 Bar Nights, originally uploaded by Counter Clockwise Musings.

So here's Keisha and I, and my friend Mike, who photobombed us.

For the past 4 years I have spent every Tuesday night hosting a trivia night at a local bar. Our first night started out with three teams... of our best friends... that we had to beg to be there. Now, we have anywhere from 14-20 teams, there's hardly an open seat in the house, and people are parked along the street because the parking lot fills up. It's nice seeing something I've worked on has grown so much.
Anyways, today, even with the crazy snow, my friend Keisha drove into town from Nashville to help me with trivia. She's come into town to help before and we always have a blast. So naturally, I had to take a picture of the two of us for my 365. It was a great night, we had fewer teams because of the snow, but it was still a blast. And the snow was absolutely gorgeous.

For the shot I did a little of shine reduction (which makes our faces look a little wonky), as it was ridiculously hot in the bar. And I used a very faded lomo-ish effect.

SNOW DAY!

Day 10.
Today it was beautiful and snowy. Oh so lovely and snowy. Now, one of the groups on Flickr is Bench Monday. Every Monday you take a picture of/ on a bench. I decided to work with the themes for the day, so I decided to do that one. Another group was doing cold as a theme. Well, hark! We have snow. So I needed to find a snowy bench. And yet another group was doing a patriotic theme. So I hunted up my dad's old Army coat. Three themes right there. I was really excited. And I decided what would go better with an Army coat in the snow? Why, a ball gown of course! This dress was from a sorority formal years ago, and the tulle under it actually made an appearance in my day 5 picture. So here's me, in the snow, on a bench, being patriotic in an army coat, while wearing a ball gown. Enjoy!

I tweaked the exposure on this and added a texture to it. In the end, I liked the results, though I wish I had taken just one picture where I hadn't cut off my head.

Here are a few out-takes from this shoot of me running around in the snow in a ball gown.

Still with the head cutting-off

And Once more. But this time while twirling! 

In this one you can see my delightful green boots!

My dog photo-bombed this picture. She was very intrigued with what I was doing and ran into the shot. I think it's cute though. 

High Expectations and Ending Up With a Pillow

Day 9.
I had such high expectations for today. I had created a set, worked with clips and pins and scarves and such. The idea I had was for a magical world coming out of, or being sucked into a box. I mean, as kids we all knew that the best thing in the world was a giant cardboard box. There were whole universes within boxes. So I started out taking pictures of this whole set up. And as I looked back through them on the camera I thought "Yes! That's the shot! And that one could work too!" But I have discovered, even though it may look pretty nice on the little screen on the camera, it's still best to take some more shots.
So I get the pictures on my computer, and again, none of them are near where what I had wanted. The movement was funny, the camera was out of focus, etc. I worked on editing one of the best. Used the cross process again (my favorite), added a slight texture, and a bit of bokeh (the blurred light), but it still wasn't what I wanted.

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older"

I liked the tones, and the light, but I'm picky. So I decided to go back to one of the theme groups, and one of them was having a prop challenge. The prop of the day was a pillow. So I grabbed one of mine and took a picture. As with the last time where I changed around the picture, it was the second shot that was the winner. So here's day 9, and another out-take (which happened to be shot 1):

And the other Out-take:

Both were cropped slightly and I cross processed them.

Double Duty

Days 7 & 8.
Days 7 and 8 were mostly spent at Ladyville. A girls weekend event where we drink champagne, watch movies, cook, play games, and drink wine. This year's event was held at my friend R's house. We had all kinds of crazy fun, but imbibing potent potables and many moments of madness is not the best atmosphere for remembering to take pictures. A few days ago I had talked to my friend Brit who had actually completed a 365, and she gave me the best advice yet. She told me that some pictures were going to be absolute crap, there's no getting around it, but the best thing to do is to just keep clicking away. To take a picture, even if you know it'll be horrible. And having failed at this adventure twice before, I can attest to the fact that once you get behind, it's wicked hard to catch back up. So here are pictures 7 and 8, though neither is a work of photographic genius, or even high intellect:

Day 7:

We were playing a karaoke game at the time. We were all horrible, but R and I were evidently the least horrible (or were the best at choosing songs), as we won both times.

Day 8:

My toes. Under a blanket. We were all watching movies and drinking... more champagne! I believe I drank more champagne in these two days than I have in my entire life. It was a good development.

Marvelous Mustache!

Day 6.
I don't know if it's a bug or what, but Day 6 is not much better than Day 5 in having motivation to work on producing a terribly creative picture. In the end I decided to use a prop, a lovely knitted handlebar mustache that my friend Brit had knitted. I then changed the picture over to black and white, but re-colorized the mustache. It turned out nicely.

