Dilly Dally Dailies

Hi Friends, 

I’m on vacation this weekend – and you better believe I’m taking pictures. But I won’t be able to get them up here until Monday or so.  In the mean time here are some b-sides from January.  I’m planning on doing this at the end of every month… Some days I take more than one picture (this month I took a grand total of 623!) and it can be challenging to pick one.  So I was thinking I’d put a couple of the “almost but not quite” ‘s up here every now and again.  I played a bit more with some coloring effect on some of these which was so fun I might keep doing it.  (some of them got a little out of order – sorry!)

Hope you enjoy these, let me know what you think and I’ll see ya next week.

Muah!
Jules 

1-12-09: 225 E. Cota St. – This place was just too cool to only take one picture!

1-13-09: Santa Barbara Post Office

1-14-09: East Beach on a Beautiful Day!

1-15-09: another angle of my “make a bad day better” dasies 

1-17-09: A trashcan that says “grace” on it… deep.  (I played with the colors a lot on this one)

1-19-09: A really cool deck I found at the beach.  The sun was setting which made for some fun lighting. 

1-20-09:  limes make [almost] everything yummier. 

1-12-09: I didn’t realize we had a foodland (or that they existed at all) until I took a weird way to get to a friends house. I guess there is exploring left to do here.  I really like the reflections of the traffic signal and my camera lens (yes, I took this through my car window while at a red light). 

1-24-09: Agua Dulce Foursquare Church’s outdoor lighting (I went home for a wedding shower that day).

1-29-09: I loved how these flowers weren’t going to let some silly fence keep them from growing the way they wanted to.  I really needed this encouragement the day I took this. 

1-24-09: Wedding shower just isn’t fun without a wedding dress made of toilet paper.

1-12-09: 225 E. Coat St. again – (Can you tell I liked this place?)

1-23-09: They day I found the cool green truck I also found Colonel Mustard, a crazy cool patchy blue guy, and Rusty McRuster.

1-30-09: I think I need to look up more often.  I have fun playing with the colors on this one.   

1-30-09:  I really liked the abandoned crayons at the foot of this massive artistic column.  There are a lot of different meanings you could throw on this one.  I’ll let you decide. 

1-28-09: Another image from my paperclip jar’s modeling debut. 

1-17-09: Seriously, how does she look so cool? I can’t decide which coloring I like better.  Feel free to vote. 

What a month! Thanks for keeping tabs on me and Happy February!

 

1-31-09 1, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

I like to think that I don’t spend much time in LA but I’ve managed to drive down there 4 or 5 times this month! (Let’s hope this doesn’t become a pattern for the rest of the year.)

Today traffic was moving so slowly that I was ready to go insane. So I pulled out my camera and practiced some slow shutter speed movement stuff. It took a while to get a smooth circle which helped the hour it took to go a mile pass much faster.

    

1-29-09 1, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

First of all, I’m sorry for falling off the face of the earth this weekend – I was taking pictures but wasn’t able to get them uploaded. But I’m back and ready to rock it!

Now then onto business: Friday was a terrible day at work, lets just say I ended up tearing up a bit in the HR office. Once I finally got a lunch break (3:30 pm) I headed straight to the beach, threw out my happy blue towel, put some Imogen Heap in my ears and read a bit of Ben Patterson’s thoughts on the Psalms. Needless to say – I felt much better an hour later

I think its important to have a stash of emotional medication for those days that don’t go according to plan, what’s in you’re de-funk medicine cabinet?

Santa Barbara seems to have a lot of these trees.  They look normal enough the rest of the year but then in January something crazy happens and all of a sudden they are COVERED in these cute white flowers.  They seriously come out of nowhere.  And the best part is that I always forget about them until they show up. Yay for the happy flower trees!

I had trouble with this shot.  All the whites were too bright or the colors were too dark, or the background was a mess, or the picture was just way too busy (there are a ton of these flowers all over the tree) so I finally settled on this one and then had some fun in photoshop on it.  Experimenting in the spice of Dilly Dally I guess.   I’m still determined to get a couple good pics of these trees before the go back to normal so you might see something similar in the next few days.

