Last week four-year-old Morgan fell 20 feet from a tree, breaking her arms and impact-fracturing her back, neck and shoulders. Here's the original story.
Here's an update from a few days ago.
On Thursday I got a chance to drive down to San Antonio and hang out with their family for a few hours. Morgan has three older brothers, a baby brother and a baby sister.
Morgan thanks you for gifts, Auntie Susan :)
Here's an intermediate
save:
Here's the finished product without acid
wash. Doesn't it look cool with that clean background? It's like...
pseudo-studio lights!
P.S. Sorry. I couldn't help it. Too
funny. What other song could possibly go with this pic? So here's more
attempts on my part to emulate those esteemed Taiwanese studios. (If
you don't know what I'm talking about, check
this out)
Click for entertainment.
The Lanning-Porter wedding yesterday was a success, I do believe. We
started out getting ready in the Hyatt Hotel overlooking Town Lake. I
don't think one can go wrong photography-wise by getting ready in a
room with a great view and a super-large window.
This
is what I got to look at when I wasn't shooting.
The actual ceremony and reception was held on a ferry-type boat off the shores going around and around in unromantic circles... We ended up boarding pretty late, because all the important guests and relatives and the Justice of the Peace were allllll stuck in Flugtag traffic for two hours, no lie.
I don't like shots with flash or with high ISO and slight blur, so I'm not processing any of those. Thus, there will be none on Flickr for you to see and none for me to copy to Xanga. I am a purist, I suppose. I like me some light! Don't worry, they capture enough memories for the bride and groom.
I did, however, like my "getting ready" shots. Everything is here.
My favorite image, although I later realized it looks a lot like one of Jessica Claire's. Oh well. (I like mine better because I think my bride's were cuter) I was quite entranced by the dainty beading. You know what, I didn't know I had such a shoe fetish until I was looking through my shots from the wedding. There are a lot of shoe detail shots. Meh, oh well. Knock yourself out. >:]
Dress
detail. I didn't know I could like dresses from David's Bridal!
=]
Dress,
with light from the window. We had an awesome view of downtown and the
lake and all the festivities... at least I did. I think the girls were
too busy running around like chickens without their heads. :D They
always do. :D
Rings
on her fingers and bells on her toes and a bone in her nose, oh, oh...
I mean, what?
We
were here... and the sky was amazingly blue, although in most of my
pictures it is far too bright to capture the awesomeness that is a rich
blue sky.
My
view. See the people on the bridge? They're setting up for Flugtag.
That tiny riverboat to the bottom left was the one chartered for the
wedding. They're decorating it.
Princess
of Austin for a day
I
grabbed a [soon-to-be] sister-in-law to help out for some bouquet
shots.
There's
the bridge in the bokeh blur
I
think they looked pretty nice
Charlie
and the Great Glass Elevator. I love these things.
He
looks really happy, eh?
Haha,
love the sweat beads
The
wedding coordinator ALSO did all the flowers on her own. Awesome?
Awesome!
I
like this shot. I didn't know Phuong was about to talk to me when I
shot this. She looks tiny and pissed. So funny.
And
just so you don't forget. We were in Austin. AUSTIN.
EVERYWHERE.
Here
commences my shoe fetish evidence.
Blue
wedges
Nice
piggins
Writing
bridesmaids' names on the bottom of her shoe... apparently "the first
one to rub off will be the next to get married!"
Shoes
and soldiers
Classic
wedding portrait, I guess? That's all we really had time for, but we're
scheduled for another one after they get back from their honeymoon. In
future I'm charging more for this sort of stuff, not because I'm that
amazing but because I need my study time. :-[
I
like the pink tips
She
definitely lapped up the princess treatment ;) Although she was very
chill, and not at all Bridezilla.
I
like this shot of the girls; I also like how all their dresses are
different. I liked this season of David's Bridal's gowns. Is it sad
that I know them by color and style? Meh.
Trying
out an idea. They helped me along.
I
might like this one best.
But
I think this one is the most realistic.
Flugtag
crazies! This was while we were outside the hotel shooting the
following...
Boys
and their Converse sneakers. Fun fun.
Girls,
on the other hand, like sugar and spice...
And
a little bit of not nice.
Now
some bridal candids...
"Look
at me, please"
You
may think she looks all romantic and sweet, but she wants you to know
she has a punky rocker edge!
Groom
chatting with friends on the deck
That
glowy thing is Red Bull's stand. Apparently they sponsor this wild and
crazy event. Shot from the boat.
Good night, Austin. I love you.
