Random Picture Update!

So, I haven't posted any pictures on this blog in awhile. Like, real photos from my real life. In fact, let me check and see just exactly how long it's been!

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Well, I guess it was like 6 months ago if you're counting funeral posts, but it's been almost 2 years since I posted pictures from my graduation! And as far as non funeral/wedding/massive life event pictures, from what I can tell, I haven't posted any pictures since March of 2016! Three years ago! And those pictures were from the trip I took with Shaina and Sasha to visit Uncle Nathan and Aunt Ruth in Colorado, in 2014!

Edit: (A few days later) I found a few other more recent picture posts, but the most recent one still seems to be from mid-2017, and they were all catch-up posts containing several-months-old pictures as well. So either way, it's still been awhile, and either way, I'm still bad about posting pictures. I mean, I got right on the "Big Event" pictures, but I knew there were a lot of people waiting for them. To this day looking at my analytics, they are among the most viewed posts I've written.

So, for the past 5 years, I haven't done too much with pictures. At one point it was the main thing I posted. I even had, have, a photography blog, but I just checked there as well, and the last post was from the end of 2016. And that was also some pictures from the Colorado trip.

I took a LOT of pictures in 2017, but I still have yet to post them. The summer after I graduated I lived at home, worked part time at Hy-Vee (Like I have for 10 years now! Good grief I feel old...) and I spent my free time doing things with Sarah. That was the summer I started my YouTube channel, so we recorded a lot of videos, but every couple of weeks we would make it a point to go somewhere, and do something, (usually free) and I took a lot of pictures on those mini trips.

And then I never posted any of them. Not even our longest trip where we hit three states in one day on our way to watch the eclipse. YouTube just kind of became the main focus of all my free time. I mean, I edited and shared a vlog from the eclipse trip, but still not pictures. And then when I got the job at the hotel, between that and Hy-Vee, I barely had time for YouTube either. Someday, I swear, I will get those pictures up. But today is not that day.

Today I just wanted to share some random pictures I've taken recently. I don't take that many pictures these days, but if something interesting is happening, I have my phone, so I take some pictures.

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The biggest thing that's happened around here recently is the snow. At the moment it has almost melted, but at one point there was a LOT.

Before I get to the good pictures, I had to share this one that I took one morning after work, when I went shopping. I didn't know it at the time, but there was a huge snowstorm in the forecast. This is the bread isle at Aldi. I just started laughing. The stereotypes are true! Apparently people panicked, and wiped out the bread! Good thing I didn't need any! 😂

 

This was really one of the worst winters we've had in awhile. Grandma even got a snowblower for me to use, which was a lifesaver. Until it broke right before the winter just went completely downhill. Technically I've seen worse than this winter in the past, but this was the worst I've seen in Ames, and the worst I've seen during a time when snow removal was up to me. So for most of February, I only had the shovel to rely on.

At its worst, the depth of the snow reached well over a foot in some places, and probably close to two feet at the end of the driveway, after the snowplow had passed. I took some pictures on the day the snow was at its highest. This one is the end of the driveway, the morning after the biggest snow. I work overnights, so I came home to a mountain in the driveway. I could not pull in to the driveway. And this snow was dense. This mess held my weight, I didn't even sink in an inch, when I climbed over to walk up the driveway.

 

And when I say two feet, that's probably how deep it was in the shallowest part. We had gotten so much snow in the days before this that the "Mountains" on either side of the driveway were over three feet high, and I couldn't keep the snow I was scooping from flowing back down at least somewhat, and I could just barely keep them apart enough to pull one car through. I'd taken to parking in the street on days I knew grandma would need to get out. Working overnights I sleep during the day, so it was just easier to park in the street than have to wake up to move my car for her.

This is the driveway the morning after the foot of snow fell. You can see where the newspaper people had walked up before I got home. They couldn't pull in either.

 

And now that I think of it, I think the snow had been falling for two days. It was snowing when I got home the day before, so I waited to scoop when I got up, but by that point it had grown to near blizzard conditions and I decided to wait until I got off work instead. Either way, the amount that fell all at once, was huge, and by the time I came home from work the next morning, this was the result.

At this point I didn't want to even be bothered with the snow. I just wanted to go to bed. I figured I'd scoop when I got up, but I wasn't expecting to even get close to finishing. There was no snow in the forecast for a few days, so I figured I could take my time and not kill myself on the two feet of snow-cement at the end of the driveway.

 

That afternoon I got up, got all my snow gear on and went upstairs to get the shovel, and found this!

