ekcphotography

We've moved!

2009-05-30T21:54:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted here for multiple reasons, but the main once recently are I've started a new blog! I'm still working on getting my official business blog up & running, but once it is, you can find me at http://www.ekcphotography.com . Until then, you can find lots of photos on my personal blog at http://sugarandspicenotes.blogspot.com

Enjoy! :)

4 Generations

2008-11-07T10:17:00.003-06:00

This photo was taken during my recent trip to Boston for my sister's wedding. It was the first time to have 4 generations of women from my mum's side of the family in one photo... not to mention the first time in 8 yrs that I had seen my Granny!!

Happy Halloween!!

2008-10-31T08:26:00.004-05:00

Autumn is here

2008-09-26T21:21:00.002-05:00

Just in time for autumn we've discovered that Annabella has a new favorite snack. She loves apples and whenever Los is eatting one, she has to share!

Photos are back!

2008-09-18T20:45:00.003-05:00

So we've finally gotten settled in OH and I've actually picked up my camera again. Here are just a few images I've gotten over the last few days.

And in other news, I plan on completely revamping this blog over the next few weeks. I've decided to focus on getting the business side of my photography off the ground, so I need to make sure this reflects what I want it to. I will most likely branch off a personal blog for photos of Anna and Lemon (what we call baby #2) but once I figure that out, I'll let you know!

Fallen off the Face of the Earth...

2008-08-13T21:02:00.002-05:00

Ok, maybe not quite but I've been busy! Los & I are in the midst - literally - of our move to OH. I am at the hotel enjoying a little peace & quiet while I wait for los to arrive. Because we decided (and by we, I mean he) to move ourselves, Los is driving the moving van and I got to drive the car. So Anna & I arrived at our stopping point a few hours ago after a very easy, albeit long, drive. Luckily because we did a very long drive today, tomorrow will be much easier and shorter!

As much as we are going to miss all the great friends we met in TX, we are not sad to be leaving the 100+ degree heat or the spiders or crickets! We're looking forward to being in OH and a change of scenary... hopefully we'll be settled in quickly and I'll be back to posting photos (not to mention taking them!) on a regular basis. OH here we come!! :)

From the Garden

2008-06-29T09:14:00.001-05:00

Unfortunatly it's not my garden, but maybe someday we will actually have one!!

Travelling

2008-06-20T15:50:00.004-05:00

Travelling does a number on blogging. Being away from my computer and my ability to upload photos definitely limits what I can post these days. Hopefully once I meet back up with Los this weekend, I'll be able to post some of the photos I've taken this week while staying with Mum.

Unfortunately though, due to my desire to sleep, I missed out on an opportunity to get some amazing photos last night. Around 11pm fire sirens starting going off and suggested that something was happening nearby. As it turns out, a church at the end of my Mum's street had gone up in flames and firefighters worked through the night to control and eventually put out the fire. The fire completely destroyed the school attached to the church but left most of the sanctuary untouched (with the exception of some water and smoke damage). We came across a blog of a local photographer, Staci Landis, how captured some great images from the ordeal. Check them out if you get a chance!

2 from the Archives

2008-06-07T14:15:00.002-05:00

I was just going through my photos and I came across both of these photos. The tree photo was taken a few months ago, and the industrial building was taken when we were in boston a few weeks ago.

After editting these photos, I submitted them for the last assignment of my photo class. Now I just need to decide if I'm going to sign up for another class!

A Few of Bella

2008-06-02T14:04:00.001-05:00

Taken last week when the weather was still nice (aka not 100 with high humidity and a breeze that feels like it's trying to slowly cook you...)

I'm back

2008-06-02T13:50:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything but last night while going through some old photos, I came across this one of my Mum's dog Sweet Pea:

She is such a gentle dog and if there's any flaw in her personality it's that she needs attention ALL the time!

Memories

2008-05-19T22:42:00.003-05:00

Little things in daily life have an amazing way of transporting me to another time or place that I have stored away in my memories. I spent the weekend in Boston visiting my sister and her fiance and had a chance to photograph a beautiful Dogwood tree in their garden. Dogwoods always take me back to the house that I grew up in. There was a large dogwood outside the front door that was full of beautiful blooms all spring. This tree isn't quite there yet, but it still had some beautiful flowers.

And one more photo from the weekend.... Make a wish!

Series of Flowers

2008-05-09T16:27:00.002-05:00

I've been taking the opportunity to capture some of the Texas wild flowers this spring. Here are a few I've photographed over the last few days.

Altus Air Show

2008-05-09T15:34:00.001-05:00

So I still haven't gotten around to editting most of the photos from the Air Show last weekend, however since I know my Mum & Granny are going to be looking here later today, I thought I would quickly throw up a couple of photos of us from the day.

And proof that I do occasionally wind up in front of the camera instead of behind it...