Head Over Heels

Day 5. Day 5 was a rather simple shoot. It involved me, pink tights, black heels, and lots of tulle. And my closet doors. The concept was simple, and I had gotten such little sleep the night before, the fact that I put even the smallest of effort into this shot is impressive in my eyes. So here I am. With pink tights, black heels, tulle, and closet doors.

Wow. The colors in this aren't near the original. A shame. But I really liked how I had the focus on the tulle and the heels were a little blurred. I ended up not editing this one at all besides a wee bit of cropping.

Here's an out-take where I put the focus on my feet instead. I think it makes my legs look INCREDIBLY short when done like that.

Bitterly Cold

Day 4 was rather interesting. Mostly due to the fact that the heat was out at work. And it wasn't some warm day. The temperature hung out around the 30 degree mark all day, so being in a drafty old building made it rather chilly. Luckily the guys were able to come out and fix the heat a little before noon. It was after noon when I finally took my coat off though. Really brought to light the fact that I could very much use a new space heater.

All work and no heat makes me go a little bit crazy...

Reflecting on Family

For my third day, I decided to jump into a theme. I don't know if I've mentioned before, but I'm doing this whole project via Flickr. Anywho, I'm in a few groups that revolve around the 365 project, and many of them do themes for the day or week to give a little bit of inspiration when it's needed. So day 3 I did the theme of reflections. I have a mirror that sits on one of my bookcases in my room, and in front of it sits a few items that have a lot of meaning for me.

Day 3:

 The box was my mother's, and shortly after she gave it to me I started collecting wooden boxes. Now I have ones from Poland, Italy, random areas around here, etc.

 The jewelry was all my grandmother's. I'm still impressed that I've managed to keep up with her costume jewelry. She passed when I was 4, and her costume jewelry was given to my sister and I, along with many of her fancy dresses, as part of our dress-up collection as little girls. Most of the dresses are long gone now, along with the fake mink, the hats, the gloves, and the shoes, but I was able to hold onto much of the jewelry.

 The teacup is from a very random trip I took with some friends a few years ago. My friend A. had never been abroad, but had always longed to travel, so my friend Jess and I planned a trip around the world via car (we didn't tell A this, we just told her we were kidnapping her for her birthday). We went to London, Glasgow, Port Royal, Milan, Brazil, Memphis, and Paris (along with a few other stops), and we had props for each place so we could take a theme picture. This whole trip took place in a mere two and a half days, so some places had us simply jumping out of the car, snapping a picture, and jumping back in to head to our next destination. All in all, it was a wonderfully crazy trip. The teacups were the most special of the props, as before we left we stopped at Goodwill and each chose a mismatched cup and saucer (A. still having no clue where we were going or what we were doing). They were our props for London.



Before I chose this shot, I had thought of doing another shot involving my Nana's jewelry, so here's that shot:

"Come Quickly, I'm Tasting the Stars!" ~Dom Perignon

For day two I had visions of housewifery! Cleaning up the party was what I wanted to capture. In the end, I really liked the shot. Again, I used cross process. It made me realized that I'm a big fan of the use of cross process. This photo was also the first time I've ever added a texture to a photograph. Perhaps I should also mention that I use Picnik to edit my pictures. It doesn't allow a whole lot, and I would love photoshop, but for now it works just fine. The end results weren't what I had first imagined, but I think it came out nicely. Especially for having to run into place to get the shot, and hoping that the focus is right.

Day 2:

And here's a shot of one of my out-takes:

Starting out the New Year in Style!

So, after trying to do the 365 project twice before, I'm really hoping that 3rd Time'll be the charm. I'm also hoping that having this blog will keep me motivated and keep me posting.  I plan to use it to describe the process I'm using, and explaining how I ended up how I did. And even though I did post it in my "Explaining Me" section, I want to say it again, All of my pictures are copyrighted and unless we talk, you may Not use them. Thanks!


Day 1:

I had worked out a whole set up for the first picture. There were blowers and confetti and crazy make-up and HUGE hair. After working on getting the right shot for around an hour (I don't have a camera remote, so I have to set the timer and run into place), I decided to see if I could edit one of them into something I liked. I took off the make-up, put away the props, brushed out the hairspray, but alas, I was not able to find a picture among them that was suitable (all were slightly out of focus, and not in a good way). So I put my party tiara back on and just held the camera away from me and took three shots. Shot number two was the winner. I cross processed it and viola, I had picture number one!