I had told grandma how solid the snow at the end of the driveway was, and as soon as I went to bed, she went to the phone book, and found someone who was apparently right up the road who had some kind of industrial snow-blower, he came over with his son, and apparently their machine chewed right through the ice in the driveway! She said they had it clear in less than a half hour! I couldn't believe it!

Thankfully that one awful storm was really the worst of it, and the few times it has snowed since hasn't amounted to much at all.

My other thing this winter has been getting back into knitting. Apparently it's been two years since I started learning according to Facebook's memories feature.

I seem to do a little knitting around Christmas every year, but not much past that. This year I've actually made quite a few projects past the official holiday season. One of those projects was a late Christmas gift for my friend Rachel in Utah. I actually brought it to work one night after we lost internet access. 😂

 

I had my coworker Dominic take a picture of me to share with the knitting/crochet group that my sister-in-law Alex made on Facebook, but I thought it would be good for my blog too. :) And then Rachel sent me an Instagram Story after she got the package, so I asked if I could share that here as well. :)

Speaking of work, here's a random picture. Apparently a Red Bull representative left a case at our hotel for the employees to drink. It was a long night, so I decided to try my very first real energy drink.

It wasn't that great. I mean, It wasn't as horrible as I'd been led to believe, but it definitely wasn't good enough that I'd ever actually purchase one.

Oh, and here's another random picture I took recently. Not sure how I managed this.

I didn't take many pictures this Christmas but I did take a few cute ones of Jackson and Kadin.

I have a LOT of old pictures of my nephews from random events all last year. I'll probably eventually do a catch up post for those.

These kids are too cute. The paparazzi is always following them around. :p

Last year my cousins lost almost all their pets within just a few months. I took a few pictures right after they started getting some new kittens. I could have sworn I got some of all three, but for now, here's Sarah with Tadashi.

     

Tadashi loves my sandals. Also you can tell how long ago I took these, because I wore my sandals that night...

Anyway, that's all for now. Like I said I have a LOT more pictures. I just need to find time to actually do something with them. I think my next photo post will probably be more catch-up on family pictures, the majority of which will likely be nephews, but I do have other stuff coming. I may even try to do a photo-blog post one of these days. We'll see. I make no concrete promises, aside from that it'll happen. Some day. 😂

County Fair Photos

The fair is almost here, and I am almost ready. The Hy-Vee where I work has a Kodak kiosk for making prints, so I took my jump drive there today to get my photos printed off. It was only $3.00 for all 10 which I thought was a pretty good deal. Until I got home and reread the rules.

“The size of each print is limited to the size of the mat board (11x14), but may not be smaller than 60 square inches.”

4 x 6 is not really gonna cut it with the judges I think. So I went back to get bigger prints. I’m sure that anyone familiar with those machines will probably know what happened next. I was not familiar with them, and next year I’m going to look at online printing options. $40.00!? For 10 pictures?! I was a bit shocked. I was thinking it wouldn’t be more that $15 - $20. Oh well, live and learn. I don’t regret it though because they look so good printed out! The little ones look good, but the big ones look amazing!
A friend at work helped me work the machine and she was amazed at how good they turned out She told me I should hang some in the coffee shop in town. Her daughter and son-in-law own it, and she will be getting it when they move. Nobody has ever offered that high of praise before, so I am pretty happy about that. :)
So I’m sure you’re all wondering, which 10 pictures did I choose? Well, wonder no more, because here they are.
There were 9 categories and I could only enter one picture per category. I am also entering one in the Contemporary/Creative Photography division, as it is the only place where digitally manipulated images are allowed. For that one I chose a shot of some leaves I had taken.

I took the shot from underneath so the light shone through them. The digital manipulation comes from the fact that I really boosted the color saturation. And really, this picture does not do it justice. It looks so much better in print! I’m sure that all my pictures would look better printed out.
OK, now for the main 9 categories. First up is “People”.

I took this at the zoo from far away with my zoom lens. It was a totally lucky shot, but it is one of my favorites.
The second category is “Scenic and Landscape”.

I spotted this pole on a walk once, and I thought it would make a good picture. The lighting and sky were perfect.
The third category is “Life in  Iowa”. If you read last night’s post you’ll remember what I WANTED to enter. If you didn’t see it click HERE. But I do have a great picture that I decided to enter. It doesn’t really scream “IOWA” but it was taken here, so it counts!

I took a whole bunch of pictures that evening, all of this tree with that sunset effect, but this one is still my favorite. I may have to do a post on my photo blog with all the variations so you can see them all.
The fourth category is “Flowers, Plants, and Insects”. I really don’t think that’s fair, because that cuts down three pictures I could have chosen, and limits it to one. I did find one that fit in all three though.

