Mallory Nicole Photography & Design: Photos

Showing posts with label Photos. Show all posts

From left clockwise: Daniel & Soren weeks after birth, Library in Ephesus (awesome!), a canal in Venice, columns in ancient Athens.

Lately.

I have been ON IT lately. Actually hanging photos long printed and framed. Painting, making completing, organizing. AND taking care of an 8 month old. I don't know what happened and where the motivation came from, but I'm happy.

Above is our dining room. I always planned on it being black and white art only. The 4 largest photos to be in that room are finally up, now I have to print and frame 6 more photos and give this a completed look.

Above is a bad iPhone photo of a wall in our room. It's a large wall with only these illustrations on it. I dreamed of having a fainting chair there, but dreams are often just that. So I wanted to brighten the room and give this wall some thought.

I put up 3 shelves for books, picked out some bright spray paint colors and painted my existing frames. With the three shelves there I could add two additional illustrations of mine (these are a series I create for Daniel), plus one of an artist I love, and a couple of photos from our Mediterranean trip (here, here, here, here AND here...a bit linky...i know).

I also painted our dresser, but that's for another time.

I'm probably so late in finding Humans of New York, but it is so interesting. This photographer started out taking photos of New Yorkers and now he takes photos from all over, while getting quotes or short stories from them. There are so many interesting characters around us, and it's neat that someone is willing to ask about them!

Let me start this off by saying I am not a professional photographer. I use a Canon Digital REbel XTi and a speedlite external flash. I do love photography, so I have taught myself this and that about it, and have taken some photos for people, but I don't consider myself professional by any means.

On December 31, I decided I would take a photo of Soren everyday for 1 year. I missed the first two days by accident, but have managed to do it everyday since. It's a big undertaking, but now it's part of our daily routine. It has been so fun, and Daniel and I already love going through the photos from January and seeing how different Soren looks.

Usually I post only photos that look good, but I want you to see that I take a lot of photos each day and different things can go wrong. Above are photos of Samson walking through the frame. Some days he just stands in front of the camera to by annoyance. If Samson isn't walking into the frame, then he is causing distraction. Soren LOVES watching Samson, so I have hundreds of profile photos of Soren.

Some days Soren cries and we have to go through multiple attempts to photograph him. Other times he just seems to have lost his ability to sit up, or he blinks during photos and ends up looking drunk. There has been spit up and drool, and the biggest pimple ever (big for an adult, humongous for a baby). There has been bad lighting, and blurry photos.

After time you get your stride, you learn to laugh at the drunken looking faces and may even include them in your final album. It is rewarding and I know it will be worth it at the end of the year when I have a documentation of the year Soren changes the most.

Here are some thoughts on doing your own album:

1. Have a plan.
December 31 I decided that I would get him at his different stages. While he couldn't sit, I would lay him down for a photo. Now that he sits, I take photos of him that way. When he's crawling, I'll include some photos of him crawling by.
I also wanted to keep the background consistent as long as photos were from home. This way background doesn't distract from the face.

2. Don't worry about sticking to the plan.
I know. What's the point in having a plan? It's like having a baby. Before they are here there are things you want to do, but then you meet your baby and they don't want to do those things. You may get into the photo a day and find what's not working. It's alright to change.

3. Don't over do it.
I thought it would be cool to have special things to signify holidays, when he's hit a new month and document each milestone (those that can't be photographed). I knew this would be too much for me, and I wouldn't succeed. Since I am a designer, I plan on going through the album and writing on different photos to signify a new month of life, a birthday and major holidays.

4. Have a fun song to sing or a toy to distract.
When Soren was a couple of months old Taylor Swift's song "I Knew You Were Trouble" was on ALL OF THE TIME. It was stuck in my head. I'd sing it to him while changing diapers, and he started smiling at it. He recognizes the song and smiles at it every time, so I sing it to him everytime we're taking photos. Keep your distraction consistent, the familiarity helps them know what is going on.

5. Don't worry about having a smile in every photo.
When I am choosing the photo for each day, I try to get a variety of facial expressions. I want to remember all of it!