Number 3

2008-05-07T11:46:00.000-05:00

I just took the 3rd photo for my class.

What do you think?

Patterns

2008-05-07T09:38:00.002-05:00

My latest assignment from my photography class is to capture patterns. Here are 2 of the images I've come up with so far.

I still need to come up with 1 more.

I'm also hoping to get around to editting some photos from the Altus Air Show we went to this weekend. Maybe bella will cooperate and I'll be able to get that done today!

California girl

2008-05-07T08:08:00.003-05:00

We finally found a food that Annabella likes! So far we've tried bananas, sweet potatoes, and green beans and have had no luck with any. At least with green beans she sort of tolerated for it a few days, until she figured out that she could spit it back out at me with what seems like supersonic force! So yesterday we tried avocado and she actually likes it! Unfortunatly for us, we're not in CA where avocados are more readily available (read: cheaper!). But at least we're no longer afraid that she'll never eat solids!

Inside wants Out

2008-05-02T21:53:00.001-05:00

With the arrival of nice weather, so does Tiggy's presence in the window.

A different look

2008-05-02T21:49:00.002-05:00

Since I was awake early this morning (and Los was occupying Anna) I decided to get some photos of the fence I showed a few days ago but with the sun rising behind it. Same subject, different look...

A Sad Day

2008-05-01T14:40:00.002-05:00

I think today was just meant to be a sad day all around.

Last week, my Granddad died at the good age of 91. He had a very good life and has many people who love him, but it's still sad to lose someone who was so cherished.

This photo was taken by my sister when she was in England for Granddad's 90th birthday celebration. The funeral for him is today, but as it's in England unfortunatly I was unable to go. Even without being over there though, my thoughts are filled with memories of Granddad today.

And to add to that, this morning I woke up to the news that a training plane crashed on base today. Unfortunatly both the instructor and student in the plane died. The whole base has been shaken by this news. People seem to be holding their breath waiting for the names to be released so we can all figure out if we know the families and what we can do to help. It's times like these that you realize what a small, tight knit community the base is.

Life's Just Ducky

2008-04-30T22:54:00.001-05:00

Photoshop plays

2008-04-29T20:57:00.003-05:00

I've been working on learning Photoshop and figuring out a good work flow for postprocessing and these 2 images were my subjects for the day. I really like the feel I got with the building, not sure about the fence photo though. I think perhaps the fence one just isn't a strong enough photo on its own and Photoshop isn't going to make it great.

A few random ones

2008-04-28T21:54:00.002-05:00

Just a few photos I've taken over the past few days.

And of course one of my sweet Annabella just to brighten your day!

Lake Wichita

2008-04-27T22:49:00.002-05:00

We went for a walk today at Lake Wichita. Sounds like it should be nice but really there isn't much there! They have a walking path surrounding the lake that would make for an enjoyable stroll on most days but with the wind gusts we had today we were lucky to stay on the path. I did however get a few photos out of the day.

Art Show

2008-04-27T22:46:00.002-05:00

Saturday was the opening of the Gilrose Studios Juried Art Show in which my piece "Plains of New Mexico" was displayed.

Turns out the photo didn't win a prize, but it was still a cool experience to have artwork on display. Plus it was one of only 2 photos in the entire show!

After the Storms

2008-04-25T21:04:00.003-05:00

One nice thing to all the severe weather we have to deal with here in TX is the chance to see a beautiful sunset once it's all over.

Road Trip

2008-04-20T22:14:00.002-05:00

Two weeks ago we decided to take a road trip and headed up to the "mountains." I have that in quotations because to people who live on the east coast or out near the Rockies these are more like hills. Either way, it made for a nice day up in OK and I got a few good photos out of it.

On the drive up the mountain -

Carlos had to help with this photo. We were driving out of the Nature Reserve and saw a herd of Longhorns out in the field. There already were a handful of people stopped to take photos, so we pulled over so I could do the same! Well as I was trying to get photos of the herd crossing the street in front of the vehicle, Los mentioned that the largest Longhorn who was off on his own was then crossing the street behind me. So as I photographed that Longhorn, Los played lookout to make sure these animals didn't turn our way as I was probably closer than I should have been in the first place!

Trouble

2008-04-19T22:57:00.002-05:00

Los, Anna & I went to the park this evening so that I could take some photos for my class. As always seems to be the case, my favorite photos of the evening were taken just for fun and not for my class assignment!

I think with these 2 in the house, I'm in trouble!! :)

It's alive!

2008-04-14T21:18:00.002-05:00

I hope I'm not jinxing myself, but I finally have a computer that works! My wonderful husband installed photoshop on his laptop so I can view and convert my photos again. Hopefully the desktop will be up and running sometime this week too!

I took both of these photos last weekend at the local park. I may be a little biased with my choices! :)

Another one bites the dust.

