August 31 2011

Cold rainy August day. We deserve a little bad with all this amazing weather we’ve been having. After a long walk in the rain with Abby I came home, made a pot of peppermint tea, and sat back to look at my pictures. Perfect way to spend a rainy day.

August 30 2011

Abby enjoying the great outdoors. Happy as can be.

August 29 2011

Snuggling up in bed waiting for the cold.

August 28 2011

Shootin’ some hoops today. I realized that although I’m not very good at basketball, I do really enjoy getting out there and trying. I suppose that’s what it’s all about..

August 27 2011

I’m heading to the land of beautiful people, I think I’ll fit in pretty well looking like this. I’ll probably make a lot of friends along the way too.

August 26 2011

Today was my last day at work for the summer. It has been an amazing few months and I had a blast every single day.

This is the first year in my life that I’m not going back to school since I started. I’m looking forward to my trip to Croatia to keep my mind off of the fact that I’m not going back. The next few weeks will be spent getting ready and planning the trip!

August 25 2011

Another part of my backyard.

#71–take photography lessons

Quote for the experience: I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it ~ unknown

Today was my final photography lesson at The University of Calgary. Taking a picture a day for a year can have many challenges and I felt my photography plateaued this summer. Thankfully, my Dad purchased me a photography lesson for my birthday and I loved every minute of the class.

If you know me at all you know that I can’t stay awake past 10:30pm. This class finished around 9:45 so my creative juices were really running dry on Wednesday class night. On the Saturday class I had approximately 2 hours of sleep so again I didn’t think that I would really benefit from the class. Luckily, I learnt A LOT. More than I could have even imagined! Every member in the class taught me something new and the instructor taught me a million little tricks to improve my photographs.

I realize that I’m just beginning my journey in the photography realm but I do love picking up my camera every single day and trying to find beauty even if there is nothing there. I’m excited to try new classes and to keep learning (even if it’s through my own mistakes). I’m proud of how much my pictures have improved from the beginning of the year and even over the last few weeks of the course. Oh the possibilities.

I will use my techniques out in Croatia with the point and shoot camera and hopefully post some nice pictures while I’m over there.

August 24 2011

Even Abby likes to check out subject matter..

August 23 2011

One of the last flowers standing.

August 22 2011

Dick and Sue’s CSA

I had the pleasure of spending my evening at Dick and Sue’s farm just on the outskirts of Calgary. They are piloting a 'community supported agriculture’ endeavour and are doing an amazing job for their first year. I am excited to see what the future has in store for them. 

August 21 2011

Today I ventured out to take my pictures for my photo assignment. Task: take only one picture every 100 steps regardless of what’s around. The goal of the assignment was to seek for a picture when there might not be anything around.

August 20 2011

I spent all day Saturday in Kananaskis as part of my photography class. I cannot even begin to describe how wonderful the day ended up being. After a long drive to and from Edmonton, an hour an a half of sleep, and another two hour drive to the class I thought it would be a guaranteed terrible day.

We learnt a lot of different tips and techniques today. It was nice to be able to learn from other photographers and see the difference in my photographs (even throughout the day).

This picture was taking at 630am at Wedge Pond. Beautiful.

August 19 2011

Taylor Swift concert. Ended up being an inch away from her (kind of a dream!). Such an awesome concert.

Awesome birthday gift, thanks Justin!!

August 18 2011

We rarely get hail in the south east so this really surprised me. Abby and I were a little scared (more Abby of course).

August 17 2011

Just a foggy evening, you can feel autumn in the air now.

August 16 2011

This picture never does justice for the amazing taste of the dragon bowl. Carolyn and I had our classic Agora meal tonight and it was as good as usual. It’s nice to change the meal plan up a bit.

August 15 2011

Tendrils from a cantaloupe vine. I thought this was adorable.

I’m practicing for my course so there’ll be a few garden pics coming up.

August 14 2011

This week I will be learning how to use flash and reflectors. I think it will be good to learn!

August 13 2011

I went for wine and cheese at Greengate (a local garden centre). You really can’t beat that combination at all, it’s amazing.

