Review 2013

2013 is about over! Crazy. I often think it’s still 2012. I'm really looking forward to 2014! It's going to be a great year. The number fourteen is a good one:) Good thing I periodically do review posts of my life. This year was really good because I frequently put myself out there. My main goals were to be positive, brave, and to just be happy.

Notice how the majority of the photographs from this year are from an ipod or cell phone? (Follow me on Instagram! @kayliecon) The saying “the best camera is the one with you” is true, but I can't help but feel a little guilty. When I actually have a good camera I should be using it for my own life! I purchased my camera upgrade, the Nikon D7100! I'm really excited. It's just like when I bought my Nikon D3100. I baby it so much at the beginning I'm afraid to use it. Now I have two babies;) ha ha. Now this coming year my goal is to take good quality pictures of my own life with my 3100. I even received a good purse for Christmas so I can carry it around with me all the time. I used to be afraid of being the annoying photographer that takes pictures all the time. Being annoying is worth the pictures though!

My life that is completely irrelevant to photography:

This year started by living at home during my off track from byui. I lived in Brigham City from Jan-mid April which meant little social life. It was full of: finishing my cute duck quilt that was started in ninth grade, more quilting, and I learned to knit cute scarves. Then I took many visits to Brigham Temple, Rexburg friends, and my sister in Bountiful.

Spring semester started mid-April and my smoothie obsession started. I survived two semesters without two of my best friends with me at school. I love weekly letters! Had a class with a high school friend, scarred my knee, and ended the semester pulling a brave crazy move. This year I’ve been able to be a Family History TA on campus! It’s the best part time job.

During the seven week break I worked full time, commuted three hours a day (starting 2014 that way too). Played on weekends and watched almost the whole series of Sabrina the teenage witch every night. My family got their first puppy! I used to say I hated all dogs. Now I love my family’s dog. It’s adorable!

Fall Semester turned out to be great! It had a really rough start, but turned out to be quite wonderful. One of my best friends and I had a class together every single day. It was so fun to not fall behind on each other’s lives. Plus we absolutely hated one of the classes we had together. Most of the class period was spent on instagram and pinterest;) I’m quite happy with the grade I got out of that class with too! I survived the beginning of the semester through separate visits from my mom and sister. Made more funny memories at a place we didn’t live. My apartment dressed up as cowgirls for Halloween. I miss being able to get away with wearing braids! Lots of walks to campus were taken. I quite enjoy walking! For the first time in at least six years I voluntarily threw a party!  Enjoyed hanging out with all the many friends I’ve been blessed with! This semester I was one of the ward greeters! It was the best calling ever! Camden apartments have been my favorite place to live. The people there are all so nice and mature, but still fun! My roommates were great. They were all so kind and all told me they were glad I moved in. I honestly couldn’t imagine apartment 8 without me! Ha ha. No matter what we all end up where we’re supposed to be.

Now I’m home again! I’m starting the year with my family. We sold our house! We’re working on finding one. The most important part of my life is my family. I’m so blessed to have such a great supportive family!  

Temple Square Lights

The lights on Temple Square in Salt Lake City are one of our highlights each Christmas season. It's fun to see what different shots I can get each year. Last year photo's are here.

fallen thoughts

Another semester is over! Which means it's time for the traditional semester review post. As I was cleaning today I kept thinking about how glad I am for how this semester turned out. The beginning seems so far away. I'm grateful for inspired decisions and the many wonderful friends I've made. Each semester I try to make new goals. There's always room for improvement. Last semester's goal was pretty much to be brave. See that post here. 

Goal one: getting up. Everyone is pretty prone to falling in Rexburg. Either if it's on ice or for people. I fall very easily in both cases. This world is full of many lovable people. In the spring I tripped and got a nasty scar. It was the exact morning I thought to myself "yep, really time to move on from this guy" then I thought the exact same thing before I slipped and cut my hand on the ice Wednesday. I always hurry and get up and laugh at myself. Then I thought of the lyrics “I get knocked down but I get up again. You’re never going to keep me down”. That was one of my very favorite songs when I was little. It seems to get easier every time you get back up. I’ll never quit getting up! Life would be so boring if it weren’t for falling.

