Creations From Everyday Life

TtV Technique.

For awhile now I have had an interest in photographs taken with a TtV contraption. With TtV (or Through the Viewfinder) photography, the concept is to shoot with a digital camera through the pop-up viewfinder of a vintage camera in order to benefit from the distortion and grunge inherent in the older cameras.

If you have one of these vintage cameras, you have to build a crazy box to block out light... and you have to have a macro lens... blab blah blah. Well, I don't have a macro lens. Yet.

This is what everything would look like put together:

Well... since I really don't have the time (or moo-la) to experiment with something like that right now, I've been on the hunt for some cool digital overlays that would produce the same effect.

Couldn't find one.

But then a friend posted something about using fake TtV technique, and I don't know exactly how she did it... but I am assuming that she had found a blank picture that someone had taken using a TtV technique. Then I guess she worked with it and converted it for use in photoshop as an overlay.

....so super long story a little less long....

I found a plain white blank picture (of a wall I guess???), that was shot TtV... and tried to make my own overlay. It looks pretty cool.. eh? Not as cool as the real thing... but cool nonetheless.

Alisa, Skyler & Nate

We went to Ancestor Square at an awful time for lighting... but we made due. Most of my favorites were taken in black & white... which worked because I didn't have to worry about how the sun/shade spots everywhere made the colors look.

So, if you are wanting to schedule an outside session with me... be aware that you will need to get your booty out of bed EARLY...

Like 7am.

Or just wait until dusk... that works too!

Hats off to the boys. I could tell that Skyler didn't really care to be there... but was being an obedient husband. Then Nate just had no choice in the matter. It was nap-time, so smiling was out of the question...except for once! We did sneak one out of him. Here are some of my favorites:

Life is Good...





Preparing for their famous balancing act.


See... I told you we got a smile!

My Computer ='s Toast.

My big fancy computer is currently OUT OF ORDER! GAAH! What do I do!!! Especially since I did a photo shoot this morning, and I can't even get the pictures off of my camera!

I called Jared this morning when I couldn't get it to start up. I figured it was just user error, and he'd tell me something stupid to try and it would work. But it didn't work. So the awesome husband that Jared is... came home from his super stressful day of work to see what was going on with it. He took it apart, figured out that something wasn't working right... and decided that it wasn't worth his time to try and fix it himself. Like I said... he's under a lot of pressure at work right now. So... he took it to a local computer shop to see if it could be fixed quickly. Well, 2 minutes ago Jared just called and said that the Motherboard was fried and we needed a new one. Jared said that hopefully it will be done this afternoon! So I hope a new motherboard will fix whatever has been going on with it lately, so that I can get back to my pictures!

Jocelyn in Oregon.

Jocelyn left almost a week ago to spend 10 days in Oregon with her aunt and cousin. I haven't talked to her since she has been there. Jared did once I think. But it doesn't bug me because I know she is having fun, and I wouldn't understand her very well over the phone anyway! But today I noticed that some pictures had been posted to the family website of some of her adventures. I don't actually know who took the pictures, but for the most part, my guesses are on my SIL Jessica.

The beach in coats, huh? I'm sure it was fun... but that's not my idea of beach attire!!! LOL!

On another note... I went to Design Theory today, an antique store here in town. It's been around for awhile, so I'm sure this is not new news... but I LOVED it in there. I've never been before because it isn't exactly one of those places where you want to take 4 kids. One MAYBE. But they had a lot of cool stuff, and it was pretty cheap... and the ladies working were super nice. I forsee buying a lot of photography props there as soon as I have more space...

Which in other news... I guess our floor plan is about to go to the printers!

This is what the upstairs will look like for anyone interested...

The "bedroom 1" is going to be my hobby room I guess. Normally I'd call it my scrapbook room... but between my sewing, quilting, scrapbooking and photography stuff that will be in there, I'm better off calling it a hobby room, LOL!

The "Guest Retreat" is actually going to be Jared's office for his electronic projects and consulting. It has an outside entrance from the courtyard so that clients won't have to walk through the house... which is sure to be in a constant state of messy.

Otherwise... there is lots of storage, a big kitchen/great room with fireplace, and a huge master suite. The garage has 3 bays and is long enough to fit my truck in. A spiral staircase goes up to the roof for an "observation deck." And all of the kids bedrooms will be downstairs along with a bathroom, storage room, and a big room for a projector/game room/play area...

Now that we have the lot loan taken care of, we are scraping things together for a construction loan. Things would be easier if we had about $30,000 cash just stuffed under the mattress... but alas, we don't... so we'll figure something out!

