One of my favorite shoots yet.

Seriously, thank you Rachel! You are beautiful.

How things have been

Wow, I stink at blogging lately. Here's why:

I've been at my new job for 4 weeks now. I'm still learning a lot of new things. I think it will be another month or two before I'm comfortable with the day-to-day things I have to do.

I'm working on the side for my old boss. I help him for $18/hour doing little things he needs from my home in the evenings. We knew my time would be in higher demand for the first couple of months... but it has been hard, even being prepared for it. I get home from work, and whip out my dinosaur laptop from my old job for an hour or two 2-3 times/week. I get my first paycheck from this next week, so we will see how worth it it has been :)

I'm also still doing photography. I am only 2 shoots behind on editing, amazingly. I need to just push myself to work extra hard for two weeks to get caught up, I just haven't seemed to want to yet.

I have only been scheduling 1 shoot/week now though. This is going to be much better for me. More time for relaxing. And more time to enjoy the shoots I'm working on. I want to be able to LEARN as I go, not just be forced to spit pictures out.

I did have my first really unfortunate misunderstanding with a client though. No details will be given, but it was embarrassing, and awkward, and I hope I've met the worst situation I will meet.

Trevor's been nice about me having less time. He's been picking up the laundry slack, and not complaining too much when I don't want to do anything but watch tv in my relaxation time.

After finishing The Wheel of Time series, I started reading some more Jane Austen books. Just finished Emma.

Emma by Jane Austen


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hm... Emma. I dislike her. I grew to like the story. I expect that this is how it was supposed to be, but I immediately was fond of Mr. Knightley. And throughout the entire book was looking out for his welfare. Even though Emma admits she is self-centered, and Austen intends for her to be that way, I still have a hard time sympathizing with her. I'm happy that Mr. Knightley ends up happy, but to be honest, I don't think Emma deserves him. He must see a goodness in her that the book doesn't fully portray.

This book, more than the other two Austen books I've read so far, has a bigger statement on rank. Emma is overly concerned with each of her friends' rank and status in the society they keep. She ruins people's dreams and lives just because they have less money or less "elegance," as she puts it. Emma has a sense of propriety that is far stricter that everyone else's around her, she seems to just come off as a snob a lot of times. I'm glad that Mr. Knightley is there to continue to guide her in the right direction.

The first part of the book was a little dull, but it got more interesting as the chapters progressed. Secret engagements and uncouth men seem to be Austen's fallback. I guess what the end result is going to be simply because I can expect a certain storyline from Austen now. Although, making Mr. Churchill actually AGREEABLE was a change.

I believe I see the statement Austen was trying to make in writing Emma. Emma is a judgemental person. We see her faults and we see her strengths through her thoughts. We can see her misjudgement of others and wish for her to act more on the accepting feelings she also has.

This book was better than Sense and Sensibility to me. I enjoyed reading about respectable men for a change. It seemed the women were more deplorable than the men in Emma. Quite a change, it seems.

View all my reviews >>

Speaking of goodreads... I think you all should join :) And share your books and reviews with me. I like seeing what other people read and what they think of it.

I always feel guilty being on the computer and not editing, so I should probably either go clean the kitchen or edit some pictures.

pictures from the last 2 months

Things have been really busy the last few months. I've had 2-3 photoshoots every week; which is A LOT. I'm having to learn how to pace myself, so that I can give each shoot the time and energy they deserve. Here are some shots from a few of the shoots I had in the last few months.

Some friends had a baby, and got some pregnancy pictures done 2 days before she was born :)

I took some pictures of the Salt Lake temple, and Temple Square for Mother's Day.

I took a family's pictures at Wheeler Farm. I really enjoyed this one :)

Met a girl from my mom's work, who was super pretty and REALLY good at modeling :)

I was able to take some promo pictures for my brother. He plays guitar and is being endorsed by Guitar Pro 6.

