OFFICIAL

Now I'm REALLY official. Here are my diplomas saying that I actually have a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy AND Psychology! I didn't get frames for them yet because they actually look really nice in their little red folders :P I think I'll worry about getting a nice frame when I get my Master's - maybe I can find a custom frame that holds THREE degrees!! If you find anything like that, let me know mmmkay?

My blog is personal again!?!

Soooooo to keep this blog personal again, I've decided to create a blog just for our photography business. The blog will suffice until we get the website completed...hopefully by the end of July. Chris and Ramin are tirelessly working on their own project right now ;) So for now we have Atmina's Blog. Yes, the name of our business is Atmina ~ Photographic Memories. Atmina is Latvian for "memory". Why Latvian you ask? No reason, it just sounds cool ok? :P

So the blog is hosted on Blogspot for now. Ramin wants me to set a Wordpress blog as well because apparently that will coordinate with the website easier. So tonight I will probably work on that. I have also advertised the bunk out of Atmina on Facebook :P That's where a lot of our appointments have surfaced from. I plan to create a separate Facebook page for Atmina as well. I still have LOADS to do like create our logo (it will be something close to what you see at the top of the Atmina blog). I also need to create some pricing brochures to hand out to people. I need to get some mailing labels made and all kinds of fun stuff. THIS is what I like doing. Sure I like editing the pictures as well, but Jill ultimately has full domain over that for the super creative stuff. I just like changing lighting and contrast and such :P I like running all the "back end" stuff for a business. When we used to play school my favorite part was recording the grades for my imaginary pupils :P Screw the teaching, let me calculate the grades! That's how I am here, screw the actual taking of pictures, let me deal with all of the other stuff that comes with it! ;)

So from now on I'll be posting personal happenins on here again. My first order of business to get some pictures taken of my newly acquired degrees that arrived last week. I can't wait to show those off!!

Busy Busy

I'm excited! Jill and I are starting to get things going with this photography stuff! We offered free on location sessions to friends and we've already got a ton of bookings for the month of June! This is so exciting and I'm so glad we've got great friends to help us and let us use them as guinea pigs. Although, to give fair credit, Jill has been taking great pictures for a long time!

We purchased a lot of cute props for children's photos this week. We're also looking into getting some studio equipment and lighting. I've also found some great professional places to print the images. I've been doing major research and having fun doing it too! Don't worry though, we are taking things slow. We realize we're not going to be successes right away, in fact it may take years. But we're willing to do what it takes to do things the right way. We want high quality. Jill is very passionate about art and she wants her pictures to be special and meaningful. All too often we see photographers who just point the camera and shoot, they don't have any feeling or emotion built in. Jill doesn't want to be someone like that.

This weekend I plan to really delve into my Photoshop skills. Chris is also getting me some more photo editing software to play around with as well. That really is the stuff I like! I'm just excited to start getting pictures taken and building our website! If you wanna know what all my free time is devoted to lately, it's this project!

More Re-touched Photos

Please share any opinions about the re-touches. Some of them are more drastic than others cause I was playing around with the ways in which I can edit photos. I still have a lot more to practice on but this gives me an idea of what we can do so far :)

Original

Retouch

Original

Retouch

Original

Retouch - enhanced eyes and mouth (I experimented with colors)

Original

Retouch

Original

Retouch - very extreme colors but very cool

Original

Retouch - very subtle color enhancement

Original

Retouch - not quite sepia but also contrast

Damn I'm Good!

I LOVE Photoshop! Best tool in the entire world and we're lucky to have it at our disposal! Just check out what I was able to do with one of Jill's photos. I adjusted color and contrast and made it EVEN better (in my opinion of course) - please share opinions on if you think it's better or not! I'll probably continue posting more examples as I continue re-learning Photoshop (it's been years since I used it last for major photo editing).

Original Photo
Retouched Photo

Free Photography!

For as long as Jill and I have been friends we've always wanted to have our own business together. I've wanted my invitation business for a while now (I've blogged about it in the past) and Jill always wanted to do something artistic - she is very talented. For as long as we've been friends she's been taking pictures of us together non-stop! Almost all of the pictures I have of myself were taken by her. The one at the top of my blog is one example ;)

So the time feels right for us now to start making things happen. We're going to start out getting her photography business going. She's already good but of course everything can be improved upon. With the help of Ramin and Chris we're going to build a website but first, we need photo examples to put on the website! Jill is good with outdoor location settings so that's what most of her photos are so far. Eventually we'd like to build a studio in either her house or ours, depending on she moves.

Anyway, we're offering free photo sessions to anyone that is interested. We need to gain experience and hone the skills needed to do this professionally! I'm learning Photoshop again in order to retouch and enhance the photos and Jill will be doing photography classes. We are both totally serious about this. Eventually, once I can afford to buy a nice printer, we'll add in the invitation side of things to our business. So we can produce both wedding photos and invitations!

