Loni's Black and White Photography

I am posting pictures that I have taken for my black and white photography class, every week he assigns a subject matter and you have to expose one roll of 36 exposures, develop the negatives, make a contact sheet (which is a page that shows all of the pics on that roll) and then blow up two pictures and develop them. Its really cool cuz I have improved a ton, and its really fun to develop negatives and pics. So besides the obvious that I have learned, I have also learned how to make pictures blury on purpose as you will see, and what aperature and shutter to use to stop really fast moving objects, but mostly I have learned to pay attention to lighting and what makes a good pictures, where to center it (cuz most pictures actually look better off center) and the biggest one for me was to pay attention to other things besides the main object. As in I am finally learning to look at the background of every picture so that the whole picture is asthetically pleasing. Oh yeah so last week we had to turn in our midterm project, which was our favorite two pictures from each assignment, they were to be perfectely centered on the 8x10 sheet with no dust and proper array of whites and blacks and grays. So below are the ten that I turned in.

The first week was Edge of Frame I actally have 3 for this one, the first two are obvious but the one with jordan in the carr is actually a really good one because his head is perfectly within the frame but on the edge and the ceiling of the car frames his face perfectly and leads your eye to the stearing wheel which is also perfectly next to the next edge of the pic. I had to manually lighten his shirt for this one because it came out too dark in the negative but I made it look white.

The next assignment was depth of field, which is basically making some objects look closer to the camera by the way you take it and others look farther away, some blury and some clear.

Then there was quality of light, which was just playing with lighting, I learned the most from this assignment I think.

Then movement or exposure times, so the teacher really likes these ones and in general I do not really care for them, its supposed to be the art of showing movement in a still pictures, as you can see with the car you can imagine that something was moving, thats what the blur shows, howeverI dont care for blury people even if it is artistic. the second one was showing motion stopped, and this guy was running full speed about 2 feet from the camera so its pretty cool that I shot the pic perfectly to get him on the numbers and stopped his motion so that he is not blury.

The last one was texgture and reflection, the one is texture of the building and the clouds, I had to really darken the sky on this one so you could see the texture of the sky, and then its a reflection of myself taking a picture of myself, so it was a three way mirror, notice the camera in the relctions is perfectly next to the edge.

Anyway I love this class, its really fun, and it actually is pretty hard to get pictures to develop prefectly with perfect negatives first and then to get the lighting good in the dark room with no dust spots, i had to redo 5 of these about 2-3 times before I got them perfect, mostly becuase I was manually changing them, but alot of the time it was just stupid dust spots on the negatives that show up really bad on the pic once its done.

See my article!

I wrote an article after hearing enough crap about evolution from professors, everyone go and read it. its sciencecantkillgod.blogspot.com

Nothing in Particular

Well I don't feel like anything big has happened but it has been a whole month so I will update you on our un-interesting news. Its been snowing in pittsburgh like crazy the last couple of weeks, enough so that mutual and church have been cancelled, mutual was cancelled twice in a row. And of course it had to be cancelled right after planning an awesome scavenger hunt and challenge for my beehives to do that wednesday. So we did it that saturday instead. The challenge was: to read the book of mormon in 100 days and then to give that book of mormon (I gave each girl a missionary one) to someone at the end. Jordan is also doing it with us, along with chelsea :) And I am already so glad that we are doing it. Last sunday all of my beehives got up and bore their testimonies during YW about reading and how grateful they are to be doing it with everyone else. They havnt ever gotten up before, so thats already doing something for them. And I think it is doing a ton as far as unity in the beehive class, they all go to separate schools so we have a problem with the girls feeling "bonded". And thats not to mention how great it is for me, Jordan and I just finished reading it together but its fun to read it again by myself. As usual the lessons you learn from it are different, and it seems so much MORE applicable to today than it ever has to me before.