My friends graduated and I got to take their graduation/family photos. I LOOVED making their announcement. And their dog was way cute :)

I got a job!

I got a job! I start in 3 weeks. At Intermountain Financial Group/MassMutual. I'll give you more details on what I'll be doing there when I start. For now, I'll be helping to close up at my old job. And taking more pictures on the weekends. I'm so super duper excited for Spring and all the sunshine to give me more time for pictures and more green.

Some other stuff I'm thinking about:

• I only have 100 pages left of the last book that is out of the Wheel of Time :( Who would have thought (besides Trevor), that year and a half ago when I started this series, I would love it so much by the end? The 12th book comes out in the fall of this year, and then the last one comes out a year later! I should have waited to start the series in 2011 so I wouldn't have any waiting to do. It's all Trevor's fault.
• Along that line, I have NO idea what I'm going to read next! I need to hurry and decide because the last 100 pages could only last me 1 more day, eep!
• Trevor asked me to start a World of Warcraft character and play with him... ugh, why do I do so many geeky things?
• We also got fish. And a cool tank. It looks like this:
• And that's it.

Hymenoptera Giganticus

While I'm waiting to edit a bunch of the pictures from our mini-trip to Cedar City last week (and while I'm letting my insides calm down about having to purchase new tires while we were there), I wanted to share the graduation announcement picture I did for my friends. It was a lot of fun :)

And good news! I'm an aunt again! I'm a big fan of people making babies for me to hold.

Job search continues. Have another interview this afternoon that I think is going to be really positive, but I don't want to jinx it.

On a side note: I am exhausted today! At 3:30 AM last night I woke up to some people shouting and I was so tired and disoriented, I couldn't even tell if they were speaking English, or where they were. Finally after 5 minutes of feeling confused, I realized they were outside in the parking lot yelling at each other, and since our window was open, it felt like they were inside. Grr! So mad! Like I don't lose enough sleep as it is. I still couldn't think straight enough to figure out if they were speaking English. I'm just remembering a bunch of gobbledeegook and feeling super irritated. Who has a yelling fight at 3AM in the parking lot?

Seeing as most of my paragraphs have been pretty much side notes: The bees are back :( The window by my desk must have a hole leading to the outside world or something because every spring we get bees inside! I HATE BEES! They are some of the MOST disgusting (and honestly, terrifying) creatures I encounter. Bleh. So I either have to crush them (and risk getting stung because I'm me and will probably just make them mad), or leave them be (and risk getting stung if they decide to find their way through the blinds). The other option is to capture them and set them free, but I discovered last year I don't have the guts for that. It takes me 10 minutes to do my breathing exercises to get up the nerve to put the cup over them, and then 10 more minutes to slide the paper underneath and feel brave enough to release them outside. (Most of the time I hurry and set the cup down outside and run back inside. Then 20 minutes later, go out and get the cup. But doing things the bee-ane (you know, like humane) way forces my hands to be way to close to their fuzzy buzzing bodies, wiggling antennas, and not to mention their giganticus stingers. This week, I've opted for leaving them alone so far. I'm not sure how long that's going to last though; every few minutes I hear a sudden burst of buzzing as the current bee tries to escape through our obviously too clean window, and I just KNOW, as my heart skips a beat and my eyes shoot up to the window, that he's going to figure things out and fly the other way one of these times. And when that happens, it's only a half a second to my typing hands or exposed blinking eyeballs. If I could talk to bees, I think I would be a happy camper. I would ask them to leave me alone, and to spread the word to the other hives because, really, I don't want to hurt them, I'm just terrified they're going to think the flowers on my shirt are real and get mad when they find out they aren't. If I could talk to bees, I would also give the bee in my window directions back to outside. I'd help him locate the hole he came in, and we could have peace between our two species. I could even consider giving up honey.