I hadn’t even noticed the ladybug until later, so this picture turned out better than I’d hoped.
The fifth category is another unfair category. “Animals and Birds” really needs to be two separate categories. It’s hard enough to choose one animal and one bird, but then to have to choose only one single picture?! Come on people! I want to show more of my pictures than that! I finally decided on a picture that I just took on Saturday on my most recent trip to the zoo.

I thought it looked like the pink parrot was whispering in the cockatoo’s ear. :)
The sixth category was also hard. “Miscellaneous”. That could be anything! I finally decided on a picture I took of a flamingo’s tail.

I have a bunch that look pretty similar to this, but I chose this one because I thought the fact that the head was in the background added just a little something extra, and made it a little better than the rest.
The seventh category had me stumped for a little bit. “Action Pictures”. I don’t really take action pictures, but I wanted to get a picture in every category. Then I remembered. DUH! The PBR Challenge! *Facepalm* How could I forget that?! I went into my folder of pictures that I am saving for my photography blog.

Since it didn’t allow digital manipulation, I had to take it back into the program and undo the color adjustments I had done to it, and it’s now cropped slightly differently than the one that I will be posting on my photo blog, but it’s essentially the same After it was printed out though, I didn’t care. It looks amazing!
Number eight is “Things/Still Life”, and it was also a bit of a challenge for me to find a good picture. I don’t really do still life photography, so I didn’t know what to enter. I went WAY back to when I first got my camera at the beginning of the year. I had experimented with it the first night I had gotten it, and I had come up with a pretty silly picture.

I figured it may not win any awards, but it might give people a laugh. :)
The last category is “Structures”. I knew instantly which photo I was going to enter.

I just took this one on Saturday as well. It is the inside of the Desert Dome at the zoo. I thought it looked really cool with the clouds outside.
I took the photos to a friend to get them matted for display, so I’ll do another post when I get them back. They’re going to look so good! :)
I am planning a few other entries as well, some artwork, a couple paintings and a drawing for sure. I’ll keep you posted on what I do. :)
By the way, Be sure to check my photo blog later too, I am going to post large versions of all of my entries so you can see the details better.

EDIT: The photos are up on J. North Photography. You can check them out HERE.

A Winter Walk

I went for a walk yesterday and of course I brought my camera with me. I ended up getting a few pretty cool shots. I actually used a bunch of them in place of ones I had already taken for my photography assignment.

I was really surprised I got this good of a picture of the moon. Usually they turn out terrible. I think it was probably because this one was taken during the day, so there was enough light that it could take it in a snap, instead of waiting a few milliseconds, and ending up with a bit of vibration, ruining the shot.

The fields looked like a frozen wasteland yesterday, but today it’s been so warm that all the snow is melting off. I’m glad I went for a walk when I did!

I saw these numbers nailed on a bunch of power line poles.

They would probably keep counting up if I walked far enough. I got too cold though, and turned back when I got to four. I was going to check on the pole before the #2 to see if there was a 1 nailed to it but I forgot. I’ll have to go back and check soon.

I needed a new picture for facebook.

I’m a sucker for sunsets.

Walking back I noticed two trees that kind of looked like an arch, so I walked across the road until I was in a position where the evergreen was perfectly in the center of the arch. And since it was at sunset, the light was awesome for the shot.

I really liked how the sunset was reflecting in the broken windows of my cousin’s old barn.

I love my zoom lens! I can’t believe I got this good of a shot of the plane!

Wintertime

I’ve been taking a lot of pictures outside lately. I have to turn in at least 30 pictures each week in my photography class. Our house is in pretty much no condition to take good pictures, and I don’t go many places where I can easily haul out a big camera and start freely snapping pictures. So I have amassed a rather large collection of wintery pictures. Most of them are pretty worthless, but I have gotten very lucky a couple times. I thought that tonight I’d share some of the good ones with you all.

I took this one outside during a snowstorm.

These next three I got super lucky on. There was an amazing sunset one night.

I lined up the camera behind the tree, and the sun was glowing around the shadow.

Doesn’t that look so cool?

Another lucky find. Notice how the shadow is exactly next to the footprint.

A little nuthatch at my grandma’s feeder.

A female cardinal taking off. It was a little blurry, but I liked it too much to scrap it.

One of our cats stalking the birds. Don’t worry, his hunt was unsuccessful.

I love how the little nuthatch can skitter around a tree like a squirrel.

I don’t know if there’s anything in this rain gauge, but it looked like he was drinking out of it.

I may have been spotted.

There were some cool (No pun intended. ) icicles hanging from my grandma’s roof.

Some birds in flight. I love my zoom lens.

Something tells me I was being watched…