Catching The Sun

Looking back on 2009... I kept late hours and almost stayed at home. I think I had a lazy year. Next year, I try to go out more. Catch the sun! And I want to go abroad...

By the way I just want to know the secret of being an early riser. I really like watching the late-night TV program... awwww

New Years Week

This week's theme: New Years! If you have a new years resolution, try to represent it in a photograph. If you don't have a resolution, take a picture that represents or commemorates your year. If you take photos of fireworks or New Years parties, feel free to show them this or next week.




My year has been an excessively tough one. Filled with trials and challenges. Drama and dispute. Polar opposites of emotions, from extremely sad, to very happy. Most of all, this year has been one of transition for me. New university, new friends... new place to call home. Thus, this is my home. I call it The Gables. I've learned to call this place home. I'm still learning. But it is home, and I feel that this is where I belong for now. I've grown by moving out of my childhood home. In a good way, I have grown. This house has been the predominant factor in my life all year. It only seems fitting that this is my last wish for the year, that this home will indeed be one worth my time.

ornament

Here is an ornament on my Christmas tree. We have all these glass balls filled with tinsel from my father's childhood. Most have broken but we still have a good 15 or so left. They look so pretty with the Christmas lights behind them.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! Mine was swell, it snowed all day and the day before. I watched an abundance of Christmas movies and had my Christmas playlist on repeat during the last week or so leading up to yesterday. I've also decided to embrace the 12 days of Christmas and continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And to do so, I went Boxing Day shopping with my friend Taylor! Tonight I'm going to watch Home Alone (again!).

How was your guys' Christmases? (:

mele kalikimaka

these photos are unfortunately in reverse order because of the upload!

this year my family and i travelled to oahu for christmas, instead of being home and exchanging gifts for a white christmas celebration. i'm bummed that i have to miss the first white christmas of my life, but hawaii is such an amazing place too. we've been eating haupia, plate lunch, and luau food for the whole week, and we all weigh about 5,000 pounds apiece now! every morning we watch the sunrise at 7, then go out on the beach for a few hours, then go out driving, shopping, eating, visiting my mom's and grandparent's old digs, and anything else that comes to mind.

today, somewhat of a storm rolled in, and the waves around most of the island got to about 40 feet high! so, instead of spending the day on the beach, we headed out and took pictures and videos at every beach. i have never seen such amazing waves! unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out so well, but maybe i'll get a chance to upload my videos to vimeo.

i hope you've all had a wonderful day. don't lose the christmas spirit just because it isn't christmas any more!
endless love! endless peace! endless good tidings! and love love love!
aloha <3

Christmas Wish

This Santa Claus doll is displayed in our neighborhood every Christmas season. I like this!
In Japan, Christmas is not holiday. But tomorrow 23th Dec is national holiday (the emperor's birthday). I think most of Japanese will have a christmas party tomorrow. But I would not, I'm going to go to Kobe for seeing a french new wave film 'Paris Vu Par...'. It's my favorite film.

Now I'm listening to NRBQ'S 'Christmas Wish'. So, I decided today's title to 'Christmas Wish'.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Winter Solstice

This week's theme: Take a photo representing the holiday celebrations of Christmas, Hanukkah, or any other!


Today is the Winter Solstice. :D Celebration! And next, Christmas. Excitement ensues.

Mahalia

This beauty is my god sister, Mahalia. There was a bus strike on Friday, so we had to walk for about 30 minutes to get to a friends christmas party. Sydney is famous for its hot christmas weather, but somehow it was really cold and rainy when this picture was taken.

oh, fall

Sorry this is from a month ago! Clearly I've been so busy - at 4:something today I finished with my first semester at uni. Now I have a month off before I have to go back! I plan on finishing the first draft of my novel during this time, and maybe teach myself how to sew (again) or knit (again).