Today I used my overflowing paperclip cup as a model so I could play around with some fun lighting techniques.  (Don’t work it was after work hours.)  

Sorry about the late post, my work computer was throwing a fit!

Also, everyone should start getting excited.  I have some extra tidbits planned for the end of the month!

It seemed innocent enough at the time… to give my cute little oranges some cute little faces. But I soon found out that I couldn’t bring myself to eat them for it would destroy the happy couples’ dreams of their future life together.  Plus their chaperon has a monocle and I’ve always had a soft spot for people that sport monocles – they always remind of the steward in Disney’s Cinderella.  He had to take so much grief from the king how could you not feel sorry for him?

After work today I got to hang out with my old roommates at CorkTree Cellars – it was a wonderful time of feeling grown-up, hip and stylish.  I was hoping to get a picture there but it was too dark, so my little orange friends will be famous for the day. (and there was much rejoicing)

Today I was very brave and I cooked for myself, and I was successful!  A co-worker recently took a trip to Italy and brought back some spices for pasta sauce for me.  I went for it.  My measuring spoon giraffe friends are in awe of my amazing cooking talents.

And I know this is kind of cheating (posting a 2nd picture) but when I turned around from taking a picture of this beautifuly displayed dish… well, I laughed at myself.  I thought you would have an opportunity to do so as well:

I really did have ALL the cabinets AND the fridge open for at least the last part of the cooking ordeal.  Oops!

01-25-09, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

I went to Silvergreens (my new favorite resturant) with my good friends Chris and Katie Humphreys for lunch today and found these arches and fun hanging lights. I’ll admit I boosted the contrast on this one quite a bit… because contrast is sexy.

   

01-23-09, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

I loved the color of this old pickup, there was also a blue one, a yellow one and a purple one all parked on the same block!

The rainy weather is making this project more difficult. Available light isn’t what it used to be and my little point and shoot’s flash is all sorts of useless. I’m working on making a diffuser for it. In the mean time I’ll have to study up on available lighting, hold my breath and keep my white balance on “cloudy.” Hmm a tripod might be a good idea too. Any other suggestions?

01-22-09, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

I was feeling well enough to go outside (for a few minutes) today. I really like the rain, and puddles, and reflections…. so here you go a reflection in a rain puddle – what could be better than that?

01-21-09, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

I was suddenly struck with a nasty illness yesterday, after sleeping for about 30 hours straight I’m starting to feel better though

01-19-09 1, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

Today was simply wonderful. Having Monday off of work is the best idea ever. After sleeping in (a little too) late, I headed to the beach with a good friend.

It was so beautiful out I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that 1) it’s supposed to be the dead of winter and 2) I actually live in this freaking beautiful place.

These two points of confusion kept being stated as “Its January?!?” and “I live here?!?!” After 7 years I still can’t get over how beautiful this place is.

 

01-18-09, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

This is a ceiling fan. This ceiling fan belongs to my cousins who were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary today. It was a fun day of driving (back) to LA and seeing not-too-extended family.

It was also my mom’s birthday.  After the anniversary party we headed to the Olive Garden.  It’s amazing that my parents put up with me some times. This picture is actually pretty symbolic or poetic or something.

  

01-17-09, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

Some friends of mine (and myself) traveled to the far land of Santa Monica to check out some galleries (and gelato) today. It was a day full of fun and inspiration (and gelato). This is the sun setting on Bergamont Station – a compound of galleries I will be going back to in the not-too-distant future.

(I also discovered that one can’t take pictures inside of the gelato place on the 3rd Street Promade.  It’s only January and I’ve already been shot down twice!)

01-16-09, originally uploaded by BetweenTheShutter.

(Sorry about the late post, I wasn’t able to get to a computer yesterday – to make up for it I’ll give you an extra pic from today (the 18th)

I guess I’ve been in a flower sort of mood. I’ve been wanting to get a picture of some poppies for over a week now (I keep seeing them everywhere – usually while I’m driving). Today there was a patch of them outside of my chiropractors office and since I had to get out of my car for my appointment anyway it all worked out well.