Hello everyone :) So it is getting close to the end of the semester, wow. But make sure to keep checking over the summer because I'm sure I will be posting! I'm not sure what but I will be, haha. I'm sure there will be some of Ange and Taylor and the Pioneers at least. And in the next week or so I will try to post some of the better dance ones, but the lighting on stage is so sad and ugh. But I submitted lots of pictures to the Clark yearbook, who knew we had a Clark yearbook? Lol. But Liz, from dance - I don't talk about myself in third person - looked at my book the other day and said that the yearbook was looking for pictures so I sent them some sports ones, dance ones, and other random ones. And then I was like oh well you probably don't really need sports because you have the athletic department for that but they said they don't have any sports pictures from them yet because they're refusing to cooperate so mine might be in it! YAY! With my name and everything. Fun times :) We will see I guess. But I thought that was kind of exciting. But yes my book finally came in! It's so pretty. I'm thinking about getting another one printed on better paper so it's all pretty. This one I have now is to show people because people aren't very careful with it :/ grrr. But I anticipated that so I planned ahead. Anyways, I need to get going. I'm packing more stuff for tomorrow because I'm sending lots home hopefully. Mom, Dad, Alex and maybe even Ange (:O surprised face) are coming to my show tomorrow night along with Kate, Noreena, Caren, Claire, and Jenna. Then Saturday Laura and Karissa are coming and I believe Kate, Heather and Dave are as well. It'll be fun. I'm taking the solo shots for that tonight. We'll see how that goes. We're going to do them outside by the pretty tulips, haha. Yay :) So to sum this entry up - I am going to keep using this blog for the future so keep checking :)

some random photos :) lots of dance - our group shot and some from last night. I haven't edited them yet so don't judge them too harshly. the light in the kneller is difficult to work with. ugh, it's very frustrating. but I tried. I wanted to get some cute ones for the slideshow and just in general. I started going through them last night and they're kind of dark but on the back of the camera the little color bars reached all the way to the right so it should be good? we'll see I guess, not that I know when I'm going to edit those. and then there's the picture of my little mouse friend! I know last semester Rick also took pictures of the small mouses but I couldn't resist, haha. and then there's Alex and Kate and Noreena, yay. the wonderful portraits I took of them. so that's what I've been up to :)

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1291111

so this is my book, yay! sorry I didn't get around to posting it earlier, don't look too much - I don't want you to ruin the surprise when it actually comes in. so I made it so you can only see the first 15 pages, haha. anyways, it looks really cool - I'm very excited to see it. and I edited it millions of times so I'm really hoping there aren't any mistakes :/ I hope there aren't. but I'm so much less stressed now that it's done, now I just have to wait for it to get here with our stupid mailroom, ugh. oh well. what else is new... yesterday I took lots of dance photos - lots and lots. so I have to edit those. and I also have to go back and edit all my friends/family pictures so I can print them for people. I'm so excited to have pictures to print that people actually want, haha. no one ever really wants my sports pictures. except Kate, she said we could hang them on our wall, haha. but we chose the big e one instead, I like it there. it's so pretty. moving on - tomorrow I am also going to Marcus' tennis match to take pictures, hopefully I can get inside the fence. and then I will be taking more dance pictures tomorrow night and throughout hell week next week. fun times. I'll be good though, I like dance pictures. everyone asked if I counted those in the sports ones and put them in but I didn't. I felt like they didn't really fit, sadly. and I didn't really have that many either so it was kind of odd. but everyone at dance wants to see it so I'm hoping it comes in soon so I can bring it one day next week. I really just want to see it, haha. I'm so excited. so I think that's about it that's been going on. I'm just going to post a few photos, yay. but I'm going to put them in a separate post :)

http://cf.telegram.com/worcesteru/worcu_profile.cfm?id=75547

If you go to this site there's a pdf file on the right hand side you can click on and open which is their April Newsletter but it only has the picture and doesn't say much. They took a picture of me yesterday with the tickets when I went to get them so they're supposed to put that with my picture somewhere online? I can't seem to find it though. Maybe someone else will have better luck? Or maybe they haven't put it up yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp_IOuQjpbs&feature=related

This is totally unrelated to photo but it's a fun side note :) It's our Gala dance for the USA, yay!