2008-04-11T13:09:00.003-05:00

Apparently it's not a good week to be a computer in my house. Not only has the desktop died, but my laptop has gone to join it. The hard drive crashed AGAIN. Luckily it's still under warranty so it will be fixed, maybe even replaced due to the multiple failures it's had (I was dreaming of a MacBook Pro but that unfortunatly won't be happening), but that means that I am now totally unable to use photoshop. I am really beginning to dislike computers...

Vote please!

2008-04-09T16:32:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Caitlin I discovered JPG Magazine a few months ago. Through this site you can submit photos for various themes that will appear in future issues and possibly get work published. I just checked the site today and one of the upcoming themes is "Creatures". Initially I thought I should take a photo of Tiggy for it, but then I remembered a photo that I took of Henry last summer out in CA. I've submitted it for possible publication, but in order for it to be considered I need at least 100 votes for it... so please, if you have a few moments, vote for it!! You can get to the site using the link on the right side of the page (Under "Vote for me please"). Oh, and if you're feeling especially generous, feel free to send friends and others to vote too :)

Thanks!

Scratch That

2008-04-09T06:46:00.002-05:00

Why is it that computers never work the way you want them to? Turns out not only did our video card fry, but Los thinks the motherboard fried also. So I still have no desktop to use and I now have to wait until we can get a new board.

Yippee

2008-04-08T20:31:00.002-05:00

Guess what the friendly people of UPS delivered today? A new video card!! Hopefully Los will install it tonight and I'll be back to uploading new photos tomorrow. For now, here's another photo I took almost a year ago now. This is the Chapel at the Air Force Academy. The photo is from my brother's wedding last year.

No hope for Los

2008-04-05T22:12:00.003-05:00

Since our desktop's video card is shot and the I'm not uploading any new photos, I've been looking through some that are still on our laptop. I came across a series of photos which makes me think there's really no hope for los once Annabella is older. I have a feeling she'll be using this look to get him wrapped around her finger many times as she grows up!

And the black & white version...

Then I stumbled across this photo. I'm beginning to think Tiggy has been teaching Annabella how to perfect the look!

Woohoo!

2008-04-03T10:33:00.002-05:00

So I just found out today that one of my photographs has been accepted into a Juried Art Show here in town. I submitted 3 pieces and "Plains of New Mexico" was selected!

Now I just need to get it framed and to the gallery for the April 26th show. I'm so excited about this!

Self Portrait

2008-04-01T22:45:00.002-05:00

I needed to do a self-portrait for a photography class that I'm doing so today I decided to tackle that assignment. And since I have so many photos of Anna posted here, I figured it was time to post some other people! I was really struggling with getting the focus right while using the tripod & timer, so I didn't get creative with it... I guess I'll save that for another day. Anyway here are both the color & black/white version.

The Apprentice

2008-03-27T21:13:00.002-05:00

I was just watching The Apprentice (an unfortunate side effect of only have 4 channels to choose from!) and editting photos and thought this picture was surprisingly appropriate.

Looks like Bella is going for the Donald Trump Comb Over!

Hold On Tightly!

2008-03-27T20:54:00.002-05:00

We've had a run of gorgeous weather here, so I took the opportunity to get outside and enjoy it with Annabella. We went to the local park and Anna tried out a swing for the first time while I tried out some motion blur.

Annabella loved every minute of it!

Oh well

2008-03-26T09:55:00.001-05:00

I didn't win, but at least my photo was one of the top ones. Check out Keri's blog to see the winning photo!

Downtown

2008-03-25T22:17:00.002-05:00

While Los & I were driving around downtown trying to find things that represented Wichita Falls, this is the sort of picture I was coming up with...

I didn't really feel as though it gave a good representation of the area but I think it's still an interesting photo!

Wichita Falls

2008-03-24T15:54:00.003-05:00

I recently found out about a contest that Keri Doolittle Photography is doing on her blog... she's asked for people to take photos that represent where they live. So with that goal in mind, Los & I went downtown in search of things for me to photography. I ran into a problem though... our downtown really doesn't have much except run down or abandoned buildings and the commercial area of town really just looks like every other shopping district in this country.

I obviously could have photographed the Falls, however I ran into 2 problems with that. 1.) It just seemed to obvious. As Keri said in her post, she wants people to think outside the box. And 2.) the Falls were turned OFF this weekend! That's right, our town turns off the man-made falls after we've had any rain... seems counter-intuitive to me.

Well after 2 strikes, we headed on to base to fill up the car and while we were there, it dawned on me that the base defines Wichita Falls. Without Sheppard there would be very little here, so with that realization I set out to find something on base to photograph. Since one of the main programs here is a pilot training program, I decided that a photo of the t-37 "Tweet" would be fitting. Plus with a little photoshop action, a static display airplane looks pretty cool!

So after all that, here is the image I submitted...

