Lawn With Gnomes

August 11, 2008

Photography of Children

Filed under: babies,I'm Alright,photos,school — Brad Ehney @ 9:02 pm

I’m convinced that photographing children requires 3x’s the amount of sugar that they themselves consume. I recently photographed my friend’s family of which the children were ages were both sub 5yrs old. I’m still working on the photos so I can only share a few unedited ones.

This photo shows one of the many attempts to corral the kids into a family portrait.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter who’s kid it is, they are going to be hard to handle come nap time (which is about the time we ended up doing the shoot), bad timing.

Of course sometimes you nail a great shot that just leaves you giggling and it just shows the children as they really are.

I’ll share the edited ones when they are done of course.

I’m now convinced that taking photos of children at play is the best way to get a great shot.

Take this set for example, I just whipped out my camera at my nieces birthday party that was at a local gymnastics center. I had no intention of taking photos but the colors at the place were so vibrant I couldn’t resist.

I'm not the princess you think I am

I'm not the princess you think I am

I'm stuck, seriously..

I'm stuck, seriously..

They Call Him George

They Call Him George

You can see the rest here on my myspace

To be fair, I have had the time to crop and bump up some colors on these photos since I used them for my final project (last minute idea). Now if I can keep my interest up in photography whenever the new semester starts I’ll be heading in the right direction. Sometimes school just takes over all my free time and I can’t make room for the really fun stuff.

Till the next blog, comment away..

July 2, 2008

Looking at Electrical Outlet & Fork [Summer Fun]

Filed under: babies,life,music,school,websites — Brad Ehney @ 9:03 pm

So, I’ve been silent on the blogging front lately because, well, I’ve not been excited by much lately. Matt’s in NY having a ball and I’ve been doing my film homework every night. I’m almost done with 4 weeks of a super speed summer class about film. Pretty much used all my time to read till my eyes bleed and write till my fingers do the same. Sure has been an awful lot of reading and writing for a class about movies(scratching head).

I had a temporary period where my Creative Zen died on me and I had to hear the world around me minus my personal soundtrack. Never realized how uber-boring and quiet it can be on campus and in my cube at work. I quickly made with the spending of money that I didn’t have and broke my longtime tradition of buying Creative players and got a Microsoft Zune 2.0. I emphasize the V2 because V1 was an absolute EPIC FAIL. Except for the awesomeness of sharing songs which was dubbed squirting .  I have to say aside from some little uber-tech speak problems, the player is quite usable.

I’m in the market for a new cell phone and the new iPhone looks promising but the plans are just wayyyy out of my $$$ range. Plus I’m with T-mobile and currently contract free so if I’m ever booted out the door at my temp job and times get tough I can drop my phone without paying an arm and leg. Phones contract free are freaking expensive and to be quite honest they all just suck. I text and call, maybe use the web once in a blue moon on my phone. I’d like to get a “qwerty” phone because I do 90% texting and 10% calling. I just can’t find one that I like, that I can afford. I think they consulted Barbie when making the latest Blackberry because the keys are so small I can’t even use it. I’ve gotten so frustrated by trying to find a phone that I like that I’ve almost just given up and said fuck’em all together. For now my phone is getting some glue since it’s all sorts of cracked.

I’m listening to music like crazy lately. Found a bunch of new artists and some old ones that dropped new albums. You can see what I’ve been into by checking out my Last.fm account, friend me if you are on it. They are still working on making the Zune work with it (they=hackers). Matt got me into The Office, of which I’ve now seen every episode. I myself revisited Weeds and found that I can’t miss an episode now and nor can Matt. Aside from that, nothing in the glorious world of TV has pulled me in.

As I mentioned long ago, I’m taking 2 summer classes. The film one is almost done and the Digital Photography class is almost useless. The best part is the tax write off for the Canon Rebel I had to buy for the class. I’m still on Flickr and uploading most of my homework alongside regular photos, so if you are interested head on over and check it out. If you want to just track everything I do online you can join me on FriendFeed or just subscribe to my feed. I read a lot of articles and hear a lot of music online and sometimes recommend something to read. FriendFeed is a timeline of all of my online activities, including this blog. I live under the reality that Privacy is Dead so I willingly jack myself into the net and let it know my thoughts.

In the real world, stuff has happened.

There’s been two new additions to the family since I last blogged. Matt’s sister had her baby boy Jacob and his sister-in-law just had her boy Ian. I’m kinda over babies, I mean seriously, I’m now an uncle 12x’s over. Not to mention my friends got into the whole baby thing (Will/Bethany). I’m just excited that I’m baby free, they’re cute, but they are quite the handful. Plus, I’m a smidge ADD and tend to get into something that’s new and then get bored with it. That might be problematic if Matt and I adopted. I mean you can’t in all good sense return a baby. They don’t come with receipts do they?