Anyway, this is my favourite shot from my shoot with my friend Taylor for his senior photos. I love the duck swimming in the water. (: Ah, that weather was perfect! It's been pretty mild around here over the past couple of days - in the upper teens - after a week of 5 degrees. Not the strongest winter yet though - come on Minnesota, bring it!!

p.s. I'm all ready with my photo for next week....oh, I have the day after Christmas don't I? That's dumb.

num-numz

every friday i bake goodies for my music class and we have a huge party with jamming and rappin' and improvising. it's really a lot of fun! yesterday i stayed home sick, so i had enough time to bake about 80 cookies, and some other treats. everyone really enjoyed all my christmas goodies. we also had a secret santa exchange and sang carols. i am so in the mood for the holidays now! on sunday i'm going to hawaii for two weeks, so hopefully i'll have lots of fun photos to show on christmas day.

if you'd like the recipe for these melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookies, just let me know! also, check out my latest blog post for a recipe i wrote for these really great chocolate crunch candies :) they are absolutely delicious and everyone who ate it fell in love. needless to say i'm addicted!

my mom and I were experimenting with a new cookie dough recipe. this was the result. isn't she wonderful? haha, I thought I'd go ahead and give a preview of my Christmas pictures :)

The First Shooting

At last, I could take photos with my new camera, Vivitar V3800N. And I used ferrania solaris film again.
Sadly it was cloudy, still cloudy. No more cloudy! I really miss the clear blue sky.
... But I like this camera very much.

05:18

Next week - NOT THIS WEEK - but next week, beginning next Monday (21 December), we'll be having another theme week! There will be ANOTHER theme week after that (28 Decemeber)!

CHRISTMAS! Winter Solstice! Noël! Navidad! クリスマス! Weihnachten! What have you, it's that time of year again. The colourful lights are alight, the holiday decorations are set up, the cold (or hot) weather has finally settled in, and holiday cheer is all around. A time for coming together, a time for fun, presents, reverence, and all around happy times. Christmas is by far my most favourite holiday, and I look forward to it every single year with great eagerness. No surprise then that I would want to orchestrate another theme week. :P

And it's an ever-so easy one. Next week, CHRISTMAS themed! We'll be taking pictures of something festive: Christmas trees, Christmas lights, presents under the tree, family dinners/reunions, what have you. I have a feeling all of us at the 7DAC celebrate Christmas. But if you partake in the Solstice/Hannakah/Kwanza, or any other winter-time holiday instead of Christmas, represent it! We'd be happy to see. Feel free to upload 5 photos this week! :]

The week after Christmas is a big time, as it is the beginning of the New Year! When that roles around, we will have another theme week. New Years is a time for recollection of the past 365 days, and a christening of the next 365 to come. Therefore, New Years week, we will be taking photos with another theme in mind. Our theme will be "Resolutions" and "Last Wishes." If you start your new year by making yourself a resolution of a task to complete by the end of the year, try and represent it with a photo! If you don't really like resolutions (like me), take a photo that commemorates your life of one whole year. Feel free to do both, if you'd like! And, feel free to upload 5 photos this week too. Show some fireworks if you go see them!

I'm scheduling these right now because, while the holidays are a lot of fun, I also know they can get pretty hectic. This gives you plenty of time to dream up what you'd like to do for your photos. Make us proud. :]

________________________________


My photo today is a I took for Suzy Wimbourne (suzypuzz on Flickr) at five in the morning. She's doing this project called the "One Day" project, where essentially, she has been organizing folks together to take one picture at a certain time of day, one picture per photographer. When she compiles all these photos together, she'll end up with one photo for every 15 minutes, which will represent a full 24 hours in a day. I think this'll be really neat! There are a few spots still open if you all would be interested in joining. Check out Suzy's project on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suzypuzz/4101321599/

purple

I'm sorry this picture is so boring, I have been so busy lately! School ends in two days, so after that I should be taking a lot more photographs.

Harriet Island

Just a couple weekends ago, the weather looked like this. A mild 35 degrees, no need for coats. Now it's 8 degrees everyday with half a foot of snow. I kind of miss the fall weather, but heccckkk I look damn sexy in winter clothes. I have no idea why, but I've had more men winking, waving, honking at me, hitting on me, etc. over the past few days than I have all year.