We've already got one family lined up to take some pictures with (thanks Becky!) and hopefully we'll get some more through word of mouth. I'm using the power of Facebook to advertise this venture as well spreading the word around work! Jill is doing the same with her friends and family!

Wish us luck cause we're in for a long ride! It will be fun though!

Here are some examples of Jill's recent photography!

Sellin some stuff...

If you or anyone you know likes Lia Sophia jewelry - please check out my auctions on eBay right now! I've got so much Lia Sophia that I've never worn some of it! So I'm selling the stuff I never wore :) It's all new and comes in boxes. Check out my auctions by clicking HERE!

Here are my items:

Happenins

Holy crap! Can Lady look any cuter?!?! We were out in the yard this weekend and she decided to sit on the porch and watch over us. I love her feet hanging over the edge! And yes, she has her sweater on still because she shivers in the house after we got her groomed a few weeks ago. She's an old lady with poor circulation now ;)

We cleaned up the East side of the backyard this past weekend. What a MAJOR difference. This side was A LOT harder than the West side because it had more weeds and rocks in it. It took us about 2 hours but it was totally worth it!

And then we have our tree! It's hard to tell from the picture but it's at least 12 feet tall now. I remember early last Spring of last year that I showed it to my mom and Bob and asked if they thought it was really a tree. I remember Ramin really didn't think it was but I knew in my heart that it was a little tree. It was only about 6 inches tall at that point. Now, just a little over a year later it's fully growing! I trimmed it up a few weeks ago and ever since then it's just exploded at the top growing all kinds of leaves and branches. I'm so excited because I LOVE watching things grow! It's kind of in a crappy place in the yard but I dare not risk moving it hehehe. We think it's some kind of maple tree :)

Hmmmm

I read the paper every Sunday. I usually skim through it for stories I'd like to read. This morning I found one right away, right on the cover. I recognized my philosophy professor on the cover this morning and I read the story. The class I took with her last semester was an Applied Ethics course called Drugs and Justice. Because I was the only philosophy student in the class (it was a large class mixed with many majors) I got the opportunity to work with her one on one to develop a very interesting paper. She worked with me after class every week helping me think about issues and come up with interesting topics I could potentially write about. In the end I ended up writing my paper about entheogens, or religious use drugs, as I've already blogged about of course. She gave me insight and help about this topic. As I met with her every week we usually say outside after class as she'd eat her lunch and we'd discuss. People would randomly come up to her and ask how she was doing and I always got the sense that she was coping with something difficult. One of my previous professors came up to her once and they had a long discussion as the other professor recently lost her mother. I listened as they both talked about life and death and how they each coped with it. I knew Professor Battin (the current professor) was obviously dealing with something but I never could figure it out and I wasn't rude enough to really ask. I also admit that during each of those sessions with her I was always in a rush as I wanted to hurry in to work. I will also admit that I could have done a LOT better in that class than the B+ I got at the end, but I figured it was my last semester and I just didn't have the energy.

Well today after I read the article in the paper I feel rather odd about things. All this time she was helping me and she had this HUGE issue in her life. It amazes me. It says in the article that she continued working in order to keep herself grounded. This is amazing to me. I really did learn a lot from her during that class and it was one of the more enjoyable classes I've ever taken in my life. I just wish I could have had more heart in it. I guess hindsight is 20/20 now. I'm going to keep the article from the Tribune, I'm not really sure why. Maybe one day when I need some help coping with something I can pull it out and see her strength.

Here is the link to the online version of the article: Click Here

I highly suggest at least watching the little video clip of her speaking. Very thought provoking.

It makes you think, in a good way :)

I wonder if I should send her an email and say something, but what do I say? I'm of no significance to her life, but I somehow want her to know that my experience with her will stay with me forever. I dunno...I'll think about it.

Good Chick Flicks

So I had a chance to watch some good chick flicks this week. Tonight I watched "Rumor Has It" with Jennifer Anniston and Kevin Costner. Man was it good. It was funny and sad and kinda makes you think about your own life - I like movies like that. Sure it's a chick flick but what's a chick flick really? It's a movie about relationships. It doesn't have action or suspense (usually) but you can relate to it and think about the story. That's why chick flicks are good. I think they really help women understand themselves in a certain regard. The other movie I watched this week was "Waitress" with Kerri Russell - also very good movie. Quirky, funny and a bit sad as well. I always cry at pretty much any movie so it might not be sad for everyone. Here are the trailers for the movie if you're interested in checking them out. And if you're a guy, I say don't shy away from so called chick flicks, especially the good quirky ones, cause those are usually the ones that actually have meaning and shed light into the human experience ;)





And here is one other movie that I've always loved for a LONG time "The Good Girl" - it also has Jennifer Anniston in it but I absolutely LOVE this movie and have seen it many times!