Oh and I finally actually LOOK pregnant. My stomach has literally doubled in size in just this last 3 weeks. My prego apppointment last month I was told that I was really small for where I was but they werent measuring my stomach yet, so I was interested to see where I would be when they did measure it. Well I apparently made up for all smallness in 3 weeks. I just went to my appointment before work today and I am 25cm. And I feel like my belly is huge. Its so weird, although my belly button hasnt popped out yet, but I can actually see the bottom of it for the first time in my life. Jordan and I are curious to see if it ever actually pops out. For those who dont know my belly button has always been really deep set, and is really sensitive and hurts if you touch it or it gets poked. Oh and I found out that Jordan had an outie his whole life until he had his hernia surgery....that made me sad, I love outies. My weight is finally normal, I have gained a total of 15 pounds in 26 weeks. I can feel the little bugger kick all the time. Especially right after I wake up, but he hasnt ever kept me awake at night and there has only been a few times where it was annoying because he was landing on my bladder. For the most part I kinda forget I am pregnant and that the thing moving inside of me is a baby! Jordan can finally feel him tho, which is fun.

Jordan started working for the orchestra band now too, so he does that every wednesday night in addition to the Jazz band. For our final writing project Jordan decided to write about epilepsy....specifically neuron channels suspected to be causing seizures in epileptic patients. I chose to write mine on Autism, mainly becuase it is the neuro disorder I know the least about. Mine is focussing on fMRI studies and conclusions about which brain regions are responsible for the disorder. Its been really fascinating to study for both of us.

We took our first biochem and neuro disorders tests and they were way EASY...which is way EXCITING. Its so nice to come out of a test and feel happy again....I havnt felt that feeling since BYUI. And its really nice to feel like we actually have learned things and know something after 2 years of torture. We both have come to the conclusion that studying Chemistry and Neuroscience straight for 2 years makes learning everything else cake. And Jordan has been on this kick lately about how rewarding science is because it actually has answers and definitives, whereas most other subjects are all subjective and relative to the situation and dont provide solid conclusions. Which I agree is pretty much the case. Despite that, he is loving his econ class because he gets to learn all about the economy right now and hear what others have to say about it, I always get a great energetic report of the state of our economy....or how brainless/inexperienced other students seem to be in his class...either one is really interesting to listen too. Whereas he gets a report about my photography class and how cool pictures are. The only thing he doesnt like, and is not cooperative at all with is letting me take pictures of him! I have to take 2 rolls every week and I always have to fight him to let me take pictures of him. I think he secretly likes having pictures of himself. Alhtough its great revenge for having my face posted everywhere in our house. Our fridge is covered in pictures of me, I am on the window seel above the table, I am above the sink, I am on the coffee table and in our bedroom! Every time I put up a picture (really good ones too) of us at cool places, he replaces them with one of just me. But since I have to be taking the pictures for my class, he is forced to not have any pictures of me.....HAHAHA.

I got to complete the process of developing negatives and doing a contact sheet and then a test sheet and then printing an 8x10 of one of my negatives. They came out really good. I love black and white photography...although I am rather confused on which I like better, negatives vs. digital. Negatives are way more fun, but digital is way more practical. Who wants to pay to have them all printed off anyway? you only develop the few you want on your wall. AND I just got a super sweet movie/pic program that makes DVD's or anything else you want of all of our pictures and home movies. Its way fun to play with, I prefer it over doing the traditional scrap booking cuz I can get way more pictures out on a slide show, and I can still make comments and I can watch the movies intermingled with the pics. And yet having your own dark room would be really fun. but it wouldnt really save any money...but I guess thats all hobbies are when you boil them down....money sucking fun activities. So perhaps when we are rich and can throw money away and I am super bored (wow...the likely hood of having all those things at once is very low)....and dont have little kids to ruin things I will have my own dark room. They are very easy to have.

