La Vida LoftusPhotos | La Vida Loftus

Idiot String

Vanessa — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:55:07 +0000

If I had a dollar for every time Mike said to me, “Hey where’s your lens cap?” I’d have many, many dollars. While he drove me crazy with his incessant (and often annoying) pestering, I admit that I am extremely careless when it comes to my camera’s lens cap. I would misplace it in a pocket or put it down on a bookshelf only to find it days later. Yeah, I KNOW!! Bad girl. In my defense, I never truly lost it… only lost track of it for a while. :)

And then I bought the “idiot string” (as I lovingly call it). Partly to stop Mike from harping on me, but mostly to protect my lens. I bought it on ebay, but didn’t realize it would be shipping from Hong Kong. Weeks after I ordered it, I wondered why I hadn’t gotten it yet, and jokingly said it was coming the slow boat from China. Slow boat, indeed! Had I only known… By the time it finally arrived, I almost forgot I bought it.

Now that I have it, I can’t imagine life without it. Considering how much I love my camera, I can’t believe it took me that long to do something about my ugly lens-neglecting habit.

What are your annoying habits? Or are you Mary Poppins—practically perfect in every way?

Amateur

Vanessa — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:38:22 +0000

I consider myself a hobbyist photographer. I like to take pictures, but don’t want to be bothered by tinkering with the manual functions on my DSLR. However, I loathe crappy direct flash pictures and I’m fairly picky about photo quality. I do realize that I’d get more professional-looking results if I actually took the time to experiment with the manual functions, but that’s just not on my agenda. :) So, I make due in auto mode.

Sometimes, I’m lucky to snap some nice shots (by my standards anyway). When I’m watching Gabriel, and he starts doing cute things, I naturally want to capture the moment… But the second my camera comes out it’s a battle of who gets to play with the camera. He reaches for the lens, smudges the UV filter, I wipe it off, he starts screaming, lather, rinse, repeat. These shots were captured during such an episode.

Also, I’ve sort of been on a Photoshop Actions kick lately. You can see evidence of that here and here. I found some really great free actions on Deviant Art and I’m having a lot of fun with them. Maybe it’s cheating, but I think I’ve already proven that I’m a lazy photographer and this is no exception. I think they give the photos a little more mood, a little pizzaz—like jazz hands for your images. For the set above I used the action Vintage Beach.

Here are some before/after comparisons for your reference:

A Photo On Some Days: Onion

Mike — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:19:37 +0000

Didn’t really stick to my every-day photo.

But… I am still going to keep posting pics when I am inspired to do so.

Nice onion!

A Photo a Day: Aaaaniimmaal!

Mike — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:15:44 +0000

Don got me this car-antenna-pom-pom from Disney... I think it's great!

A Photo a Day: Lawn Maintenance

Mike — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:31:13 +0000

They just look like poops... really.

A Photo a Day: Saw Bite Hand

Mike — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:54:01 +0000

Was pruning the pines... when was my last tetanus shot?

A Photo a Day: Bouquet of Gauges

Mike — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:18:32 +0000

Found these cleaning the garage... I think we're covered.

A Photo a Day: Um, sculpture!

Mike — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:31:33 +0000

A Photo a Day: Ducks in a Row

Mike — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:06:19 +0000

Ducks in a Row

A Photo a day… every day.

Mike — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:29:22 +0000

Coff-ay in my press-pot makes me happy...

I thought it might be fun to carry around the little Kodak V1073 we got from Vanessa’s last job (ew) the battery life is bad, and it doesn’t’ use batteries but it takes some really nice pictures for a tiny little camera! I make no promises… okay, I promise to post one photo a day. Until I run out of stuff on my desk. ;)