DeWitt Famiily | 2014

Another great pleasure of shooting the DeWitt Family last weekend. With the new addition to the family of five, the weather was teetering on perfect...Just a little chilly.  

Twitter Chat!



Twitter is now full of chat about the BCS Championship game and not too much about photography!  Just looking for something that catches my eye in between plays.  I'm still good with my goal of reading one informative photography article a day. 

I'm bored at the moment, and browsing Twitter for a good #photography article...Any suggestions ???
— Travis Nance (@TN_Photography) January 7, 2014

What makes you itch?

This video has described everything that I have ever wanted to do. There is a great deal of truth to this as well, because I can relate!  There are so many factors that keep people from achieving what they want to.  Everything from, fear of being criticized, to not enough money, to the fear of failure. What would happen if we were to dive in, and do whatever it was that made us happy?  I have always thought that if anyone wanted to be a underwater basket-weaver after mastery they would turn a fee, and possibly change the world.  Besides, how many under-water basket weavers do you know?  

- Take a short 3 minutes out of your day and watch this!

New Year 2014

 

                

      In all honesty I gave up on New Year's resolutions several years ago.  Not because I was never able to achieve any of them, but because I was never able to follow through with any of them.   Of course, there is there ever popular weight loss goal (I say that as I am sitting here drinking Green Tea, and chomping down on peanut clusters) the goal to make more time for yourself, love more, or just to be a better person.  Maybe at some point it was the intervention a life that kept me from proceeding with resolutions, or maybe it was that I was younger and that I knew that I had plenty of time to change myself.
     When I attempted to do the weight loss, I DID! I lost the weight, made an attempt to eat more healthier and it really worked. My downfall was that I was not able to maintain the resolution, and I found myself starting from scratch the following year. I think that the older we get, we gain a greater sense of responsibility, maturity, and appreciation for those and the things around us. (AND HUMOR>>>DONT FORGET HUMOR - EVERYONE NEEDS A GOOD LAUGH!)
     So this year I decided to called it a more of a achievement than a resolution. So I started rather small and this is what I came up with. (I decided to steer clear of the more common ones)

-     I want to work more on my trade.  So I have made it a daily goal to read at least one photography related article every day, and try to teach myself something new. If I learn something, I fully intend to share.

-    My next one is too read more, and by that I mean books.  I have a small collection of books that I want to read, but some of them have never even been open.

-  My next one is to dive head-first into the photo industry.  Starting your own business came be a little terrifying, but there is plenty of resources available and I intend to use every one of them.

-  Lastly, I do have a few more in the works, but I will keep them to myself until the time is right.  Until then I will focus on maintaining the goals that I have already accomplished - and just broaden my horizons a little more.

Cheers!

P.S. - keep an eye out for a update, as I will keep you posted on my progress.

              

 

Then comes the snow...and ice!

I have really has cabin fever lately, so I shot some of the nasty weather that we have been having over the past few days.  I found a little tutorial on How to Make Snow in Photoshop, so I decide to try it.  This is what I came up with. Pretty nifty if I say so myself.  I would prefer to do something like this rather than to stand out in the freezing cold to try and get this effect. I actually tinkered with this so many times that I think that I have it down now. Of course, there are several different ways to achieve this look, but I decided to go with the more subtle look. If you wanted you can spend a little more time and go for a full blown blizzard. Or you can always use the  simple brush  from Brusheezy. Either way, It kept me busy during this crazy weather!

Christmas lights are up on the Square! 2013

We, and by we I mean my girlfriend and I, made it to the Fayetteville Arkansas square this year to see the lights.  This first picture below was from last year.  We were sitting in the car while it was pouring down rain and only managed to run under the awning once when it stopped for a brief moment.  The second time we made it down it was so bitter cold that one could barely move. Yes, the first picture was from my camera phone with a neat little app called Instagram, but I seemed to enjoy the outcome.  The rest of them are from this year when it was actually rather enjoyable.  So, If you are ever in the NWA or Fayetteville Arkansas area, it is really a site to see. I would really recommend just driving through and having a look.  

http://thelightsoftheozarks.com/

Fall is coming to and end...

Having lived in this area for about 3 years now, and have had some pretty brutal winters, we seemed to have skipped fall for the last few years.  This year we actually got to make the transition from summer in fall, and somehow managed to keep winter on the back burner for awhile! This is probably the last nice weekend that we will have this year so I decided to take full advantage of it. 

The picture above is rather out the ordinary for me...I does look rather off but I used a pretty cool bokeh brush I got from Brusheezy. I just needed to try something different.  Sometimes I feel the need to step away from the ordinary light, the perfect settings, and the ordinary feel.