It's starting to feel like Summer here in Pooler, and I am SO ready. I love the winter, but this one's been all the cold with none of the benefits (i.e. snow). I'm a northern girl and I would kill to hit the ski hill, but since that's not an option I will take a wake board out on the water instead, no doubt about it.
But since it's not quite Summer yet, I'll have to settle for soaking up the sunshine and running around the backyard with my favorite dog.
It's a good day to be a doberman!
I know I was a bit absent this weekend, but I wasn't able to do my shelter work this week (and may not for a while) so there was no weekly adoptable post to share. I also spent Saturday celebrating my hubby's birthday which is Tuesday, so I decided to take the weekend off.
That said, I'm a little behind on this whole blog thing. Instead of my usual planning ahead, I have been rushing through in the past half hour or so to edit these weekly photos.
Anyway, let's get right to it, huh?
2-8-14: This was a Saturday workday, cranking out blog posts and working on business cards, among other things. A photo of my keyboard seemed fitting, since I spent so much time with it.
2-9-14: I followed that up with a Sunday of rest, and a lot of playing with my goofy doberman. He's got crazy eyes!
2-10-14: Let me just warn you right now that this week was all about the food photography. Judging by the pictures I must have spent this week just eating. Sounds like the perfect week!
2-11-14: As I pulled into the driveway from work, I did this. Now I get to replace this $300 tire, because I was too lazy to move a jack that was in my way. I'm a smart cookie! Needless to say, I was a bit angry for the rest of the evening.
2-12-14: Thank goodness I was able to turn that flat-tire attitude around with a day with Sam. She took me to the Asian market where I tried this Basil Seed Drink. It looks creepy as hell, but it is seriously delicious.
2-13-14: Speaking of weird foods, what better choice is there than celery root? This stuff looks evil, but it's tasty, I promise.
2-14-14: Ah Valentines day, the day of every year where my lovely hubby buys a little potted rose, and every year I kill it. Plants and I don't get along. But this year he got it right with some already dead roses (and very pretty ones at that!) along with chocolates just in time to satiate an extreme chocolate craving, shopping, and some lunch at Bonefish Grill. Yup, he definitely got it right!
So there you have it, another week of photos. I must say, this has been going much better than I originally thought when I planned this 365 project. I thought I'd really struggle, and while I do have some rough days where I have a hard time caring, I've for the most part been really enjoying this project (and all this oh-so-photographable food!)
Today we are launching the Monday photo dump since Fridays are now my afternoon at the animal shelter and I will no longer have time to edit and post my photos that day. You can find out all about that here.
I know I've made a lot of changes all of a sudden, but the format for this post is still the same and the pictures are still from the same part of the week, we are just switching up the days. With that said, here's last week's photos, the first set for the month of February.
2-1-14: Can I just say that I love food photography. We see a lot of people posting pictures of their lunch on Instagram and it's kind of a running joke that gives food photography a bad name, but food that is prepared by hand can be gorgeous and really great to take pictures of, like this colorful pork stir fry that I made for a lazy night dinner.
2-2-14: More food! My husband had the random idea to make handmade pretzels for our Superbowl party. It was actually pretty easy and very successful (I couldn't stop eating them). A recipe is coming soon.
2-3-14: Just some Jerry toes. I sure do love Jerry toes.
2-4-14: It's a pretty self explanatory shot of the penny jar. I just like the colors of the pennies,
2-5-14: What used to be a nice view of a wooded area out of my computer room window is now construction. They cleared the trees quite a while ago (which I was pretty upset about) and then just recently they started construction. My work is now accompanied by the sounds of hammers and construction equipment. This is my new view. I can't wait until they are done building.
2-6-14: X marks the spot, I guess.
2-7-14: This is one of my shots from my day at the animal shelter. I didn't use this as something to post to get this dog adopted (for obvious reasons), but I do like the moment that was captured. This dog is anything but vicious, I swear, but caught mid bark he does look kind of mean, doesn't he?
So there you have it, last week's photos. I didn't do a theme, which left me with kind of a hodgepodge of photos, but I think they captured my week pretty well. As always, if you have any theme suggestions leave them in the comments below. Otherwise, I'll see you next time!
Looking for a last minute gift for Valentines Day? Why not a mini photo session for you and your honey with Mikaela Joy Photography? This offer is only good until February 14th so don't miss it- book today!
Alright everybody, after some grocery store inspiration last night (Thank you publix cashier), I have come up with a new segment for the blog called, "What do you do with that?"
Let me explain.
Almost every trip to the grocery store I buy something that most Americans would consider to be weird. Maybe I watch too many cooking shows, but for some reason, where most people would give it a glance and walk by, I find celery root, rutabagas, or parsnips in the grocery store and I see them as an interesting challenge. I often fill my fridge with foods that I have no idea how to cook or eat.
Every time I get in line with these items, the cashier will ask the same question about at least one of them, "What do you do with that?" I always have the same response: "I'm about to find out."
So this segment will chronicle my experience in figuring out how to cook my unusual food purchases. I grocery shop twice a month, so you can expect these posts about that often. So, shall we give it a go?
This week's item is: Chia Seeds
My first step in any unknown food endeavor is to check the internet. In this world a person can teach themselves just about anything with a little youtube and pinterest. I am sure to take full advantage of that.
Well according to Pinterest there is approximately a million things you can do with chia seeds. Case in point:
After a lot of browsing I did discover a few interesting things about the little guys.
