Category: Friends

Tianjing and Jared got married (sneak peek)!!!!

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Hey everyone! Long time no see! Hopefully I’ll have some time to update you on all the fun going on in my life but for today, let’s celebrate my two dear friends Tianjing and Jared who got married last weekend at the Chapel at Red Rocks here in Colorado. It was a beautiful wedding on a beautiful day (the rain waited until we were safely inside for the reception) and I had the honor of being their photographer (along with my friend Jem!). Having a second photographer made all the difference compared to the first wedding I photographed where I was the sole photographer. I feel like Jem and I just waltzed in and took control of the situation by taking awesome pictures. I got to be extra bossy – not only did I tell Tianjing and Jared what to do, but I also requested shots from Jem too (we split up the work so that we had different lenses on our cameras to get a wide variety of shots without having any downtime to change lenses). Plus it was a lot of fun to be working with someone instead of just running the show by myself!

Aaaaaaanyway, let’s talk about the bride and groom! I’ve known Tianjing since the first week of our graduate program here in Colorado. Tianjing showed up late so she missed the annoying 2.5 weeks of orientation that we all had to go through but we were fast friends anyway – I think it was our combined love of eating and being silly that did the trick. Ever since then, we’ve been getting together randomly to cook or go out for delicious food (one example is our trip to Aspen)! One day when we bumped into each other in the Cell Culture Facility at school, Tianjing told me she’d met a guy…. As she told me more and more about him, I knew he had to be someone special and I couldn’t wait to meet him! I finally did and as I sat across the table from Tianjing and Jared at a Korean BBQ place, I couldn’t believe how perfect they were for each other. I had this thought over and over again pretty much every time we hung out after that and it was definitely at the forefront of my mind on their wedding day.

I truly enjoyed taking your pictures, guys. It was so fun capturing all the giggles, smiles, and kisses that made up your wedding day. I wish you two all the happiness in the world. :) Stay tuned for a deluge of pictures!



That’s it for your sneak peek, folks! I hope you enjoyed them. What’s that? You want just onnnneeee more? Okay….

Esther and Felix are getting married this year!

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Hellooooo world! It’s been forever since I posted. But what a good time to start posting again when I have Esther’s and Felix’s engagement pictures to show you! We had an eventful February weatherwise – it was the warmest February on record and also the snowiest! How does that even happen?! Anyway, all that snow made for a beautiful backdrop to take pictures with Esther and Felix! I’ve never had snow around for engagement pictures and it turns out that it’s really fun! We had some snowball fights, Felix stomped out their wedding date into the snow, and they made some snow angels together. It was kind of awesome.

I first met Esther in 2013 when she interviewed to be a postdoc in our lab. We pretty much hit it off right away (especially after experiencing an awkward brunch together on the last day of her interview) so I was really happy when she and Felix decided to move here! Since they’ve been here, we’ve done a lot together – Esther and I did yoga with butterflies; Esther, Felix, Cobalt, and I started a tradition (called “noodles”) of going out to dinner on Friday nights with any lab mates (and their significant others) who are free/hungry; we watched Germany win the World Cup together; etc. We spend so much time with these two that I was really excited when Esther asked me to take their engagement pictures! In October, Esther and Felix are getting married in Germany! I am so excited for you guys and I really hope that Cobalt and I can get over there to be there for the big day! Congratulations again, you guys!

Eric and Clara got married (sneak peak)!!!

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This weekend, my friends Clara and Eric got married! Eric works in the lab next to ours and has helped me a lot with my complicated data analysis problems and Clara is his crafty bride. Every time I see her, she is making something awesome (a new wallet, cute stuffed mice for the children she nannies for, etc etc etc). One time, Clara and I escaped from a party to go to Michael’s Crafts and get painting supplies. It was an awesome adventure. Anyway, there’s something special about these wedding photos I’m sharing with you today. I often bring my fatty DSLR to weddings to take pictures of the bride and groom but this time Eric and Clara asked me to be their official wedding photographer! WOW! So Cobalt and I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park this past Saturday with my DSLR and all three of my lenses! It was epic – generally I think photographers get more than 2 days notice about photographing people’s weddings so this one was a lot of playing everything by ear and herding family and bridal party members around to make sure I got pictures that I thought Eric and Clara would want. Overall I think it went smoothly – it was a beautiful day at the park and Eric and Clara were so happy and fun to photograph. They had a short ceremony in the morning and the rest of the day was spent frolicking with family and friends (and lots of eating). It was a great day and I feel so honored that I got to be such a big part of it!

