SNOW
Thursday, December 06, 2007, 12:13 PM - +Text-only entries
It's snowing! I'm excited. One of the best parts about it is the fact hat it's snowing on a day when I don't have to work :) *does a jig*[ 2 Comments ] ( 27 Views ) | Permalink
Winter Approaching
Saturday, November 24, 2007, 07:23 PM - +Photos/Art, Animals, Colorado, Horses, Me
Hello all! Things are quieting down a bit more for me and therefore life is a bit less stressful. I thought I would take the time to share some pictures from the Colorado/Utah trip and one picture of my little baby filly.
I was excited that it snowed a bit a few days ago, but almost sliding through intersections and Jessie ending up in the ditch was not welcome. It's supposed to snow again Wednesday and possibly next Saturday again. Hopefully I will not have to do much traveling during the snow and can go venture out afterwards to get some cool pictures.
How was Thanksgiving for everyone? Mine was alright, it was good to see family. I was kind of bummed that there were no mashed potatoes though. The turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy combo is a must for me at Thanksgiving.
I can't wait to travel again soon, I have this problem where I love to go hiking in cool scenery and I can't seem to find any really good places nearby.
Anyway, enjoy the pics :)
[ 2 Comments ] ( 14 Views ) | Permalink
Calming
Friday, September 28, 2007, 09:44 PM - +Text-only entries
So, that show in Minnesota. WOW. Hardest job I have ever had! It was very, very stressful. Had a bad first impression from a lady that I would have a lot of interaction with during the show. I did not like her. Nope, I didn't. Anyway, longest day was 16.5 hours that was preceded by a 14 hour day. Took pictures, copied them to the laptop and then did the same over and over and over again. I started getting a bad sinus infection halfway through. My stomach ached the first half because of nerves. It was crazy. But, I got the job done and I got some really good pictures. If you want to see samples you can look in the MCHA photo album on my facebook thing. I put in 42 hours taking pictures at the show and then 25 hours of editing/uploading/keywording/testing.
I am still signed up for the October show as well, but I have only made half of what I expected to so far from this last show and I'd like to make a little bit more than $7.46 an hour before photo development, packaging, and postage expenses are taken out. I have told them that I don't think I can afford to do it, especially when all they want to do is pay my travel expenses and have me make the rest of my income from a few hundred dollars in sales for >50 hours of work.
Although it was kinda tough on me, I am really glad that I did it. It was a great experience, I loved the environment, and I did do a pretty good job. I know it has made me a better person and increased my stress tolerance level (which for me is a very good thing). I can only hope that me being there and taking pictures will spark some other jobs hopefully with people wanting me to come to their ranch or farm to take pictures.
Images of the six winners will be published in about five different publications with my copyright information there which will rock.
In other news, I am thinking of taking up pyrography and possibly some wire art or something to do with metal. I also need to update my photo site with new stock images and get some pictures entered into photo contests. Oh yea, I am also scoping out the arts & crafts show scene to see if getting a booth to sell fine art prints would be a good idea. Went to one arts & crafts show last weekend and it was pretty cool, but I only saw one photographer there selling prints and only a couple of them were really good, the rest looked like snapshots.
Things are getting a little rambly here so I am going to cut it off for now.
Any ideas on good photo contests besides betterphoto.com and photography magazine contests??
[ 2 Comments ] ( 21 Views ) | Permalink
Leavin'
Wednesday, September 05, 2007, 12:17 PM - +Text-only entries
Alright, is it pointless to do this anymore since I can't keep on top of it? That is the question of the day.
So as most of you now know, Jessie and I got married on Maui back in May. It was awesome! Maui was a lot of fun. The chicken parmasean and lava flow smoothie I had (multiple times) was soooooo good! The plane flight back...not so good. You have all seen pictures on Jessie's blog of the trip probably, if not, you should go there. Same with our recent Colorado/Utah trip. Utah was really, really cool for hiking and awesome pictures. Jessie really enjoyed it, even though he won't enthusiastically admit it lol. Anyway, other news, we bought a condo in Waukee. It's pretty cool and will do just fine for at least 4 years or so. I bought fish and a week later one of them had 11 babies.
More news, my photography stuff is picking up. I am going to Minnesota tomorrow morning to take pictures at a 4 day long horse show. I am also going back to Minnesota in October to take pictures at a 3 day long horse show. I am really excited about it. It's a great chance to get some exposure and hopefully I'll get some more contacts and people will start having me come take pictures of their horses. Also got another possible web site lead which would be much bigger than my last web site that I designed and have been maintaining. So that would rock too. I hope things only go up. I've had too many things turned down this year. Wish me luck!! Hopefully no one bites my head off because they don't like how I'm doing something and hopefully I can stand my ground and not take it too personally if it does happen.