6. Keep up with your photos.
Every two weeks or so I upload photos onto my computer. I choose a photo that I like from each day and edit it. It is then saved with the date as the file name. You don't want to be overwhelmed with hundreds of photos at the end of the year; it's likely you would never get your album finished if you had a flood of photos to go through.

7. Decide how you are going to display the photos before you start.
This may determine how you handle your photography. You can buy an album and slide photos in there. You can go to a somewhere such a Blurb to print a book (they provide templates so you don't have to worry about the design).

And some days you get such sweet photos that you might want to print in a large size.

This year I've been trying to work on more projects, committing more time to creating. One is a year long endeavor: a photo a day of Soren. January 1 and 2 didn't go so well, we completely forgot, but since those days, I've remembered to take a picture of him. It seems like he's getting the hang of it, because he starts smiling when I put him on the rug by the window.

Then I've been working on this Doctor Who Illustration. I recently got into Doctor Who and loved it. I might be a little obsessed. I love Matt Smith as the Doctor. I know so many favor David Tennant, but Matt Smith is just so quirky and is right in line with my sense of humor.

Tangent. Tangent. My illustration is farther along from when this photo is taken, but I don't feel like it's complete.

I also am going to try to illustrate a scene from each of my crazy dreams. If you have known me for a long period of time, you may have heard one of my ridiculous dreams, and I just felt that I should have an illustrated record of them. I haven't gotten very far with those, so I don't have much to show, but I hope to be able to show them soon!

Venice is a beautiful ~~city~~ tourist attraction. Yes. I would not really call the island a city, because

there is not a feel for local life, just for tourism. You may be fine with that, you may not. I am glad we were able to visit, though we generally life to get a feel for the culture.

Gondolas St Mark's Square

We managed to see what we wanted of St. Mark's the morning before we got on the cruise ship (our cruise began and ended in Venice), though we never walked inside any of the attractions. Lines are long, and the place was crowded. Throughout our time on the island we saw a lot of St Marks, as we often found ourselves passing through it to get to different sections.

View from the Bridge of Sighs

The sites are definitely beautiful, and there is no lack of souvenirs to be found. We stayed and extra two nights in Venice, thinking that we paid to fly over there, we might as well get the best of it. This brings me to my tips for Venice:

1. Yes, you should visit if it's your heart's desire, but I would recommend visiting while on a tour of Italy, maybe just a one night stay. We were seriously twiddling our thumbs by the evening we got off of the Cruise ship. Maybe we would have wanted to see more, if we had not spent a week traveling around the Mediterranean just before that. On our second day off the ship our mission was to find the McDonalds (we saw an advertisement for it on a trash can near the Rialto bridge).

2. Dress nicely. Jeans, no tshirts, well fitted clothing. Europeans dress remarkably well...all the time. We saw men with fitted jeans (not skinny, they just weren't baggy), button up shirts tucked in with sleeves rolled up and casual shoes (not chucks, or tennis shoes). Women were often wearing skinny jeans with little to no fading, flat shoes, and a nice blouse or shirt. You would also see dresses and skirts, all of the clothing fitting well.

3. Be prepared for a weather change. The day we got off of the boat, we were all sweating in our shorts and short-sleeved shirts...I was even wearing a sleeveless shirt. The next day, temps dropped, and it was cloudy. Daniel and I had to run around trying to find a warm jacket to wear that wasn't expensive. Yes, there are plenty of stores there like Burberry, Mui Mui, Versaci, and other various high priced stores. Finding a place that was right on our price tag...more tricky.

4. This wasn't really a shock to us, but I think I should mention it: Americans tend to add more fat and flavor to their meals...Mexican food in Mexico is more bland and less cheesy than Tex-Mex, and Italian food in Italy is less creamy and cheesy than say...Olive Garden. It still tastes great, but some people may want to be warned.