We have decided that we are going to totally dec out our upstairs room (if we stay here that is) in a tropical ocean theme. My mom just sent me fabric too that I think is really cute for the crib bedding and stuff. We are going to paint half way up the wall with a cool teel blue color with cute ocean curls at the top and paint killer whales and fish all over the room. I am going to make matching curtains and bedding and my mom is going to make an ocean baby blanket and then last an ocean wall paper border near the top of the wall. I think it will be way cool...And i will probably be jealous of our baby for having a cooler room than mine! :) Below is a pic of how it will be painted with the wall paper at the top, and then a pic of the wall paper, it might not be that exact one but one similar to it.

Well besides that there are only the unkown things....that are driving me bonkers...to dwell upon. We STILL dont know about Jordan getting into school, and are unsure about plan B, that one is always changing. We still dont know what our baby is, or what girl names we both agree on. We dont know when ethan is leaving on his mission, so we dont know what our schedule this summer is, even tho we keep trying to plan things for it but cant set any dates for anything because they all depend on when the baby actually comes and when ethan really leaves and what job we have or where we will be living. I HATE unknowns!

Holidays Summed Up

Well well well, here we are in 2009 and christmas break is officially over, it truly is amazing how fast time goes by, especially when you dont want it too. Anyway so we left pittsburgh tuesday december 17th. Flew to chicago and had a 3 hour lay over but then there was snow and ice so we had a 6 hour delay!! We did however finally leave chicago just to arrive late (around midnight) to Denver and missed our connecting flight. Chicago airport was crazy, everyone was missing their connections. Denver was pretty empty tho, and so we got to spend the night in the Denver airport to catch a morning flight to salt lake. We didnt check any bags, which we were really glad of when we missed our connections, we only had carry ons, which are much easier to keep track of. We got to see Jordans Parents additions to their house. They added on to the whole back of the house and redid the carpet, tiled the kitchen and dining area and redid the bathroom. They previously had redone the living room but it was still my first time seeing it. It all looked AMAZING. And made such a big difference. It felt wonderful and relaxing and best of all it could hold lots of people. And everyone had somewhere to sleep. We played games that thursday night, which was really fun. That weekend we got to hang out with Eldon (loni's older brother ) and bought my dad his christmas present which was a 20 gauge Shotgun! we were sooo excited and HE LOVED IT! Its soo fun to give people presents. We also helped build a sled and took a ride in that thing, they pulled it behind a jeep up to 45 miles an hour. Played games of which I have decided that I really like darts, and we played a kinda vocabulary games which was really fun but it reminded me of my lack of vocabulary. Does anyone think slippery and rough correlate?

Oh and we went to the Rexburg temple. That was my first time seeing it, its really pretty. The week of christmas we shot guns, went shopping and had a christmas eve party at their house. (I already mentioned that below) Oh for christmas we opened stalkings first and then had breakfast and then opened presents together. I was glad that Jordans family opens presents the same, letting each person go one at a time and comment on the gift. In addition to the car and crib we got some really neat books that are a compilation of quotes by general authorities that corresponds to chapter by chapter of the book of mormon. We really like those. My mom got me a really nice knife set and block. It has so many knives in it i dont even know what you do with them all. I got 4 shirts, we got a really nice wheat grinder from his parents and some wheat. We got movies, one of which is Jordans all time favorite lately, Meet the Robinsons! And kung fu panda and spider man three. I was really excited for spiderman I loved that movie. Those were from his brother Nathan and sister in law Lisa. They also gave us some really nice steak knives. We got a really nice pic and pic frame of the first presidency, socks for both of us, I got a watch (christmas tradition :) and some other stuff I cant remember right now.