A few from the weekend

2008-03-24T15:46:00.003-05:00

Friday and saturday we had beautiful weather here in Wichita Falls, so I decided to take a few more photos of Anna (as though I really need more!!).

This photo was taken at a park near our apartment. The "grass" is more like straw, but Anna didn't seem to mind.

This one was actually taken inside the apartment in the evening. I love how big her eyes look in it!

A Black & White Conversion

2008-03-19T13:35:00.004-05:00

My photoshop class is gradually teaching me how to use the different aspects available so I decided to test out a b&w conversion with this photo of Annabella that I took yesterday. Anna was having fun with her rice cereal... as a result I think more ended up on her face that in her mouth!

I decided to leave a touch of color in the photo to give a warm hue so I guess it's not a true b&w!

Go Green

2008-03-13T07:32:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I posted anything here... I blame it on travelling! I recently got back to internet access though and after perusing Heather's blog (http://heatherink.blogspot.com/) and her "design of the day", I decided to post my own recent Green photography.

I've recently made the switch to reusable shopping bags and think more people should join the movement. Plus they're multifunctional! :)

Traveling

2008-02-23T22:52:00.005-06:00

I took both of these photos while travelling. The first was taken this past November on our way home from Tucson, AZ. I took it from the passenger seat while Carlos was driving. The sun was just coming up over the horizon.

This second photo is from March 2005 at a pier in Florida. Carlos & I stopped there on our road trip to Disney.

Another Knit Hat

2008-02-23T21:46:00.004-06:00

So after looking at the original Knit Hat photo, I decided that the shadow on the right side of her face detracted a bit from the image so I set it up and tried again! Here's what I came up with:

I still think the expression in the first one is better, but the lighting is better in this one. What do you think?

Knit Hat

2008-02-21T14:00:00.004-06:00

Before winter is over I wanted to get a photo of Annabella wearing the fun hat that Auntie Heather knitted for her!

I think she might be a natural born model :)

A Day of Little Miss Annabella

2008-02-20T22:28:00.003-06:00

Since I'm still trying to get over a cold bug, Anna & I haven't really gone out much over the past few days. Luckily that just means more time to take some photos of her beautiful face! Another little girl at church recently told me that Annabella has "squirrel cheeks"... I think that's a perfect description! So here are a few photos of her (plus I knew that Bella's Granny wanted to see some recent pictures!)

I'm currently taking a course in Photoshop. I can't wait until I know enough about the program to make these photos a little crisper!

Depth of Field

2008-02-18T12:34:00.004-06:00

Shortly after getting my new camera, Los & I went to the Falls. The Falls is a small man-made waterfall here in town that is rather unimpressive, but it does provide a good opportunity to test out a camera! I took these next 2 photos to play with depth of field and use different focal lengths.

This photo is is just another angle of the Falls.

California

2008-02-16T13:48:00.007-06:00

I was just looking through some of my older photos this morning and found these 2 from my trip to California last summer. They were both taken outside of the San Diego Airport while I was waiting for my mother's flight to arrive.

I love the first photo - I find the signage on the bus totally redunant but it adds a strange simplicity to the image.

With this second photo I was just playing around with the different focal lengths of the camera. I like how it shows the texture of the palm tree though and gives the impression of hiding behind the tree. Makes me think of playing Hide & Seek!

Some people amaze me...

2008-02-15T15:02:00.006-06:00

Apparently any fruit or vegetable that is orange in color can be called an orange...

Valentine's Day

2008-02-15T14:38:00.005-06:00

Normally I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day. I find it forces one to buy a gift for your significant other that he/she probably doesn't want or really need and makes things that are a thoughtful gift (ie flowers) 3 times more expensive! This year, due to a tight budget and lack of ideas, I decided to just bake cupcakes for Los. I went for a traditional chocolate with vanilla buttercream icing... hard to go wrong with that combo. Luckily they were a huge hit and I think he actually appreciated the thought.

Plus it helps that I have a fabulous husband who has actually started noticing when I mention items that I like. This year he got me a tripod for my camera and another lens filter! It's a small gift, but I think it's fabulous.

Say Cheese!

2008-02-13T09:25:00.002-06:00

My little girl! Her smile can light up an entire room. I keep telling Los that we're in trouble when she grows up since she already can stop people in their tracks!

Park Bench

2008-02-12T20:01:00.001-06:00

parkbw
Originally uploaded by katemalone03

This is another photo that I took a few years ago. There was a firetruck that was emptying out the hoses over the lake creating a mist over the whole scene.

2008-02-12T15:14:00.001-06:00

I took this photo back in 2004 while I was attending Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, TN. We had a large thunderstorm move through and, as usual, the sky turned amazing colors afterwards. Luckily the building that I was living in has a rooftop deck so I had the chace to capture this image of the sky over Vanderbilt University. I always thought this made the sky look like it was on fire.