Anyway, I doubt anyone probably checks my page anymore and if they do, it's rarely. Sorry to disappoint. I'll try to update this better from now on.
Laterz
[ 2 Comments ] ( 12 Views ) | Permalink
Untitled
Wednesday, March 21, 2007, 11:43 PM - +Text-only entries
Busy, busy week for me. I've got a big project due Monday, another one Wednesday, and a sales presentation to get ready for in another class. Oh, and that website that I'm working on of course. So busy. Have I mentioned lately that I will be so glad when school is over?
I'm sad that I didn't get to have any cool thunderstorms here in Ames today.
But, the best thing this week, can you guess? Jessie is coming up to see me, mmmhmmm. lol ;) i'm a doof. uh oh...i just heard we're playing uno, that should be hawt lol. Maybe I'm supa tired and that is why I am finding everything funny at the current time, or maybe it's just me.
I should sleep. Does anyone have a cool storm story?
[ 2 Comments ] ( 34 Views ) | Permalink
What? I have a blog?
Tuesday, March 06, 2007, 03:33 PM - +Photos/Art, Animals, Horses, Me
Yea, I can't believe that my last entry was Dec. 26th haha. That boggles my mind! So what has happened since then? Well Jessie came up for New Year's for like...3 or 4 days? I can't remember, but that was hella fun. Then school started and made life quite stressful. Things are letting up a bit now though at least for a week or two. I got another web site in the works. Selling my photos has been getting more profitable. I am going nowhere for spring break, sad. But, oh yea, I guess this is new since Christmas...
Jessie and I are going to Maui for our wedding/honeymoon at the end of May on our 6 year anniversary. w00t! The plane rides should be quite interesting. As will seeing what creative things Jessie comes up with to keep him self unbored.
I got my new camera :) Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Getting used to the whole DSLR thing. But now that I will have that to take to Maui, you can bet I will come back with thousands of pictures :) Fun, fun, fun for me!
No other news really besides that. Oh yea, my favorite class this semester, Human Sexuality. Way fun.
Here are some pics, enjoy.
[ 3 Comments ] ( 25 Views ) | Permalink
Conglomerate
Tuesday, December 26, 2006, 12:21 PM - +Photos/Art, Animals, Colorado, Horses, Me
Alright, I know I say this every time, but yea, sorry for it being so long since my last entry. I've been really busy. Maybe I'll be able to start writing more soon here though. I am glad to have the semester over with. I came out with 2 A's and 3 B+'s so not bad at all, especially since I kind of slacked. I can't really do that my last semester here though, unfortunately. I'm going to have lots more homework this time.
I am kind of sad that we haven't gotten a huge snowstorm yet. It seems like over the past few years we really haven't gotten any. I remember when I was little and we used to get like at least 3 every winter, with the first one usually falling around Halloween. I think now that I'm disappointed about that, I just want it to be summer again lol.
Christmas was pretty good. I got a bunch of nice stuff. Christmas Eve my family, Jessie, and I went to my grandparent's for lunch and presents. Then we went back to my parents' house to open more presents and watch tv. Christmas day I went out to my grandma's house in Stuart and visited with my mom's huge side of the family. Then I came back to Grimes and went to Jessie's house to open a ton more presents. I think my favorite two presents are the nightstand/end table that my parents got me and the touch lamp that Jessie's parents got me. Overall, very good Christmas. How was everyone else's Christmas?
I can't wait until Thursday! Jessie is gonna come stay with me for some odd number of days. I'm thinking at least 4 nights. Should be a dump truck load of fun lol.
What are everyone's New Year's plans??
I set up a smugmug gallery recently. Check it out at http://sdankof.smugmug.com
I haven't posted any pictures in a lonnnnnng time, so I am putting up some Colorado, Florida, and miscellaneous pics that I have recently messed with.
Let me know what you think...
Christmas!!
Recent visit with my wonderful friend Elizabeth
Objects
Horses
Out in the Country
Florida 2006
Colorado 2006
[ 2 Comments ] ( 28 Views ) | Permalink
Hello
Saturday, November 04, 2006, 01:11 PM - +Text-only entries
Wow, almost a month since my last entry. I have been quite busy in the past month. I know I'm supposed to be posting my trip photos on here, but I'd rather suggest that everyone just go to my shutterstock gallery since the best ones are on there. I currently have over 80 photos pending, so more will be added soon. I also started taking a few isolated object shots last night and maybe those will make it on shutterstock as well. I'm so ready for this semester to be over, even though it's not all that hard. I just don't want to be in school lol. I have been working with levels masking in photoshop recently and so far I am pleased at the results. Had to find something to help with my blue haze on some of the far off mountains in a few photos. Oh yea, I have a new website idea in the works. I am speaking with my advisor and a few grad students about it, and then I'm going to put a rough draft database together and start talking to some cattle producers. The website is going to be for cattle records management, so it's going to be even more massive than my last project...go figure lol. But, shouldn't take me any longer than that one because I know a lot more about php stuff now. Should be interesting to see how it comes along though.
