Rural Decay

There is a "pit" as we call it a mile or so from our house that has lots of old junker cars and trucks sitting in it. Usually this place is an eyesore and not somewhere you would want to play or walk around. However it worked perfectly for this photo shoot! I chose to shoot this truck because I liked the color of it and it was the only one with a tree or bush of some sort growing around/in it. 

P.S. I realize that we only needed three but I couldn't pick just three of them. I had so many more that were not of the truck.

For this shot I took the picture through the window of the truck

Alphabet

For this assignment we had to find letters of the alphabet in pictures. At first I was was like "This will pretty easy!" WRONG. It took me forever to find the fist half of my pictures. Turns out I was just looking way to hard. Once I calmed down about not finding anything, they seem to just jump right out at me. My favorite are "o" and probably "g". 

I had to flip and rotate pictures to make them look like letters so some of them may look a little weird. And I ended up having some extra space at the bottom of the collage so I just filled it with some text.

CD Jewel Case

Wow.....that was actually fun. When this project was first assigned I'm not going to lie, I was freaking out. Especially after I pull New Wave music as the style I had to look up and create a case for. But after looking up what that style actually was I calmed down.

For those of you who don't know, New wave is a kind of pop rock from the 1970's to the early 1980's. Popular artists from this genera of music are Blondie, Eurythimics, Tears for Fears, Simple Minds and many many more. Most of you have probably heard the songs "Sweet Dreams are Made of This", "One Way or Another", and "Whip It!" Those are just a couple of the top 100 New Wave songs.

With my research done I went on to find a band name and an album title. I was in Madison at the Midwest horse fair walking around with the hundreds of other horse fanatics, when my mother and trainer (who also came along) said something about painted ponies. The joke is I use to ride POA poines and then moved on to a Paint horse. Hence painted ponies. Boom I had a band name that was just as crazy as the one from the 70's. I went on to name the album Riding the Wave keeping with the horsey theme I now had going on.  The wave part coming from New Wave. 

It took me a while to try and figure out what I was going to shoot for the album pictures. And I felt really stupid when my mom suggested doing exactly as the name said. Paint the ponies. So off I headed for my trainers barn full of her crazy colored ponies. I then cut them out of the picture and pasted them here. I had tons of fun blowing the colors way out of proportion, to much fun I think. I left the background white to keep the ponies the center of the attention. The middle cover is a close up of the eye. 

The ponies look weird on when I Transfered I apologize. It really looks cool in photoshop.

Multi-view Collage

I actually had a really hard time with this project. My artistic abilities and I do not get along at all. So here is my attempt at an abstract photo. I took pictures of my boyfriend's new racing four-wheeler since he just finished putting it together last weekend and decided to use it for this project. I tried to stick to his colors as well; lime green and blue, I didn't want to change the wheeler at all. I had a hard time getting the four-wheeler cut out by itself so there are places that look a little weird. Oh well hope you like it! 

One Subject

I had a really hard time finding one subject to shoot for some reason. I just couldn't seem to fine multiple shots of one thing. It just so happened that my boyfriend was in his shop working on his tractor and I had my camera with me. And so it turned into my one subject. I wish the lighting had been better. It was really dark and so my shots are not as good as they could be. My favorite is of the chain on the wheel and the blade on the corn planter which was attached to his tractor. 

Warmth

In a previous post called "Melting Time" I posted pictures of tapping trees for sap. These pictures are of the sap being cooked and turned into syrup. I chose these for warmth because as you will see in a picture below, in order to turn the sap to syrup the temperature is in the 215 to 220 degree range. Needless to say it if vary warm. Not to mention the smell the sap gives off while turning to syrup, which makes you feel warm inside. :)

The photo above is when the sap is starting to boil and steam. The picture below is only 10 minutes later when the sap was at a full boil and starting to turn to syrup. 

This is the wood eating beast that cooks the sap. Its called an evaporator, and this one happens to be one of the biggest in our area. It has to be seeing as we have close to 3, 500 taps out and another 3,000 or so to go. 

This little device is used to keep track of the temperature, and control the valve which allows syrup to come out. When the top number matches and goes above the bottom number, this gadget lets the valve open and draws syrup off. Compared to others forms of evaporators where they must cook so many gallons at a time, the one we are using is continuously fed. So syrup is continuously drawn off. Yes those numbers are really how hot the sap gets (and that was low because it was the first fire up). 

And finally I had to take a picture of the burning wood we were using to fire the evaporator. I like watching fire and love to see the wood get that look that you see in the photo. This is my typical warmth picture.

Re-edits Number 2

Original

I really disliked the blue tinge to the original photo and with many failed attempts at trying to lessen it, I finally gave up. And so it was converted to black and white.

Edited

In the original photo the last step was crooked and it bothered me. A LOT! So I decided to just get rid of it, along with the silo in the background.

I liked this picture a lot but it was the coloring is kind of blah. So I also converted this one to black and white.

A Day In The Life of Me!

My life these last few days have actually not been normal. I am starting a new schedule with my switching jobs. Anyhow this is how a typical day is going now. I wake up around seven on the weekdays; brush my teeth and drive to school. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after second hour I go home and get ready for job 1, tapping trees and/or collecting and cooking syrup (hence the snowshoes with the deep snow in the woods). If it is Tuesday or Thursday after second hour I drive to Marshfield's UW Wood County. I have an 11 o'clock English class which is followed with lunch at my Grandma Gregg's apartment. Following lunch I proceed back to the college for Geography at 1:30 and then Philosophy 101 at three. In the afternoons (everyday) I go to job number 2; Boon Farms. Here I am responsible for feeding all 100 plus calves - except right now the numbers are in the 80's due to a lull in calving. After work I either go home and  work on my homework, or go to the gym called Living Well just out of Neillsville. I try to work out at least three times a week. That just about sums up my life. Weekends are work all day (farm morning and night and sap during the day) unless its my weekend off then I work out and relax. Sometimes I venture into the world if I ever have a night off to do something crazy.