OK, so I've decided... and the date will be Sept. 2, 2007. Whoo. Chopped-off hair will be going to Locks of Love, and I think I've tentatively decided I'd like people to contribute to the ASK Foundation, which supports families of kids with cancer. Of course, I just randomly Googled a charitable organization so if someone has another suggestion, I'll welcome that. :) I'ma keep a [hopefully] daily blog on Blogspot, so... yep. It'll be an interesting project, I think - this is probably the only time in my life I'd have the freedom to do something like this. Most companies prefer their employees to look rawther conservative, I hear.
If you wanna take a picture with me looking somewhat normal, you might wanna do it in the next four weeks. ;) Hehe. I set up a Gmail account to go with the Blogger thing... it's baldingbeauty@gmail.com. Sorry, it's a lame name. I'm short on creativity today. I appreciate all the responses I got in the last post, haha... it's good to know people care. :)
Countdown: 28 days
Random
with-hair pic for you.
P.S. Is anyone in favor of me getting a tattoo on my scalp
while I'm at it? Just to commemorate things? You know? *cough cough*
Hey, if I'm gonna be wild I might as well be wild...
:D:D:D
Dude, I don't know what I do with my days (I need to work a lot harder, that's for sure) but I haven't put actual content in here in a while. It's really weird. I'm afraid I'll lose my thoughts. Hah.
Today I randomly decided that given all my upcoming photo gigs, I needed to get back in touch with what I'm telling people to do when I pose them. Also, I'm every bit as narcissistic as other people are but nobody ever takes my pictures. At the same time, I'm too lazy to play with tripods. The ugly truth is out.
So Sam was gracious enough to hit up the Drag and Laguna with me for some practice. I guess he got some more recent portraiture under his belt and I got some really fun, pretty photos out of it. :) Thanks a lot, guh.
I paid him in Jamba Juice before and Tap House after, and whatever random photography/modeling/posing tips I have picked up in various magazines. (My feeble justification for my insatiable curiosity)
First, the ones I took:
"Sam
needs a girl to ...be his wife..."
Angry
model. Testing this out to see if it's a pose that'll work for
headshots. Hah. Cropped, tweaked with acid action, vignetted
corners.
Typical
Kat, typical post-processing
Sulky
brat. Acid wash
Too
much sugar. Normal pp
Detached
tourist. This was a super-blown-out shot. I tweaked the curves way
down, processed the colors in the acid action and then muted the
saturation
Ever since Oliver made a snarky comment years ago about how narcissistic I am, I haven't posted many pictures of just myself on this blog (you jerk). So here or here are the rest. I like them lots, and you'll probably see them cycling around as profile pictures for a long while.
In similarly related news, I bought a 30D today. It'll be coming soooooon, I hope. Then I'll be so awesome. I haven't decided what to do with the 20D yet, but it'll be around for at least, at least another week.
Real post later.
It didn't even start out so wild! I woke up today around 4 from staying up late to help Oliver and Olivia move. TiSA people went out to Kyoto's for happy hour around 5, and I completely had a blond moment when I got all the MATH right, but freaked out over the total being wrong (because I had forgotten to add the credit-card-parts with the cash-parts).
Around midnight everyone finally got around to 6th. It was just Shawn, Sam, H and I. We kinda bummed around and played and stuff, and I barely had anything because I hadn't eaten enough today. Right before we left, we went to Chuggin' Monkey. Sam and H went to the bathroom, and Shawn and I ordered three Four Horsemen for them. Erm, we told Sam it was a jager bomb and he tossed down his first one. His face was priceless. But then we got him an amaretto sour chaser and he... proceeded to down the next two.
Following came a very interesting verbal exchange. Since my point is not to embarrass him, I will not mention the content of the discussions nor the videos that were made, but I will document it here for future memories.
I finished a quick-and-dirty refashion just now. I picked up this green jersey knit A-line dress at a thrift store last week for $4.50, planning to make something new out of it. Here's what I came up with:
The white T-shirt is just there for contrast.
The original sundress was A-line, had the twill tape straps, and the gathering, elastic, and seams were all there to begin with. The back had little loops for pulling the straps through and then tying in a bow. Since I hate that look, I chopped it up.
This new top has a back made from the skirt part of the original dress front. Since it was an A-line dress, I had to cut off "wings" from the sides of the shirt. I know it looks totally misshapen in the picture, but the seams fit curves really nicely. I'll try to take a pic of the top on someone later, at some less ungodly hour.
Super-easy... there's a side seam on each side, and then I gathered up the center very tightly, pinned the ends of the straps under a piece of twill tape, and stitched it up.
Total time was around 1/2 an hour, most of which was spent punching the machine, which did not like sewing such thin jersey knit. Wonky stuff... but it's really cool, because it's so soft it feels sueded.
I'm probably going to end up giving the shirt away, but it was fun to make. :) I need to get in the habit of taking pre-recon pics, because... explaining my original items is getting old.