Photos...
http://shutterstock.com/gallery.mhtml?id=1439
[ 2 Comments ] ( 32 Views ) | Permalink
My Trip
Thursday, October 05, 2006, 10:50 AM - +Text-only entries
So I got back from Colorado Sunday night and I now that I finally have a bit of a break from school work, I thought I would share with everyone the details of my trip. Sorry if you don't like reading (you're not required to read this lol), but I wanted to share for anyone who might be interested in my travels. Appologies in advance for length.
Wednesday
Left at 5:30am from western Iowa and drove 15 hours allll the way to Montrose, Colorado. I saw lots of deer, thousands of cows (3 of which were in labor lol), a pet camel fenced in someone's yard (??? no lie), and a couple bighorn sheep. We almost hit the deer 4 times once we got into Colorado. They were all over the place. Had to take a bit of a detour because of the school shooting in Bailey, Colorado. They had closed the highway.
Thursday
Woke up at 6am to start up Ohio Pass Road. We spent the whole day four-wheeling and taking pics. I was overly pleased with my photos after that day. Oh, dad lost his $100+ tripod and his $70 headpiece that was on it... :-/ that was not good. We know where he probably left it and it would have been right in the open. Too bad we didn't realize this until about 100 miles later. Bought him a cheesy $30 one that had a crank on it lol at Wal-Mart. Hiked pretty much straight down a 60 foot hill where I got my leg scratched up (ground was wet, nothing great to hold onto, loss dirt...yea). And on the way back up, because it was straight up the hill, I didn't really look up to see where I was going and ended up almost having a twig poke my eye out! Got to a hotel in Gunnison around 6:30pm. Ate at a place called Mario's lol. Waitress was very spacey. The Office ;) and then sleepage
Friday
Woke up at 5:30am to go to a lake for some mountain reflection photos. We got on the dirt road and I yelled "ELK!!!" lol because he just jumped down from the hill right in front of the truck. Dad stopped and then all of the sudden an entire herd followed all running across the road about 15 feet in front of us. There must have been at least 20 or so of them. It was awesome. Took those lake pictures while listening to coyote howls getting closer lol. We froze our assssssssssess off. Went up to some pass and snow hiked down a hill in a foot of snow to take cool snow/water/sky/mountain pics. Then we went up to Gothic and drove around a curve only to see a herd of about 50 cows blocking our path lol. So I took the grand opportunity for a video! If you'd like to see it, let me know :) We got through those cows but kept coming across more. So at one point I hopped out and started snapping awesome cow shots with mountains and blue sky in the background. Needless to say, I was super pumped! Went on a hike to Judd Falls, not very photogenic because of the narrow dark canyon and no way to get down to the bottom. Stole a photo of two Spanish (probably Mexican) dudes riding white horses on the trail. I zoomed in after I took the pic and noticed they were both looking at me lol. I guess I wasn't so sneaky. Then we headed more north around Fairplay (aka south park), drove around a bit and were disappointed with the lack of leaves on the aspen trees up there. Arrived in Breckenridge after a mediocre meal at Wendy's around 7:30pm. (If you couldn't tell, that was our longest day).
Saturday
Went up to Mayflower Gulch over off the Copper Mountain exit. Took some really cool shots there. We drove through about 8-10 inches of snow the whole way up the trail. Glad we had the Landcruiser and not the Neon. Also glad that the trail had already been travelled by other fellow four-wheelers. After about 30 minutes of being up there in 30 degree weather that felt like 50 degrees or more (greatness of the warm sun), some guy started snow hikin it up the mountain. I thought he was crazy. Oh, and my dad fell off a log and it was the most graceful fall I think I've ever seen lol. I almost fell through some old floor boards in a cabin that had no roof. Dad took a photo of me doing my balancing act. I'll have to get that from him. Then we went to my cousin Curtis' hockey game. Then went to eat at Breckenridge's best restaurant, Eric's. Later went to find some stream shots by exploring the Snake River over by Montezuma. Had pizza for supper, dad tried his best (twice) at doing a Cartman impression ("Get out of here kittehhhh!!") after my aunt and uncle's cat walked in the room lol and that was about it.
I will share pictures soon. Let me know if you'd like to see my moo moo video or a video of the lake with coyotes howling in the back.
[ 2 Comments ] ( 30 Views ) | Permalink
omg
Thursday, September 21, 2006, 07:24 PM - +Text-only entries
Awwwwwww yea. Everyone had better be watching The Office here quite soon. It shall rawk. By the way, schoolwork sucks. Oh, any suggestions on photography goals for my Colorado trip? I leave next Wednesday! :)[ 1 Comment ] ( 32 Views ) | Permalink
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