I'm hoping to supplement some of the cost with my photography business. I have a shoot penciled in for Friday morning. Not confirmed though. I'm waiting to really start putting myself out there until I have all of my bits and pieces together. So far, I have my website up and functional, invoices, a receipt book, and a planner to keep track of when I have shoots planned. I've designed a CD label that I will deliver images on, and just need to print a bunch up. I was going to have CD's professionally silkscreened... but I haven't found a place that I really liked yet so I'm just going to wait until business picks up and I have more to spend! I'd also like to one day have customized invoices... but for now I only have stock ones from Office Max. But, my business cards will be here on Friday... and for that I'm excited. I still need to draw up a contract... and I'll probably start pushing it next week!

Isn't this about the cutest

photograph you have ever seen???

Yesterday we officially obtained the lot to build our new house on. It's at a gorgeous resort (aimed at those with big $$$... so I actually don't know how we are ending up there), and we wanted to go and stand on the land that is now ours! But when we got there the entrance was chained off. We knew that we could have probably went over to the security guard and dropped a few names (or we could have made a few phone calls to those names)... but we were like "ahh, whatever." So we went across the street to the lake instead. Jared did a little fishing. Katelyn and Calvin swam. And I hung out with Tess, Erica and my camera. I took a bunch of pictures, but I think this is one of my favorites. I guess all of the sunset pictures as a collection are my favorites.

I'll most definitely post some more later, but I don't want to be on-line all night!

So until we meet again!

More Dallie Pictures

I get to frequently take pictures of Dallie (daughter of Nikki) because she is my niece, and oh so cute. I took a bazillion the other day, and here are some of my favorites:

And the solution for being a bone-head and leaving your ISO on 1600 in broad daylight... because you didn't think to change your settings (even though I thought enough to shoot in full manual mode to expose for Dallie in the shadow, and not for the sunny background)...

Antique it with cool filters found on the internet!

And... my contact form works now on my website thanks to my super awesome husband...

and the link I posted to my website didn't work yesterday for some reason. User error I'm sure. But just type in amyhummel.com and it should work. I don't have any tags set up for search engines yet, so you might not be able to find me through google.

But... I ordered 300 business cards yesterday! Wow, what am I going to do with all of those???

The field of awesomeness

I don't know if I spelled "awesomeness" right... of if that is even a word. But I used it anyway.

I've been taking a lot of pictures lately. And I've been working a lot on the business side of photography, hence my absence from the blogging world.

Out of the pictures I have taken lately, I have a few favorites. My most favorite may be this one:

This is Megan's daughter MaKaty. And, a note for Megen... I tried to upload a full size file of the picture so that you could just right click and save it... BUT typepad wouldn't let me because I guess it was too big! So I had to reduce it. But you can right click and save it anyway if you wanted to post it on your blog like this. And of course... I am still working on getting you a full sized copy! No I didn't forget!

And... then here is a picture of me taking a picture of someone else. It was taken by the most awesome photographer ever, Beka... and her awesome camera (whom I'm in love with). The camera. Not Beka. Although I LOVE YOU TOO BEKA!

I want a copy of that one to put on my website. Which is up by the way.

amyhummel.com

(p.s. the contact form does not work. I still need to troubleshoot it...)

** P.S.S The contact form works now.

Little Miss Lily.

Who is the daughter of Beka...

Tess at 3 months and 1 week.

...but first, this picture of Calvin asleep on his bed... blanketed in books.

Back to Tess.

We didn't think it was possible at first, but Tess is now officially the happiest baby we have had.  In her first month or so, she was a complainer. But now she hardly ever cries. Unless she has a poopy diaper. She HATES those!

She loves to chill with her dad and watch re-runs of Rawhide... something that she enjoyed last month as well. She is very aware of her siblings, and loves it when they talk to her. She seems to sometimes recognize her name (although it may be a fluke when she turns her head after hearing her name).

She still hates her car-seat. She still loves the shower.

She has rubbed the sides of her head bald.

She's started to laugh out loud. Her favorite game is "Pat A Cake." She always laughs when a little Pat A Cake fun is to be had.

When she gets super excited, she kicks her legs and waves her arms and looks like she is going to bug her eyes out of her big ole head.

My favorite thing to do with her is squish her chubby cheeks...

More Portfolio Building

I've been pretty MIA lately for several reasons...

1. I have FOUR kids.
2. My sister is here, and my computer room is currently her bed room.
3. I can't seem to get my house under control for some reason, and feel guilty if I get on the computer.
4. ...and lastly, I've been absorbed in this:

Building my photography website.

Here are the latest entries to my portfolio:

And cute courtesy of my friend Jamie.

Kristi, let me know if I can use that picture of Tom and Lincoln in my portfolio. It's my favorite of the bunch!

Portfolio Building