Break time is over :(

Looking for a job and more pictures

The last 2 1/2 weeks have been very weird for me. I have to go to work every day, but that job is ending. It's really weird. I'm interviewing places, feeling out of my element, feeling tired. I love the weekends because I can try to forget that I need to find a new job. And by Sunday I seem to be able to, but then by 9pm on Sunday, it usually resurfaces.

All 4 of the places I interviewed in the last 2 weeks said no. How depressing is that? One I totally botched the second interview, one sent me a letter in the mail saying they hired someone else, another one said he needed to give his current assistant another chance, and another said I was too expensive. All of them said that they have been surprised how many people have been applying--that they've had more applicants than they can remember having ever. I've probably sent out close to 100 resumes and only heard back from 5 people. So discouraging.

I did interview with a university this morning though, and it looks positive. At least, to me, it does. They said it looks like I'd be a good fit, but that they have more people to interview too. And what's the deal with employers wanting the weekend to "think about it"? Don't they realize it's making me having horrible weekends full of stress??

Next week was supposed to be our vacation week. The one week every six months that Trevor and I get to be together all the time. The one time we get to have weekends off together. And I have to keep working for half of it :( Trevor is still taking the whole week off, effectively getting 10 consecutive days off. He definitely deserves a break--he's been working like crazy! But I have to work for 3 days in the middle of it. I'm lucky. I'm still taking 2 days off, and my boss isn't killing me. But it still sucks bigtime that this whole job mess fell right on our vacation. We decided we're going to go to Cedar and visit my brother and his family! We are super excited!

I did get to take some more pictures last weekend though :) And Conference was helpful because I got to listen AND edit. I took the pictures Friday, and got the editing done by Sunday! Fastest shoot EVER! Here's some of the pictures:

These were her senior pictures. It really made me love WORD OF MOUTH :) The got my name from someone who I'd already done pictures for. So everyone out there: don't be stingy with the referrals! :)

Kids Pictures

I wanted to share the pictures from my last shoot a couple weeks ago. These were the first kids I've done besides my niece and nephew. Doing a session with a really young kid (he is 1) was a very new experience. He was cute and interested, but 1 year olds just don't do much. It was also good for me to do two at once. It's interesting trying to find balance during the session.

To see all the pictures, go to my website here. (Oh yeah! I made a website last week :) It's cool! You should go see. www.photosbybecky.webs.com)

Here's a few of my favorites:

Bleh

Oh man :( This week has sucked. Lots of you know already, but my boss is retiring in 7 short weeks and I have to get a new job. I haven't been sleeping, I've been eating too much, and I've only had one person call me for an interview. Plus, on top of it all, the weather has been messing with my photos again :(

Two months is a pretty decent amount of notice to give someone who needs to get a new job. And I can also use time at work to search and interview. I'm just feeling really stressed out. It's already been a whole work-week! I've been working here for just short of 4 years. It's sort of scary to think about being somewhere else. My life could be drastically different in 2 months than it is right now.

Trevor and I have been doing so well paying down our cars and our credit cards and saving the last year, I don't want my job to be the thing that messes everything up. So I'm looking for jobs that will pay me the same amount I'm making now. I'm sure this happens to everyone who looks for new jobs, but my confidence in my experience and abilities is rollercoastering. Sometimes I feel so confident, I have no doubt I'll be able to find something excellent in the next 2 weeks. And sometimes I feel like there's no way I'll be able to find something in 2 months and that I'll have to take a low paying job just so we don't die.

Today I just feel like I need to relax. I want to be able to use the weekend to relax as much as I can, but it's not like I can only look for jobs during work hours. We'll see. I for sure need to sleep. A lot.

On a brighter note: I'm getting some pictures taken of ME this weekend. Crazy, I know. Travis, Trevor's brother, also does photography, and he has agreed to take some pictures of me so I can use them on my website and stuff. Hopefully I won't have bags under my eyes, and hopefully my body won't show the possible 5 pounds I've gained this week :) I sort of know how my clients feel now though: I have NO idea what to wear. It seems like such a huge choice! This will be good practice for me though. It's good to be in front of the camera sometimes so that I can remember how people are feeling about how much direction they need.

