Just to let you know
I am changing my blog name to Lauren’sPhotography.wordpress.com
I’ve moved
As you all may as well know by now, I have been apartment hunting for months, well just last week I found one, Tuesday I signed the lease and Wednesday I started moving in. I’m all moved in and the apartment is looking good, I have furniture which is awesome cause it wasn’t really expensive in fact everything in my living room but the bookcase was free. Free is good. I don’t have internet right now, so I’m at Lees stealing his for a while and watching the royals cardinals game go Cardinals! (bottom of the 5th no score)
Anyways gotta go this laptop is gonna die if i don’t go. 
Welcome to my life
Can we say chaotic?
I’m looking at an apartment today, and I have a 10 hour shift so I’m hoping that I get off early enough to make it to the appointment.
Shooting has not been my top priority, I did shoot a private event for the church, but I won’t post the photos here, not that I even have that many edited.
Lee moves back in next weekend after graduation.
I’m looking for a used car, but all the ones I end up liking have way too many miles.
I’ve pretty much worked 50 hours 2 weeks in a row D:
We got a caterer and a cake person ( we meet with her on the 22…which is the weekend of Lee’s open house, so my parents will be around I think) D: wait thats the weekend theres a dinner at church… o.O
Looks like things are going to get a little hectic around here
Thought of the Day
Recently I was asked by two separate people these questions, “What do you see yourself doing with your photography?” my boss and “What do you want to do with your life, what’s your plan?” my finance Lee.
The answer to either question didn’t come, and so I’m trying to give it some thought. So we’ll start back, way back to high school where all I wanted to do was be a photographer, though I did want to be an astronomer, a meteorologist, a teacher, and even way back when a ballerina. Fortunately for those two I can photograph the stars, weather, and dance so somehow that worked out for me in the long run, though teacher never did. I never was good at math or science so it worked out that photography had very little of either. But what was my original thought of I want to be a photographer? Where did it come from, I’ve thought long and hard about this one, well not really, my dad collects cameras, and it’d be a pity if it hadn’t rubbed off on one of his daughters. And what was I to do with my photography? I wanted to work for national geographic…no that really was what I wanted to do, but on the side for charity I wanted to do portraits of sick children with their families. I wanted to show happier times. However, that side will have to wait, I have little talent with portrait photography much less dealing with people maybe eventually I’ll get there, but for now I’m a nature photographer, that has no time to shoot.
In college I toyed with the idea of being a digital re-toucher, but my teachers thought while maybe I could get better, I just wasn’t good or fast enough to do this. I thought I had wasted a year or two at this when I was reminded that I was extremely talented at shooting nature. I focused in on the idea of doing astro photography, but I just wasn’t able to find my niche, I went to a few national parks, and still was unable to do much good photography. It wasn’t until I took this shot http://www.flickr.com/photos/flamegirl88/3967635176/in/set-72157622483843320 that I realized that there was something more to focus on, and I thought maybe it was flowers and I was good at it! Very good at it and perhaps some of my teachers finally saw potential for me in my last semester. Then I realized that what they were looking at was the bugs I had captured. I’d found my niche, I’m a bug photographer, in fact, I was a macro photographer specializing in bugs and plants. But here’s the question who wants to hire a bug/plant photographer? No one really.
So I took up a job at Six Flags doing portraits for the summer, while I waited to find a job in Kansas City, when I found the same one at Worlds of Fun I took my opportunity to move and was able to find a job in Missouri at H&H within the month. While I stayed with Worlds of Fun till the end of the season I worked my second job as an assembler. Right now I’m still an assembler, I’m lucky to be able to have this job as it pays well and has something to do with both my major and my minor (graphic arts). Our hours are even getting longer for the time being we went from working 8-4 on Mondays and 9-4 the rest of the week to 8-4 (or whenever we finish) the whole week to 6-? until whenever the work drops again. It’s school and event season so that means sports and prom photos and lots of them. This is not a career however, it is a job when it becomes a career for me I’ll let you know. I do sell prints just so you know, of course it’s only of nature.
So getting back to the questions what do I really want to do with my photography, I want to be a successful nature photographer, I’d be happy to work for a botanical magazine or a bug magazine or whatever is out there, even National Geographic if I get really good, but I don’t want to be away from home for too long.
