Category: Creepy

Self portrait

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HOW IS IT ALREADY DECEMBER?!

It feels like the eclipse was just yesterday!

The sun goes down SO EARLY now, guys. You know it’s sad days when you’re in Seattle on the first day of December and you think “Wow! The sun is up so late here!” :-/

Anyway, on Sunday, I was sitting in our office so that the last glimpse of sun hit me in the face. It was great – so warm and bright. Then I looked up and saw that the sun was illuminating my face in a reflection in the window. I decided to try to capture it with my camera. I think it turned out pretty well. I love that you can’t even see the camera. There are just some Potassium eyes hovering there. Wahaaaaa.

In case you wanted to see the self-portrait part even closer – here is a crop.

Creeeeeepyyyyyy. Where’d that Potassium come from?

Apparently it’s a creepy-themed week. On Saturday, Cobalt and I took advantage of the super low hanging fog we had to make some silly monster flicks. Then I made the creepy self portrait. And then, when I tried to photograph this weekend’s super moon, the clouds decided that it needed to be creepy too.

Even the moon is red

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Hi guys. Potassium here. We’re going to take a break from the gorgeous food photos and take a peek at (Potassium’s favorite photography subject) the moon!

So we are getting a lot of smoke in here in Washington right now. There are a bunch of major wildfires burning in British Columbia, Canada. And because of the way the winds are blowing, all their smoke is coming here. If you are interested, here is a super helpful infographic from the Seattle Times that explains all the wind craziness.

Plus we have had an epic heatwave (in the 100s on this side of the state and in the 90s to the west). So basically, we now know how it feels to be a smoked ham (or cheddar, if you prefer cheese to ham like I do).

Annnnnyway, all the smoke in the air has made for some eerie days.

It seriously looks like a post-apocalyptic world out there. Who’s read The Road? Am I right?

But then when the moon comes up, it’s such a shocking shade of orange. Practicing for Halloween are we? I played around with settings on my DSLR to take a range of pumpkin-colored moon pictures, like the one featured at the top of this post.

Speaking of celestial objects, who’s getting excited about the eclipse? What percentage of totality will you have in your city? Is anyone driving anywhere?

That’s all for now. If you’re living in a smoke-covered zone, try not to go outside too much!

Moon Fingers

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Hi all, sorry for the short post today but I have been super stressed out working on essays and job applications (plus working in the lab). It’s been a bit crazy here. I’m still going to try to write a sweet science post for y’all next week though so stay tuned!

Today’s picture: moon fingers! So I am still obsessed with the moon after reading Seveneves last year. On Sunday night I was writing at my desk when I looked up and noticed the moon out my window. It looked particularly awesome hiding behind the branches of the tree by my house and I wanted to capture it. I know that the moon is a bit overexposed in this picture but 1) it was hidden in fog anyway so focusing on it wouldn’t be very exciting and 2) I like the bright backdrop it provides for the tree branches. Creeeeeeepyyyyy.

How are you guys? Anyone reading from the east coast? What did you think of the most recent storm? It was 56 degrees here in Boulder on Saturday but it snowed a tiny bit today. Boulder weather is weird… :-/

One haunted anniversary

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Hey all! How are your weeks going? I am having crazy times trying to move (long story – maybe I’ll write about it later when it’s all over with :p) and also working on analyzing my FINAL DATA SETS for this paper I am trying to get submitted so I can finally write my freakin’ thesis and get the hell out of grad school!

Anyway, I thought that today I would share some pictures from Cobalt’s and my fun 2nd wedding anniversary trip! So this year has been pretty sad for the two of us – I mean we get along great still but a lot of really lame things happened during our second year of marriage. So we decided that we deserved to have a bit of fun for our anniversary.

So! Have you seen The Shining? You knowwwww REDRUM and All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, etc etc etc. Well the Overlook Hotel was based off of this hotel in Estes Park, CO (~an hour away from Boulder) called The Stanley Hotel. Cobalt and I have always wanted to stay there but then we found out that they had a “ghost adventure package.” This package includes a guaranteed room on the haunted 4th floor of the main hotel, a K2 meter (to hunt for ghosts), two glow in the dark squishy ghosts, AND two REDRUM mugs! :D Plus there was only one room left for our anniversary! It was perfect! We took it!

So we drove on up to Estes Park on our anniversary and checked into our lovely haunted room and got all of our fun haunted toys (the ghosts turned out to be a lot of fun to play with once it got dark)! We explored the hotel a little and then went into Estes Park for dinner at this place called The Dunraven Inn. We couldn’t decide if we wanted steak or pasta and The Dunraven Inn specialized in both! Score! Then we headed to the bar in the Stanley Hotel which has a ridiculous amount of different whiskeys. They are listed in “The Whiskey Bible” and the shots of whiskey range from a few dollars to over $300! Cobalt was in whiskey heaven and ended up trying this super fancy Buffalo Trace whiskey (it wasn’t the $300 a shot one). It was a pretty good evening. I highly recommend checking out the Stanley Hotel if you’re ever in Colorado (also visiting me and Cobalt… duh… :)). We still need to go back and go on a ghost tour! :D

Below are some more pictures from our adventures! Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we captured any ghosts in our pictures though… Bummer…

View from the front of the hotel
Hotel at night!
The meter is going crazy! It found a ghost!!!!
Oh wait… it’s just a glow in the dark squishy ghost…..

