Another Snowstorm.

A decently sized snowstorm hit us over the latter part of this past weekend. I haven't taken any official measurements yet (it only really stopped snowing just now), but my guess would be 15+ inches. Yesterday, we went out on a hike on a backtrail in our neighborhood during the peak of the storm. It was snowing really, really hard. If you looked down the street, you couldn't see more than 50 yards in front of you. It was that heavy. It was so heavy in fact, that St. Paul (only 10 minutes away) recorded THUNDER snow (you can see it here). Unfortunately, I didn't (couldn't) bring my camera with me during the hike because of my memory card problem, but when we got home, I found out I could actually take 3 to 4 pictures from my camera's internal memory (happiness!). That's when I took these photos:

This photo reminds me of some 1940's Nazi general standing out in the snow. Just give him a machine gun, and the picture will be complete. :P

Problem...

As the title states, I have a problem. What is this problem? Well, it has something to do with my camera. Well, not my camera specifically, but my camera's memory card. In short, I lost it. In other words, I can't find it. Basically, I misplaced it. What does this mean? This means that I CAN'T TAKE ANY PICTURES. This is bad. Well, I could always go buy another one, I suppose, but money is tight. Basically, I am in a different picture taking crisis than the one I was in a month ago (which I have escaped from, for the most part). I plan on replacing it sometime in the near future, preferably before springs comes around (officially). But in the meantime, I'm going to "resolve" this issue (not really though), by just posting a bunch of pictures that I don't think I've posted to this blog yet, that I thought you all might enjoy (...and cross my fingers that my memory card will turn up somewhere soon!). :)

Enjoy!

I would enjoy knowing which ones are your favorite, if you have any! :)

No Place Like Minnesnowta...

A few pictures of the snowcover here.

Old photos

I love flipping through my old photos. Whenever I do, I can see how my photographic style has changed over time and see how it is still changing even in the present. Sometimes they give me new ideas and sparks of inspiration, and other times I end up finding some that I actually completely overlooked somehow (how do you do THAT?!). That's exactly what happened yesterday. I was looking at some of my old photos when I stumbled across these and thought you might enjoy them:

(Chipping Sparrow)

(Downy Woodpecker)

(Another Downy Woodpecker)

FYI: They become twice as large if you click on them! :)

Just for fun...

Ok, so we have this joke in the household that whenever we see someone with a hood on in public, or just wherever, we go "sith lord!". Yeah, probably not that funny, but it always looks like people with hoods on are trying to be sith lords to us (if you don't know what a sith lord is, then it would be safe to guess you haven't seen Star Wars, and if you haven't seen Star Wars, well... I don't really know what to say to that). Anyways, I decided to do a "sith lord" photo shoot with my brother the other day just for fun.

This picture reminds me of sandstone (the sedimentary rock) every time I look at it. I have no idea why. Maybe it's the ripples in the sweatshirt? Regardless, I like it. It's very sith lord-esque. :P

Photographer's Depression

So, again, I haven't posted on this blog in centuries. Why, you may ask? Well, it's the usual slew of things that, culminated together, can be described with one word: Life. More specifically: school (which is my life essentially). Well, that's an easy excuse at least. Recently, I just haven't been in the picture taking "groove". I don't know what it is, but I just don't seem to like the photos I have been taking lately. It's difficult to explain, but it can best be explained like this: basically, when I'm taking pictures, I see the photos I take before I take them. In other words, I can look at something and see the photo I want to take of that something in my head before I actually take the photo; and then I go ahead and take that photo that I see in my head. Make any sense? Maybe? Maybe not? Let me use an example. Let's say I see a snowy landscape with a solitary tree in it. The snow is unmarred by footprints so it is smooth and seamless. There is just the right amount of clouds obscuring the sun so the light isn't blaring harshly off the snow, but there is just enough obscurity of the sun to create a nice even glow on it. It looks like a dreamworld. I see the perfect shot of this solitary tree, coupled with the overpoweringly simple and austere landscape of snow in my head. I go to get the best angle, but when I take the picture I am greatly dissatisfied. I can't seem to take that photo that I see in my head. I can't get it right, and it didn't use to be like this. Maybe I am setting my expectations too high? I don't know. But anyways... I know it probably sounds really weird, and I'm sure you totally wanted to read all of my ramblings, but that's how I've been feeling about my picture taking of late. I don't know what to do about it, but I think I'm going to call this phase I'm in "photographer's depression" and just live with it. I don't know how long it lasts, but hopefully I will be rid of it sooner than later!

Also, I will try to update this blog more diligently in the future, so if you haven't been checking-in on a regular basis because of a lack of posts (and rightly so), rest assured, you can start visiting with more frequency without the fear of potentially seeing a bunch of old posts that you've already looked over a million times (because I know you have! :P).

Anyways, that's all for now!

Winter Is Here

Yes, winter is finally here. Eight inches of white stuff fell at our place this past Friday and Saturday. Don't believe me? Here is some evidence for you: