on the farm.

A few weeks ago the boy and I headed to his parents’ farm for a quick little visit. I have blogged about the farm before (here, here, and here, to name a few), but this place has started to take hold of a little piece of my heart. It can be rather desolate and empty at times; the only noises you hear are cows, birds, and the occasional farm equipment running, and the dirt roads around the farm seem to go on forever. Evenings and mornings there can be absolutely stunning, and even though I have photographed a decent amount there I feel like I have barely scratched the surface. On top of that, it changes so much depending on the season that there is always something fresh the photograph. Late spring and early summer are probably my favorite times to be there (which also tends to be true of most locations for me), and since this has been a mostly cool and fairly wet spring/summer so far, things were extra beautiful (aka very green and lush). Earlier this spring however, the weather was not so ideal. The higher temps and lack of rain left the wheat (my favorite part of the farm) very short and not as great as normal for photographs.

The day that we got there was cool and rather perfect early in the evening, so we sat out on the deck for a while before the sun dipped low and things got too chilly. Scott practiced guitar, and I wandered the farm taking pictures in the beautiful light. It was lovely.

 

Spring Break Day 6

Day 6 of our trip was, unfortunately, our last day full day in Arizona. We decided to try to pack in as much climbing and adventuring as possible, which resulted in a huge overload of photographs (meaning this will be a long post). We started the day climbing in the Prison Camp area again, since there were still a few routes there that we wanted to do in that area. After climbing until we were exhausted we drove higher up the mountain to catch the sunset. Unfortunately I foolishly deleted images on my SD card before I transferred them to my computer, so almost all of the sunset images are gone. If anyone has any miracles to recover files from a formatted SD card I would love to hear them!

Colorado in July (Part 1)

The week before I was in Lexington to shoot Darren and Mary’s wedding I traveled out to Colorado with Scott for a week of vacation. The first part (Monday-Wednesday) of the trip was spent in Colorado Springs with some friends, and then the rest of the week we were in Denver with Scott’s parents. We managed to climbed every single day that we were there, in a few different locations. It was an absolutely incredible week and I am already looking forward to our next trip out there. I will be breaking the trip up into two posts to avoid one painfully long post.

As I mentioned above, the first part of the week we were in Colorado Springs. We were able to climb for two days in the Red Rocks Canyon Open Space, which was a very different from anything I had climbed before. The rock there is sandstone, so every hold is covered in sand making traction a bit tenuous in spots. The routes we climbed weren’t very vertical and holds were sparse (especially the starts), which really forced you to trust your feet (even though it felt like you would slip off everything), and focus on balance and smooth movements. And, for those of you who may know climbing terms, it forced us to become professionals at mantling. It took a bit to get used to, but was still great fun and was an incredibly beautiful area.

After our second day of climbing in Colorado Springs we headed to Denver to meet up with Scott’s parents. Thursday morning (which happened to be the 4th of July) Scott and I headed out to the Clear Creek Canyon area to try to climb a little before festivities that night with his family. Clear Creek was vastly different from the Red Rocks area. Just getting to the wall was a bit of an adventure; it was a steep scramble (a 4th class scramble to be exact) to the wall, with a road and a river raging below. Instead of slick sandstone it was blocky granite, which was kind of a relief for me. We didn’t have much time there unfortunately, and due to an elbow injury I wasn’t able to climb much anyways. I also didn’t take many photographs at this particular spot (and I didn’t really get any of the wall that we climbed), other than quick shots before we left.

It is tough to see, but there are 3 giant eagles’ nests up there.

That night we went to a Rockies game at Coors Field. It was an incredible stadium, and the perfect place to be on the Fourth of July. In front of us sat a beautiful baseball field, to the right a stunning mountain range; perfection in my mind. We also watched the fireworks from the stadium and even though our view was blocked by part of the building it was still one amazing night.

That’s all for now though, so be on the lookout for the second installment very soon!

The Thought Process

It had been ages since I shot a self-portrait before this one. I had some vague ideas that I was wanting to shoot but never seemed to have the time, energy, or motivation. This summer has been a bit of a slump for me artistically, but I’m hoping I can turn that around once the craziness of this month settles down.

Anyways, about a month ago I went home with Scott (the boyfriend) to his parents’ farm. They have some big wheat fields, which, as previously posted, are one of my favorite things. I had the itch for a self-portrait, though I didn’t really know what it should be. Before we left for their house (which is close to a two-hour drive) I had thrown in a bunch of tulle and other fabric thinking I could do something with movement and wind (since Kansas is ALWAYS windy). That evening, around sunset I decided to just go out and see what would happen. It was all very spontaneous and unplanned, which is often the best for me. When we were walking to the spot that I wanted to shoot at there were some hazy clouds covering the sun and light wasn’t very exciting. I was sort of bummed out and even debated not shooting that night. But, I decided to go for it anyways, and it paid off. The haze ended up lifting while I was shooting, making for some wonderful golden light in most of the images.

I have sat on these images for a while, unsure of how I wanted to edit them, and share them. Finally, as I am sitting in a hotel in Lexington, KY about to shoot a wedding I decided I was sick of having them sit on my hard drive. I will make another post with a few more, but this one was my favorite, and when the title popped into my head this morning I thought it deserved its own post.

Happy weekend everyone!

Miscellaneous Adventures

I have a few random images from the past few weeks that I finally got around to editing. They are all from different days, but don’t really deserve a post to themselves, so I’m going to throw them all together here.

This first one is from yet another hike in the Konza Prairie back at the beginning of April. I stumbled on this area where half the prairie was burned, and half was not, and I just loved the stark contrast of the two areas.

 

Spring has finally arrived in Manhattan, and the trees in my apartment complex were all blooming. I cut some branches off to put in vases in my apartment and ended up with some in almost every room. I have a few more images that I will be posting later on of the larger vase as well.

A week ago or so I ended up going on a spontaneous sunset chase with a good friend. He has lived in Manhattan for quite a while and took me to some new spots. We ended up finding this random, perfect hill that we climbed to the top of to see this incredible view. It was perfect, absolutely perfect.

365/366

*Friday, February 1
Friday I went to meet up with a fellow photographer and friend of a friend, Michael Strickland (be sure to check out his work, it is extraordinary), to explore around Lawrence a bit. I had never been there before, so he was kind enough to show me around a bit, and we did some location scouting for a self-portrait of mine. The sunset ended up being amazing, though we had to kind of rush to find a somewhat decent spot to shoot from.

More to come from our adventure in the next few days probably.

And I may edit this some more still, but I just wanted to get it posted.

215/366 – Konza Prairie

*Saturday, August 11
Saturday was Chris’s (my fiance) last day with me in Kansas. We went out to dinner and then went for a hike in the Konza Prairie. It was a wonderful, but bittersweet evening.

124/366 – Road Trip #3

*Wednesday, May 9
Wednesday we hopped back in the car and drove from Manhattan, Kansas to Kentucky. Another 12 hour day in the car, and another instagram photo.

69/366 – Ice

I got home from work right as the sun was setting this evening, so I ran out to a spot that I had been eyeing for the past couple of days and grabbed some shots.

40/365 – Waiting

I had more… complicated images for today, but was really drawn to this one. I’m not even entirely sure why, it just felt right and seemed to represent things for me lately.

It is funny to me that a photograph so simple, and so spontaneous, can mean so much to me.