Fun Easter pictures :) YAY

So this is Clark Boys Lacrosse. These are my best three in my opinion and the ones I submitted to the Scarlet. They put in the team shot and the one of number 13. But everyone really liked these ones and I think they actually came out better than I had anticipated. It was a lot easier to see the ball than I thought it would be. In the pictures I mean, it wasn't easier to see it while I was taking them. It was a very fast paced game. But I think I did pretty good. I did an Agawam Girls Lacrosse game last week as well but I haven't edited those yet. But the way the game was played was completely different. I really wasn't expecting that much of a difference. And where this game was at 5pm the girls game was at 11 in the morning so obviously the lighting situation was very different in both sets. It is also easier to see the girls' faces because they only wear goggles which is kind of nice. But I will hopefully have those pictures for you next week in class and on my blog - we will see. I also shot the baseball game Tuesday but I'll be editing those sometime this next week too - those are hopefully going to be in the Scarlet Thursday. It just upsets me because I don't think I did as well in this game as the last game and those weren't in the paper but these ones will be.

In other news, I tried the Mondrian cover idea Frank gave me. Basically the idea is to see how shapes and colors fit together so I just used squares/rectangles and fit them together with a little bit of black in between and a black border around the edge. I worked on it this afternoon a bit with Claire and then just now Noreena helped me too. It just feels really helpful to have someone to bounce ideas off of and even if it's just simple things. I've been asking Anna a lot in class lately because we usually end up editing next to each other and she's been very helpful :) It's just so hard sometimes because they all look the same after a while and it's hard to tell which are better than others. But everyone in class Wednesday decided I'm going to take my contact sheets to the sports department and ask if they'll hire me next semester, Frank said he'd find the contact information for me. So that's exciting. And Nina just posted something on my facebook about a youth sports day that they're looking for a photographer for. But back to life, my book is coming along nicely I guess. I've decided I think I just want to mix all the sports in but I still have lots of work to do. I really need to work on my statement and such. But I think I will be heading to the lab tomorrow morning before Gala practice. Hopefully we won't be kept late at Gala tonight, as of right now - we're scheduled to be on stage at 1 :O ahhh, unacceptable. Okay, I'm going to go now :) I want to do a fun Easter post...

So tomorrow is easter, actually it will be easter in approximately 6 minutes however festivities for us will not begin until 10. Hopefully everything goes well tomorrow and it's a nice day and happy moods and just relaxing. And hopefully I will have some cute pictures of family and my little cousins to show afterwards. I'm excited to actually take pictures of people, well I do take pictures of people obviously but people I actually know and can show the picture too and will be excited. You know? It's a different kind of rewarding. Anyways, this week I shot lacrosse, or at least attempted lacrosse. I shot a Clark boys game Wednesday night and a high school girls game Friday morning. And those are the only two lacrosse games I'm going to be able to shoot before putting my book together so I'm really hoping they came out good. This Tuesday there are lots of games at Holy Cross but I'm not sure if all their athletic fields are close to each other or on campus - I've learned not to assume these things (ie the Becker soccer field and the Clark softball field). But there's a Clark baseball game as well so we will see what I decide to do. I've decided after I'm done with my book I'm going to start taking dance pictures again because by that point the dances should be almost done and everyone will be synchronized hopefully. So that'll be fun. There was something else I said I was going to take pictures of... I'm not really sure. I still have to take a picture of Kate and Noreena (!) sometime this week. And hopefully in the next couple weeks we'll have time to take walks and whatnot but who knows - things are going to be busy. So I'm trying to decide what to do for the summer - I've been shooting pictures of family/friends in both jpeg and raw formats. However, obviously I'm still getting the hang of shutter speed/aperture for actual portraits/candids so they're not wonderful yet - they need lots of editing. But either way, at the moment - for the summer I will be without an editing program so I'm not sure what I should do. We had been talking in class about prices Photoshop Elements or CS4 and I know my camera came with some software so I'm not sure what I should do. I don't want to go the entire summer without it. Hmm... I guess I will look into my options more ... my birthday's coming up ;) haha. But I am going to go now. I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend enjoying the nice weather :)

ps: sorry I don't have any pictures for you but I haven't edited anything from the lacrosse games obviously. I will post when I do :) they will also be in the paper again, yay