Anyway, back to photography...I took this when I was out taking my friend Taylor's (pictured) senior photos. They turned out wonderfully, this was the setting.

p.s. I ditched my old final project idea. I'm doing shoes.

it snowed this past weekend in DC! on saturday i stood in the freezing rain literally for an hour so i could go to a portfolio review downtown. thankfully, a nice girl let me under her umbrella. later on i played in the snow with my boyfriend and brother, and then we warmed up with hot cocoa. i went out for a walk in the falling snow and it was gorgeous (more photos on flickr). it was icy but beautiful out the next day (sunday), when i took this photo.

the latest: it's almost christmas break! in one week i'm leaving for hawaii for two solid weeks. it will be a nice opportunity to spend time with my family in the balmy weather. also, tomorrow is my first anniversary with my boyfriend. such exciting things are going on otherwise, but i'll have to save those stories for another day :)

Fall in December

This is one of the many photos from this past weekend. There will be more on flickr soon. :)

Tinged With Red

At my favourite cafe. I had a lunch there.
I took this photo with "Ferrania Solaris(ISO800). I did film-scan without revise, the result it this... All photos were tinged with red. It's very interesting film. But I think this film is good to use for toy cameras. I'll try again using LOMO or my cheap twin-lens reflex.

Busy

Things are happening.

lazy

 Just a picture of my window sill. I didn't get around to taking many pictures this week. 

shoes

yes, I realize I'm very sloppy in the darkroom. And even sloppier with the scanner. I'm sorry. This wasn't a shot I was turning in, so I didn't make sure the enlarger was perfect. On the bright side, everyone in my class loved this shot and tried to convince me to do my final series on shoes. Persuasion is not my classmates' strongest point. My series will be brilliant, but not about shoes. (My topic is a secret!)

broke the rules

iknowiknowiknow. i'm not supposed to put up two pictures. but i promise this is the last time, i just felt bad for not sharing my family or anything i'm thankful for last week.

the first is a brie en croute i made on thanksgiving day, by covering the brie in puff pastry and hand cutting all the lacey details, covering the whole thing in egg wash and baking it. unfortunately it isn't around any more. fortunately, it was delicious.
i'm really thankful for my natural bent towards little details and creative things like that. and for the fact that i almost always have good results from working in the kitchen! lucky me.

the second picture isn't a good one, but it's sorta funny, i think- which portrays my mood this week; i have not been feeling/acting serious in the least! anyway, this is my dog, dixie, in a collar i made myself out of scrap faux fur and black satin ribbon. it's supposed to be worn around the neck, and it almost looks chanel-esque with a black coat, pearls, and curly hair. i don't think dixie did it right, but don't tell her or else her feelings might be hurt.

Shiwasu

At last December comes... 'shiwasu(師走)' means December in Japanese.
Whenever December comes, somehow I feel I'm being pressed.
Almost Japanese does general house cleaning, writes New Year's cards and has some party which is called 'bounen-kai(忘年会)' in this month. Of course, Christmas party too!

I have a lot of disused articles. I hope I'll throw away them completely within this year. Maybe I will not though.. I guess I'll escape from reality!
I wonder if the foreign people does general house cleaning as well?

To The Wind

Things are going. Who knows if it's according to a plan or not. But hopefully everything will make sense soon. December is here. December is a month of celebration and change for me. More change than celebration this time around. I'm considering a very huge change in my life. At the moment, it's very vague... something that may or may not be possible. But at the same time, it's entirely possible. It's entirely possible and just dangling in front of me. Can I grasp it? Who knows. Should I grasp it? Who knows. But hopefully I can figure it out. Bientôt.

because you're a cat.