In other unrelated news:

  • Check out this kitty that I was catsitting this weekend. Look at that belly….
  • We just bought tickets to go to one of my best friend from college’s wedding in September! I am SO excited that we are going to get to go! Also in the same trip, we are going to be able to see some of my friends from my old lab here (yes I had to change labs in the middle of my PhD program…. another story for another day) and I get to go home for a week so my parents can spoil me while I write my thesis… (hint hint) :D
  • I am really sad about Robin Williams’ death.

Creepy Clouds

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We have been getting a LOT of rain here recently (wish I could send it all to Los Alamos, NM) so I snapped this picture one night. I was about to go to bed when I saw the moon all creepily obscured by clouds. It’s one of me and Cobalt’s favorite moons (the cool moon if you ask me or the “Lon Chaney” moon if you ask Cobalt…) so I had to take a picture of course. It turned out really cool if you ask me!

Graveyard Apparition

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I looooooove this pic. First of all because it is a bit creepy and second of all because it was taken at 11 pm. No joke. It was daaaaaark outside. You see those white things in the sky? Yeah… they’re stars… So what happened here? Well, this was the night of the epically sized moon that I talked about on Tuesday so it was pretty bright out as far as night goes. And then I was playing with ISO and F numbers with a 30 second exposure time so I could have time to be crazy in front of the camera. Turned out pretty weird I think but I still like it. I like my ghostly see-through appearance.

Travelin’ North…

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Today’s picture comes to us from Oklahoma! Cobalt and I went on a walk to work off some of that delicious turkey we ate for Thanksgiving and stumbled across these train tracks stretching out as far as the eye can see. It made for some really neat shots. Anyway, the focus of this picture was to play with an idea I learned about in my Creative Digital Photography class. Our teacher suggested that pictures composed to draw your eyes from the right of the picture to the left of the picture (as in my picture here) are viewed as “negative” or “offputting” for anyone who reads from left to right (i.e. Western culture). Take for example, the famous painting The Scream.
On the other hand, a picture that draws your eyes from left to right is “positive” or “pleasing” for the same folk. We all seem to really like the waves in this painting from the Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji collection. Of course, you might guess then that if you read from right to left, then a picture drawing your eyes from right to left would be pleasing while a picture that draws your eyes from left to right would be offputting.
What do you guys think? Is that true here? I do kind of feel that this picture makes me a little uneasy. I’m not sure why really. There’s certainly nothing wrong with the train tracks and but for some reason they just don’t seem right. Maybe I’m just biased because I took the picture…

Black and White: Something’s Coming…

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For today’s black and white picture, I am posting a picture of a church I used to see every day on my way to and from work when I lived in New Mexico. One day, there were all these ominous clouds lurking over the top of the church and I decided to snap a picture. So ominous… I also think this picture is appropriate for today because yesterday around 3 pm, it got PITCH BLACK outside and then proceeded to rain/snow/be windy like crazy for the next 10 minutes. So something did come… No worries though, when something does attack, it usually takes off eventually… I also realized that my black and white pictures tend to be creepy. I should post a non creepy black and white picture one day…
As far as editing goes, I took this picture sometime in 2008 and used Paint Shop Pro instead of Photoshop so I actually don’t remember what I did to this picture. Sad days… but at least it looks cool!

Black and White: Riding out the Storm

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For today’s black and white picture, I decided to post this semi creepy picture of what happens when all the leaves fall off the tree! I took this picture in May 2008 when I was visiting Fort Collins, CO with my family to get my sister settled into a summer program at CSU. That means I took this picture on my old old old point and shoot, my trusty Canon Powershot A75 probably about a month or so before it bit the dust. Man, that was the best and most loyal digital point and shoot I ever had; it hung around through three years of college insanity and then one year of fun in New Mexico. So A75, I salute you!
Anyway, I really like that the branches of the tree kind of look like a claw and that the bird is just sitting on this creepy claw being like “Yeah… just chillin’…”

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Black and White: Someone is watching you…

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Welp, I know it’s only Tuesday but we get the black and white day a day early! This is because I have something a little special planned for tomorrow. Wait and see! :)
About today’s picture though: I was taking pictures around Boulder with my friends a few months ago and we decided to take pictures in the downtown Pearl St. area. For no apparent reason, I decided to shoot the whole day in black and white!
Anyway, we were wandering through this alley, when I noticed a mannequin staring at me through the back window of a wig shop. It totally caught me off guard and made me realize what an awesome creepy picture it could make. So there you have it… Someone’s watching you…

Photoshop
I didn’t do anything to this picture! I tried lightening up the wig model’s window a little but it just looked less creepy. So you get the original!

I hope you all are enjoying your Tuesdays! Also, don’t forget to vote today (if you haven’t already)!!!