Junior Shutter Bug

More Finn Cat!

2010-08-18T23:12:00.000-04:00

So here's more of Brooke & Mike's adorable little guy, Finn Cat.

Last April, he was given this cat house that he absolutely loves. If you're looking for him, normally you can find him chillin' in this little house. Here he is curled up inside that little house, almost as if he's saying, what are you lookin at?

I will admit, I am going to miss this kitty when I move up to northern Virginia. Too bad my fiancé is allergic to cats, or else I would be very tempted to get one.

Project Finn Cat

2010-08-09T22:48:00.000-04:00

While I finish up the last bit to my dissertation, I'm staying with my future-sister-in-law Brooke and her hubby Mike. Of course, I cannot forget one of the most important members of the family, Finnegan the family cat (that was featured in an earlier post).
Well, it's been many months since he joined the family and he's grown quite a bit. I thought I would share with you some fun pictures of Finn Cat.

Looking out the window. One of his many favorite things to do when the front door is closed.

This shot was taken right before he jumped off the couch. I think it's pretty cool

Please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear comments/feedback

Capturing some love even though I was supposed to be studying....

2010-08-08T23:03:00.000-04:00

Oh and just so you know, my dear followers, I am now a Ph.D.!!

While I was working on the dissertation, there were some happy moments that I had a chance to catch with my camera.

My friends Susan and Mike asked me to take some engagement shots of them this past April. And, of course, I was more than happy to do so!

They wanted to have their engagement photos done in front of the Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, it was an overcast day. But, I think we still got some fun pictures.

Here are a few I thought I would share.

This one is probably one of my favorites, just because I was able to ad some color using the tulip garden near the cherry blossoms. Supposedly, someone took a picture of me taking a picture of them. I guess me being splayed on the ground was amusing.

And this past July, I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of my childhood friend,Theresa. Another friend from elementary school, Laura, was there with her husband and daughter.

Theresa with her father, walking down the aisle.

Laura and her little girl up to no good. :-P

Laura and her hubby. Too cute.

I hope you enjoyed them. I'd love to hear any comments!

Long Hiatus ...

2010-03-09T15:09:00.005-05:00

Well, I have been pretty awful about posting for the last few months. Things with the dissertation need my attention, so I might be able to finish in the next few months. As a result, I haven't been really taking many pictures, and those that I do take I often forget to download, much less post/blog about them. But here's a couple that I have taken in the past few months...

Obviously, this is from Christmas time. Aaron and I went into DC on a frigidly cold night. I thought it would be fun to take some pictures of the National Christmas tree and White House at night. But, before we left, my brother-in-law (a Capital Police Officer) had mentioned that I wasn't allowed to use tripods around the Capital Parks and I could be ticketed for doing so! Well, I thought if it's late enough at night, no one's really going to notice me with a tripod. So we get off the metro near the Washington monument and then walk towards the White House and National tree. Unfortunately, by the time I get there... all the lights are turned off! But, here's onle of the pictures I did get during that night.

This little cutie is Finn. Aaron's brother-in-law got him for Christmas. Normally, I'm a dog person. But, who wouldn't want to spend time with this kitten! During the National Championship Bowl game, he kept me company since I was cat sitting.

These next few shots were taken from my latest toy! (however, I see that they have a slight up grade...hmmm) I needed a new point and shoot and thought this camera was a great choice. It's practically "Sheena-proof" (I'm a clutz and am constantly dropping things). Plus it has a macro setting - and I'm really excited about that. In fact both pictures were used with that setting.
First one is of my roommate Mary playing chess.

This second one is of my engagement ring in some roses my fiance gave me.

Let me know what you think!

I'll try to be better about posting some more, however I apologize in advanced if it's not very frequent.