I couldn't decide what to take a picture of this week.. Generally I'm thankful for everything, and getting my family to stay in one place and co ordinate an okay looking picture is near impossible most of the time! So I chose this picture of my cat, Lightning. He is both part of my family and something I am very thankful for :) He tends to sleep in bizarre places.

family

This is my family. I love my family more than anything else in the world. They are the reason I live, they are the reason for which I will die. My family is very very small, I haven't met most members of it. I was born without grandfathers, I lost both of my grandmothers early. I have few aunts and uncles, few cousins, and we're all spread out. I know my family through photos. And now I share a few of these photos with you. Photos of my grandfather, of my great grand parents. Photos of my grandmother, my father, my aunt, my mother, a dog who was once called family.... My family is small and most are not here on earth anymore, but I'm still proud and I still love each and every member, even if they don't know that I'm down here loving them.

Don't think I have a picture today. All of my ideas fizzled out, but I *hopefully* will get some good shots tomorrow.

We Just Go Out

I took my husband stealthily. We got on a train seeing one of the coolest shoegaze band Ringo Deathstarr!

Thanksgiving

This week's theme: Take a photo of the people you call family.
If you can not, take a photo of something you are thankful for.


I am very encumbered today by coursework and getting ready to travel to Houston for the holidays. So I'll post photos later this week. But enjoy this old picture of my family for now. :]

It's thirty nine degrees and storming.

(I like the look of old television sets, they're much nicer than those flat screens we have today..)

I don't have much to say.. The heat has made me lazy! 

the shoe tree

One of my assignments for photography class was to take photos of "altered landscapes" and "altered lighting." This is my altered landscape, as the tree has shoes hanging all over it. This tree is on the U of MN campus. I guess that grad students or something chuck there shoes over the bridge, onto the tree after the graduate or something. I'm not sure. Some strange tradition like that. Minnesotans are weird.

p.s. Am really excited for next week! I already have my idea all planned out :)

somewhat

i have a few favorite spots where i like to go by myself. there is a series of ponds scattered throughout my neighborhood, each within ten minutes of walking from my house. three of them run together, alternating with small creeks. on the largest, pictured here, there are docks and openings where one can go to the water's edge. whenever i have the chance, i ride my bicycle to one of these spots and just sit there, often taking pictures, for a while until i feel compelled to leave (which takes a while!).

the latest: i made a sweet vest last week and i'll have to show it to you. it happened so unexpectedly, and i'm considering running with the concept and creating a small collection based on it. how exciting!

shadows

ink sketch copied on transparent paper put on a projector put on a body.

Twisted

They're renovating the student center at my school right now, and it won't be complete until my projected graduation year. Everyone who's older than me is very upset about this, because they've loved the MSC for so long, and they won't get to see it all shiny and new. I, however, have no attachment to the building, because I've never used it before. It's funny to see the things like this that people value so much. I mean, come on... it's just a building, right?

Wrong. The spirit of the building lives on. There were a lot of organizations that served the school that were housed in this building, and these organizations have chosen to find other places on campus to meet so that they can still accomplish their purpose. I think that's pretty cool. :)

Have a great, great week everyone! And I don't really know about the weather anywhere outside of central Texas, but I'm such a wimp in the cold. I hate it. So, if it's cold where you are, stay warm! Loves!

Shooting Stars

I heard the Leo meteor swarm is coming now. But we have rain, rain, rain (sometimes cloudy)... can't see the stars at all. So, I tried to make shooting star.
I'm sure I'll catch the Gemini meteor show next month!

Cold Days

Next week - NOT THIS WEEK - but next week, beginning next Monday, we'll be having another theme week!

Autumn, the time of change, and the time of the big seasons. The world alters. In some places, the leaves change to all number of colours, the air turns crisp and cool, and the land braces for winter. In others, the land awakens to the warmth of summer! Here in the United States and Canada, we have a day we call Thanksgiving. It's our harvest festival! It's a time for the family to get together, to take stock in what we have, and be grateful for all the wonderful people in our lives.

