Manuals and Manual

First of all, I want to say thank you for the many kind comments you all left on my last post. I felt better immediately after I hit publish. And then after having read your comments, truly appreciated what great friends/readers I have. Not to mention, it was good to know that I'm certainly not alone in feeling this way every now and again.

I do have to admit though, that I felt better immediately after hitting publish for another entirely different reason as well. It meant I could play with my new camera! It was delivered as I was drafting that post. And let me tell you, it was like Christmas at that moment. I practically tackled the poor FedEx guy who delivered it. He must have thought I was crazy because he also knew I had been virtually stalking him all day. I had to sign for the package otherwise they wouldn't leave it. I was practically perched at my window when the truck pulled up not wanting to miss him. I raced downstairs to greet the guy and he's says to me:

Are you Amy?
Yes.
You've been checking this haven't you?
Yes.
More than three times?
Oh yeah, a lot more than three times.
Yeah, I know. This things goes off every time you check (he says pointing to his scanner/signature machine)
Oh really?
Yeah, you almost wore my battery out.

End scene.

But I have my camera now. I've taken a couple hundred pics since getting it and am completely and totally smitten. It's features are so much more intuitive to the way I shoot, and I can control a lot more of the manual features a lot easier. Actually all it has are manual features. There's no full-on auto setting for this camera. It can go partially auto, but it's always going to want me to make some kind of decision. That's just fine by me. I've shot full on manual for most of this past year.

I did run into a bit of a snag with it this morning. I started processing some of the many images I've taken over the past few days. You see, I'm trying to make sure I have all of the kinks worked out before tomorrow morning. I've got a photo shoot then and want to be confident enough with this camera to use it. I am but it's gonna change the way I do things. I won't get into specifics because I'll bore you all and myself to death with the details. However, I will say that it's not completely compatible with the version of photoshop that I have and that threw me for a loop this morning.

So what you'd probably wondering is, so how do your pics look. They look good. Here are just a few shots I took while walking around Millennium Park on my Friday lunch hour:

Funny side note: I was not planning on taking these dudes picture. But as I was walking by, the one in the white shirt said, "Hey! Take our picture." I said, "Why would you want me to take your picture?" He said "Because you have a camera." It seemed as good a reason as any, and since I wanted to see how my new camera took portraits, I did. The pose though, the pose was all theirs.

When I went to Millennium Park, I also took my manual. Yes, I am the girl who reads her camera manual.  I took it specifically because there is one big feature of this camera that my old one didn't have. I had no idea how to use this new setting but thanks to my manual I figured it out. So what does it do? It does this:



Now I don't plan on adding video to my repertoire. As you can tell by the shaky video above, it's not really my forte. But it's nice to have it. And the quality is so much better than the video on my point and shoot.

So yeah! I have a new camera!

Misty Water Colored

I've been a little sad this week. A lot of that sadness is tied to my man being on a California vacation while I'm sitting at home in cold spring weather, going to work and caring for our ungrateful cats. But besides being jealous of Mike's trip, Mike absence always makes me realize something: I just don't know that many people living in Chicago any more.

Whenever Mike leaves, I always ask myself crazy and unrealistic questions like if my house were to burn down who would I stay with? If one of the cats ran away and I needed help finding them, who could I call? If I needed bail money, whose number would I have memorized? Just kidding about that last one. It would totally be my mom, sister or friend Jenny's parents, as theirs are the only numbers I still remember. But Mike leaving does always trigger the question of how big is my safety net? Mike's my emergency person, so when he leaves I always start to wonder who my back up emergency people are. The sad truth is over the past few years I feel my net has steadily shunk.

When I first moved to the city almost six years ago, I had an instant network of friends. I moved here with a friend from college, who knew two other girls from grad school moving here at the same time. And they all already knew people living in the city. So bam! My first day here, I had people to hang out with. And not just any old people. These were strong, fun, educated, dynamic and interesting women who have turned into bona fide friends of mine.

