Come waste your time with me

Last summer my good friends CJ and Michelle got married.....

I have known them for some time now, and was excited to be a part of this day.  It was a laid back picnic reception in June and they asked me to photograph it which was a real honor.  This is how excited I was to do it!

There was a party prior to the big day....I prefer to call it a "pre-wedding shindig".  Of course I took my camera to this shindig to capture some shenanigans.  It was a tie dye/hippie theme and very well suited!  I decided to make cupcakes for the day and bring a tie dye kit so everyone there could tie dye an item they brought if they wanted to.  I decided I wanted to make multicolor cupcakes.  I ended up finding the perfect recipe.  I had never made such a thing before and I learned that in order to get the colors to look vivid, you need to use food coloring gel, not standard food coloring dye (what you would use to dye eggs for Easter). 



This picture I actually did not take, my friend Sara took it.  Surprisingly enough, I never did remember to get a shot of one of the finished cupcakes sliced down the middle.  I did however, take plenty of during and after shots.

You need a separate bowl for each color you want to use

Divide the batter up evenly into each bowl

Add coloring gel

Ready to layer the colors into the cupcake papers

Ready to go in the oven

Done!

I decided to make purple frosting and add Swedish Fish as a garnish



The finished product! You can see the rainbow colors through the cupcake papers

Since Michelle and CJ are the most die hard Phish fans (phans) I know, that's where the Swedish Fish idea came from.  The Phish/tie dye theme was present throughout their wedding reception too as you will see later on.  Here are a couple shots from the tie dying:

Tie dye aftermath

The gloves provided in the kit didn't do much

CJ and me

Michelle and me

Namaste

I managed to get a shot of myself with the bride and with the groom (well, 'almost' bride and groom), but not one of them together.  It's ok because I took approximately 425 photos at the reception.....which will be my next post! 

Stay tuned.

 

Nature is Ancient

Ok so the title is the name of a Bjork song but the images are in fact, nature.  I can see that there will be music references within my blog posts since I have now made mention to music in all of my posts thus far.  In fact, even the name of my blog is a play off of one of my all time favorite bands.  If you know my musical tastes (and this band) well, then it probably isn't too difficult to guess.  Points if you can figure it out.

So the shots here were taken in 2009 and must have been some of the first that I took with my Nikon.  Through the years, I've always been drawn to photographing nature.  Living in a very rural area for awhile allowed me to do just that.  I'm really looking forward to getting out in the warmer weather that is upon us to see where my camera will lead me!




Morning clothesline

 

I want to be a part of it....New York, New York

Christmas time in New York City...there's nothing like it.  The hustle and bustle, holiday decorations, and Christmas spirit everywhere.  I realize we are now into March and Spring is quickly approaching.  But since my blog is still in the "lift off" stage, I have a lot of images to share from different times of the year!

I went to NYC back in December for an all girls trip with some of my family.  I adore going to New York because you can photograph the same thing more than once but it can always look different depending on how you shoot it each time.  I took a photography course a few years back for black and white film and loved it.  Even though I haven't done film for awhile, I still adore it.  It can be a time consuming process developing film and print making, but being in the darkroom was often a place of solace.  I listened to a lot of Radiohead while in there watching the images come to life in the chemical trays.  Specifically their "Amnesiac" album, for some reason.  That album in particular from start to finish just seemed to get me "in the zone".  I'd still love to have my own darkroom and do film and who knows, maybe I will if I obtained the supplies and had a space that would allow me.

But anyway, back to Christmas time in the Big Apple.  Here are some images from the December 2010 trip:

The hotel lobby decorations

Toys R Us

Ferris wheel inside

Statue of Liberty, Lego style

Evil Barbie Pez

People actually ride this

M&M World

In the entryway of Macy's

Diamond shaped lamp post

Magnolia Bakery...if only I had run into Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon having cupcakes

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Sleigh inside Tiffany & Co.

Tiffany birds

The canary diamond worn by Audrey Hepburn

Tiffany display window outside on the street

Decorated trees near the Plaza Hotel