Sarah & Lisa ~ Daytona Beach Recital Photographer

I love my family. We all have unique talents and generally aren't afraid to share them with the world (for better or worse!). Unfortunately, because we live so far apart from the majority of our family, Jared and I often don't get to participate in the fun goings-on. (Not sure if that's a word, but for today, I'm making it a word. So use it often; tomorrow it probably won't count.) So naturally I was excited when my sister-in-law, Sarah (yes, there are two Sarah Reeds in our family), told us she was traveling to Daytona Beach to perform. You see, Sarah is a singer (you can check out her website here), a soprano to be exact, and she was invited to perform at Bethune-Cookman University with the lovely Lisa Lawrence on piano. So of course Jared and I drove over to see her, and the recital was wonderful. More wonderful was the chance to hang out for a bit, something we don't have the chance to do much more often than Christmas and maybe once in the summer. I took a few "action shots" for Sarah and Lisa during the sound check -- didn't want to interrupt the performance with my camera clicking away!

Catching up....

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted. It seems like time is flying by since Christmas... so much going on! Quick list of what I've been doing:

- Work. It's been busy. I've gotten one paper accepted for publication (yay!), one on it's way out the door for review and have a few experiments to finish up for another paper (which should go out for review sometime late spring).

- Farm. Between riding the demon pony and keeping the farm up and running, I've definitely gotten my barn time in lately! Everything is starting to settle back down into a routine with all of that, for which I'm extremely grateful!

- The Tudors. Oh, how I have gotten addicted to this show!! I'm not sure if it's the romance of the period, the amazing costumes, or just that I'm a sucker for (good?) history dramas, but since we returned from Pennsylvania we've watched the first season and are most of the way through the second season.....

- Home. Cleaning. Ugh. I really do not like cleaning. Organizing? yes. Cleaning? Heck no. So I've been mixing up a little organizing here with some cleaning there and attacking it all pretty slowly. As part of my organizing, I've been wanting a French memo board to put up near my desk. See, I've got this really large white area right next to my desk. I also have a bunch of photos and tear sheets that I've been wanting to hang somewhere. So instead of spending $20 and buying one of those little 16x20 French memo boards, Jared and I decided to make one. Well, two actually. Two 24x24 boards.... which are fabulously big. After the first minor fail with my gorilla glue soaking through the thin cork I bought and gluing itself to the large particle board I was using for weight, I got things figured out.... Quick pictorial on how I did it:

You can tell that the Bella dog was not overly excited that my project was taking up her living room floor.... And the final product:

(Please ignore the rest of the mess.... it's a work in progress!!)

I'll be back soon, I promise... have a few exciting shoots coming up in the next couple of months!

Getting organized...

Sorry for no posts in a few days -- I've been busy with work and getting life back into a normal routine after the holidays! Anyways, just a short post today with some of the cool programs I've been using lately to keep track of things. I have two basic problems: 1) I have more than one computer that I work from on a regular basis, at least for non-photo editing types of things and 2) I really haven't (hadn't) found a good way to keep track of things I find online that I like, i.e. photos that are inspirational, articles I like, etc.  But in the last few months, I've discovered two programs that seem to be pretty awesome at helping with these issues.

The first is Dropbox. Dropbox is an online file sharing service that has free and paid options. The free options are pretty sweet in and of themselves, so I haven't upgraded to the paid version.  Essentially, you install the program which creates a folder on your computer. Anything you put in this folder will automagically (yup, I just pulled that out -- can you hear the "brrring" sound from the commerical?) upload to a server at Dropbox. Now the awesome thing is that not only can you access your Dropbox online at any time, but if you download the software on another computer (I have it on my laptop and my desktop), the next time you connect to the internet on that computer, it will make the changes in the folder on the other computer. As a bonus, you have ALL of these backed up online (you know, in case a hard drive or two fails, or your house gets swept away in a tornado or something). As a bonus, if you refer others (and they sign up and download the program), you get extra free space. Even more space if you sign up with an email from an educational institution. (And what I'm saying by this is if you're interested in this service, let me know and I'll send you a referral!).

The other program that I've just started using is Evernote. It allows you to capture photos, videos, websites, I think just about anything you can imagine. AND, you can keep them organized into different notebooks.  I always find photos online that I love something about, if it's a piece of clothing, a pose, or a background. I can now save that to my Evernote, in a notebook that's appropriate and tag it with whatever it is that I love. I have notebooks for recipes, for photography related articles, for photo ideas and for the miscellaneous stuff I just want to keep track of.  For instance, the other day I was browsing for maternity photo ideas for an upcoming shoot. I found this photo:

By adding it to my Evernote, I not only have the photo saved to refer back to, but it keeps the location so I can return to that blog whenever I'm interested.  It looks like this:

So those are my newest finds... what do you use to keep organized? 

A little inspiration

I love Etsy. It's the perfect combination of homemade, trendy, vintage, fresh and fun. Honestly, I think I could spend hours there everyday, browsing through the stores, finding all manners of fun things that I now need. :)  Here's a sampling of what I found today (might be large, I had fun browsing today!!):

I'm in to funky necklaces lately. 

And scarves....

So pretty! On a bride, or a little girl, or just for a feminine touch.

Anyone that knows me knows I LOVE to read... vintage books? in sweet colors and awesome patterns? yes please!

I also have a slight obsession with boxes. For no particular reason really, but I do love boxes. Maybe it's the mystery of what they hold... or maybe I just like cool boxes. :)

How cool are these old Coke bottles and their carrier?

Love me a messenger bag....

And a parasol. Because everyone needs a parasol in their life....

So now you've seen a little bit inside my brain. And yes, I know, it's a scary, scary place... ;)