day 174 : gearing up!

day 174: I have a super-fun and exciting weekend coming up! I have a fun lunch tomorrow followed by a wedding rehearsal, then a wedding Saturday and a trip to Palm Springs for Sunday and Monday. Whew! I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it but I'm so excited! In all the hustle and bustle getting ready I snapped this shot in the house this evening.

day 173 : open for business

day 173: I've been putting a lot of work lately into my photography and my websites. If you haven't seen it already, you can see both my photo portfolio and photo blog at katyregnier.com. And if it wasn't enough to have a super fun new website I designed, I just received my sparkly new business cards in the mail as well. Aren't they pretty?

day 172 : texture hunt

day 172: Yesterday evening we walked to dinner and I brought along my camera (as usual). Instead of taking shots of the scenery (which we walk past several times a week) I decided to hunt out some cool textures on walls, trees, sidewalks, whatever. This is my favorite one of the day.

day 171 : here's to your health

day 171: I've been on somewhat of a health kick lately, which involves more exercise, LOTS of yoga (oh how I love yoga) and eating more fruits and vegetables. Lucky for me I didn't just buy a banana... I bought a superfood. Yay superfoods.

day 170: pretty pretty

day 170: Today we went down to Anaheim to meet up with the fam at Disneyland. I was pestering everyone by taking way too many photos of them, but I love this one of Allison. Doesn't she look super pretty? What a good lookin' sis I have ;)

day 169 : blue skies

day 169: Yesterday evening Ben and I headed to the frogtown artwalk which was really neat! We started off with a tour of the LA river and the skies overhead were amazing. I just had to get a shot of them.

day 168 : put it in a picture

day 168 : I've been thinking a lot lately about what to do with all of these photos that I have now that I've started taking (at least) one shot every day. It all sort of comes down to what you really think the point of photographs is. For me it's a reminder of a day or moment. Of a point in time you can't go back to but can always remember and cherish. They're the moments that (pardon my cheesiness) make up our lives. That's why our house is chock full of framed photos. I guess I'll be ordering up a couple more prints!

day 167 : model #2

day 167: Today I finished model #2, which was significantly more difficult and time consuming than the first one, but I think it turned out pretty well! I also learned an important lesson in trying to take this shot... my camera does not agree with my glasses! I was having an impossible time trying to use it. I'll be sticking to contacts when trying to photograph from now on.

day 166 : busy busy

day 166: So I thought I'd be having more time by now... but it turns out I'm still crazy busy. One more shot from inside the house :)

day 165 : super happy dog

day 165: When we first adopted our dog Rita, we took her on a walk every morning before work. Sadly with our busy schedules (and me really not being easily woken up these days) her walks have sort of fallen by the wayside. We decided to revive the morning walks and today Rita got to go for a spin around the block. What a happy pup!

day 164 : sorry

day 164 : I'm sorry I've been a bit behind on my blog.... lagging as it were. And yes, I do know that this photo is somewhat lame. I've been super busy (which is good!) and trying to keep up with everything has been tough the last couple of days. Better photos will resume shortly I promise!

day 163 : long beach

day 163: Yesterday afternoon Ben and I headed down to Long Beach to scope out potential portrait shooting locations. We found some good spots, but to test them out I asked Ben to be a stand in for a happy couple... and this apparently is Ben's look when he's playing a happy couple on his own. Sorry Ben... I couldn't resist putting this up. It's just too good to go to waste!

day 162 : beautiful day for a wedding

day 162: Today I second shot a wedding with a new friend Tracy down in Torrance. The bride and groom were so fun and happy the whole day and we had tons of time to shoot their portraits. This is one of my favorites from the day but I'll be posting many more on my other photo blog soon!

day 161 : oh my goodness it's an iphone!

day 161: Yesterday evening we went out to happy hour for a friend's last day at work. This shot is hilarious... George was showing off his new iphone to Rachel... and this is her actual reaction to seeing it.... no joke. She really put her hand to her face and gasped. Is it honestly that amazing?

day 160 : once

day 160: Tonight we went out to a movie that we were long overdue to see. If you haven't seen once and it's playing near you ... go see it. If only for the music. Which is lovely. And on the way out take a photo of the empty parking garage. At least that's what I did.

day 159 : 2 for 1 special

day 159: Today you get 2 photos for the price of 1. We went out this evening and took a walk around Hermosa Beach. The light was fantastic and I was excited to just be out shooting for fun... this is one of my favorite shots from the night. That would have been my photo of the day but later in the evening Ben surprised me with a bouquet of flowers... so I had to break out the macro and take a shot of them. I couldn't resist!

day 158 : a little cultural enrichment

day 158: I felt like heading outside to the beach this evening so we went out to Santa Monica and wandered around. Our wanderings led us into Henessey & Ingalls, a fabulous art & architecture bookstore which on a funny sidenote was designed by our office. Small world. It's a dangerous place since all of the books seem to be calling out to be bought and taken home. We resisted temptation and just got dinner instead, and as promised here is my non-macro wide angle shot for the day!