Now onto the pictures! I took over a thousand pictures that I am going to be slowly editing when I need a break from science this summer but for now here is a sneak peak so you can see for yourself how beautiful this day was! :)





Because this was my first wedding ever, I thought I would write a little about my experience and give (myself and anyone else who is interested) some reminders/tips. First of all, I LOVED photographing the wedding. I’m not going to lie; it was kind of fun being bossy to get everyone positioned for pictures. Also, I relished all the thinking I had to do about poses, lighting, where I should be, etc. I was so happy and in my element being creative!

Finally, two lists to sum up my reminders/tips:

First: what to bring for a “survival kit.” I brought bandaids, tissues, water, and hair clips. I should have also brought sunscreen because we all fried to a crisp out there. >_<

Second: some things I think will be important to remember when prepping to photograph a wedding/engagement session.

  1. Get to know the bride and groom – I think this was easy for me because I work with Eric and I see Clara a lot too. This is really important though because I want to take pictures that capture the couple’s essence and I want to put them into poses that seem natural for their personalities
  2. Ask the bride and groom beforehand for certain pictures that they definitely want – this part caused some stress on my part during this wedding because I didn’t know which family members had come and I didn’t know who wanted to be photographed with whom. Also I think if the bride and groom and the photographer have an idea about the “set list” before the wedding, it helps the photographer plan the shots and the timing needed to get all of them beforehand.

That’s all! I hope you liked the pictures! I can’t wait to photograph more weddings/engagements/special events! Let me know if you want me to do something for you! :D

Cabination!

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Wow! It’s been forever since I posted again… Sorry you guys… this semester has been really busy what with trying to graduate and the hurt ankles and all… It’s been a rough month for this Potassium, that’s for sure.

Anyway, there have been some good things that I’ve been photographing and not posting so let’s talk about that! Last weekend, Cobalt and I went camping with our friends The Chocolate Pudding and her husband the Millionaire Space Accountant and J and her husband K for K’s birthday. Before you freak out about what kind of people would go camping in Colorado in March, let me tell you that by camping I mean sleeping in a warm cabin while it snows outside. Yay! So yeah, we drove up to the cabin on Friday evening and settled in for the night. The cabin had a firepit and a picnic table in front of it so we set about making delicious hobo packs for dinner. Yum!

Now the thing about TCP, MSA, J, K, and Cobalt and me is that we are pretty much the best of friends. We can talk forever! So we brought games and other activities but did we do any of them? Nope. Suddenly it was really late and J and I were falling asleep sitting up. So we went off to sleep in the comfy beds in our cabin! In the morning we were going to do some hiking/walking around for Potassium and her messed-up ankles but it started snowing like crazy right as we were packing up the cars (see that top picture!) so we ended up just leaving. Still it was a fun weekend and I can’t wait for more cabin/camping adventures as this year finally warms up a little.

Below are some of the pictures I took while everyone else was toasting marshmallows!

First up, we have K and J looking awesome with their headlights!

Now we have MSA roasting a marshmallow while TCP supervises. I like the way the fire illuminates their faces.

For this picture and the following two pictures we were playing with “light painting.” I put my camera on a tripod and then put the shutter on the “bulb” setting. With this setting, I tell the camera when to open and close the shutter so it’s really good for night time photography (especially star pictures… too bad it was cloudy for us…). Anyway, then we took K’s headlight and “painted” J and K with it while I had the camera shutter open. I think it has a really neat lighting effect. Also it’s a bit like taking pictures a long time ago because you can’t move while you are getting painted or you will be blurry…

After J and K’s picture turned out so well, we all wanted to try it!

