How I Take My Pictures!

Hey guys!

I’m doing something kind of cool today! For starters, tonight I hosted the #USBloggerChat on Twitter, the theme was “Props For Photography” after I need a little more time to come up with good questions for the food theme that some of the girls wanted me to do a couple of weeks ago! I just thought I’d come up with a few questions for the chat and make up a post including those exact questions like I always do, but then I started thinking about it more and more, before long I decided to create one big post about the same subject!

I’ve always tried to use my own pictures, but sometimes I’ve had to use my families photos such as my mom and sister’s mostly. If I use anybody else’s pictures I usually try to ask beforehand and/or add the link below. I was using my phone to take my pictures a couple of years ago, but then they kept getting smaller and then Facebook took away their mobile email thingy and I couldn’t upload them anymore. So I started looking for another way to take pictures because even doing them from my phone were fun! It’s easy to hold my phone and snap a few with my toes, but I’ve tried to hold and take pictures on a smartphone before and it took me literally five minutes for one picture! So I knew that wouldn’t work. I’ve actually had a digital camera, same color as my sister’s, but a freak accident occurred after the graduation ceremony was over with and I was trying to pass it to somebody else to take it for us and it dropped to the concrete and shattered to pieces. My folks have never let me down from that experience.

So I have my own reasons to be nervous on owning a camera. I’ve always been curious about getting another one and seeing what all I could do with that. When my sister gave me her old digital camera last January, I was very excited to learn this new challenge! I thought with my weird feet I wouldn’t be able to balance it correctly, but as I kept experimenting with it, I found out that my right foot is perfect for balance and different angles! I have a total of three ways to stabilize my camera on that foot.  For once, my feet make a good team when they want to!

I’ve listed the questions below, I won’t answer all of them especially since my real answers will be on Twitter anyways! I think I’ll only explain three out of seven questions more in-depth of how I do them.

I have a total of 12 props, but in a way I think there’s more because I forgot about my flowers too! I’ve recently been using bandanas as a different textural element and pop of color to the pictures. I mostly use darker colors like purple, blue, but use a dark shade of orange or green for anything other than black. Sorry for the lack of items to use as examples! I only have my speaker remote and flowers nearby!

Both photos featured on my Music Haul | Rock & EDM post!

I like to use about anything, boxes to towels! That’s what my nana and I had to work with until last October when we got the foam board. I did not think a foam board would be an excellent background for pictures, but it is! The original size was I think $7.64 for 11″ x 14″ it was really big and a small section of it was cut to make a stand and exclamation point for my Boo! Sign my Aunt Laurie, Uncle Mike and I made for Halloween! It was recently cut in the middle so that I had a piece at home and the other is in my nana’s kitchen if we need it!

I also have two shiny cardboard sheets that came inside the boxes of my grandparent’s meals. I told you! You can virtually use anything that shows up good on your camera! They take up less space than the foam board too! However, for different items the sheets reflect every bright light in slight and makes the picture seem a lot brighter than it needs to be, so that’s why I hardly ever use them!

Example:

This picture was taken on the cardboard sheets. I think with or without a flash on your camera (and I tend to keep mine on!) makes the item look blurry, the outside areas are too white and it’s not all that pretty!

I’ve stopped using PicMonkey for the time being but I would probably use a different filter to offset the brightness a bit.

This one was taken on the foam board, despite the scratches on it, it’s less bright around the flowers. It doesn’t allow the brightness of the flash to ricochet off each other. You can see different details of the flowers and their stems better like this.

I have created an easy backdrop for my photos. Technically I didn’t make it, my dad did! It was made after the idea came into my brain one late sleepless night! I imagined it a little differently than the way he made it, but it still works!

It’s made out of old cardboard scraps I had after my old velvet posters and duct tape! No nails! No glue! Nothing! The best way to describe it is like a pop up inside a book! When you turn the page it unfolds as it stretches. Originally it was like that, it had three parts holding the backdrop straight up and titled back a bit. However, it kept coming undone so after figuring out that it didn’t need the bottom part I took it off (it was already falling off) and letting the two sides in the back hold it up. All you do is open it like a book in the back and it sits up right. It’s actually better than I imagined it, I’m not going to lie! My dad did a pretty good job!

I hope you have enjoyed this post and the chat if you were a part of it! This was fun putting together! Now let’s get into the question shall we?

1.) What kind of camera do you have? What is your favorite feature on it?

2.) How many props and backdrops do you normally use in your photos?

3.) What are some inexpensive props an up and coming blogger can use?

4.) White or colorful backgrounds?

5.) Have you ever made a specific prop or backdrop for your photos?

6.) Strange question, what is your favorite angle?

7.) What kind of apps do you use to edit your pictures?

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REVIEW | The Vampire Diaries (Mid) Season 7

WARNING: Spoilers below! Read with caution!

I love doing reviews, especially on my favorite shows! I’ve been thinking about doing a mid-season review on TVD since it went off for Thanksgiving break. I know a lot of you guys haven’t been watching it and I feel like you should give it another shot. This season alone–in my opinion–has been one of the most interesting seasons since probably two and three! We’re on seven if anybody is lost! I feel I’ve seen a lot of people stop watching the show around season four, which is understandable. I thought I’d stop during season five, but I didn’t. Thank god!