Dude Shoot

It's a relief to have these done! I took some pictures of my friend downtown at the library a week or so ago. I haven't really been able to get that much practice taking pictures of men by themselves. It's different when they're with a woman. A man automatically looks more manly standing next to a girl. He's the rock. He's the thing that compliments the woman's beauty. He makes it okay for her to be as pretty as she can be. And when you're taking pictures of a couple, there's sort of a story going on. As the photographer, you're sort of telling the story of their love, or something like that. But when you're taking pictures of an individual--at least, when I take pictures of an individual--there's something else to it. You have to come up with the story all on your own. And I've done that with girls... but a guy? Ugh. It was hard. Let's be honest. I was nervous, and excited, and and worried that none of the pictures would turn out. And let's be even more honest--a lot of them didn't. But I think enough turned out :) And no one has to see the bad ones, right? That's what counts, haha.

Link to the album in case you can't view the slide show:

Elijah Finals

In the last two weeks, I've discovered some cool features on Photoshop that have really helped at depth to my pictures. I started adjusting the exposure and color levels on the person and the background together, and then on the background separately. I've always messed with the background on its own, but never the levels, and I've been very happy with my discovery :) I'm sure lots of people already know about that and LOTS more things that I DON'T know about. But I like that I found it. It has let me find the right skin color, and really make the person pop--and then make the background the colors that I want it to be. Most of the time.

Editing for me is interesting and engrossing. I always get caught up and spend way too much time. It sort of makes it so I actually don't want to get started a lot of times because I know I'll lose track of time. Two of my sessions I had scheduled for last weekend had to be rescheduled because of the rain and snow--which sucked, but is also probably good so I have more time to do normal things. I haven't been spending as much time with my family, and doing normal things around the house as I would want to. So this week it's probably a good thing I only have 1 session I'm editing. And I'm taking a break next weekend so I have lots of time to get ready for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's baby shower.

Lots of stuff happening.

So I've been so incredibly busy! It looks like the last photo shoot I posted was Brandy's, and that was 4 shoots ago. Here's a slide show of 3 of the newest:

First there was Erin and Robert. They were my first shoot with my new camera :) Using my camera was intimidating, to be really honest. I was nervous. I was worried that I would have to relearn everything. That I would suck. I was really glad that I was practicing on my really good friend Erin. She and her husband are great friends and made it really easy for me though. I made a lot of lighting mistakes, but I also got some much needed time with my camera. We tried a new place for me--Exchange Place. It's downtown, and there is some really neat architecture and secluded urban spots for pictures. If anyone has ever looked into photography in Utah before, you've probably seen at least one picture taken there :) Great place. It was FREEZING though! And there was a LOT of shady areas--which makes for great pictures, but freezing subjects!

Next, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law let me take pictures of them! Travis and Robyn are expecting a baby in a month or so, and oh boy! It was a great experience working with Robyn's belly :) I actually felt a little weird taking their pictures. Travis is an aspiring photographer himself, and has taught me a bit of the editing skills I know. So on top of feeling weird because they're my family, I felt uber intimidated! But I got over that after a few minutes. A lot of my shots got ruined because of lens flares though. We ran out of time, so I didn't get to do all the stuff I wanted to do with Robyn's big belly, but we still got some really great family-to-be pictures. I think their daughter will really appreciate those pictures one day :) It's pictures like those that make me really LOVE modern photography. Old-fashioned studio photography would have NEVER gotten the kind of pictures Travis' and Robyn's shoot gave them. We were outside, at Wheeler Farm. Everything was very casual, less "posed" than a studio photo shoot would be, and more like just a family outing than a photo session. (Oh! And awesome side note: Travis and Robyn were my first paying customers, haha!)

