Potassium and her wee holding Patti and Smokey the day the kittens joined the family.
A long time ago (read: before braces and growing up and all that jazz), Potassium and her family adopted two tiny kittens to befriend their older cat Blackberry. They named the kittens Patti and Smokey. Patti, the runt of the litter, was so tiny that the vet refused to draw her blood for the customary FeLV test at her new cat exam. “She needs all the blood she can get!” the vet commented, adding that Smokey’s test results would be fine for both of them.
In addition to being so tiny, Patti had epically long fluffy fur, she had the tiniest squeak of a meow, and she didn’t even know how to purr (Potassium and her friend G had to teach her). Potassium and her family fell in love with her instantly. Then Patti grew up into an even fluffier little puffball who loved being petted (so much so that she would bite your butt if you were “ignoring her” by petting one of the other cats), thought that cars were her friends (that was scary – she would flop down right in front of people pulling into the driveway so she could get her belly rubbed), and was our adorable little Snowbeast with her little pantaloon pants.
In case you didn’t believe me about her pantaloon pants…
Unfortunately after almost 17 years with our family, Patti succumbed to heart disease earlier this week. We love you and miss you, little puff!
Helloooo everyone! Happy new year! I hope you guys had a great Christmas and a happy New Year (and other happy holidays too)! Cobalt and I traveled to see both of our families and it was great having time to catch up with everyone. The pictures in this post come from my family’s holiday pictures!
Potassium and Cobalt being photobombed by Finn. Play close attention to Finn’s fin – he’s moving so you can see the books behind it! :)Fun with my sis! :D
Are you guys excited about 2014?! Any New Years resolutions? Cobalt and I are busy coming up with a name for ours. Last year ours was called “Operation Go for It!” and I think it worked out awesomely! Tune in later to find out all about this year’s soon! It’s going to be an epic year with me hopefully defending in the summer! I wonder where we will be by this time next year… I hope you are excited about all of this because I am… though also pretty scared. This is the first time in my life that I don’t know what I am planning on doing next! Cobalt feels similarly…
Okay, your turns. Tell me about your holidays and new years resolutions!
All the steampunk Disney princesses because you guys asked for them. Can you figure out who is who?! :)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Fashion Show Recap! Today’s post has a sneak preview of runway pictures! Are you excited?! I’m excited. Before we get to the pictures, I just want to talk about being a photographer at a fashion show. I was stationed at the end of the runway with a few other photographers and a giant spotlight. The models were supposed to stop for ~ 5 seconds and pose for us, then walk a few feet and pose again before returning back down the runway. The spotlight turned out to be awesome for lighting the models so that we didn’t need to use our flashes but it was hard getting the settings just right on the camera. Each position the models stopped in had slightly different lighting conditions so I was constantly switching exposure time and the aperature back and forth to make sure I got nice pictures of the models at each stop. It was kind of fun! Also, in order to get the models and their outfits to not be overexposed, I ended up sacrificing anything not directly in the spotlight – creating a sort of halo effect around the model. I think it still looks cool, though I am sad that it’s hard to see some of the models’ shoes…
On to the pictures!
I love the back of her dress! Gorgeous… and ruffles!I know we saw her on Tuesday but she rocked her runway pose! :D Also her outfit and the outfit above are by the same designer.We saw her on Tuesday too but look at the back of that dress! So neat!I like her pants! Also I like that her vest is super shiny! :)I love this picture. I love the motion of the dress and I love her facial expression!Aw yeah! This is my friend C rockin’ this shirt. Same designer as the dress above. Beautiful work and C is a great model! :DThis is one of the outfits C designed. I love that it’s a hoodie! :DSteampunk princess! :DSteampunk princess part 2! :D
I love her scarf! I also love its reflection on the floor!
Yay pictures! Tell me what you think! Do you have a favorite? What’s going on for you guys? At CU, finals week starts tomorrow (our first year has to proctor an exam at 7 am tomorrow!) but I am so far removed from classes as a 6th year PhD student, all the bustling and the stress is kind of confusing for me. I just go to lab every day workin’ on ma science. I had an epic check list of things that I wanted to get done before Christmas but then the lamp for the microscope I was planning on using broke… and then some of my other science decided it didn’t feel like working either. Maybe it’s time for a vacation… It’s not all frustrating though; I finally succeeded in making something I have been working on since JULY. Whew… ahhhhh the life of a scientist. It’s ridiculous.