This season, even without our beloved Elena, has been an emotionally roller coaster ride that just keeps getting better and better! If you watched last season but decided to stop watching it because there’s no more Delena scenes and the show would just decline without her? Well, if it does that, it’s your fault because the writing for each episode has been awesome!

I have had my fair of doubts for the season as a whole and the new characters, like these new heretics. For one thing, I like these heretics a lot than I liked Kai. As a fan from the very beginning and wondering about Mama Salvatore, I couldn’t picture her becoming a vampire! Well, I did, but not like this! Lillian Salvatore came back to Mystic Falls with a purpose to turn her baby Stefan’s humanity back on during the last bit of season six. What went from a beautiful moment between mother and son kind of shattered when she was more focused getting her family of crazies out of the 1904 prison world.

The heretics that come out with her are Beau, Mary Louise, Nora, Valerie and Malcolm. However, poor Malcolm after decades and six months spending his time in a cave in 1904, he dies at the hand of both Bonnie Bennett and Damon after Stefan and Caroline agree to surrender their beloved town to Lily and her heretics after Valerie, Nora, and Nora’s girlfriend Mary Louise start a fire and kill several citizens at the police ceremony for the new members. Matty blue eyes was saved from being killed by the girls and after letting go of their home and compelling the rest to move out as there was a “gas leak” to keep them safe. After Malcolm was killed, Caroline was taken hostage and tortured by all three girls and eventually let go but not without hearing more about Valerie and Stefan’s interesting past.

If you thought you were a die-hard Steroline fan, think again!! Stefan and Valerie had a very tasteful afternoon in the 1800s while Valerie was only just a witch that was rejected from her family. She became pregnant with Stefan’s child and the man that she came to check Stefan out at the fair as a request by Lily, found out about her pregnancy and that she had wrote to Stefan to meet him one night, he followed her and beat her until the child had died. That night as Lily gave her her blood to heal her wounds from Julian (a character you’ll grow to hate) she decided to take her life while taking a bath, what she didn’t know was that she’d turn herself into a vampire that night becoming the first heretic. Beau is a mute heretic, very powerful and Lily’s right hand man. Mary Louise and Nora are probably my favorite couple right now.

Aside from the heretics and Lily Salvatore, you also have the grieving Alaric, who’s not just mourning the loss of his wife Jo, but their twins. Bonnie and Damon spent the whole summer babysitting and doing a fairly bad job at it too! Alaric had been playing the drunkness very well, and has been on a secret mission to bring Jo back from the dead with a mysterious stone. Once they figure out they’ve been played, Bonnie thinks she’d got him talked into destroying it after finding out it’s been cursed with black magic. When Alaric finally gets Bonnie to do the spell on Jo, he is pleased but not happy for the outcome. However, Lily wants the stone for herself to resurrect her partner Julian. His soul is being kept inside the stone along with other vampires’ souls too. So Jo is not Jo, her real name is Florence. After two days in Jo’s body, it starts rejecting her. Decomposing as they all start to realize what has happened. Alaric is left with another dead end.

Caroline has been tagging along with Stefan, dealing with Nora and Mary Louise. And then finding out about Valerie’s child. She agrees not to tell Stefan, but as Valerie and Stefan have a moment to discuss things, she tells him which makes him want to kill Julian after Lily and the heretics resurrect him from inside the stone. Once Damon is told of it as well, he joins in. As the challenge of trying to kill a vampire who’s been locked up in a stone for years battling his own battles. Things seem easier said then done, but as for Caroline. Her life just got much more complicated.

Before we get into that next section, Candice Accola (now King) announced to the world that she was pregnant with her first child! She announced it I think maybe a month after production of the new season was underway, and I was very curious about how or if it would be incorporated into the story line. Well it is! If you watched the last episode of season six, you remember as Kai was busy killing Jo and the twins. The coven was chanting until every last one of them were dead? Well fast forward and poor Caroline had been feeling rather weird, even for a vampire in general! Valerie discovers the tape as Alaric had decided to watch it one evening, and she recognizes the chant. Everybody assumed it was a chant to stop Kai, but it wasn’t. It was a chant to save the babies. Their coven relies on these babies. So they transfer them from Jo’s body to the next best option. Caroline! The babies had cloaked themselves inside her belly to the normal eyes until Valerie took off their protection spell and she and Alaric found two little baby girls inside her belly!

What is even more puzzling about this season is that you have TWO story lines. You’ve got the present day concept which is what I’ve just explained above, but you’ve also the story of three years later where things are drastically different. A lot of it has caused some heartbreak and confusion among fans, but hoping we know more about the two years more in the next few months. Of course I’ve left out quite a few key pieces of the season, especially about Lily’s existence. I’m hoping I haven’t ruined your day by telling you about what’s going on, but no offense! You should be caught by now!

If you’ve been watching what are your favorite characters and episodes so far? How are you feeling about the switch from Thursday to Friday’s too?

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