Meeting AZ wild life photographer

2009-10-25T10:16:00.004-04:00

This past Thursday, I had the chance to meet Alex Badyeav, wild life photographer and professor at Univ. of AZ. He was in Blacksburg for a seminar for the Biological Sciences department, which holds a time to hang out with the speaker at a local restaurant/bar. It was awesome to get to talk to him and find out how he got the photos of the various animals - in particular the bats :-)

So here are a few things I've learned about Dr. Badyeav:
- his fave lens 70-200mm (though I forgot to ask if it was a prime or zoom)
- currently he's playing with light to get his shots
- he plans the composition for his shot (which is opposite of what I do, which is try to take pictures of whatever I can)
- he enjoys looking at other styles of photography, including fashion photography.

That's about all I have right now. Unfortunately, due to trying to finish up the PhD, I've been neglecting the photography (though I expect that this will increase once I'm done).

The Royal We

2009-10-05T18:23:00.007-04:00

Wow, I can't believe that it's already October. Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog. I've been crazy busy with the whole PhD program and trying to get further on that. I'm hoping to get one piece of it sent out to collaborators soon. *crosses figures*

Alright. Enough about school. Here's a few shots of my fiance's band, The Royal We. They had a gig last Saturday and I thought it would be fun to try taking some pictures.

Well, it wasn't the easiest venue to photograph them. There wasn't much light so I had to use the flash (SB-400). But, I don't have a diffuser for it and the ceiling was a rich chocolate brown, which meant no bouncing of the flash. The guys weren't really back lit at all either. But here are the shots that I did get that I thought were decent.

Here are the guys setting up. JP on the guitar, Aaron on bass and Rich on drums.
I was having a hard time getting them together in one shot. And when I did... I got this....

I'm not too crazy about the fact you can hardly make out Rich in the background.

There was a window back where he was, so I could get that one. :-)
But, I didn't get too many shots of them while playing. Plus it's the first gig that I attended so I really wanted to hear more of their songs rather than take photos. And with the amount of difficulty I was having getting shots, I just wanted to have fun dancing along to the music.

Towards the end of the night I tried having some fun with the camera and using a slow shutter and the few things of light around them to see what I could get. This was probably my best shot.

Jammin' last weekend

2009-08-28T08:12:00.007-04:00

This past weekend my fiance and his friends were having a mini-reunion/get together right outside of Richmond, VA. Most of them play instruments and I thought it would be fun to get some artistic shots of them playing.

Here's Aaron and his #1 bass. I forget who the maker is, but will up-date with his name later on.

Aaron's friends Adam and Earl both play Ibanez guitars. Here's a couple of pictures of the finger board and pic-guard.

Here's another one of Aaron, or more specifically the bass. I think it's a pretty awesome picture.

Let me know what you think!

"Mistakes"

2009-08-14T17:40:00.003-04:00

Not too long ago DPS did a "Mistakes" Weekly Assignment. I had some that I wanted to enter, but alas, PhD writing was a bit more pressing (I will become way more active photography wise when I'm out of school). But, here are some of my favorite so-called photo mistakes

Pink Geranium in Utah

Aaron in the woods (Ok... this one is on another post... but it's still an awesome pic in my head that I posted it twice)

Flowers on mom's table

Pictures from Snowbird

2009-08-04T16:30:00.005-04:00

I finally remembered to put up those pictures from my conference in Snowbird, UT. (And just for anyone who's curious my talk on Arachis - peanut - relationships went really well) I've attempted to identify the plants in the pictures (with help from Janet Wingate's Rocky Mountain Flower Finder"), though I'm not very good at it. Please let me know if I've misidentified something. Hope you enjoy them.

Here's a view of some of the mountains making up Little Cottonwood Canyon, where Snowbird Resort happens to be.

A cute little butterfly on some Caraway (Carum carvi)

There's the resort... I thought I got pretty far up the trail... but I think completed less than half.

I'm having trouble figuring this one out. I know that it's commonly found in areas the are disturbed, and seeing as it's growing in a resort area it's happy here.