As for my life plan, well I’m just one of those people who sits back and lets things take their course. Of course I will get married in September, and eventually maybe have kids. I never really thought about kids in any sort of plan though since I wanted to work for National Geographic, so right now that’s up in the air, though I did want to adopt at some point. I want to have at least 1 dog a corgi if anything, and maybe a cat or two. And I really don’t care where I live as long as there are parks or wide open spaces around.
Anyways that’s enough for me tonight, I’ve got to work at 6am.
An Update of Sorts
It’s snowing again in KCK and I don’t like it.
These past few weeks have given me little time to shoot. I’m still planing my wedding, I’ve had car problems, I went to St. Louis to see my sister (we’ll get to that point soon), Lee came to visit for spring break, I’m working more than I had been, and I’m trying to find a place to live while figure out possible ways to get credit so I can live in those possible places. Is there anything else I’ve forgotten, I’m sure there isn’t.
- the wedding, I still don’t have a caterer or a cake baker, (this is very bad). We’ve finally booked our florist and our reception location, and we’ve had our engagement photos taken I’ve also met with our invitation/ program designer http://racheldoesinvitations.blogspot.com/. I just finished the horrible process of designing our save the dates and that’s about all I’ve done in that part of planning thus far.
- Car problems really, again? Yep if the car belonged to me I’d consider selling it or trading it in for a newer one, but it doesn’t and it’s trade in value is a little over $800. Eww…
- St. Louis…this one could take a bit. While in St. Louis I went home to say goodbye to my sister who was supposed to be studying abroad in Japan, however the week before heading down the earthquake struck and left a nuclear power plant in trouble. Her classes have been delayed until May, but with the rising radiation already causing problems as far as Manhattan http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/27/nuclear-japan-massachusetts-idUSN2713732220110327 I really hope she stays as far from the country as possible. I also just learned of another earthquake this time a 6.4 as of oh 23 minutes ago, so here’s to hoping the government cancels all flights to Japan or her school gets smart and decides that it’s not a good idea to let her go over there. KU and MU have already called their students back. I do have a friend over there and she’s ok, shes a good 200 miles from the plant.
- Lee came home for spring break so we got to do a lot of running around and watching movies thanks to Philip DeFranco from Youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/PhilipDeFranco. He’s doing a 30 day movie thing and I’ve liked a few, but there were others we opted not to watch. Go check his page out he has two different accounts and one of them is like a news show the other (which is linked above) is his vlogity. As for running around, we learned that they moved the books a million at the mall to a smaller storefront oh no not the bookstore! I ended up getting Pokemon Heart Gold yay new game! It’s actually pretty fun because crystal which was kind of like a mix of gold and silver was always my favorite of the series because it had 2 different areas you could go to unlike the other games. If they ever make a Pokemon game with all the regions I will buy it on the first day it’s out because that’s a ton of Pokemon to catch and who knows how strong the gym leaders will be.
- Working is so weird cause in the past I’ve had days off during the week, but now I’m only off on the weekends don’t get me wrong I love having weekends off, but the weekdays drag on now. On top of that we’re getting more hours, I think.
- I want my own apartment, however apparently you have to have credit to rent an apartment, well no one ever mentioned that one to me. I didn’t want a credit card, but now here I am trying to figure out what kind of card to get and if I’ll even get approved because well I have no credit whatsoever.
- Oh I did forget something
- Saturday is my 23rd birthday! YAY! Not. It only means that my licence expires and I have to get a Kansas licence, another reason I went home for my birth certificate which my parents lost. So either I find my expired passport and try to use it to get a Kansas licence or I try to get a birth certificate. And yes I’m a bit of a bum not getting that taken care of a while ago.
Groundhog day
So the groundhog has predicted an early spring, well tell that to the snow outside cause I was yet again trapped by the snow. I did try to make it out a bit before 5am though. Unfortunately they have yet to plow our street. I spent much of last night helping shovel snow so I could attempt an escape this morning, but with the snow being up to my bumper I got stuck and had to go back to my driveway. We started shoveling again around 2 something today and didn’t get done till about 4. I tried to push someone up the hill, but it failed, and we tried to tell her to go down the hill and make a run for it, but she chickened out and backed right into the spot where she had been parked.