April 9, 2008

My Rant on Education

Filed under: Rant,school — Brad Ehney @ 8:21 pm

Even with all my years of education, the navigation of the college system is still the most convoluted cluster-fuck I’ve ever had to deal with. The closest thing to it, is doing your taxes. And even that is more simple than going to college!

Every semester as I approach my much anticipated graduation I find myself struggling to believe that registration and financial aid could get any more complicated. Yet, it is apparently setup to be just that. This summer, my first summer attempting to take classes at UTD I’ve found that the school said “Fuck You” by releasing the summer schedules. I guess no adult who is in the workforce cares to get an education, or at least it would seem UTD thinks so. I was only able to locate one class to take for the summer. Which I’m glad I’m getting into it and all, but I had to jump through hoops to get it. First off, it had prerequisites that I’ve not yet been able to take, so I had to email the teacher and get her approval to take the course. Then, after the approval I had to get my adviser to remove the prerequisite block off my ID so that I could actually register for the course. So, awesome, yeah I got into the course. Of course the bullshit doesn’t end there..

Next comes the M.C. Escher inspired maze called Financial Aid for college. Apparently since I am only taking a meager 3 hours of classes for the summer (11 weeks 5-10pm on Mondays) I do not get to have any financial aid. I wouldn’t bitch if it were actually free money but it’s not! I actually have to pay back the so called financial aid after graduation. So why in the world can I not get a loan? The class, one class, is going to cost me $1500, plus, the supplies for the class will cost me $700. After looking over the schedules for the Dallas Community Colleges for the summer I’ve also found one other course and at $150 bucks it’s a fucking bargain! I’m not even going to bother to get aid for that class. They say I can not get a loan because I’m not attending six credit hours at UTD. Why should I be penalized because they lack in their offerings to working students???

I just wish that for once someone would simplify the process instead of making it more and more complicated each year. My only idea for now is to win the lottery and then I could be one of those elusive “daytime students”.

March 21, 2008

Reaching Out For Ideas [please comment]

Filed under: art,photos,school — Brad Ehney @ 10:27 am

 

dancing with myself. (by chicolorpinkpunk)

 

I’m going to be taking photos for my Black & White photography class (really? photos?) and I’m brainstorming on an idea and figured I’d reach out to my social network people to get your feedback.

I’m trying to take photographs of actions that require two people to do them but there will only be one person doing the action. It’s meaning is to convey a sense of loneliness and or longing for someone to do that action with.

I’m trying to think of what actions can I photograph? That’s where you all come in. Leave me a comment telling me what you think could be a good idea for an action that requires two persons. I have some ideas but would like to have as many as possible so I’ll have some backups.

March 11, 2008

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Filed under: Austin,I'm Alright,life,school — Brad Ehney @ 1:01 pm

It’s final, I’m staying at my mothers for a bit longer. No date set for an exit. Things have become so peaceful and non soap opera-ish. With Beverly gone and my sister passing it just all of the sudden became a normal house. It was quite hard to wrap my mind around the reality that Kim wasn’t going to be randomly bursting into arguments with my mom or someone in the house. Or that Beverly wasn’t on the couch anymore every afternoon sleeping or watching TV. It is now just silence..only disrupted every now and then by my mom walking down the hallway with her brace/cast. I call it “peg legging” because she walks like a peg legged pirate.

Of course financial reasons are keeping us at the house. Matt just bought a pretty new car that has a pretty monthly payment and an increased insurance costs. He got a Hyundai Elantra 2008, his first brand spanking new car. It’s super cute and is a charcoal gray. Yes. I’m jealous. But I still have love for my Honda (which just passed the 100k mile mark!) I did 55k of that since October of 2005!

I also got us a pretty new thing too.. a freaking sweet 42″ LCD HDTV with Wifi & LAN connections along with a bevy of input jacks on the back. It’s pretty obscene in our bedroom. I’m thinking the living room might be a better setup at a later date. For now having it in the bedroom hooked up to my newly finished HTPC makes me really happy. I’m thinking Photoshop @ 42 inches is just gonna be friggin awesome!

On the school front, I’m still behind. Taking 3 classes was just a bad idea. With all the Kim dying and recently and completely unexpected near death of Matt’s dad (getting better now), school just took a backseat. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t gotten some really cool stuff done in at least my photography class. My desktop that I made all crispy the day after Kim’s death is finally back and running so I can finally scan some of my work and share it with you via my Flickr account. Expect some of that later this week. For now it’s off to work tasks!

 Also as a side note: Due to all the insanity in my home life and the setbacks it caused in school I can’t justify a trip down to Austin for my Faux Bday so expect a cancellation notice soon. I’ve gotta get caught up and that is going to take all the energy I have. Perhaps I’ll just come down to get shit-faced after the semester is up? Anyone in for a “what a fucked up year” party in A-town come May?

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