Photo Contest & Why Being Sick Stinks...

So I obviously didn't get to post the poll about what photo to enter in the "contest" (which is really a show not a contest). I've been trying to fight off a cold, so I've been trying to sleep a lot. I was pretty successful at fighting it off and never got as sick as I have the last couple of times. But between all of my sleeping, I didn't get a chance to post the photos here.



Since I didn't have time to post a poll, I made a frantic email and then call to my parents asking their opinion. My mom originally voted for this one:

(though my dad probably wouldn't be very happy to have this one hanging in a Los Angeles gallery!)


Eventually they both voted for this sunset photo:


In the end, I just couldn't decide so I entered this one as well:


Here are a few others I also considered entering, but ultimately didn't:





Here's the info on the show:
Each year the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (LACDA) is hosts a show called SNAP TO GRID: The UN-Juried Exhibit. The show is really an opportunity for anyone who wants to show their work in the gallery because all of the entries are shown in their downtown gallery. This year the even takes place from October 9 through November 1.

You can get more information here: http://lacda.com/juried/juriedshow.html

If anyone is in the Downtown Los Angeles area during that time, be sure to check it out!

Another Bloggy Giveaway Carnival!

I really had fun with the last Bloggy Giveaway Carnival. Even though I'm insanely busy these days and I'm getting a late start, I can't pass up the chance to participate!

What You Can Win
Instead of offering products from my Cafe Press Shop this time, I decided to offer up some extra photo products from various online photo services that I've ordered over the last year. I had a hard time describing them all in words, so I took a quick photo (sorry for the not so great quality).


The items include:

• A Photo Calendar
• 8 photo stickers
• 10 photo postcards

As last time, these are all photos I've taken!

How to Enter
Just leave a comment on this post and make sure I have a way to contact you (either via a blog or email address)

Who Can Enter
Contest open to anyone, anywhere on Earth :-)

Deadline
Contest ends at 11:59pm Pacific Time on Saturday, August 2nd. I'll post the winner on Sunday.

And if you like my photos, please feel free to browse through my Cafe Press Shop (http://cafepress.com/michellebphotos). I have various photo products using many of these same photos there for sale.

Enjoy the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival!

Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my blog this week and left comments. I appreciate you taking the time to stop by!

Courtesy of the "random" number generator at random.org, the winner is.....

Erin (comment #4)

Congratulations, Erin and thanks again everyone for your interest:-)

As I have more time and take more photos, I will add to my Cafe Press Shop (http://www.cafepress.com/michellebphotos), so feel free to take a look around!

I'm Giving Away More Free Stuff!

Comments are now closed! I will draw a winner and post the results tomorrow!

I heard about the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival just as the last one ended. I've been pretty lucky with winning things these last few months, so I really wanted to participate in the next one. I'm so glad I didn't miss this one!

For those of you who know me, you know that photography is a passion of mine. I recently opened a Cafe Press Shop (http://www.cafepress.com/michellebphotos) with some photo products using photos I've taken. I'm offering some photo note cards and a keepsake box (shown below) to the lucky winner of this giveaway!

Here are the details:

What You Can Win
Since I couldn't decide on just one thing to give away, I'm going to give away 3 things! One lucky winner will get the 3 items noted below:

A set of 10 Stormy Winter Sunset note cards (blank inside)

A set of 10 Windmill note cards (blank inside)

A Floral/Garden in Bloom Keepsake Box (front pictured below)

Updated to Add: The keepsake box is in fact a box, but isn't necessarily meant to hold the note cards (it's not quite shaped right).

How to Enter
You must leave a comment (including your name) on this specific post to be entered. Please make sure that I have a way to contact you or that you check back on Sunday, April 27 and email me if you win!

It's easiest if you leave your email address in your comment (if it's not on a blog or profile). That way I can contact you directly if you win!

Who Can Enter
This contest is open to anyone, anywhere on planet Earth. I'll pay for shipping nationally or internationally, but sorry, shipping to the moon, the international space station or beyond just isn't practical :-P

This contest ends at 11:59pm on Saturday, April 26. I'll draw the winner and post the result on Sunday, April 27.

Photos of Sophie & Ron!

I've said this before, but I just have to say it again. Taking photos of cats is anything but easy. Sophie and Ron are challenging enough if they'd cooperate because of their color (Sophie so light and Ron so dark), but they rarely cooperate.