day 157 : macro crazy

day 157: I can't seem to help myself taking lots of close up shots since I got my new lens on Friday. I've become macro crazy! I'll put on my wide angle tomorrow and take a few steps back... but for now one more extreme closeup. Bonus points if you recognize what this is a photo of.

day 156 : rfd makes pigs fly!

day 156: On Sunday night my parents came up to LA to visit for our birthdays. We had a nice afternoon at the Getty Center and then went to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Real Food Daily. The most amazing thing about this restaurant is that it makes such good nachos that even my sister (a self-proclaimed cheese hater) loves them. Here it is! Proof that Allison ate nachos! It may be cashew cheese, but it's still amazing!

day 155 : cupcake-a-licious

day 155: On Saturday we had some friends and family over for birthday dinner and I made some delicious Magnolia bakery recipe cupcakes. The frosting wasn't as impressively towering as it would be from the real bakery, but I thought that they tasted pretty darn good.

day 154 : happy birthday to me! (and mom too of course!)

day 154: Today's fun fact is that yes, my mom and I share the same birthday! It's always funny when we call each other up on our birthdays because we're both wishing each other happy birthday. Anyways, today I got a fabulous gift from my wonderful husband ... an awesome macro lens I've had my eye on for a while. I can now get super close up shots which is so fun... even though it shows the scratches on our rings I still like this shot. This lens is going to be fun!

day 153 : one more food shot

day 153: It seems that one of the dangers of the photo-a-day blog is that you run the risk of taking photos of the same thing repeatedly. I seem to be posting a lot of photos of food lately but I just couldn't resist a shot of the delicious strawberries we had tonight with dinner (and delicious french cheese as well... mmm!)

day 152 : cleaning house

day 152: This evening after work Ben and I did some much needed cleaning and filing. Oh what an exciting life we lead. Although I must admit that while not thrilling it does make for a much more pleasant home.

day 151 : ride of the valkyries

day 151: Ben and I were wandering around a park in Marina del Rey this evening after dinner and stumbled upon an orchestra rehearsing the ride of the valkyries complete with opera singer. It was pretty incredible to hear and they even had a couple of random spectators. What a lucky coincidence.

day 150 : created with pride

day 150 : I saw this box lying in the alley today and for some reason I was really struck by it. The top read "created with pride" (and actually in French not only pride but ART and pride) and it's a box for an oily waste can. In a world where it seems like quality (and pride) is only getting more scarce it's funny (and refreshing) to see such a simple statement declared on a box. Even if it is for oily waste.

day 149 : self-portrait

day 149: For this month's self portrait I didn't want to hold the camera out in front of my face (again) so I decided to play with the self timer. I dragged Ben along as well and we had fun taking lots of ridiculous shots all around Santa Monica College. This is one of my favorites.

day 147 & 148 : exhausted!!

day 147: This is a crazy new thing, posting two days at once but I didn't have a choice! After the late night of model building on Thursday night I decided to take Friday off and go help my friend Suzanne (who's a pastry chef) to work on the wedding cake that she was to deliver on Saturday night. I don't know how she does it because let me tell you that is HARD work! We worked all day Friday and when I got home I just passed out on the couch. I got this one shot (above) before actually passing out when Ben got the next one (below). Not flattering but hilarious! It totally describes how I felt!

day 148: On Saturday we got up and did it all again. The cake was a massive and extremely tasty multi-flavor, multi-tiered affair that was actually quite beautiful, and then once assembled and finished, got covered in a web of spun sugar. The bride is a sculptor and designed the cake this way so in addition to filling, stacking, and covering the cake, we also had to spin a huge amount of sugar on site to adhere to the cake. It was a huge undertaking and another EXTREMELY long day! The cake only actually existed like this for about 5 minutes before the sugar was ripped off and the cake was cut, but it was fun while it lasted.

day 146 : so very tiny!

day 146: Sorry this one is a day late. After a long week of model building I had to finish up with a late night of model building to be ready for a morning deadline. Here it is though, I'm pretty proud of this little guy and yes.... that is a dime in the front for scale. This thing is 1/16"=1'. Ridiculous tiny!

day 145 : more flash nerdiness

day 145: So there's a lot of discussion these days about people describing themselves as "natural light photographers" and whether or not that means that they just don't know how to use their flashes. I personally think that whether or not "natural light photographers" know how to use flashes, there are situations when the difference between a snapshot and a real quality photo is some killer lighting. Now I'm definitely not claiming to have killer lighting, but I am reading all I can and practicing as much as possible to make sure I know how to use my flash. These are just a few shots from today, one without (above) and one with a flash bounced off the wall (below). Maybe not the most amazing change, but I think it helps a lot.