Okay that’s enough about me. It’s your turn – Talk to me! Go!
This weekend I got to be a photographer at a fashion show at CU! My friend C is a designer in the club and he invited me to come take pictures! It was really awesome. All of the designers are students at the school and I was so impressed by the talent my fellow students have! The outfits were all so unique and each designer’s story and selected pieces were so fascinating. I also liked hanging out with the models before the fashion show started. We had fun chatting about school, their outfits, their poses, everything! I can’t believe I was nervous when I arrived at school because as soon as I started taking pictures, I couldn’t stop smiling. I took over 1000 pictures! I’ll post some sneak previews here. Today we’ll have a look at everyone getting ready and then we’ll get to the runway later this week! Are you excited?! I am! :D
This is one of C’s models. She used eyeshadow to make her lips blue like that! Later she added more blue to her eyes and then totally rocked the runway! :)This model’s designer had all her models dressed as Victorian birds. I loved this girl’s woodpecker dress. She had an amazing train (just wait till the runway pictures!).The girls practicing their walks. The peacock outfit was amazing. The detail of the feathers was fantastic.This girl designed and modeled her own dress. It was gorgeous.Practicing poses for the runway!I loved the way her makeup looked with her curls. :)This model is Steampunk Ariel! I love it! :) Also, the designer of this outfit (and the next one) is a double major: biology and biochemistry. Potassium is super impressed.Steampunk Rapunzel! :)
Wow! Are you excited for the runway pictures?! I am and I’ve been looking at them for the past few days!
Now it’s your turn: tell me what you think of these outfits! Also, tell me something you’d love to learn how to do or that you are currently learning to do! I’m loving being a photographer right now that’s for sure but I would also love to get better at clothing design myself! :)
Challenge:
In the tree, I spy a shark “star,” a skeleton, a sheep from Germany, Ice Batman, Ice BatDracula, and a buffalo. Can you find them?
Let’s talk about the tree:
This is my first year ever having my own Christmas tree and look how cute and tiny it is! I love it already. I hope Cobalt likes it too (he put the skeleton in it afterall). I like to think that the Ice bats are guarding the tree against evil… :D
An artsy picture of the top: Poncho the “star” and Jörg the German sheep say hi from the top of the tree!
Let’s talk about Potassium:
Whew you guys… trying to finish a PhD is hard work! I apologize so much for being gone but life is just ridiculous. Recently I’ve:
watched Catching Fire (it was good! I liked it!)
done 4 16 hour imaging experiments (I start up the microscope and then go home, sleep, and then come in early and turn it off)
flown to Oklahoma to spend Thanksgiving with Cobalt’s family
discovered that minus the French Country station (which is hilarious because it played a song called “My horse is dead” in French), Sirius XM radio is not all that exciting
Made delicious gravy for two different Thanksgiving celebrations
Probably done more!
Let’s talk about you guys:
How were your Thanksgivings? Are you excited about the holidays? Tell me something about your holiday traditions. What have you been up to?
He has a great point… Where have I been? I left off with promises of pictures and stories from all my adventures (including pictures from Germany!) and then I disappeared into the ether.
I’d say it’s safe to say that grad school temporarily won the fight against my time. This year has been crazy as I work hard to finish my project and figure out what’s next, etc etc etc… It’s definitely enough to cause a breakdown mmmm probably at least once a week. But really, that shouldn’t mean that you guys get ignored! You should be included so you can hear all about the insanity in real time! It’s crazy out there! Woooo!
Anyway, this post is mostly an apology (but not an excuse!) for my time away. Any requests for something you’d like to hear about? It’s been almost a month! A lot has happened (including my birthday!). As usual, I have pictures documenting almost everything. :D Also, how are you? Tell me everything! :) The holidays are coming up. Any fun plans?
I’ll leave you guys with one of my favorite pictures from my hike/fun with my new lens along the trails surrounding Boulder last weekend.