Hershey came out in the snow with us and was all icy by the time we were done, poor thing, I let her have my scarf to warm up after we came in. I think she looks adorable in it. :D
Just Dance
I went to my future sister in laws reticle today and got these shots, please note that I was not allowed to use flash so if the photos look pixilated they are, I had the camera set to the highest ISO I could (probably about 3200) and a low shutter speed.
Here and There
I know I haven’t been very active in photography lately, it’s just that I’m working 8-10 hour shifts…and 2 weeks ago we were working 12 hour shifts. Anyways, as I was saying, I love photography and all, but I’m a nature photographer, I prefer warm weather and flowers and such, and with the cold weather coming in I haven’t been up to going outside and doing anything. That’s why when I was in school I always had my indoor photography classes around this time of year, but I feel that because I have not been shooting I have no drive to do this anymore. It’s unfortunate, but true, shooting is just going to have to wait till this summer comes around again, or the spring. If theres a snow storm and something looks cool maybe I’ll shoot some photos your way, until then I’ll be quilting. Yep I said it quilting, while I’ve never made one before I have recently started a red and black one and I think it’s coming along nicely. It’s going to take me a while because I have no reason to pull the evil sewing machine down from the closet just so I can use it. Instead I’m doing it by hand at least until I get to the backing, which as I said before is going to take me a while.
My wedding plans are coming along nicely, we put the rings on layaway this weekend, I’ve had the dress for a few months now, and all the bridesmaid dresses are in (excluding my sisters, she just bought it yesterday so it’ll be a week or so before someone has to pick it up for her). My colors are red orange yellow and brown and I’m going to have dragonflies everywhere 
We’ve got our location booked, but we still need a place for the reception. We also have a preacher. Over winter break we’ll be checking out the menu for our caterer, a friend of Lees family. And at the moment, I think that’s about all we have. Unfortunately I’m still looking for a photographer so if any of you out there in Jerry’s class want to do it the wedding is on 9-10-11.
Anyways I’m going to get back to quilting and watch some one piece before we go up to decorate the church around 5.
Enjoy the holidays.
Lauren
Update
t’s UPDATE TIME! Yay!
So where I have I been for the past month or so, well I got a job out at H&H Color Lab [link] in Kansas City. Check them out they do great prints…but if you get prints there do us all a favor and let them do the color corrections, the poor printers go nuts if it isn’t to lab standards and they can’t fix a problem such as green, yellow, or orange tints if you turn that little option off. Anyways I’m just an assembler, but we get the prints out on time and right, no bent corners here. I see some pretty random things at my job too, why just the other day I found two people peering around my “cell” to look for envelopes, I was in the mist of an order so they spooked me, one of them told me “oh don’t mind us we’re just here to steal your envelopes.” Then they walked away and were saying something about how I didn’t have the right envelopes. Of course everyone runs around and steals orders that are due out that day from each other, cause we know late’s are bad. I’ve found that magnets are the bane of my existence there and I get rather annoyed just by seeing them in the order cause they are a real hassle to make, just like the dreaded sheet cuts. I’m constantly getting in fights with my die cutter for it pulling my photos in sideways.
Anyhow, I’m also working my last month at Worlds of Fun. It’s actually been a lot of fun, I may complain about it a lot, but I’ve made a lot of friends and the Halloween scene is actually fun. I went to actually ride the coasters and I’m terrified of the one that goes backwards…won’t be doing that again. Random fact, I fight with the computer screens just as much as I fight with that die cutter. LOL.
I bought my wedding dress two or three weeks ago, I’m currently looking for a location, but I may use the Grinter House in Wyndotte County cause they’re offering $50 for rental of the grounds and another $50-100 for chairs and tents. I still need to find a reception hall, but that can wait for a while.
Haven’t been able to shoot for a while, did shoot a wedding, it’s up on my FB page [link]also shot a guy from work it’s on that profile as well.
I started watching One Piece and I guess I thought it was kiddish when I watched it on fox, but now that I watch it in Japanese I realize that it really isn’t, and I’m actually enjoying it. I guess I’m on season 4…they’re in alabasta right now, so if you’ve seen the show you should have a pretty good idea what’s going on.
