Announcing King Zeus

This last weekend I was in Chicago visiting my sister and her new puppy. Her and her boyfriend just rescued a puppy from their local shelter, his name is Zeus and they believe he is nine months old. Zeus is a manchester terrier and border collie mix, so he doesn't sit still for anyone. As much fun as I had playing with Zeus, I found it almost impossible to capture a quality photo of him. In fact, I actually think the photos I took on my phone are better than the ones I was able to capture with my camera. One of the problems I ran into while taking photos outside, was weather. Chicago is known for not having the best weather and being the "Windy City"....well, that held true on Sunday when we walked to the park to take some photos. Colleen and her boyfriend Matt live about two blocks from a park in Chicago that over looks the entire skyline...it is so cool! The weather was sunny and windy, so it didn't make great photos come easy! Not to mention the temps were in single digits! So, we braved the cold and managed to get a couple good photos---my favorite of the bunch is actually the one of just the skyline... Anyway, we headed back to the apartment and fooled around taking some photos in there. However, the sun was producing just enough glare to make the photos look grainy....UGH! Luckily, I was able to capture some photos and be able to share them.

One of the things I told myself that I really wanted to start doing, was to take my camera with me where ever I went, so I could capture quality photos instead of just using the I-phone. Sadly, Colleen and I went to the bean in Chicago and I forgot to take my camera with me! UGH! Those would have been some cool cool photos! I did get some on my i-phone and shared them via instagram-where I am trying to make a conscious effort to show my photography on (you can follow me on there to see more i-phone quality photos from the trip (and some camera quality pics too). Username-emfk).

So envious of the skyline they have!

Meet King Zeus!

Best Skyline ever! 

The Melting Period

So my last post was really short and I have been pretty crazed since I took those photos at the lake. The weather has been really warm lately here. We went from below zero temps to almost 50 degrees by the weekend. Yesterday, my grandparents were going over for diner and I was going a little stir crazy, so I had about thirty minutes until they came over so, I called Mandy, my friend from the previous post, and we went to the lake to take some photos. The lighting was terrible and the wind was screaming so it wasn't exactly the best conditions to take photos in. I quickly realized that almost all the photos were blurry and it was a waste of a trip. This actually, was the first time I was disappointed in my camera. The problem is, the lower the lighting the longer your exposure which means you need a lower aperture  to capture more detail. However, since my camera is a beginners camera, it is only a 14 mexapixel camera so I am starting to notice in bad lighting very grainy photos. This weekend I am headed to Chicago to visit my sister and I am hoping to take some photos of her and her boyfriend at their local park...hopefully with great natural lighting!! Here are the only couple of photos I could get that turned out ok. I'm not super happy with any of them, but they are the best they could be with the lighting I had.

I'm aware at the terrible quality, but I love when the ducks are there! 

LOVE the faint sunset from behind the fog 

This one is my fav

Lake Adventures

For the first time in abut two day the temp outside was finally out of the negatives so, I grabbed a friend and headed to the amazingly frozen lake down the street. The lighting was perfect as the sun was being hidden by some clouds. Take a look at some of the photos I took today:

This might be my favorite photo of the day 

Not the best photo by any means, but I was so excited to see some
ducks there! 

LOVE the filter on this one! 

LOVE LOVE LOVE the sun hitting the ice! 

No Excuses

Now that the new year has passed and everyone has gotten back into their routines I have had time to decide what I wanted my resolution to be. First off, I hate the word resolution, I think that just sets you up for failure. Instead, I prefer to use New Years Goal because, a goal is something you work towards. My goal for this new year is to take more photos. Anyone else have the flash of the friends episode where that is Monica's new years resolution and she snaps photos of every second of every day? No, just me? Well, it won't be like that, I really just want to challenge myself with photography this year. I want to take photos when it doesn't seem ideal and learn new things. So, I started that yesterday. Ohio got hit with a HUGE snow storm and we got a solid 7-8 inches of snow with freezing temps! However, the snow was falling so lightly and it looked beautiful! So, i grabbed my camera, wrapped a plastic grocery bag around the lens and body and went outside to take some photos. I was so excited to be able to capture fine details as well as the beautiful snow falling in the background! Take a look at the photos below and you'll understand what I'm talking about :)

This one is in black and white because it was easier to see the snow
falling.