5. Pack tightly. Please. You will regret having to pull more than one small suitcase onto water buses and over cobblestone streets with a lot of steps (there aren't ramps). Daniel and I each brought a suitcase the size of a carry on, with all of our clothes rolled tightly. Others in our travels packed a large suitcase that a human body could fit in, plus an extra carry on sized suitcase. Out of those people, one had some leg troubles, and one has had back troubles in the past that I was worried about flaring up. SO the pregnant girl and the strapping young lad tried to take as much of the luggage of their hands as possible. After many...subtle...comments about packing tendencies, they agreed that they would pack more tightly and lightly next time, and pay for a laundry service is needed.

Water buses are packed and busy; you do not want to be even more overwhelmed than you already are.

6. I've heard Europe is pricey, especially with the Euro to Dollar exchange rate, but Venice probably got away with even higher prices, since their sole income is tourism. Just be prepared. If you are a wine drinker, it will be cheaper than bottled water and soda, so I'd say go for it. Tap water is drinkable, so drink it, and don't waste $4 on a 20oz bottle of water if you don't have to. AND as with most of Europe a public Water Closet (toilet, restroom) will cost you 1 Euro with minimal places to find one.

View from the Rialto bridge of the Grand Canal

It was all worth admiring a city built out of the water, older than our country. And I'm happy to be able to say that I went there, so in 20 years (I may be exaggerating) when it has been taken over by water, I can say I have been there.

Split was one of those ports I was glad to visit at the end. It was easy, and more about experiencing the Croatian culture than being a tourist. Unlike Dubrovnik, Athens and Ephesus, Split had a real life perspective. It seemed like there was a University near by the students we saw all over, as well as some stores we recognized.

From the cruise ship we had to take a tender to port, but once at the dock, you were in the city; for all of the other ports you needed some sort of transportation to get to the sites. The photo above is from the dock, and it was a spectacular view. There is quite an area to explore by foot where no cars can drive. There were so many locals at cafes in alleys enjoying wine or espresso.

There was also a HUGE farmer's market. We walked through the market where fruit was sold, and thought that was huge, then we saw it continued in another square, THEN we saw that the vegetable market was in another square. This was obviously how locals shopped, their way of life...it wasn't something people trying to be green, organic, or hip were doing. A much different perspective!

The photos above show the older part of the city, including a wall, that you can tour. It is definitely the most "touristy" spot you can visit.

What I didn't see until we were taking the tender back to the ship, but there was a beautiful beach tucked away behind cliffs. If I ever went back, I'd take a bus there!

Tips for Split:
Relax, enjoy, observe and eat gelato!

Only one more city to go...Venice. There are tons of photos to choose from for that post...we'll see if I can keep them down!

Ephesus. It's beautiful! Turkey is beautiful! This was our favorite port. We booked a tour since the drive from port is about 1.5 hours. It was the four of us and our tour guide; very personal. While planning this vacation, I thought I'd be wasting 3 hours driving around, but our tour guide told us all about the country, culture and history on the way. He pointed out ancient buildings propped on hills, and was so knowledgeable.

I didn't throw in a picture of it, but we were able to see the temple of Artemis, one of the ancient wonders of the world. The tour guide told us enough history to make it interesting without overwhelming us.

The library at Ephesus is amazing, and it has been restored so beautifully.

When you get the the ancient city, you are able to walk through the ancient marble city, and it takes about an hour and a half when you include time to stop and admire the place. We were able to get an idea of what life was like for the people living in the city, including seeing the public bathrooms that were used.
Ephesus was lost from the third century AD til the mid 19th century, so only 10% of it is uncovered. While we were walking through the city, we were amazed that all we were saying was 10% of it.

Advice for Ephesus:

1. Visit it. Go when you are steady on your feet, but visit it!

2. Take a tour, especially if you can do one that is so personal. It was worth the extra money, and we got a free lunch with typical Turkish food at the end of the tour.

The only theater mentioned in the New Testament.

Old Town from the wall

Dubrovnik, Croatia has spectacular views of the Adriatic Sea, especially from the wall surrounding Old Town Dubrovnik. This city is trying to build up tourism to stabilize their economy/ During the Serbo-Croation War (1991-1995), Dubrovnik was bombed though they held no military force.in an effort to destroy morale of the country.