White Columbine, taken with my new baby! the f1.8 lens :-)

The little creature in the middle of this picture would be a potgut, basically like a squirrel without the bushy tail.

Here's a zoomed in view of it. Isn't it cute?

Here's another picture I too with the f1.8 lens. This is a pink paintbrush flower (Castilleja rhexifolia)

Visiting the Great Salt Lake with the Drysdales

2009-07-25T19:12:00.005-04:00

You see that body of water just beyond the house across the street? That's the Great Salt Lake. Yes you can see it from the Drysdales's house! Awesome, no?

Hello Salt Lake! View from Antelope Island!

Antelope!

Bison right off the road!

Zoomed in on this one :-)

A view of the birds above.

And of course... here are some more posted on at this link

Happy Pioneer Day!

2009-07-25T13:30:00.006-04:00

Happy Pioneer Day! (well it was yesterday) I flew into Salt Lake City airport en route to the Botany & Mycology 2009 conference on 7/24. I had learned a couple months before my flight that it's also a state holiday. So to celebrate 7/24, Ms. Sunny and I went to "This is the place" monument - where we watched a parade, a Native American dance, and ran around the little pioneer village right next to the monument.

This is the place monument, overlooking Salt Lake City.

The view from the monument.

Parade at the pioneer village, with Brigham Young leading it.

A girl at the parade, representing the school house. I feel like I can relate to that sign.

One of the Native American Dancers.

One of Brigham Young's houses.

After visiting the monument and pioneer village, we went to the Salt Lake City July 24 Rodeo! Here are a few pictures from there.

Rodeo clown getting ready for the bull riding.

No one has been able to stay on this big fella for more than 8 seconds!!

Whipplash ... the littlest cowboy at the show.

Cowboy trying to hold on!

Well, there are some more on this link!

Fourth and such....

2009-07-14T11:05:00.006-04:00

Here are a few pictures that I've taken the past couple of weekends.

Weekend of the 4th, I spent with Aaron and his family on Smith Mountain Lake.
It was lots of fun and relaxation. I did more of that than running around taking photos. But, here are a couple I did take.

Hello Smith Mt. Lake! I love this view!!

This osprey mama didn't like that we got too close to her nest on our boat.

Another view of the lake.

Last weekend, I took Aaron to Pandapas Pond after we had dinner at the Homeplace (I should have brought it here too, but I'll do that next time).

On our way to the pond I took a couple of pictures of Aaron, which was hard because the sun was setting and there wasn't a ton of light to work with. This one I think is a really cool shot - though I'm not exactly sure how I got it.

Digital Photography School recently had a post on reflection photos. I thought I would give it a try.

June beetle...

Sunset at Pandapas.

No picture right now... :-(

2009-07-08T17:13:00.004-04:00

So, I haven't be able to get outside to take photos the way I've wanted to since running around Blacksburg a couple weeks ago (that whole writing and lab work and trying to finish my dissertation got in the way). Though I have been active in listening to podcast, reading blogs and getting some inspiration from other photographers. So if you're asking who do I watch or what forums I go to, well, you can see them now, since I'm putting them on the page. All I gotta say is these photographer take AWESOME shots. I hope to have more for you all soon.

Good Afternoon VT camps

2009-06-24T10:14:00.007-04:00

While I would love to get into portrait photography, right now I'm playing around with nature and landscape photography. Yesterday, I decided to play with the wide-angle and 18-200mm lens I swapped with Aaron. It was around sunset when I started to run around Virginia Tech campus and Blacksburg, VA. Here's a few of the photographs, let me know what you think.

Alphabet examples

2009-06-22T22:46:00.005-04:00

Alright. It's kind of a cheesy example. But, I like the idea and I'm having lots of fun with it. I am still missing a bunch of letters - but there's no hard and fast date when I have to have this done. Let me know if there any words or objects you'd like to suggest.

