“You Spin Me Right Round”

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Nicole

I am doing a massive cleaning up of all my photos. I filled up my computer with all my photos (over 18,000 photos in about 5 years) and reorganizing it all. Or at least trying to. Over the last 6 or 7 months I have accumulated 6 folders on my laptop - which still has a ton of room on it thankfully - that have 3,000+ in each I have to go through, delete the uglies, and sort and organize the keepers. It is becoming a massive project and I have run into a few problems along the way (my monitor finally died and for some reason my laptop doesn't want to handle Photoshop and let me re-size). But I've managed so far, and along the way I have found many photos I want to post. A lot of them have been forgotten about and lost in between everything else, and some I didn't like before but now looking at them again I like a lot. This one has always been a favorite of mine. I actually had it made larger, framed, and hung it up. It is in Boston when I was visiting my sister, brother-in-law, and step-nieces. We went to the boardwalk and my nieces took a ride on the carousel. (And FYI: Boston boardwalks are no where near as grand and wonderful as NJ boardwalks.) (Picture taken 7/26/10)

Posted in Adventures, Black & White, Favorites, People Places & Things | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 16, 2012 | Day 168

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Nicole

Still playing with my micro lens. We have weird berry things that grow in the backyard grass for some reason. I went out to take some pictures of them when I realized I left the micro lens on my camera. I figured this would be a good time to practice. I got a few cool pictures of the berries. I really liked how this one came out. You can really see the little bumps on the berry. It's so cool.

Posted in Favorites, In My Backyard, May 2012, Nature & Scenery, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 15, 2012 | Day 167

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Nicole

Another rainy day in NJ. After it stopped raining for a little bit, I went outside for some pictures. I love how raindrops look on flowers, grass, and leaves, and I thought this would be a good time to learn how to use my micro lens. It took a little bit to get used to it, but once I did I got some really cool looking photos. I think I still need to practice and get the hang of it better, but I don't think I did that bad for the first time.

Posted in Favorites, In My Backyard, May 2012, People Places & Things, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 14, 2012 | Day 166

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Nicole

I went for a walk in the yard and I discovered a lot that I probably would have missed if I didn't go out for some pictures. There's a caterpillar living in the rhododendron bushes and lots of bees like to hang out there. Last year I got a few pictures of butterflies. Maybe I'll get a few more this year, though they are very hard for me to get. In the ferns, I found about 10 of these spiders living in there. They all looked exactly alike so it reminds me of a family that is taking up an entire block for themselves.

Posted in Favorites, In My Backyard, May 2012, Nature & Scenery, Pets & Animals, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 13, 2012 | Day 165

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Nicole

I decided to make grilled cheese for lunch. I like photographing flames for some reason. Maybe it's because I think they look really cool in pictures if you can get it right. I spent so much time taking pictures of the flames that I burnt my sandwich.

Posted in May 2012, People Places & Things, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 12, 2012 | Day 164

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Nicole

I'm not a huge cake or donut eater at all. I would definitely pick ice cream or frozen yogurt over them. My mom had a coupon for donuts and tried to get me to share with her. At first I said no but she was insistent, so I agreed to 1 Boston Creme. She came home with 6- 3 for her, 3 for me. Oh well. As I was taking pictures of them, I noticed how plastic they looked in the photos. Yuck. For this one, I messed with the saturation a little more to make it seem more plastic-y, but for the most part, they already did. It didn't make me too happy that my treat looked like a plastic toy.

Posted in Eats & Treats, May 2012, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 11, 2012 | Day 163

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Nicole

This is the newest addition to my turtle collection. This sea turtle is from my grandmother. She suffers from Alzheimer's and does not remember a lot of things or who people are the majority of the time. It's really sad because she sometimes thinks my grandfather is still alive and is just out shopping (he's been gone over 25 years). But for some reason, my grandma has never forgotten that I like turtles. She has a ton of stuffed animals and knick knacks all over her house, and she's been giving a lot of it away the past few years. Every time she comes across a turtle, it reminds her of me. My mom takes care of her and sees her almost every day says that is one of the only things she remembers correctly and consistently.

Posted in May 2012, People Places & Things, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 10, 2012 | Day 162

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Nicole

The Hulk and Iron Man are fighting off the Abomination. I really liked The Avengers movie. I sort of like superheros. I'll watch them but I get DC and Marvel's characters confused all the time. Watching The Avengers kind of helps because I'll remember them from the movie so I'll know they go together but I don't know if they're DC or Marvel (I know, I know. I try to get it right). Tony Stark / Iron Man is my favorite mostly because he is a normal guy (if you consider having an insane amount of money to spend and being a tech genius normal) who just happens to wear an iron suit and flies around saving the world. Same thing with Batman. I love Batman because he's normal (again, besides the money part) who wears a bat suit saving people. Watching The Avengers I came to like Hawkeye and Black Widow as my 2nd and 3rd favorites: Hawkeye is an archer and I've always wanted to take archery lessons and Black Widow is a girl (what girl wouldn't want to kick butt looking like that in that outfit and looking cool on top of it all?). Next up: Dark Knight! Can't wait...

Posted in May 2012, People Places & Things, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 9, 2012 | Day 161

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Nicole

One of my favorite things to do is to walk around the yard after a rain shower. Everything is so green and clean. The flowers look refreshed and all the little bugs come out. I like to look at everything and just spend some time being in the yard. After it rained, I went out and found mushrooms. We always have them growing in the yard, and they all look different. These were little mushrooms and I almost missed them if I wasn't looking at the ground. Sometimes the mushrooms that grow are really big and they amaze me. I don't like eating mushrooms at all (least favorite food of all time) but I do like how they look. I guess it's because they remind me of cartoons and I picture little animals and bugs using them as houses or umbrellas.

Posted in Favorites, In My Backyard, May 2012, Nature & Scenery, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment

Project 365 2.0: May 8, 2012 | Day 160

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Nicole

Today was a boring day for taking pictures. I've been trying to be more creative in my picture taking, but it wasn't working in my favor today. When I got out of my car, I noticed this branch by the curb and decided to take some pictures of it. When I got them on the computer later that night, none of the photos I took got my attention. I do like how parts of the branch look like fingers tying to reach out at me.

Posted in In My Backyard, May 2012, Nature & Scenery, People Places & Things, Project 365: 2.0 | Leave a comment