MSA and TCP. :D

Now it’s your turn. Tell me about an adventure with your friends. Doesn’t have to be camping related though. I’m excited to hear your stories! Also, tell me what you want to hear me talk about! It’s been hard coming up with ideas lately when I am so busy/stressed out. Maybe we should have a “blast from the past” and I can talk more about my trips out of the country (France, Germany) last year? Let me know! :D

Congratulations L and J! :D

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The signing of the marriage license

Cobalt and I have been having a bit of a hard time these past few weeks (and not just because of my super sprained ankles so we were overjoyed to be part of something awesome last weekend: my friend L got married!

For the record, I am pretty sure that L was the second person I met here in Colorado because we were roommates during the biochemistry department recruitment weekend here at CU! My other friend LJ beat L only because I met her two weeks earlier at the UW recruitment weekend.

Geez stop reminiscing Potassium and get on with the pictures story already. So Friday was a beautiful day for a wedding! It was so warm outside that Cobalt and I didn’t have to put on jackets as we drove across town to the Boulder County Justice Center. There we met up with some of our other friends and L and her soon-to-be-husband J. We had some photo time in the courtroom before the judge came in so I hobbled around on my poor little ankles and got pictures of everyone pre ceremony. The ceremony was short but sweet and then we all got to sign the marriage license as witnesses! Talk about a special marriage license – clearly their marriage is highly approved of because it has not one, not two, but seven witness signatures. When Cobalt and I got married in California, there were some ridiculous rules about marriage license signatures (all of the signature must fit IN THE LINES OF THE BOX OR YOUR MARRIAGE LICENSE IS NOT VALID!). Yikes! So this was much better. :) After the ceremony and license signing we all braved the crazy rush hour traffic to go out for Korean BBQ. It was delicious and a really fun evening! Cobalt and I left full of food and really happy to have spent such a good evening with friends. Thanks L and J for letting us be a part of your special day. :D

One more thing I have to say before we get to more pictures: trying to hobble around on sprained ankles and get nice pictures without falling over/distracting from the ceremony was hard work. I was sad that I couldn’t put as much focus on the photo settings that I wanted to use as I usually do but I think the pictures turned out good anyway. See for yourselves!

L and the girls
J and the boys
So serious during the ceremony…
Except here when they are giggling because we made them kiss again… :D

And now it’s your turn: During dinner, L asked me “Potassium, when do you start to feel married?!” and I said it took a bit. Not that I didn’t want to be married to Cobalt or wasn’t ready for it – mostly it was just so crazy how one day I woke up and wasn’t married but then I went to bed married. How did that happen so quickly?! My brain took a while to adjust to the rapid change! Now I am asking you! When did you start to feel “married?” Was it immediate or gradual? Did something happen (i.e. filing taxes jointly for the first time, moving in together, etc) or did you just wake up one day and feel married? :)

Horses, plant homes, and more!

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This poor plant still isn’t doing so well but I really like this one flower…

Hey everyone! Looks like I’m sticking to this once a week on Wednesdays post schedule for a little bit. Life is crazy with trying to graduate and all…

A lot of stuff has been happening though so I’ll give you a mini update!

So first of all, two weeks ago, Cobalt and I made a plant home in our office! Look at those happy plantys!

Plants enjoying the last of a sunny day. Also pictured: a buffalo and Jörg the German sheep

Second of all, it’s been snowing a lot…. Not a fan. But at least this picture is pretty.

I’ll admit it. When the snowflakes look like this, I am still a little mesmerized by them. Even when I am grumpy about having to clean off my car to go to work…

Finally, last weekend, we made dumplings with some of our friends for the Chinese New Year! :D This year I got to learn how to make the wrappers too. It was fun rolling them out into perfect circles. I also love folding the dumplings into these cool shapes. This year we put almonds into a few for good luck. Because four of us making/eating the dumplings are hoping to graduate from grad school this year, we decided that eating a dumpling with an almond in it meant that we would definitely graduate this year. We all got almond-filled dumplings so hopefully we will all graduate! :D

Happy year of the horse!