August 12 2011

August 11 2011

One of the instructors biggest tip was to bring your camera everywhere you go. I have to say that taking a picture a day for a year has really encouraged me to have a camera with me at all times. It really is interesting what you can find.

August 10 2011

Today was my very first photography class. The theme of this class is photography in the garden but our instructor describes the ‘garden’ as basically anything you would like it to be. Most of the class was spent taking pictures outside and typically everyone was taking pictures of flowers.

Since I’ve done a lot of flower shots I decided to focus my attention on objects that you wouldn’t really consider part of a garden. In this case, I choose a piece of metal artwork and just played around with under/overexposure, aperature, ISO, and shutter speed to really see what kind of difference each little change made.

Here was one of my favourite shots of the night. Let me know what you think.

August 9 2011

I attended my first alumni affairs meeting. Today’s purpose was to give new students a chance to ask graduates questions about campus. It was nice to have a little piece of Vancouver right here in Calgary. I met a few new friends and had a really nice evening.

UBC really is amazing in so many different ways.

August 8 2011

Another day at the landfill. My life is a load of garbage.Get it?! haha

August 7 2011

After two full days of wedding stuff, this is what I look like.

A silly picture to end off the week.

#39: Bake a Wedding Cake

Well, here is the final product.

Day One: Make the calla lilies

Day Two: Bake the cupcakes and cake, and colour the fondant and icing

Day Three: Design and decorate the cake and cupcakes

I feel like most of my list items have been pretty difficult so far but this one seemed to be nothing compared to the marathon. The difficulty here was not knowing enough about baking cakes.

Lessons learnt:

1. You can’t make a fluffy 8” cake as it a) sticks to the pan or b) isn’t that great for a layered cake

2. Purple is NOT a great colour for icing. For some reason purple icing changes colour after a second to sun exposure. This lesson was learnt upon arrival at the venue.

3. Fancy cupcake cups for some reason do not stay attached to vanilla cake. I still don’t know why, but these rumours are true. Good thing I made two dozen extra cupcakes for mistakes.

4. Don’t fill your icing bag more than 2/3 full, it’s a mess.

5. Driving decorated cupcakes and cakes through a city is scary. I felt like I was driving a sleeping new born baby around. If I do this again, I’m getting a sign saying ‘cupcakes on board’ for my car.

Overall, I was pretty happy with my accomplishment and so glad that I had an opportunity to do something creative instead of physical! I must admit my Mom helped out a lot (especially with the food colour and setting up the cake). If you are planning on getting married never order a purple cake and keep it simple (it looks nicer!).

Oh ya, we made the floral arrangements and centre pieces as well. When I say ‘we’ I mean my sister, my Mom, and I (primarily my Mom).

The Wedding VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

August 6 2011

The cupcake sample for the wedding.

August 5 2011: Bake a Wedding Cake

Well, the day has come and I’m sitting here baking the cake and cupcakes for the wedding tomorrow. I felt the entire time I was baking them I was thinking about the meaning of marriage and how different people interpret it. Why we choose to get married, what choices we would make if we were getting married, and what your life would be like with that person in your life all crossed my mind.

Up until today I can honestly say it rarely crosses my mind unless I’m teasing my sister about it. While I sat there patiently waiting for the cake to finish baking I couldn’t help but think about my life. It’s strange how putting together floral arrangements, baking and decorating cake can do that to anybody (even the ones who never think about it!).

August 4 2011

This may or may not have been my lunch break at work.

August 3 2011

My Saskatoon berries are coming in quite nicely! If you’d like some, you know where to find them.

August 2 2011: Bake a Wedding Cake

Day One: Bake a Wedding Cake

This week is dedicated to baking a cake for my Mom’s friends daughters wedding. Tonight my Mom and I prepped by making 16 calla lilies that will act as the wedding topper which will mimic her bouquet.

The bride chose deep purple and black as her wedding colours which can be pretty difficult to turn into colours for a cake. I’m glad she’s trusting me to take on this project! More updates will follow this week.

August 1 2011

Another day on the saddle. This ride was really quick but we couldn’t leave before fit in another few kms. Abby needed a nap anyways haha.