Ode to Valentines love, life and random.

Hello bloggy world! 

I was walking around today and noticed some pre-Valentine cute things. Plus some random stuff along the way... I know that I'm not the most fabulous photographer (yet) and have a pretty hefty "things to break the bank with" list. I think the first step in progressing as a visual journalist should be just to shoot without concerns, deadlines, stresses, etc. every day. 

Saying that, I probably won't manage it and certainly doubt I'll be posting every day, but at least I have a place to sort of archive my progress over some amount of time. 

Goals, seeing as I mentioned them earlier :

-Lighting equipment (umbrellas & stands)

-Pocket wizards or some other remote device for trickier lighting scenarios

-Something that can allow my camera to do wicked time-lapse shots

-Another flash? Hmm? I have the SB-900, and my SB-800 broke :( so I need another one now

-Bigger telephoto lens than my 80-200mm...300, 600?? I'm pretty serious about my birding photos...heh

-Macro lens

-Mirror lens for night photography

-Shoot LOTS, go to more events, find more stories  (I have two multimedias on the go outside of school)

-Work super hard at my internship @ The Mercury, get name out there more

-Spend money on a decent website, maybe when portfolio is a little polished (editing in progress)

-Find an owl to shoot - biggest goal for the past 5 years or so, I think they know I want to see them so badly, so they hide....

-Care less about peoples' opinions? I don't know if this is a good goal or not, but I think it'll help me be less stressed/anxious in the long-run. 

Anyways, I guess that's all for now.

Here are some pictures from today :)

Playing in Walmart with a telephoto lens. These sculptures remind me
of spring/summer time on my back deck. We have quite a few
of these lovely ladies sitting around.

Depth of field.

Sigh, dreamer.

Love is in the air and on your pjs.

Cute Valentine feature perhaps.

Love monkey. Reminds me of my dad who has more monkey plushies than I do.

LOVE love Love Lo0o0ove.

On the way back from the store, I thought the sky looked nice, and I'm a fan of old trees.

Oh hey, red-tailed hawk, nice of you to show yourself on this lovely day.
Wish you were sharper, but I still love you.

Pretty crystal ball ornament that makes me think of warmer times.

Humming bird ornament I found next to the crystal ball thing. Spring is coming!

In the meantime...Let's light the fire and keep warm 'til the sun is closer to Canada.

A picture I took when it was warmer out, looking at the pond out back.

Kind of an "after shot" of the previous one, but shot tighter. Same Cats tails, but
with a snow-covered ice rink behind them.