As the years went on however, each of these amazing women left the city for different reasons - family, jobs, world travel, boyfriends. Some even left, returned to the city and then left again. It's meant I've attended a lot of going away parties in Chicago. More than I have cared to. Upon further reflection, I might just be able to make the statement that I now know more people who've left the city than I know presently living here. I'll never really know for certain though. That's not a fact I want to prove. My most recent good bye was the past Sunday. I saw off two friends who I met here more than five years ago. They packed up their home and are heading west to pursue some big dreams. I'm incredibly excited for them, but also sad because it's two more people who I can add to the "Friends Who Have Left Chicago" roster.

I remember that my second semester of college started off kind of rough. I had just returned to school having surrounded myself during Christmas break with my family and good friends back at home. Upon my return to dorm life, I looked around only to realize the deficit of friends I had on campus. I became incredibly melancholy thinking that if I up and vanished I'd be lucky if my roommates even noticed. I just didn't see any point in staying because I had no one who seemed to value my existence. I went so far as to journal a list of my friends on campus. It was an exercise that seems silly in retrospect, but at the time it really did help me to see that my list was really a list of budding friendships. And even though I didn't have the strong bonds at that time with people at school like I did at home, it didn't mean those bonds weren't beginning. I'm happy to say some of the people on that list have become bona fide friends of mine, people whom today I admire, trust and love with all my heart.

Now I'm not as overly dramatic as I was in college. I don't plan to start listing my Chicago friends in order to reassure myself that they do exist. I know they do. I'm going out to lunch with two of them on Thursday. But what I will say is there are days that I really long for those beginning weeks and months of my time in Chicago. The times where girls' night happened more often than not. The days were I lead a book club because I knew enough people to participate in a book club. I cherish the memories I have of all my wild and crazy nights with the girls, of those chatty morning brunches and of those heart to heart talks about where we were, where we'd been and where we'd like to go. I love each and every one of those memories. I just really wish they weren't so distant.

Kiddos, Part 2

This was the second shoot of my double shoot weekend. And what a difference a day made. While I was contending with a harsh midday sun on Saturday, Sunday was a photographic dream. It was overcast but with this beautiful, soft light. It worked wonders on my subjects, not that they needed much help.

I really love this session. I'll let their photos do the rest of the talking.

So long Addison. Hope to see you again soon.

In other photo news, I got a new camera!! Well I don't physically have it in my eager hands yet, but I really hope I will by the end of the week. It's fancy, and while not technically a professional grade camera, any upgraded camera I get after this will be. It's that good. I have never been so excited to receive something in the mail.

Kiddos, Part 1

Two weeks ago, I had two photo shoots in a row - one on Saturday and one on Sunday. That's the first time I've ever dealt with this type of a schedule. I probably could have spread them out but part of me wanted to see if I was capable of handling back-to-back shoots.

It's two-and-a-half weeks later and both shoots are edited. One shoot's final CD will be in the mail tomorrow, and I'll finish the second one this weekend. The rewards of my hard work is that I now get to share the photos with you.

First up, Madeline.

It could not have been more excited to shoot Madeline because it was nice out and I knew we could head outdoors. But we started off inside just to all get warmed up in front of the camera.

This is Madeline.

As you can see, I got plenty of indoor shots. So then outside we went.

Now it had been months since I had an outdoor shoot, so I admit I was a bit rusty. And I made a rookie mistake. Sat my subjects down in the bright light of a midday sun with not a lick of shade in sight. This makes for really harsh shadows, so some of my shots weren't as good as I would have liked. But some shots, I still just absolutely love. Thanks goodness my subject was so cute - and came with a hat.

I should also mention, that Madeline's parents were quite the photo subjects as well.

And with that, this families' photo session was over. Our afternoon in the sun was done. But I had the next day's shoot to look forward to.

So long Madeline.