I just love how expansive it is. So much of the trail and the sky are included in the picture… And me! It’s weird that I have to be careful about my own shadow getting in pictures with the fisheye lens…
Hey everyone! I’m back from Germany! It was super fun! First of all, Heidelberg is an adorable town nestled in some mountains in Germany. You should be able to see that from that top picture here. The conference I went to was at EMBL which is a giant laboratory tucked into the forest above Heidelberg. I hung out with my friends as soon as I landed in Heidelberg (adventures will soon be posted) and then spent the next few days being bussed back and forth between the town and the lab for the conference. The conference was awesome. All of the talks were full of innovation and cool science (pretty sure that excitement was the only thing that kept me awake in the face of the death jetlag) and I made a lot of fun international friends! After the conference, I spent one day frolicking in Heidelberg and the surrounding areas with some of the cool people I met at the conference (again with the adventures being posted soon!).
Some more pictures:
Another favorite German word of mine is schloss or castle. I visited the castle with my friends the first day I was there and it was stunning. I learned so much European history… Look forward to a post on the schloss definitely. :)My last day there, my new found friend T and I went for an epic hike (involving us getting lost a lot) in the mountain next to Heidelberg. The trees were so interesting!
Anyway, now I am back in Colorado. I’m super jetlagged still but life is insane in lab. I have to prepare (read: do multiple experiments) to give a presentation in a few weeks and if I really want to graduate at some point, I have to come up with what will ultimately be the “story” for my thesis. There’s actually a lot to talk about regarding my feelings about graduate school right now so I think maybe that will be in its own post soon.
Random questions below:
How are you guys? Is there anything specific you want me to definitely mention in my Germany (or Boston or San Antonio) posts? Do you want to know my favorite German word (it’s tchüss! – it means bye!)? I’m super frustrated with science/lab right now. Does anyone have any advice for relaxing/getting through hard work times? In other news, I am super excited that Allegiant finally came out today (where was it on my 10 hr flight back from Germany last week?!). Is anyone else a fan of the Divergent trilogy?
In other news, my blog is 3 years old today!!!! How did this happen?!
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:
As I previously mentioned, I learned that Chautauqua has a lot of cool places (hidden from the majority of hikers) for neat pictures
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
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. :)
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:
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.
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!
My two lenses are not equal in awesomeness.
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…
Turns out it’s really hard to get a picture in which 10 people are simultaneously smiling…
Hooray! Wedding anniversary pictures finally!* :D So before you scroll down to see the rest, let me tell you a little bit about the party. It started out a little sketch because Cobalt and I were running around like crazy building things from IKEA and we lost track of time. When the first guests arrived, they got to go with Cobalt to the store to get party supplies and snacks while I made sure the house was in order. Then when more people showed up we headed to the park by our house with a bag full of props for the photo shoot! It turned out to be really fun as you can see below (in no apparent order)!
K and A bravely started us off…I think J is rethinking saying yes to K’s marriage proposal now that she knows that sometimes K has yoda hands…Cobalt and T being sneaky in masksA has requested the name Titanium on this blog now… Love it. Also she totally rocked this mask.I love that C and L seem skeptical about the parasol while K seems so happy about it.The happy couple?J’s turn with the claws…Titanium modeling the parasol, the mask, and the backdrop!
Then we went to the playground to play with the props. Cobalt is especially happy with the lens flare in this picture.
After the photos, we had a BBQ, played Cards Against Humanity, and giggled over all the awkward but hilarious things in that deck. I think it turned out to be a really fun time and thank you to all of you who came out and celebrated with us! We really enjoyed it! Cobalt and I are already coming up with new photoshoot ideas…
What do you think of the photos? Do you have a favorite? Also, what have you guys been up to lately? We’ve been getting a lot of rain (almost a proper monsoon season if you ask me!) lately. What has your weather been like? Are you ready for fall yet? I think that I was so annoyed with all that May and April snow that we got that I am still dreading fall and then the inevitable winter…
In other photo news, I took some engagement pictures for my friends M and J yesterday. Can’t wait to show you my favorites! :D
*Unfortunately my posting schedule is probably going to get a little weird for a while. My committee meeting is coming up soon. For those of you who don’t know, that’s where I meet with 5 faculty members and tell them everything I did this past year and how I plan to graduate in a year or less (freaking outexcited not sure how I feel about any of that). Anyway, I have a lot of work to do to prepare for it. Also Cobalt and I are just plain BUSY right now. Craziness…
Potassium Photography 