Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts

Sunday, April 29, 2012

My Week in the Life Plan

I've been participating in a photography and scrapbooking project called "A Week in the Life." During this past week, I took lots of photographs each day to chronicle my life as it is right now. The next step in the project is to scrapbook the photographs.  I'm going to use the 6x6 handmade album above.
Last time I did WITL was in 2008, and I used an 8x8 album:
I had a two-page spread for each weekday with a Tim Holtz quote and circular date stamp.  The left page featured one 4x6 photo and journaling.  The right hand side featured a collage of four pictures. Here's a couple samples
I also had filler pages in between the days, which covered topics. As an example, here are pages on pets and mornings:
I was happy with how this worked, so I'm following a similar plan this year. I refuse to buy a new album (as I have several in my stash). The only 8x8's I have are pink and not appealing to me. So, I'm going with the 6x6 featured above.  Some of the pages have flaps inside, and I'll use these for the daily pages:
This will allow me to feature four photographs per day, as well as plenty of journaling.
There's also simple two page spreads (alternating with the flapped pages).
I'll use these for filler pages on certain topics (one for Paul, Henry, Clara certainly; probably one for the gym; one for pets and my walk to work). I took fewer pictures this year, so I think this album will be big enough.  I will order my pictures today or tomorrow and start on building the foundation to make it easy to put them in when they arrive.  I know from experience that keeping it simple and doing it quickly is the key to completing this project.  
If you've done WITL before or are doing it this year, I'd love to hear how you scrap your WITL photos.

Friday, April 27, 2012

WITL Weds/Thurs: Hit Rewind and Run Like Mad

I'm participating in a photography/scrapbooking project called "A Week in the Life," which you can read more about here.  In my penultimate post, I'm chronicling a Wednesday which replays many of the events from the rest of the week and a Thursday which was busy, busy, busy.
A quiet Wednesday morning around the house:
I went to work for a meeting and then came back to watch Henry play baseball (I posted a video yesterday). Here's a few photographs from our home field (yes, those are cows on the hill, in the pasture behind our baseball diamond).
Afterwards, I went to a silent auction to raise money for the high schools' Grad Night. This week Henry is doing "star testing," (to assess whether the students are learning what the state wants them to), so he doesn't have much homework. 
On Thursday, I got up early to get some computer time in before heading to the gym (where I received a certificate for completing a full year at the gym - it noted that during that time I have lost 14 inches and improved my mile time by two minutes!). I was surprised to find that the weather had turned, and it was wet and damp:
Then off to work for a student consultation and faculty meeting:
Ran back home (it's about a 45 minute trip) to go take pictures of the middle school soccer team (I do this as a fundraiser for the athletic program).  Clara came along with me, and she finally let me take a picture of her (she's the one on the right)!
We came home, and I helped her with her homework. Then it was off to my book group meeting, where we ate and drank and discussed the book and our lives. We all hated "The Whipping Club," so it was a short discussion. Our next book is Stephen King's 11-23-63. I didn't take any pictures. I was too tired from my busy, busy day!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

WITL: Mundane Monday and Two-Step Tuesday

I'm working on a photography/scrapbooking project called "A Week in the Life," documenting, well, a typical week in my life. For more details, see Ali Edwards' post here.
My Monday was pretty mundane. I spend a lot of time letting this little one in and out (I think she needs a trip to the groomers again soon):
Paul and I took Henry's car in to get his sub-woofers fixed (he got these for Christmas and they've never quite worked right) and then grabbed lunch at an Indian food place nearby:
Back home, I puttered at my art desk and then fell asleep watching the S.F. Giants play a baseball double-header. Henry came home in time to meet with his SAT tutor.
And that was about it. Clara went to swimming, but Paul took her, so I've got no pictures from it (might have to work on that).
Tuesday was a bit more interesting.  I started off the day at the gym.  We did "assessments" (ran a mile for time and held a plank for as long as we could). I was slower and weaker than usual, but I stuck with it.
Then it was off to work. You can see the photographs about that part of my day in yesterday's post by clicking here.  Drove over to San Bruno to watch Henry play baseball:
The boys lost, but a group of us went to a great Mexican Restaurant afterwards (Don Pico). Spending time with the parents is a highlight of the baseball season for me:
A few notes and observations on this project:
1. I'm taking most of my pictures with my a 50 mm fixed lens and my old camera (Nikon D50) because the 50mm is so small and compact and has such nice resolution, but it won't autofocus on my new camera (D5100), and post-processing is much easier with the old camera software so far. Given the volume of photos for this project, I decided to go old school. But it makes me acutely aware that I need to put some time into mastering my new camera and figure out a good post processing flow.
2. This year's project is much more about me and much less about the kids than last time I did it (four years ago; 9/26-10/02/08). I guess that's representative of my life as well.
3. I spend a lot of time with Henry and not so much with Clara - again representative of my life and the state of family relationships at this time.
4. I spend a lot of time with a certain local group of friends - if you look closely, you'll see the same group at the gym and at the baseball field. I'll be back at the baseball field with them again this week and at our book group meeting, as well as an auction fundraiser. We joke that the Coast is actually like a really big house, and we all live together. It definitely feels that way this week.  I consider it a blessing.
For those doing A Week in the Life, what have you started to realize about your life or the project so far?

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Dancing Oaks and Urban Scapes

Each day that I go to work, I park on this street and then walk up this path:
where I am surrounded by beautiful California Oaks, whose branches seem to dance in the light:
and then I emerge into the eclectic urban scape of the City:
A block later, I arrive on my campus, beneath the beautiful spires of St. Ignatius Church, landscaped with California poppies (complete with bumblebee), and filled with students, including one who asked me to take his portrait:
Ten minutes out of a week in my life, documented with my camera. I love working in San Francisco and the things I see while I stroll to my office.  Where do you work? And what do you see?