my nutty life: June 2011

6.30.2011

lack of inspiration+giveaway winner

purchase *here*

Lately I've been in need of inspiration. Photography inspiration, fashion inspiration, etc.
There are several people I go to for this:

number one: carlotta

Carlotta has just about the most stunning posts ever, always chock-full of amazing photography and beautiful writing.

number two: jessica shae

jessica has photos that are the perfect cure for my not-so-creative days, most of her posts feature beautiful whimsical photos that are just about to die for ;)

number three: stephanie williams

this woman has my dream job. I'm serious. I've looked at all of her sessions about a bazillion and one times and I haven't gotten tired of them yet, and I doubt I ever will! I can't even tell you how much I would love to be the Ruche or Threadsence lookbook photographer. Plus, did I mention how uh-MAZ-ing her photography is? Make sure to check her out!

Well, I'm pretty sure my need for inspiration has been cured! Which brings me to the subject of our giveaway winner! The winner is:

hope!

Congratulations hope, please email me.

That's it for now friends, so long!

-hannah

6.28.2011

baseball

Baseball is slowing down for the season, now it's time for all the tournaments to kick in. Mark's playing his championship game tonight against one of his good friends. Wish them luck!

Also, regarding the design, I'm thinking I should go with a plain white background instead of this pink one, and maybe a photo header but still stick with same basic colors. Thoughts?

-hannah
p.s. the entries for for the blog design giveaway ends on June 30th! Go enter now :)

6.25.2011

scenes from the mountains

I haven't been on blogger much these past few days, and the next week or two will be extremely busy, so I'm not sure how much I'll be around. I'll try to schedule some posts though :)
Anyway, I've thrown together a post with pictures that I took the last time we went up to our mountain house. Enjoy!

Love this photo, the flower was gorgeous. A bunch of different things were in bloom when we went up there last...

and all the berries, fruit and other edible deliciousness has started to come out!

okay, I have no idea whatsoever what that bug thing is in that photo ^^^ but it looks scary. If anyone can identify it that'd be awesome :)

A whole bunch of raptors were flying above the house throughout the day.

We were so glad that the weather was decent–not too hot, not too cold–and it didn't rain. Around noon some relatives came up and we had a blast taking them gown to the brook, walking in the woods, and just generally enjoying nature ;)

I love summer ;)
Are you going on summer vacation?

-hannah
p.s. hurry up and enter the blog design giveaway! Entries are closed June 30th!

6.23.2011

chow down pt1 [lighting]

I have expressed my love for food photography to you multiple times, but after a while I thought, "hey, I'm telling them how much I love it, why don't I give them tips to love it?" So, here is the first of several tips to photograph food better:

1. Lighting
Lighting is super important in food photography. If you don't have good lighting, you don't have a good food photo, its as simple as that.
Compare this:

To this:

Relatively the same subject, totally different lighting conditions.
In the first photo, the salad was on the kitchen table. All the lights were on in the kitchen and the camera was on the no-flash setting.
Poor artificial lighting+auto/no-flash=bad photo.

Now look at the second photo. Totally natural lighting, shot in manual (sorry, I don't know what settings).
Natural lighting+a photographer who knows how to and is shooting in manual=good photo.

Natural lighting is on of the keys to a good food shot.

What I do to achieve natural lighting is to a) place your food near a window or b) take it outside. Either of these options are good just make sure if you're doing them, do it before the sunsets...

Taken after the sun went down :P

Now go crazy! Practice, practice, practice, and soon in no time you will have mastered the skill of perfectly lighting your food photos!

-hannah
p.s. don't forget to enter the blog design giveaway!

6.22.2011

did i forget to mention...

that Luke's baseball team won the championship?

and he got the mvp. Yep, my little bro rocks :)

(sorry the photos are so pixelated, it's really hard to shoot in manual at night :P)

by the way, literally two minutes ago (no, seriously, my mom just called) Luke hit his first homerun. Over the fence. And I wasn't there to witness it. I. am. so. dissapointed. Congratulate Luke on his first homerun! *sob*

-hannah

p.s. don't forget to enter the blog design giveaway!

6.21.2011

summer design

I thought it was appropriate to install the summer design on the first day of summer, it really just fits. So I'd like your feedback! How do you like the new design? I still have to work out the pages and stuff but other than that its done.

-hannah

p.s. don't forget to enter the blog design giveaway!

6.19.2011

{a photo} challenge | a photo of your favorite place

When I saw the theme for this photo challenge, I knew I had a couple options. For me, a favorite place is wherever my family is, but one of my favorite places that i could go anytime, whether it be alone or with my whole family, is this:

I could just stare at this view all day and discover something new about it every minute.
This is a hawk-watch up by our mountain house. People generally go up there to watch hawks, (hence the name) and though we like to do that, its just very refreshing to see the whole world spread out ahead of you for miles around.
It makes you remember how lucky you are and just how beautiful everything is.

What's your favorite place?

-hannah

6.18.2011

the past few days

The past few days have consisted of...

1. making frappuccinos. The actual Starbucks recipe! Um, can you say total money saver?

2. hanging out with friends. Seriously, I love my friends, they're just too awesome...

3. obsessing over bohemian stuff
I've truly been obsessing. You can ask anyone. I've even veered my jewelry making activities to go in a more bohemian direction. I'll post photos of a necklace I made soon! By the way, I think this might be the third post in a row I've said something about bohemian awesomeness.....

4. reviewing shoots
I actually really like doing this, I love to see where i need to improve my shooting/editing skills:

5. what I wouldn't do

Totally love this song:

The end

-hannah

6.15.2011

the unbelievably epic bohemian photo shoot

right now I'm just going to post photos of me, Kate and one of my best friends Jodie because I need to get permission from my other friend's mom to post pictures of her on my blog :)

um, do i have to say how much i LOVE braided headbands?

LOVE this picture of Jodie. She's so photogenic!

probably my favorite photo of me ever ;)

I. love. bohemian. everything. This photo shoot was pretty much my dream photo shoot. I so hope that I'm able to post pictures of my other bestie ;)

Which photo is your favorite?

-hannah

p.s. how do you like my new haircut? :)

6.12.2011

now announcing...

the re-launch of my design business, now named Simply You Designs! SYD offers lovely custom blog designs for extremely low prices. And to celebrate this re-launch, I'm giving away this package:

A Little Bit More Package...................$8

1 removable header

1 removable background (two or three column, please specify)

1 blog button

1 signature

1 menu bar

1 post divider

1favicon

up to 4 sidebar titles

template adjustments

custom coloring of fonts, borders, etc.

installation