Ron is particularly challenging since he just loves attention. If I get close enough to get his picture, he comes up to rub against me as soon as he notices me. Add to that the fact that my auto focus doesn't focus well on him (I think it's because he's black) and that just makes it even more fun! I'm nowhere near fast enough with the manual focus because as soon as I get focused he's moved enough that I need to refocus. Argh!

And Sophie, well, she's so light she blends in or blinds you when the sun reflects off her fur. She has beautiful blue eyes, but when using a flash, she gets terrible red-eye. And she's not usually very happy with me when I continually shoot flash photos of her. See the examples below if you don't believe me!

Shots of Sophie

I thought she looked so cute on this chair. If only it weren't for that dreaded red-eye and her impatience with my flash. Can you see the difference in her expression between the photos?

Here's the 4th photo I took

Below is the 18th photo I took (and yes, I took more than 18). This is her "If you take one more *&%@ photo with that *&%@$ flash, I'm going to jump off this chair and bite you!" look. I've seen it a lot. I think it's more obvious in the bigger picture (click to enlarge it).

One of the latter photos that was better with the red-eye

I generally have better luck when she's sleeping since I don't have to worry about red-eye. Sometimes I wake her up though...

Here she is asleep on the sofa

After a few shots, she woke up. I can just hear her saying "Are you at it AGAIN?!"

And here she is less than a minute later back in almost the same position she started in.

Here are a few more of her curled up in another chair from last March (2007)

And some of her in a pink basket my mom bought for her. Of course, she didn't get in it until my mom put other stuff in it (after Sophie had ignored it for months). She climbed in right on top of a doll and curled up LOL!

Here are the few decent shots of Ron I got recently

Ron sitting in the garden

Ron on the prowl in the garden

Ron curled up on the sofa one night

My First Sale! (and other random stuff)

As I mentioned before, I decided to open a Cafe Press store (http://cafepress.com/michellebphotos) recently using some of my photos. I figured that since I've gotten a lot of compliments on my photos, I would make the products available for those who want them.

I was so excited last night when I logged in to my account and found out I made my first sale back in February! I didn't realize it earlier because it takes 30 days for the commission to post.

I hope business will pick up, but this sale was pretty much luck. The person found my stuff through a search of all products on Cafe Press. There are so many items and so many sellers, it can be difficult to be noticed.

I pretty much stink at promoting myself and my stuff. I included a link to my shop in my Holiday Letter in December, but I felt guilty even then. I hate feeling like I'm pushing stuff on people. I am so not a natural born sales person. I'm thinking of getting some business cards printed (probably one of those free trial sites at first). Who knows...

And for those interested, I ordered the photos on canvas this last weekend. For size reasons, I decided on the Butterfly (rather than the Bird of Paradise) and the two sunsets. Then I got a call yesterday from Canvas On Demand about using custom sizes for the sunsets to better fit the proportions!

I was happy to hear this because in discussing photos to use with my Mom, we worried the Bird of Paradise wouldn't translate well if anything had to be cropped to make it fit the canvas. So we decided on the butterfly instead. Now I know that if I want to get the Bird of Paradise in the future, I can just ask for a custom canvas size!

I've forgotten to post Monday Music Mania for a couple weeks even though I have posts just waiting to be posted. Monday just comes and goes before I realize it! This is why Wordpress would be nice. I could schedule in advance! Oh well. I do plan to do a Thursday Thirteen this week and I have lots of pictures to go through. I hope to post some of them soon.

Have a great week!

STICKY POST: Photo Project Poll

NOTE: SCROLL DOWN TO SEE LATEST POSTS. This post will remain at the top of my blog until February 23 even if I post other stuff after this goes up.

Update: Thanks to everyone who has voted so far! Keep the votes coming:) And remember to comment here on the blog or email me to be entered into the contest!

Help! I'm terrible when it comes to making decisions. I waffle for ages and it drives me (along with everyone else in my life) batty!

I've been wanting to create a photo canvas through Canvas On Demand (http://www.canvasondemand.com) for years. I finally made one of our family cat (who we lost in October) for my family members as a Christmas present.

Now I have a coupon for $25 off another canvas, but I can't decide which photo to use! And of course the coupon comes with an expiration date. So instead of waffling any longer, I decided to enlist help via my blog.