I also did a shoot with some sort-of-friend/acquaintances--Rachael and Kris. I suppose they're more friends than acquaintances now. We went to Exchange Place again, because I thought it would go really well with their style :) They're sorta hip, haha :) Plus they only had pretty much exactly one hour, so I thought a familiar place would be best. I was right. I was able to go quickly to the places I'd already scoped out. And I didn't have to spend as much time messing with the exposure, or the angles because I already did that last time. I had more time to explore a few more places in the area with them. Rachael and Kris were so happy the whole time and really made it feel like we were just having a good time together. I think a photo session is actually a really great date idea for a couple. You just go and talk with your significant other, and are forced to be all lovey dovey and kissy the whole time! It's perfect!

Last weekend I did a session with my long-term friend from when I was little--Elijah. It was quite a different experience taking pictures of a man! Maybe he's more of a guy? Or young adult? But whatever. With girls, it's like, they're beautiful, and it's okay to make them look AMAZING and stunning. But with a guy... You have to be all subtle. And careful not to make them look silly! It was hard. I'm working on editing those right now though. So hopefully I'll have them up soon. We went to the downtown library--great location! I'll show you later :)

This weekend I have 3 more! I have some children this weekend too! I'm really looking forward to getting more practice with kids. I can feel the challenge looming... but I just want to get the hard part over with! I also am going to be doing some pretend bridals with some friends. So if anyone wants to dress up in their wedding clothes again, I would looooove to take some pictures :) I want practice with more brides, boys, kids, and families the most. I still love girls and couples, but I have the most experience with those already and I'm starting to charge for those.

I got a UV filter, a polarizing filter, and a florescent filter this week on amazon for like $12 total. Super sweet! I'm excited to use them this weekend. They should help with the lens flare problem. I also got a spare battery ($10) and car charger ($3) in case my battery decides to run out... It would definitely not be MY fault if it did... Everything for cameras come in little pouches or carrying cases. It makes you feel so cool, haha.

At home, Trevor and I did some spring cleaning last week. Trevor went 99% insane and cleaned a bunch of stuff on his day off, and bought a bunch of new stuff for organizing. We've kept things clean for 1 week and 2 days, as of today. We also got a new dresser and bedroom curtains because we hated ours. Mmm, IKEA...

Aaaaand the last thing I feel like commenting about is FOOD. I made a creamy potato cheese soup two nights ago, and it was SO good! I have always wanted to have Riley's potato cheese soup whenever I want, and thought it impossible. While this soup was NOT Riley's by any means, it was a welcome substitution during the famine. Here's what I did:

• Peel, cube, and boil 8 (at least) medium potatoes along with 1/2 cup of diced white onion for 15 minutes. Drain.
• Reserve 2 cups of the cooked potato and onion. Mash the remaining potato/onions with 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth.
• Broil some bacon (I used 4 slices of Amber's leftover turkey bacon--thanks Amber! I'll pay you back!) for 3-4 minutes, turning over.
• Melt 2-3 tablespoons butter in your pot you just used to boil the potatoes. Add 2-3 tablespoons of flour and simmer and whisk for a minute or so until it turns a nutty color.
• Add spices, like tsp salt, tsp pepper, 1/2 or 1 tsp basil (depending on if you like it), 1/2 tsp paprika (yummy) or season salt, and 1 tablespoonish of parsley (I like the color mostly). You can flavor this puppy how ever you want.
• Add 2 cups of half-and-half, and 1 cup-ish of cheese (whatever kind you like). Let it heat through and get thick and bubbly.
• Add 2 more cups of chicken broth, the potato/chicken broth mixture, and 2-3 stalks of celery diced. Mix it all together and let heat through and get thick and bubbly again.
• At the end, add the cut up bacon and your reserved potato/onions. You can add more cheese, salt and pepper, or half-and-half at this point too depending on your taste.
• For the best results, serve it in a BREAD BOWL! K, seriously. This was amazing. I have no pictures, but just trust me.

Whew! I have been needing to get all that out for like a week! So I think I'm all caught up for a while.