Saturday morning after christmas my mother in law had a baby shower for me, it was combined with Emily who just had her baby at the beginning of december, she had a little girl and named it Sakara. I was really really grateful for the baby shower, one becuase I dont really know anyone in Lake shore and yet they all brought me a gift...they do know Jordan but still, it was really nice of her ward. So we got some diapers, and blankets and clothes, and fingernail clippers that have a magnifying glass connected to them (pretty cool), socks and other random baby stuff. Now our baby will have a bed to sleep in and wont be coming home naked! Hurray :)

After the baby shower Jordan, Laura and I drove down to Cedar City and met up with Katie and Victor and Maelyn. I was soooo excited that we were able to make that happen, Katie and I had been planning on meeting in las vegas but since they went to st george for christmas we could meet even closer. Unfortunately we didnt get to spend very long at all together but we went out to dinner at applebees and played apples to apples real quick. Maelyn is adorable! I think you should have another one Katie, lets see how your boys come out :) We spent the night at Laura's college apartment in Cedar and watched two weeks notice which I had never seen, and I really liked it, It was one of the better chick flicks I have seen.

We had Carr family pictures on monday, which I think will turn out really good. Not much happened with the Carrs until new years after that, they all went back to work. So Jordan and I hung out. On tuesday we Mandi and Ryan and her boys actually came down to Jordans Parents house in the morning and we played all day. It was a lot of fun and We were soo glad they were able to come down, and that they drove all the way from SLC. We went out side and built snow forts and played war a couple of times. My poor "castle" was dipped the "welfare" castle cuz they all abondoned me to build it all by myself and then ponned the 3 year old off on me. so After a while they had pity and came to help the prego woman and 3 year old build her kingdom. I ended up being taken captive and made a slave half way through the war game and was sent on snow ball making duty. After that we had hot chocolate and played a card game Ruckus, which is really fun. Oh and we also played laser tag with their new christmas laser guns.

While we were there we also learned this new game called acquire that Nathan owned, it is really really fun, I definately want to get that one. It is like an investing money making board game. I won the first time we played...that always wins ya over to liking a game, but I didnt win again the next 3 times we played. We also played like 8 player monopoly with everyone including Collin before christmas and I won at that too. I have never won monopoly before, it was a fun game. We were excited that we got to see collin.

Then on new years eve we had My sister in law Lisas family come down and Maura and Ben came over, I hadnt seen them since their wedding and Jordan since before they were married. We played four way speed with em, and an intense game of spoons that Ben actually won, and balderdash which was hillarious. The we were so busy gaming we barely noticed the start of the NEW YEAR, and we couldnt get the sparkling cider bottles open like a bunch of goobers! But it was way fun, I really enjoyed playing games and just hangin out and eating lots of food.

For new years day we went up to Maura and Bens house and went SNOW SHOEING. I had never been in snow shoes before so Maura gave me a first. We went somewhere in provo canyon and it was a beautiful view from where we hiked up. It was awesome to talk and hang out with them. I tell you what there is nothing better than hanging out with sound minded people who thing the same way you do and know how to have fun. Afterwards we went back to their apartment in provo and hung out and talked and then played scrabble where maura and Jo tied.

And the next day we left and made it home without incident, which was exciting. We cleaned up the house and played with Jo's car, I taught the lesson in young womens and did a spot light of one of my beehives, we decorate a bullitin board once a month of a YW, and now school starts. I work all day monday from 11-10:30, and have classes literally all day tuesday and thursday. no classes on wednesday or friday or saturday. And work again friday from 1-7. We have WAY too many classes this semester but we can atleast graduate if we pass them all in April so we will see if the pain is worth it. We have two advanced neuro classes, a neuro research/writing class, biochemsitry and north american archeology together. Separate I have a black and white photography class, and Jordan has a physics lab and economics writing class. Jordan is also still working with the jazz band mondays wednesdays and saturdays. And thats us!