Goal two: good language. This semester started with a class project where we had to choose somewhere to improve. My favorite class this semester was comm 150 (Interpersonal Communication) I loved it so much. As we try to improve our language our thoughts also improve. Language doesn't just mean swearing. (I've never had a problem with that) Language means only having kind things come out of our mouth. Gossiping is super pointless and hurtful. I'm definitely not perfect, but I've felt such a difference in my life as I've tried to brush off the bad. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Searching for the good in people makes me a happier person. There really is at least one good thing we can say about someone. Don't waste your breath on pointless words.

blessed

This semester I was able to enter my photo's in many contests. I was a member in a photography club on campus called Photographics Society. I really enjoyed it. It was fun to get to know other photographers and have contests each week. Each week we would learn about something related to photography. Once I showed everyone how to create a tilt shift/iris blur in photoshop. This semester students in my classes and at the club would ask me questions about photography. It feels so good when people care about your opinion! 

Here are some of the highlighted photo's of my semester. This semester there was a communication and business summit. There was a contest for all of the photo's entered in the photographic's print contests. The photo above won first place! I was so surprised and happy. Students voted for my photo! Plus I won fifty bucks! People are so nice!

Honorable Mention-Detail Contest

Honorable Mention- Change Contest
This was also the photo I framed and printed huge.
(I love fall!)

In November there was a big Bannack contest. Thank you so much for all of you that voted for my images on the blog contest! The photo above won first place for the blog contest! Then the photo above and below placed in the top ten for the contest judged by professional photographers. After taking so many photographs this semester we made a photo book for our final. If you'd like to see my photo book go here. It was so much fun to make. It contains so photographs of many of the great people in my life. 

Honorable Mention- Bannack Bus Contest

I just found out the photo above was chosen as one of the Dean's Pics.  The beautiful bride in this photo  also told me that this was her very favorite photo taken at Bannack! SO many photo's were taken of this couple at Bannack so it was such a compliment to me! Go here to see some of the other students photo's of them. 

I'll admit that this post is totally a brag post, but I'm so grateful for my talents I've been blessed with. THANK YOU to all of the support you've given to me!! Thank YOU for any compliment you've ever given me! It's meant so much to me and I've needed it. Thank you for looking at this post!

Frost

 Frost is my favorite. It's absolutely beautiful! I could really stare at it all day long. I said that out loud to my roommate yesterday and a passerby laughed. It's so amazing what the cold does to everything. Take time to smell the roses! Or to see the frost! Go back HERE and see some of my other favorite frozen pictures. They're from December of 2011. That really feels like yesterday! I took those ones right after one of our family walks. It was Christmas break right after my very first semester of college. So crazy. I just looked at the portraits I took right before that post on the blog. I feel like I've come so far since then. Learning and improving is such a wonderful thing:)

November Wedding

Have you been missing out on my sneak peek photo's from this wonderful wedding? Be sure to go over to my facebook page to see the others!

Heart Bokeh

Wonder what I do in my spare time? Go searching for Christmas lights to see if I can capture heart bokeh with my 50 mm at f/1.8. I love the Holiday season! Christmas is right around the corner! Don't worry, I'm still celebrating Thanksgiving too. We have a grateful wall in our apartment. Everyday we write down what we are grateful for. It's fun. Most days it's really easy to come up with something to be grateful for. Today I'm so grateful for my camera.. or actually my Dad's camera body ha ha. It's a perk to both have had the exact same camera body. I'm in the process of upgrading. My old camera body is wearing out. Once I upgrade I'll keep my old one with me as much as possible. It'll be my point and shoot:)
I love the quote from Picasso, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life" How did I ever survive without photography before? Quilting, appliqueing, and coloring in my coloring books. We all have to create. Just like this video here says. Hope you're all having a great weekend!
p.s. Thanks to everyone who voted for my Bannack portraits for the Shoot Out Contest! I received first place for the blog contest! There was another part of the contest with professional photographers who were the judges. My cowboy photo was the one that placed first for the blog contest and the fifth with the professional judges. The little doll sitting on her dad's lap was the tenth for the top ten! I was pretty excited! There were many great photos entered. Go here to see the other winning photographs.