Anyway, in science news, yesterday I finished the last of my repeats for the first part of my project! So minus a few tweaks or running the assays I designed for other people’s experiments, that means I am done with the first part. Now I finally get to focus on the more nebulous and less thought out second part of my project! Things are coming along (even though they are slow)!

Your turn. Tell me about life. It’s February! Is the weather looking any better there because it’s cold and snowy here… Did you watch the Superbowl last weekend? Got any Valentine’s Day plans for next week? Let’s discuss! :D

Congratulations K!

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This picture was taken at the hospital this morning during K’s final round of treatment!

A few months ago, my friend K was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It was really upsetting because 1) he is very young and 2) he and my friend J were planning on getting married 2 months after the diagnosis! Luckily he caught the cancer early so it’s fairly treatable at that stage. K underwent surgery and then had a crazy round of chemo involving 3 cycles of three week intervals – the first week was always the worst followed by two less intense weeks (luckily for J and K, their wedding fell on one of the less intense weeks so K still felt okay for that!). After the first cycle, K’s tumor marker dropped ridiculously low (to the baseline level!) and then it has continued to stay below the baseline level throughout his treatment! I am writing this post today, on K’s last day of the entire chemo treatment, to say congratulations to K for getting through all of this! You rule, K! And I hope that this is the end! No more cancer! Stay away!

Plus I am super excited that J and K finally get to experience being happy newlyweds without pesky chemo treatments getting in the way and making K feel sick! Time to plan that honeymoon, guys! :)

In other news I slipped on ice when I was biking to work this morning. My knees took the majority of the fall but I also bumped my head. Luckily I was wearing a helmet! So now this post is double a reminder to take care of yourself (both staying healthy and checking for various cancers you might be susceptible to as well as wearing a helmet when you are biking/riding your motorcycle/doing other helmety activities)!

What’s new with you guys? Tell me everything!

The eye of the storm

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Success! The cannolis, pizelles, and other Italian desserts made it safely back from Boston (despite getting teased by TSA about the fact that there is more than 3 oz of cream in the cannolis… :/). Yummmmmmmmm…

Hey all! I’m back from the first two of my three conferences, enjoying this little break before I head out to Heidelberg, Germany tomorrow for the third conference! Epic…

How have you guys been? I am all right, despite having a pretty major breakdown about science/life/careers/etc right before I left for the first conference (more on that when I get back from Germany). Both conferences turned out to be really fun.

First I was in San Antonio for SACNAS where I was one of three graduate students from the University of Colorado recruiting future grad students and students for our summer research program (SMART). SACNAS is awesome because it’s both a science conference (with talks and poster presentations etc) but also a huge celebration of all of the cultures that make up this country. It is just such a fun and supportive place to be (just what I needed after feeling so down the day before)! Plus I had a great time bonding with my fellow graduate students. They helped me finish the poster I presented in Boston (and will present in Heidelberg). It turned out really nicely so I am super grateful for their help!

This was from the Pow wow at SACNAS. So many beautiful outfits and dances. We got to dance too and it was awesome!
We got serenaded by a mariachi band while out at dinner in San Antonio!

After recruiting at SACNAS, I took off for Boston for the Salmonella conference! I ended up flying with a bunch of retired Texans who were heading to the east coast to watch the leaves turn. We bonded right away in line for the airplane and it made for a pretty funny experience. Upon arriving in Boston, I met up with my lab mate Titanium and my boss and we headed to the conference together. The conference was kind of intense… who knew there could be 5 days worth of talks (and posters) about Salmonella?! For the most part it was very interesting and exciting to learn about all the different ways people can go about studying such a vicious pathogen. I now feel inspired to build my own super team of scientists from all scientific backgrounds to try to answer some really hard question (let me know if you want to join… I’m going to make us matching T-shirts!). It was also fun because 1) there were people from all over the world attending the conference (new friends!!!!) and 2) Boston turned out to be a really fun city to explore! I can’t wait to share some of my adventures with you but for now I will leave you with these pictures.

