A trip to the Lone Star State

Hello friends! This past week I did a bit of traveling. I am a person who loves to travel and I am fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to travel to different places. Traveling is enjoyable because it allows you to get out and explore a new location! I flew to Texas on March 10 to attend a wedding of a family friend. Texas is a special place for me because I lived there for 10 years before moving to Midland in the Summer of 2014. We stayed in Houston and I got to go around the city and do some of my favorite things. Many of these things activities included food that i can't get in Michigan ( Mexican, seafood, Chick-fil-a) .I visited the Biscuit Paint Wall for the first time, which is just a wall that an artist has dripped paint down the side. This wall makes the perfect place for a photo  op to practice using my photography skills.

Biscuit Paint Wall in Houston, TX

Of course I had to get someone snap a picture of me in front of the wall  PC: Ryan Collick

Another picture of my brother, surprise surprise!

Another big attraction in Houston is the Williams Tower and the Waterwall. Neither of these places ever struck out to me while living in Houston because I was used to seeing them. Now going back to visit I see why people think of these an attraction.

 



The two places I got cool photos of both are walls, pretty weird right? I tried to take a lot of photos while in Houston but my camera battery fried out and would not charge for some reason. I didn't learn any new photography tricks but I did take some pretty decent photos.

My biggest goal of the project to to create a travel video of my trip to Costa Rica during spring break!  Costa Rica is also filled with many picture worthy spots and wildlife. I can't wait to take some super cool shots of the sloths that hang out at the hotel grounds or the sunsets that happen daily. With spring break quickly approaching (only four more days!!)  I have been looking at other peoples videos and Instagram profiles to get inspiration for my upcoming trip.

The next time I write will be after my long awaited trip!

TTYL
Emily

The key word is attempt!

Hi friends!

It is already time for a second blog post! This would have been up sooner if we hadn't have had five snow days in the span of six school days ( shoutout to Mr.Sharrow). The weather worked in my favor this time and blessed me with a foot of snow.

One of my main goals is to try to shoot something new. So I spent part of my snow day outside attempting to take pictures of the falling snow. As the title says, the key word here is ATTEMPT! Since I had never taken pictures in the snow I had to do a bit of research before I went outside. I found out that it actually quite a difficult thing to do for most photographers. Despite that, I decided I would go outside, drag my brother along for the ride, and at least attempt to capture the falling snow. Plus practice makes perfect, although I don't think we will be getting anymore snow here in Midland, Michigan.

This was my first attempt. My camera was on the auto setting with normal flash. 

After adjusting the f-stop and shutter speed, I got a few flakes to look good on camera.

My brother was the real MVP that day ( I totally didn't bribe him to go out in exchange for a snowball fight!)

I hadn't planned on having the snow days and getting the time to work on my project, but I am glad that I had the chance to try something new. It is a little disappointing that my first attempt at something new ended in being a fail. That is okay because it is technically only the first week of this project and I still have a lot of time to grow as a photographer. 

Until next time,

 Your friend Emily Collick