Does anyone else have any great ideas for how to use Chia Seeds? Let me know in the comments!
And if you are interested in seeing some of the recipes that I use in my cooking (well adapt into my own, anyway) you can follow me on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/mikaelajoyphoto/
My first full week of my photo a day project is complete and I'm here to share the results. Want to see?
January 4th, 2014: A close up shot of the Christmas decorations that I just can't bring myself to take down (more out of laziness than the fact that they are pretty, although they are.)
January 5th, 2014: This morning started out with some canadian bacon that my dad cured and my husband cooked (delicious!)
January 6th, 2014: After having company at my house for almost a month during the holidays, I needed a few days of me time. So after work I got lost in a good book. In case you are wondering, the book is Enduring Love by Ian McEwan and it is quite good.
January 7th, 2014: Just another lazy day with my pets and my books.
January 8th, 2014: It's been surprisingly cold for Georgia this week, and the weather inspired me to start a knitting project. I picked this gorgeous yarn, but the problem is that the yarn is very thin. I might be done with this scarf by summer, just when I don't need it anymore.
January 9th, 2014: With the house to myself this day, I consulted my Julia Child cookbook and made a huge mess of the kitchen, leaving not much time for anything else. I did happen to snap this shot of Blitz being cute though. He does it every once in a while.
January 10th, 2014: I wanted to play around with Bokeh today and using it as the subject of a photo, rather than a background. Technically that just means I took a blurry picture, but hey I think it looks cool. I took this using the Christmas lights since I still haven't taken down our tree. I should probably get on that before it dies, huh?
This week was a pretty slow one, but it is exactly what I needed. I spent some time in solitude, just relaxing and working on my own projects. It may have left me with photos of food, books, and cats, but that's not a life that I'll complain about. I could pull of crazy cat lady/librarian any day.
Jen and Matt were the couple of the hour when I took their photos at Bethesda a little while back. Jen is a friend of mine and while I know her pretty well, I'd only met Matt once before these photos. You see, Matt works overseas and these two chose to spend a precious hour of Matt's month at home with me, taking some photos.
Because of their limited time together, I really wanted to make something special of this session. After all, a picture can be a huge comfort while in a long distance marriage. As an army wife, I've thought a lot about what I would do when my husband gets deployed, and I know that I would want to get some good photos taken before he left.
This was also a special shoot because of the fresh emotions that come from a happy reunion. It was important to me to get shots that really captured what these two feel for each other. In a way this session was kind of like shooting a wedding. We were just missing all the chaos of an actual wedding.
All of this combined made this session feel pretty important, and one that I truly wanted to get right. We were all nervous at first, but as usual we took a few shots and everybody started to loosen up. We wandered haphazardly around Wormsloe for a while (I'd never been past the main area with the trees and therefore didn't know what was what) and then finished out the shoot at Bethesda. We explored, talked, and tried out whatever poses we could think of (some that worked, some not so much) and most of all, had a really good time doing it. I quite enjoyed working with Matt and Jen and am excited by how the photos turned out. Most importantly, I hope they are too!
If you like what you see here, please check out my website http://www.mikaelajoy.smugmug.com where you can see this full album and more of my work, as well as contact me to book a session of your own.
It's sunday and the weekend is disappearing way too fast. My plans of a carefree motorcycle ride today got rained out and now all I can think about is work, business strategies, and other monday-related things. I'm not exited.
So to pick up the mood I thought I'd share one of my all time favorite quotes for bit of inspiration. I came across this poem in a class taught by one of my favorite teachers, Sasha Pimentel Chacon (if you like poetry, look her up because hers is wonderful). I didn't understand the poem at the time, and I probably still don't get it completely, but this one line really stood out to me.
Some might find this a bit morbid. One of the main premises is that we are all going to die. But it also says that our bodies are not the mark that we leave on this world, our words and art are.
What this quote tells me is just how important it is to do something meaningful every day. It begs the question, if I were to die today, what would I leave behind?
This is my inspiration, but maybe something a bit more upbeat would work better for some of my other readers, so let's share. How do you find your Monday morning inspiration?
If your answer is coffee, I can already tell we'll get along just fine.
Last weekend I did a photo shoot with a mother and son, Stacy and Riley. This was a special shoot for a couple of reasons. First off, it was one of my first formal sessions working with children. I'll admit, I was a little nervous, but I had absolutely no reason to be. Riley was a blast to work with! It took him about five minutes to get comfortable in front of the camera and from then on out he was full of ideas (many of which involved taking action shots of him skateboarding and jumping off of things-- my favorite!). In fact, quite a few of the poses in this set were set up by Riley. He's got a bright future ahead with all that creativity!
The other really cool thing about this shoot was that Stacy is a local to the area which means she was able to show me some new locations. We met up at Wormsloe, which I had seen in so many pictures of Savannah but had no idea where it was, and then finished up the shoot at Bethesda. Both of these locations were absolutely gorgeous and I definitely will be coming back for future photo sessions.
We ended up shooting for somewhere around 2 hours and had so much fun in the process. The pictures turned out great and I'm so excited to see them in print. I'll be looking forward to working with these two again, and watching Riley grow up.
After doing this shoot I've realized that I've only scratched the surface for the beautiful photo-locations that are around Savannah, so I think it's time to play the tourist for a bit and do some exploring. I'm open to suggestions, so if you are from around here and have any suggestions please leave a comment. I'd love the feedback!