My favorite of the random pianos around Boston. I played Heart and Soul on it. :)
Titanium with two of our new friends the last day in Boston! :)

And now I am off to Heidelberg for my final conference. I have been learning some German words/phrases (turns out German is a SUPER fun language to learn) while traveling to my other two conferences. How exciting! Also, I just got an e-mail from some friends over there who are going to pick me up as soon as I get to my hotel and take me exploring! I feel so lucky and excited for this opportunity but also nervous about traveling so far away (even though I just went to Paris) and terrified that I am going to get sick… Maybe I should go buy some Emergen-C….

Now it’s your turn: tell me anything! If you are unsure where to start, you can tell me about a time where you did a lot of traveling in your life. How did you keep from getting sick? How did you go about exploring where ever you were (eating at various restaurants, going on tours, walking around, etc)? What is your favorite activity to keep from getting bored on the airplane? :)

Engagement Pictures with Jennette and Kegan!

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A few weeks ago (before all this crazy rain started), I had the honor of taking engagement pictures for my friends Jennette and Kegan. It was kind of awesome because I’ve gotten to watch their whole relationship from the very beginning. I met Jennette because she did her masters research in my lab and I totally remember the snowshoeing trip where she met Kegan. I also remember meeting Kegan for the very first time when he came to our lab to pick up Jennette for a lunch date. Awwww the memories… and more to come! I am so excited you guys! :) Anyway, we met up at Chautauqua Park for an engagement photo session and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I am normally skeptical of doing fancy pictures at Chautauqua because it is a very popular hiking destination and is often full of people just waiting to get in your super cute portraits. It also has really weird lighting during most parts of the day so you have to plan your photo sessions just right. All that said, however, we had a great time and the photos look amazing. Thanks so much Jennette and Kegan for being good sports while we trekked all over hills and rocks and fields to capture your awesomeness as a couple!

And now a few more of my favorite pictures…

This one turned out so epic… I kind of love it… :)


Some things I learned while doing these pictures:

  1. As I previously mentioned, I learned that Chautauqua has a lot of cool places (hidden from the majority of hikers) for neat pictures
  2. Bushes are not my friends. I edited a lot of these pictures with the help of my nephew and he and I ended up getting really frustrated when we would come across a picture with Jennette and Kegan looking adorable and a giant bush blocking one of them… way to go setting up that shot, Potassium. :p
  3. I had a lot of fun with Jennette and Kegan because we’d find a cool place to shoot pictures and then they’d start suggesting poses/ideas/etc that they wanted to try! It challenged me to be more creative and thoughtful with my poses/angles/etc.

Wow… it’s been a while since I’ve written. Life has been a little insane here for me and Cobalt. More about that later maybe but first and foremost, how the heck are you?! Anything exciting going on? If so, please tell me because Cobalt and I could definitely use some cheering up. :)

Engagement Pictures with Melanie and Joel!

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A few weeks ago, I had the honor of doing engagement pictures with Melanie and Joel! Melanie and I met at our friend’s superbowl party a few years ago and we bonded over being able to make weird noises (haha… seriously…). I am sure L was super happy that she introduced us after that part. Anyway, now Melanie is engaged to Joel and they asked me to do their engagement pictures! This was my first time meeting Joel and I have to say, he is awesome. And he and Melanie and super adorable and perfect together. We had a ton of fun with these pictures and I am very honored that they asked me to take their pictures. I hope they enjoy them (I should be getting them in the mail by the end of the week)!

Some things I learned doing these pictures:

  1. It’s fun! I love getting to know couples and figuring out how to take pictures that show off how awesome, adorable, happy, etc they are.
  2. Taking engagement pictures is inherently a bit of an awkward situation so the faster I can get everyone laughing, the more comfortable we all feel and then the pictures turn out more awesome!
  3. My two lenses are not equal in awesomeness.
  4. I need to take a lot of pictures because sometimes people blink!

What have you guys been up to lately? I took engagement pictures for my friends J and K this weekend so be prepared for more adorableness in the near future! In lab related news, there is a lot to get done if I really want to do graduate within the year so this is going to be an interesting school year…