Start of project ABC123

2009-06-21T20:38:00.002-04:00

Ok, I know that it's a Jackson 5 song. But, I am giving myself a small project to try to find things around that look like letters or find actual numbers. It's giving me a chance to view things differently. I'll later post images and see what you all think.

Excited about my anniversary gift!

2009-06-19T08:04:00.002-04:00

I have the best fiance in the world! (He's also the person who got me started with photography)
I've just got a new lens for my camera (Nikon D40). So family, friends, and other people whom I might photograph later on be warned, I've got another "toy" to play with.

What's cuter than children and puppies?

2009-06-14T13:07:00.000-04:00

A couple of the girl scouts in the troop I help out with graduated from elementary school this year. And to celebrate this, one of the mom's threw her daughter a graduation party. I was able to get some adorable shots of the children at the party - and the adorable puppies that were at her house.

Pandapas Pond again!

2009-06-13T11:31:00.000-04:00

I had so much fun taking pictures last night at Pandapas, that I decided to go again this morning! (And after the photo session I went on a 30 min run there) So here are a few of the images taken. There are more on the picasa site.

Good morning 460!

Snapping turtle

The sky was absolutely clear right above the pond

Probably one of my faves from this morning.

Pandapas Pond

2009-06-12T23:23:00.000-04:00

I decided that after work would be a fun time to go to Pandapas Pond. I brought my roommate Mary along. Here are some pictures! Let me know what you think!

These two geese were just too cute... I had to take the picture

I found one of the beavers that live in the pond! :-)

Hi Mary!!

More pictures at Picasa!

I can see why some photographers edit after photo sessions

2009-06-10T14:53:00.001-04:00

So, I've been recently listening to the Camera Dojo podcast, which is really great. Though the one thing I didn't really understand the importance of editing photos after shooting them (obviously my newbie stripes are showing). Well, I don't have the fancy software like Aperture for Apple or Adobe Photoshop. But, thanks to the Picasa software I've got the chance to try some photo editing. I'm sure that it's nothing like the big money programs, but it's a good start.

Here's a few that I've played with under the originals (and if I remembered the effects that I used in Picasa they're at the bottom). Please let me know what you think... not enough... too much... just right.

Thanks!

First set: Converted the image to BW and used the soft focus effect
Second set: used the "I'm feeling lucky button" (I have no idea what it does), and also did a focal BW
Third set: increased the fill light and applied the soft focus affect around.

Morning walk

2009-06-06T14:14:00.000-04:00

I got out a little later than I wanted, but I think I got some decent pictures. Though as far as the different species of plants, birds and insects, I can only identify a few of them. If you know what they are, please feel free to tell me (common or scientific names); I'd greatly appreciate finding out.

Turtle dove

I'm not sure what species this is, but I'm thinking that this is probably a moth
*Up-date (6/12/09): "Cabbage white butterfly on the native impatiens" ~ Dr. Watkinson

Cute little bird... though I'm not sure what it is
*Up-date (6/12/09):"this one looks like a catbird" ~ Dr. Belden

I'm assuming blueberries, though this was much bigger than a shrub
*Up-date (6/12/09): "This is Service Berry" ~Dr. Watkinson

This one is probably one of my favorite pics just because of the sign.

If you want to see more... you can go here

First posting!

2009-06-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

I realize it's not a very clever title, but I couldn't think of anything else to put.

This past weekend was my friend's wedding and here are my favorite pictures that I took from that event.

There were a bunch of little kids running around during the wedding and I thought it would be fun to get a couple of cute shots of them. Turns out that right before one of the families got there, they had to wake theirs up from naps. So, it was no surprise that a couple of them were sleepy, and didn't want me taking their pictures.

I really liked the detailing on her dress. Honestly, this wasn't an easy shot to get.

So this wedding and the last wedding I attended, my friends' photographers noticed me taking tons of pictures. And they were nice enough to give me pointers on how to improve my photographs. At this wedding, I learned how to use light from other places within a room - also helped that he was pin spotting the left hand part of the center piece. Thanks David!