Merry Christmas!

Every Christmas my mom and I play Acquire. She beat me by $300 dollars this year, if I had just bought one more imperial, I might have had enough to win. Or if she would have merged festival with imperial instead of American, like I wanted. However, I'm going to dominate her next year. I hope.






After losing, my dad and I watched the Avengers "Too Many Christmas Trees". It's great fun. You should all check out "Too Many Christmas Trees", it's creepy in the best way. This link sends you to a site where you can watch it!

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/entertainment/watch/v14933269TWHxkF49

Jack Frost- I <3 the pictures you give me!

So, sometimes the cold and snow is icky, but when it gives you beautiful frost to take pictures of, it's great!

Ornament

I found this in my stairwell today. It's sweet.

Crazy Week

So this week has been crazy. On tuesday, my Grandma Buntsma died peacefully in her sleep just after breakfast. So, that was hard, but we really came together as a family to get everything ready for the funeral this morning and with cleaning out her room. While it was really hard, it was good to see the family together and to have that final closure. On Tuesday, not long after talking with my parents, I was able to take pictures of a couple from down the hall. They were awesome to take pictures of and I had so much fun getting pictures of them goofing around. Happy 3 years Becca and Dan!

Sometimes I feel like a bee...

These past few weeks have been so busy with school and shooting that I haven't had hardly any time to put pictures up! Therefore, I'm fixing the problem with this massive post. In the past few weeks I gotten to take pictures of so much. There's April, a girl I've babysat since she was about 5, and she is so beautiful in her new point shoes. I've also finalized my portfolio that I'll be sending out to various art schools. I went to visit my friend Elayna and had a ball at this little coffee shop and taking our "senior pictures" again. Finally, I was blessed with the opportunity to take pictures of my neighbor and her boyfriend. They brought along his best friend and it was just a blast. Enjoy!

April goes up on her tippy toes.

She's just a gorgeous girl. I can't believe how grown up she is!

Take it all back- from a line of a poem I did a series on.
Of course I had to take back Birdy!

Shoes hanging showing how we define femininity today.

Travel, the third installment of my series.

I got a little creative with the cream left in my almond chai latte.

Elayna and I explore the classic senior shot- train+leaning+
looking at the camera+perfect smile=awesome.

the best coffee shop in Sioux Falls hands down is Queen City Coffee.
If you live there or are just passing through, go there ASAP.

The boys livening up the shoot by looking like modern day Tarzan's in their tree.

We found this little bridge and started shooting when I noticed how
perfect the background was. Like a little rural haven!

Found places to shoot are the best. I'm still amazed at how well this shot turned out.

The Leaf

The other day I made a photo story as part of a new photography project that I want to start working on. Since it's super cutesy and kinda silly, I thought that I would share it. :) Enjoy.

Once upon a time, there was a leaf. But it wasn't a normal leaf, it was a little different. When I found it on a tree, I though, "this doesn't belong here!" So I set out to discover where it really did belong.

So, I tried to put it on other trees, but it didn't match the berry tree.

It looked too lonely on the tree with no leaves.

The leaf looked not right on a trunk. I'm not sure why, but I know that the leaf did not belong there. By now, I'm sure that it was getting lonely, so I tried other places for it to belong to.

But, it definitely was not part of a pine tree.

The flowers and the leaf were not meant to be either.

Well, the push pin and the pumpkin matched, but the leaf still
didn't look comfortable.

So, I made the leaf its own tree!

THE END!

Halloween NWC Style

I know this is a little late, but since the school paper didn't run the story, I thought that I'd include this picture in my blog. As "good Christians" we do not celebrate Halloween at NWC but rather we celebrate the Reformation and Martin Luther tacking the 95 thesis to the church doors in Germany. To represent this I designed a picture in which Martin Luther smashed a jack-o-lantern in order to symbolize our rebellion against Halloween. Enjoy.

California Dreaming

This year for fall break I was blessed enough to be able to go to California to visit potential schools and see my boyfriend Chance. It was awesome. I now have two schools left in the pool and I'm really excited. I can't wait to go to school and study photography, the thing I'm so very passionate about. Of course, seeing Chance was wonderful, amazing and just fantastic. We got to see "Where the Wild Things Are" and have been howling at each other since. :) After some critiques of my portfolio, I've decided to start working almost exclusively with film and see what the results are. I love working with my father's camera, it has so much history and nostalgia surrounding it. I love every little bit of photography and working hard to become better. Well, without further adou here are some of the pictures I shot while on my California trip!

Look at the rest of these pictures!

Haha! I wish that I could drive this little truck around.

Mmmmmm

I gave a homeless guy some money after he gave me this flower, so I decided that it needed some portraits too. It was so wonderful to indulge in generosity. Indeed, you should indulge in generosity too and check out the 365 grateful project by Hailey Bartholomew.

This little dock is so beautiful.

I'm beginning to experiment with found objects and messing them up like the representative at SFAI told me to. So far it's been fun!

A little overexposed, but I love this portrait of Chance.

new portrait?

What the heck!!!!!

This morning I woke up to this. It is October 10, not cool.

Finally!

I finally copy-cated one of my favorite shots from my favorite photographer- hailey bartholomew. Her work is amazing and inspires me every time I look at her blog. If I ever go to Australia, it's my goal to meet and have coffee with her. Yeah, that would be amazing.

Kylie picks a flower for her mama.