Now, obviously, not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. But maybe we here at the 7DAC can celebrate our own type of holiday. Next week, our theme is going to be family. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, cousins and relatives, whatever! Snap a picture of the people you're related to or really care about (remember, your family might be your friends as well!). If you some reason you can't catch your family, take a picture of something you're thankful for, and tell us why you're so thankful. But try to sneak a shot of family if you can!

The mid day sun

I've taken a lot of pictures today, but for some reason I'm set on this very simple photograph taken in my bedroom.

oh, life

Okay, so my photo this week is one I took for Lookbook.nu oh well. I've had sort of a tough past couple of weeks and haven't had time for photography. I'm so exhausted, always. And then there's school and relationships and money and all that stuff. So here's a photo where I look remotely happy (and like a cartoon character), I hope you enjoy it. I think my retired neighbour was watching me out his window when I took this particular one....

meh

this is what i did for my art assignment this week in fashion illustration. we were focusing on cropping. i'm not incredibly proud of it but it's not as bad as it could have been. i guess i'm just still learning! i have a long way to go but i'm sure i'll get there.

the latest: it's been raining for a solid week. again. seriously, we've had probably a total of 10 sunny days this fall. usually autumn is my favorite season, partly because of the sunny and mild weather, but this year just wasn't what i was expecting. i guess we needed the rain, though. i just wish the sun would come out so i could get some exercise, haha.

I'm sorry

sorry I'm such a inactive member of this group, late again. hope its okay.

IIII

I figure that, since I cheated on my first post and used an old picture of myself, I owe it to you to show you what I look like now. Apologies for the face - it was bright outside.

Toy Camera Junkie

This picture was taken by plastic twin-lens reflex camera. It's not bbf "black bird fly", but a supplement to this magazine "大人の科学マガジン(otona no kagaku magazine)". I assembled it by myself! Actually, I'm so careless and not good at handiwork. I really worried that this camera would not work, but the first shooting was almost successful(unexpected!).

I love the while looking through the finder, thinking about exposure/composition slowly and carefully(I need training more more more). Sometimes I'm careless when I'm taking pictures with digital camera. Because it's so intelligent, convenient and easy to delete the failures... but I feel sometimes boring...
Anyway, I love this camera! I'm going to take pictures with the different kind of film soon.

大人の科学マガジンvol.25 (otona no kagaku magazine vol.25)
http://otonanokagaku.net/magazine/vol25/index.html

Up On High

My life is one large instance of indecision. A crossroads between action and inaction. If you're given a test with two right answers, can you really pass? If both ways are right, are there really no wrongs? Or is one right better than another; is one less than good? How do you solve a problem where you're not sure which decision is best?

How do you defeat not knowing what to do?

Think Calming Thoughts....

Hey everyone! Sad news for me, my iPhoto library has just been wiped out. I'm trying to get all my pictures back but it looks as though they're good as gone at this point.. luckily I have a fair few saved! I've had to upload this photograph directly from my flickr.

It's a relaxing picture - just what I need!

long exposure

On the bridge at night with my best friend. I wish that night could've lasted longer. I wish all my time with this friend could last longer.

busy beeeeeee

i bought the fabric for this sweater months ago (july?) and have just now been able to turn it into something. using a tee shirt i don't wear any more, i made a pattern (i suppose that is cheating but i haven't made myself a sloper to draft with yet), then whipped this baby up in about thirty minutes. i'm really excited because it will be great for layering in the colder months coming up, but it's also light and pretty enough to wear in the spring. i still have some trimming and clipping to do, just to clean it up, but other than that i'm pretty happy with the results.

the latest: i'm back from my two week hiatus due to a renegade camera cord, as you all know! also, i've been taking fashion illustration classes with academy art university online. perhaps i'll show you some of my work soon. totally random, but on monday i hosted halloween event- a halo 1 tournament on pc's! we called it HALOween and used it as a fund raiser for our music class. it was a blast and next we're having a rock band battle in my basement.

enough blabbering, it's friday night! go do something extravagant!
*flops on the couch to watch project runway* ..........!