Tea With My Mom

For Christmas 2011, I gave my mom a coupon type deal to go out for tea with me. Five months later, we finally went. We went to a place called TranquilaTea in Waynseboro, PA. It was so cute! Everything was super girly. They had pretty tea cups all around, and vintage hats on the walls if you wanted to play dress up. They had a huge selection of teas, and the food was all homemade and delicious. (I went to a tea house before that was buffet style with bags of tea and cookies you can buy at Walmart. It was less than exciting).

Anyway, TranquilaTea was very charming, and if you live in the area, you should definitely check it out.

Love,
Scout

Manual Setting - Other Tricks and Techniques

In an effort to improve my photography skills, I've been practicing the manual setting, playing around with black and white photography, using filters, and trying different tricks to get more interesting photos. You'll see that this last one is the one I'm worst at. 

If you keep up with Elsie's blog, A Beautiful Mess, and I'm sure you do (seriously, raise your hand if you don't read that blog), then you might remember her recent guest post about free-lensing. Well, I tried it. I can't figure out how Sarah got her pictures to look so...normal...and interesting. The color in mine is always super weird, and I can't figure out how she got the cool looking angles, either. So, I'm slightly disappointed that my photos didn't come out like I wanted them too, but I still kind of like them. Some of them look kind of like messed up film. 

 These last two are almost exactly the same, but in the second one I tilted the lens a little more and adjusted the exposure differently so it made it look lighter.

Love,

Scout

Ramblings and Music

This past and next week are so busy! I'm very grateful, because I'm not busy very often. I've been out with friends, I went to tea with my mom, I've been working extra hours (yay, paycheck!), and we've had lots of company over now that our pool is finally open.
Have I mentioned how much I love summer? It's about the only thing I can think lately - I just love summer.

Anyway, one of the things I really wanted to say was, I'm so losing motivation when it comes to photography. I mean, I love photography - I could take pictures of everything all day. Lately, though, I've just felt disappointed with my photographs. I think it's because I'm using the manual setting, so then when a picture looks bad it's my fault, not the camera's.
Do you guys ever feel that way? How do you find your motivation again? And do you have any tips to share on improving photography skills? I feel like I'm lacking in those lately.

On a lighter note, here is some great summery music. It's by Jonsi (did you know he was in Sigur Ros? Yeah, me neither). Some of it is from the movie We Bought a Zoo, which you definitely need to see. Seriously, it's one of my new favorites.

Love,
Scout

Summer Checklist: Swimming

This weekend I was finally able to go swimming! I have been wanting to swim since January. That is a long time to wait, let me tell you. Anyway, I was very excited - I'm even excited that my shoulders are pink with sunburn (but not enough that it hurts, thank goodness). 

(It was so hot and humid when I took this that the lens fogged up) 

Then, after spending all day swimming, we had a bonfire and "delicious hot schmoes". 

Read the first two summer check list posts here and here.

Love,
Scout

Snapshots

Frostys with my grandma after I drove her to physical therapy.

 

Babysitting.

It was kind of a David Bowie week. I watched Labyrinth, too.

One of my new coffee mugs. Isn't it grand?

Outdoor concert.

A friend.

Pool time, cool time! 

Have any of y'all read that book? I'm loving it so far. So much that I'll probably write a post on it soon.

Love,

Scout

Summer Checklist: Live Music

I am so excited to say that I was able to cross off something from my summer check list (check it out here)! 

Last night I saw live music. Technically, I could have checked it off a week ago, but I didn't take any pictures that night and last night was slightly more exciting because...

I planned the concert! 

Some friends of mine and my family's* have a small outdoor venue (check it out here) where they like to put on shows. Earlier this year they asked if I was interested in being involved, and last night was my first show. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but everyone was very kind about my lack of expertise, and several were very helpful. 

This is Michael/Old Souls - listen here.

It was somewhat exciting to be planning a show, but honestly, for the most part I just felt foolish - like the whole thing was some silly joke and everyone was just letting me have my fun. Don't get me wrong - no one treated me like that at all. I felt that way because I had no idea what I was doing. I feel much better now that it's over and I can have a better idea of what to do for the next show.

The guy in the blue tank is John Tabor. Check out his stuff here.

In the end, though, the concert was a ton of fun. The musicians were all amazing and I got to hear some great Bob Dylan songs, and an amazing cover of The Sound of Silence. I highly recommend you listen to Michael and John - two of the musicians from last night (also Wendy's brothers' names). The other two don't have their music online - yet. 

Anyway, I'll leave you with my favorite photo from the night :) 

Love,

Scout

* Someone please tell me the grammatically correct way to word that sentence!

Friday Finds

Hey, y'all! While perusing Facebook today, I saw that my friend had posted this article. The title intrigued me, so I read it. It's pretty awesome. I highly recommend you check it out! Or, if you're an audible learner, listen to this five minute TED talk! I will say, the guy in the video (Philip Zimbardo of the 70s prison experiment, if you're a psych major) is pretty funny.

Photo taken from here

Article: The Demise of Guys: How Video Games and Porn Are Ruining a Generation
TED talk

Love,
Scout

Manual Setting - Filters and a DIY Tip

Technically, filters aren't a manual setting. Whatever. I'm just going to keep saying "manual setting" to mean anything I'm doing with my camera to learn to take better pictures. Anyway, one of the things I wanted to mess around with was different filters and techniques to change how my photos look. I found some filters for a film camera my uncle gave me and fitted them to Regulus (did you know that's my camera's name? I'll show you a picture sometime). I also used saran-wrap and my glasses. 

This particular filter is a foggilizer or something. Seriously, it says "foggilizer" on the side. I didn't make it up - promise. 

You can hardly tell I used a filter on this one.

Then I decided to use my glasses as a filter. I don't really know how or why this idea popped into my head, but it did, so I tried it. Some of these pictures looked pretty cool. Some of them looked like I was holding my glasses in front of my camera. Also, taking my glasses off and holding them in front of the camera made it kind of difficult to tell if things were in focus or not. 

If you don't have a Foggilizer filter, you could put saran-wrap over your lens. It makes it kind of difficult to use zoom/focus, and it's not a huge difference, but it gives it a slight wavy/hazy look. The wrinklier you have the saran wrap, the better! 

Original

Saran-wrapped.

Original.

Saran-wrapped.

P.S. I didn't make this bracelet - it was given to me by a wonderful cousin.

Have y'all tried any filters? Which are your favorites?

Love,
Scout