Bannack Ghost Town-Montana

Here are just about twenty images from the photo excursion I had with my Digital Imaging class. We got to photograph in an old abandoned ghost town all day. I loved working with all the models. Before we went I was worried I wouldn't be able to pose and direct the models like I'm used to, but it was so great! I was able to get images I had pictured in my head before. We went last Thursday and now all the other students are posting their favorite images. It's so fun to look at all their work. We were photographing the same subject, same moment, and same lighting situation yet each photo looks so different! There were about fifty students photographing the same models. The expression on the models face is different in everyone's photo's. My favorite model was the little girl. She was so sweet and adorable. I'm so grateful for the wonderful learning experiences I've had!

This one will be print big for the hallway in the Spori! This image is one of my favorites. I've mentioned plenty of times how much I love photographing sweet kids. I love little moments where the people are just being them!

This little girls name was Kaylie! I don't know if it was spelled the same way, but it was a fun connection to the models. The poor girl got the flu that morning.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I took these at a light painting workshop. Have you heard of light painting? It's so different. It's pretty tricky too! Get a flash light, tripod, and a fun subject and try it out yourself! You'll need about a fifteen second exposure. Hold the flashlight close to the subject and move it all around the subject quick. Don't shine it towards the camera or you will get light trail like in the photo above. It adds a spooky effect though. It was a happy accident and works for Halloween. Light painting is my sister's favorite. Photograhy is one of her hobbies. Go see her stuff here. The first post on there is from when we took those fall photo's a few posts ago, the next post has her light painted bottles. They're cool!

What are your Halloween plans? I'm not a big Halloween person, but after it's over it means Christmas time is getting closer!

life

 I posted this on my school blog a few weeks ago. There are many posts on there with photographs that aren't on this blog. You'll have to take a look! There are many photo's from my Bannack trip. I'll get around to posting my favorites on this blog. 

This quote really is true. Read one of my favorite talks here. The plans we have for ourselves are not the best plans. We may think that we know what is best for us, but we really don't. There is a better plan for us. Things will work out in the end and what's best for us will happen. The trials we go through will just make us stronger. 

I frequently think about what I want in life and things I need to do differently in order to achieve my goals and dreams. What are your dreams? Should I share mine on the worldwide web? Not that many people really read this so I might as well. Be ready for cheesy. All I really want in life is to stay close to my family and have a family of my own. I want to have cute lifestyle shots like Lex Zurcher. She takes some of the cutest images of her little family! Click her name to see for yourself. I want photographs I take to be the wallpaper in my house..on some of the walls;) I would love to live in a place that is kinda country. I would really live in Sugar City or Ashton Idaho. It's close to Rexburg which means as a photographer I could really get my business going the longer I stayed here, but who knows! I would love to have a cute house. It has to have something blue either the house itself or shutters and door. Traveling would be fun, but not necessary. I wonder if I'd even like it at all. I'm kinda a homebody (not the kind that never leave the apartment though). There's still so many places I want to see in the US. Tulip fields in the spring, the east coast in the fall, central park. I want a simple life! In time I can make all of those dreams of mine come true. The tricky part is finding someone who's dreams can match your own. Someone who will laugh at my silliness, but not make fun of it. Who is caring, will feed ducks, build a snowman, take walks in the snow, make time, and who will love me enough to let me take their picture, ha ha:) Leave me a comment! I'd love to see your blog! 

Bannack Ghost Town! Sneak Peeks!

 Have you been seeing my Bannack photo's on my Facebook page? Thursday my digital imaging class went on a photo expedition to an abandoned ghost town in Bannack Montana. It was a great experience! I entered the photo below in the HDR contest and was one of the finalists! Can't wait to share more soon.