project

The Hand We Are Dealt:

This is me and I'm going to tell you a story, my sweet mothers.

Hypothyroidism. This has run in my family for at least three generations. My mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother, along with most of my mother's siblings, and even a handful of cousins have this disease. I've seen my mom suffer with weight, exhaustion, and self-esteem for so many years. All I've ever wanted was for her to feel beautiful, like she truly is.

Everyday she tells me how tired she is. 

Her entire adult life she has been trying and failing,and trying and failing, to loose weight. Its a constant uphill, mental, and physical battle for her.

Her body feels slow and energy less.

She feels like an young woman stuck, trapped, in an old and deteriorating body.

Food is always the enemy. Diets work for awhile, then stop working. The pounds coming flooding back on with ease as she gets discouraged and gives up.

Looking in a mirror at herself is hard, she doesn't like the person looking back. I wish she could see what I see.

I've seen how sad this disease has made her my whole life. I hate it. I've always been scared of it.

Last week I found out that I would soon share this burden with my loving mother. I was overwhelmed. I'm scared to share the same path that my mom has had to walk for so long.

Panoramania

This is my horizontal pano #1. I used the Reposition button which makes the middle stand out. This is part of the Asylum Haunted House. I wanted to add to the affect so I made it B&W!

 Horizontal Pano #2. I used the Auto button. I drive past this fence every single day on my way home from the gym. I've always though it was cool to look at so one day I pulled over and snapped this panorama of it.

Vertical  Pano #1These are my sneakers. I took this at a park I really like. I love the reflection of the trees in the water! This is my favorite one.
























 Vertical Pano #2. I really like how the poles fade into the distance on this Pano. I tried to make this photo look very symmetrical. I used Auto on this as well.

Yes I know...we're only doing TWO horizontal panoramas. I liked these though so I wanted to post it :) That's why I put them very, very last.

B&W portraits

My sister-in-law Jennie just graduated from hair school. Here she is posing for me :)

CAMEO! This is my me not being me photo. This was difficult to set up and took a long time to get right.

Ghosts

This weekend, at our annual halloween party, I decided that it would the perfect time to work on ghost pictures! So here they are...

This is my creepy ghost husband. Doesn't he make the best zombie ghost?

This is ghost me. There is probably a real ghost just like this haunting our super old house. 

This is my ghost sister, Rachel. BOO!!

Taking ghost pictures was really fun. I liked being able to crank the shutter and aperture and just play around with the camera. Ol' Nik and I are besties.

panomania

portraits

This is my selfless selfie. I am Lady Gaga on the cover of her new song Applause. Self portraits are a little challenging (for me anyway). It's a little difficult to set up the camera and focus without actually being in the picture. I had to take quite a few photos to get the focus right.  Dressing up was pretty dang fun though! It got my creative juices flowing and I realized the endless possibilities in photography. 

This is my cute sister-in-law Alison, she is the sweetest girl you will ever meet. Ali is a senior this year and I think this picture is really symbolic of what a senior is going through. There life is one big tree, with choices that branch this way and that. She has so many options and decisions to make in the next year, but she is excited and ready to take on life as it comes.