I mean to post more. It's a habit I'm trying to develop.
 
My brother's baseball season started a few weeks ago, but it had been too cold at the first several games to take pictures. Any gloves that keep my hands warm are too thick to use a camera, and gloves that are thin enough to use the camera don't have really any warmth.
 
You're probably thinking, "Toughen up, Sarah. You are a professional photographer". True. But I only suffer cold fingers when I have to, and I don't have to at my brother's games :)
 
This past weekend, we had our first Louisville tournament. Skyview Park in Jeffersontown is a beautiful complex. I really like going there. The weather was much nicer down in Kentucky (think, I-got-a-sunburn-on-my-legs-because-I-forgot-to-put-sunscreen-on-them kind of weather), so I finally got to take pictures!
 
Now that I know more about light, it's a struggle because games aren't usually played in nice light. However, baseball is a different kind of photography to begin with than portraiture, so the lighting can have different rules, right? (I'm going to say yes). The second game on Friday did span sunset, and I got some gorgeous light then. I was pretty excited, though I managed to restrain myself from jumping up and down :)
 
Baseball is one of my favorite things to photograph. Now if I can figure out a way to get paid for it.... :)

There are so many little things that are exciting to a new photographer. You work so hard and then something happens. A little break that just might propel your business forward.
 
This was Danielle's second senior session. She had done one with the photographer who took her sisters' senior photos and I saw the images; they were very nice. The graduation ceremony puts together a slideshow of the graduates' baby and senior photographs. I assumed that they would use one of the images from the other photographer. That was fine; I wasn't expecting it.
 
Danielle's mom replied to my email after I sent her the gallery and said that they were using one of my images as the slideshow picture! I was really surprised and honored. This is a big deal for me. Three of the senior photographs will be mine: Danielle, Maliek, and my brother. For a brand new photographer, it's a big opportunity. My name is not on the photos, but the photos will be in front of a lot of people; people who might have a kid graduating in the next year or two. Maybe they will ask the graduate who took their photo. Or maybe I won't get anything out of this. That's fine. Yes, you hope to get referrals and I use the photos in my portfolio to hopefully bring in new clients, but that's not ultimately why I do it. It's nice that my clients are so happy with their photos and that I got to capture this special time in their life. You only graduate from high school once and it is such an honor to record the feelings and emotions for them for the future. I don't take that lightly.

My favorite color is purple. It's been one of my favorite colors pretty much my whole life. The turquoise/lime green phase was brief.
 
When I first got my own room, it was pink with light purple trim and a princess border around the top. I had pink and purple curtains, princess stickers, and a large princess watch clock on the wall. It was the perfect little girl room.
 
Slowly, the princess elements began to disappear. I did whatever I could to make the room more grown up, but there were still those bright pink walls. It took much longer than I wanted, but when I was 13, we finally repainted my room. Now,I have three light purple walls and one dark accent wall and I love it! The funny thing about the accent wall is, the paint is sticky. Even dry, it's got some stick to it that other paint doesn't have. I may have dusted it once or twice since it was painted, but it's been really dusty and covered in stuff for a while now. I decided that enough was enough and designated this week to cleaning.
 
Yesterday, I cleaned off my desk and shelves, dusted and vacuumed them, and boy did they need it! I apparently haven't done that in a few years either, because there were some serious cobwebs back there! Yuck! The funniest thing though was that I was actually vacuuming the wall! That's a little weird, but a cloth or duster wouldn't have worked. The dusting spree meant that things had to get moved, so my desk and shelves got things put away, thrown away, and given away. They look much better!
 
I like cleaning my room and organizing. Not cleaning in general, but I enjoy it when it's my bedroom. It's sort of a problem though, because I like to organize so much that I can think of about a dozen different ways to organize things. I have to reign myself in or nothing will ever get done :)
 
One half of my room is now clean. The next big project is the bookshelves on my wall and the corner with my chair. I'll straighten my closet when I change out my winter clothes for the spring/summer ones, and my "toy closet" (the name has hung on from when I was a kid) will get straightened when it gets bad again. Probably after I'm done with my brother's baseball scrapbook and I've made a mess of everything!