I've narrowed down my choices to the 10 photos in the poll below. You don't even want to know how long it took me to narrow it down that far:P Anyway, I'd like your input on which photo to use. So if you could take a look at the photos in the poll and then vote for the one you think I should use, I would truly appreciate it!

And to show my appreciation, I'm going to give away some of the various photo gifts (created with my photos) that I have floating around my apartment. More details after the poll!

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Edited to add the two things below:
1. If for some reason you can't vote in the poll, feel free to either comment with your vote (letting me know that the poll wouldn't work for you so I count it manually) or email me your vote at lilikoi44@gmail.com
2. If you'd like to enter the contest and can't comment for some reason, please email me at lilikoi44@gmail.com and I'll be sure to enter you!

Wait! Don't leave yet...Here are the details on the photo gift give aways:
I'll give away the following in a drawing on February 24th (the number of people I'll draw for each one is noted in parentheses):

• Oversized 2008 wall calendar of Scenic California Photos (1 person)
• A set of 6 (different) sunset mini posters (1 person)
• A set of 6 (different) floral/garden mini posters (1 person)
• A set of 6 Hawaii photo coasters and 9 photo stickers (1 person)
• A set of 6 Floral photo coasters and 9 photo stickers (1 person)
• A set of cloud notecards, a butterfly photo pillowcase, and 9 photo stickers (1 person)
• A set of 16 photo postcards of places I've been around the US and 9 photo stickers (1 person)
• A set of 9 photo stickers (5 people)
  

I'm using the poll as an easy way to count votes (and praying that it works without any technical glitches), but I'll draw for the photo gifts on February 24th based on the comments on this post (one entry per person) so that I have the names of the people participating. Your comment doesn't have to be long or profound; even just a "Hello" will do:) I'll post the winners here, so please be sure to check back so I can get your contact info if you win:)

Thanks so much for stopping by and helping me make my decision!!

Last of the 2007 Sunset Photos

I've been playing around with creating photo products again! While making a calendar, I started sorting through some of the photos I took over my winter break. Here are a few sunset photos I came across (all taken on the same evening within 10 minutes of each other).

Thursday Thirteen #16: Thirteen Cloud Pictures I've Taken

Wow, I've been busy the last few weeks with the start of the spring semester. I've been wanting to post quite a bit, but I haven't had a chance! I never did get to set up that play list I wanted to with artists from my last TT.

I'm also planning to post a poll in the next day or so about a photo "project" I'd like some input on. I'm just holding off in order to do this TT this week:)

I decided to do another photo themed Thursday Thirteen this week. I'm always fascinated by the sky, clouds, and especially storm clouds. Therefore, this week's TT is 13 cloud pictures I've taken!

Thirteen Cloud Pictures Michelle B has taken 1. A stormy summer day in Bonita, California 2. Looking through the trees on a stormy fall day in Goodyear, Arizona 3. A stormy fall afternoon in Gila Bend, Arizona 4. A hot and stormy summer day in Bonita, California 5. The same stormy day as in #4 but closer to sunset and out in El Cajon, California, at Grossmont College 6. Another stormy afternoon in Bonita, California 7. A stormy fall day in Litchfield Park, Arizona 8. A stormy summer day in Claremont, California 9. An odd cloud formation one fall evening in Litchfield Park, Arizona 10. Another shot of the odd cloud formation from #9 11. A close-up shot of a summer thundercloud in Claremont, California 12. More fall storm clouds in Litchfield Park, Arizona 13. Late spring storm clouds in Claremont, California

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

MinneADpolis Pictures

No Thursday Thirteen this week. I drove to San Diego yesterday for Christmas, and I just didn't get a chance.

But here are some photos from Minneapolis. I was there in November for a math conference and got to take some photos. One of them is the reason for the post title:)

Here's the view from one of the rooms where the math sessions were held. Straight ahead is the convention center.

The view from our hotel room.

A close-up shot of a church across from our hotel taken from our room on the 19th floor.

A shot of the church from on the street.

Who knew that Minneapolis is the city of advertising? Not me!
From now on, it will always be MinneADpolis to me:)

I was really intrigued by this funky looking plant, but didn't get a great picture of it. This is the best I could do.