There is still evidence of the war as you walk along the wall; destroyed homes were transformed into gardens, and much of the Old Town is being rebuilt. Daniel and my experience was with the Old Town alone not the main city. I couldn't resist the photo opportunities that descriptions of the wall depicted. Despite the war, Old Town Dubrovnik is still a beautiful city.

The rest of Dubrovnik can be seen past the wall.

The wall around Old Town was built in Medieval times and is about 1.25 miles around. Due to the fact that some areas of the wall are thin tourists can only walk around the wall one way. If you go, you'll be thankful for that. In keeping with my Athens post, I wanted to share some things for you to know when visiting Dubrovnik (Old Town):

1. The stairs you climb to get up to the wall are as old as the wall itself and people are ascending and descending. It doesn't seem important, until you realize the steps are not very wide, uneven and slippery due to traffic. My parents did not see the wall like we did, and I was thankful; my mom doesn't have the best stability, and she is afraid of heights. Which brings me to...

2. The wall is high, and as I said before, some parts of the wall fit 1.5 people across. There is some security in the walls that border the walk way all the way along the wall, so for someone like me, who is not afraid of heights, I felt fine. Daniel on the other hand, had to walk across these parts fast, until he felt more secure. I would often lag behind and take photos while he went to an area that made him feel safer.

3. Take photos. It's beautiful. How often do you get to walk along a Medieval wall with spectacular views?

4. I mentioned that we spent our time in Old Town only. My parents took and excursion, through our cruise line, which was much different than our experience. They LOVED it, a highlight of the whole trip. They took a bus through the scenic country and saw just how beautiful it is. They spent some time with families who make their living off of oyster farming and the production of olive oil. It was really neat for them to see the less touristy part of the country. The Croatian families were very hospitable, showing them just how their day looked, and giving them lunch, and allowing them to try everything. My mom bought me a bottle of the Olive Oil they made. I can't bring myself to open it, until I have a delicious bread worthy of dipping.

5. If you like coke (or diet coke), buy some there. In Venice and Athens (and even the cruise ship) we were paying from $3-$6 for a can of soda. In Croatia you could get a bottle for about $2. I know that seems silly, but when you're drinking tap water in these countries, the little things seem so great. Later we wished we would have bought an extra bottle for the ship.

6. Buy something from the locals. Daniel and I didn't know what sort of struggles the city has gone through until the next day when we spoke to our cruise director (who is awesome) and he told us all about being in the first cruise ship to return to the city after the war. The locals appreciation for their stop was heart wrenching.

I don't know what it is like to stay in the city overnight, but it would be worth researching, especially with views like the one below.

I am gearing up for my trip to Italy and the Mediterranean; the weeks can be counted on my fingers. This photo of Cinque Terre, Italy is making me more anxious!

photo

I redesigned my Mallory Nicole Design & Illustration logo today, refreshing my portfolio and resume as well. I feel better. I've also been working on a wedding invite.

Today's February Photoaday prompt was "sun," but I forgot about it until the sun set. So, in honor of my missed photo, here are a couple of West Palm Beach photos I recently edited.

I recently took a look back at photos from our 2009 Honeymoon in San Diego. Suddenly I was seeing so much potential in them, and these are a few of my favorites. The above photos are from Ocean Beach. The last in this set is printed and waiting for a frame at our house.

We loved Ocean Beach! There are so many surfers, and with an excellent telephoto lens, we were able to see up close. I hope to find a place to hang this in our house, but for now it remains digital. (also at Ocean Beach)

Surfing is on my bucket list, but as soon as I stuck my toe in the Pacific, I chickened out. If you have never been in the pacific, it's cold...at least in May in San Diego it is!

rator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> This pier was a quick walk from our hotel. San Diego is GREAT for walking. We walked most places, and never broke a sweat. A couple of times we made a two mile trek to Balboa Park, walked around there, then walked the 2 miles back, and never sweat. Ever. By April in Houston I step outside and instantly sweat. These Wieses love San Diego!

And my favorite photo is below. I'm proud that I took it. This photo is a place on the edge of Balboa. I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse of the city with perfect weather!