Christmas Day 2008 in UTAH

I cant believe Christmas is over already!!! Its so fun to look forward to it and rather depressing when its all over. But christmas this year was awesome!! We had christmas with Jordans family in Spanish Fork Utah, they all live rather close so everyone was able to come, and even a lot of the extended family were able to come over christmas eve night. We ate lots of food and played games. One was called the water game that I had never played before, everyone is in a circle and one by one everyone guesses, the person that guesses right gets a cup of water in the face. The person that is it picks a category like colors and writes one down on a piece of paper and then goes around the circle with the water and everyone guesses a color, if you guess the color the person in the middle wrote down you get wet. It was a lot of fun. Besides that it was just nice to hang out and talk to everyone. Then we stuffed stalkings and went to bed and waited for santa clause to come!!! And come he did!

This year Eldon and I were santa clause for Jordan and Mandi, Eldon, Ethan, and Chelsea especially were santa for me! We went up to rexburg before christmas (jordan and I) where eldon is, and bought him the coolest present ever! Eldon was bursting to let him open it in rexburg, and so was I but.....miraculously it made it till christmas morning. Santa brought him a hobby shop REMOTE CONTROL TRUCK! It goes up to 20-25 Miles per hour and can be upgraded to 50!!! Its amazing.

Its awesome, christmas day we set up green army men that I put in jordans stalking all over the house and ran them over in the truck, and of course made jumps....it jumps so good, its got really good tork and will climb almost anything, in the pic it is climbing straight up jordans legs. And it is really touchy, it turns SO sharp, it actually takes a couple of times to get used to it so you dont run it into everything. So we have been continually playing with it.

Santa brought me a CRIB, well actually US but Jordan accidently found out about it so it was a complete surprise for me, and its a really really nice one, I am so excited. We were wondering how long a baby could stay in a basinet, cuz they are so expensive, but thanks to my siblings we have crib now! Its mahogony colored (which is a dark wood for those that dont know) and actually turns into a toddler bed. YAY

CHRISTMAS TREE

We went and got our FIRST christmas tree, it was soo exciting. Its some kind of noble, but not all the way cuz they were way too much. Its a beautiful tree! I dont know why but for some reason I have been a holiday NUT, I am sooo excited for the christmas season. Last year after christmas I had bought some bulbs and beads and garland at the after christmas sales and so really wanted to decorate out tree with them. I had to leave them at my moms house last year and so coming home on the plane I had over 80 bulbs in my carry on. I also brought back my first nativity set that my sister made for me last year as my other carry on. I was like a mother hen with eggs watching those to make sure no one broke them. Its a 7 foot tree and really full and fits in our house perfectly!! We also put up red and green garland with bows all around the living room. We also got all these toys from our wedding for christmas, one of them is a music box house lighting up thing that has falling snow and it turns on everytime someone claps or makes a really loud noise. Jordan LOVEs it, and is always turning it on from the kitchen or when I walk past it. Its really cute.

We watched a christmas movie while Jordan and I decorated the tree. We love to just turn all the lights off and stare at the christmas tree. It really makes it feel like christmas every day now. I love waking up to it. Jordan and I are in love with our tree. Jordan hasnt decorated a tree in about 6 years, he was having fun.

THANKSGIVING

We had thanksgiving with my family in washington state...good ol Salkum WA. At first we werent going to go becuase of the price tags on flights, BUT I found this awesome website called studentuniverse.com that gives discounted tickets to students, you have to give a university email and they were 50% off!!! It was amazing, we were sooooo excited to be able to go. And when we got there we were even MORE excited...if thats possible. We really needed to vacate pittsburgh and just relax around people we are 100% comfortable with. We took the bus to the airport from campus right after our organic chemistry test :( and got there really early, then our flight was delayed, then we spent 7 hours on a plane with a lay over in dallas and finally arrived in Seattle at 11:15 pm. I threw up on the second landing, my first time using a barf bag on the plane! Eldon picked us up then we drove 2 hours to my parents house. So what did we do all that time? We read Jurrasic Park 1, it is actually exactly like the movie, with almost No deviations. It was a fun read tho.

We spent the most of tuesday just hanging out. We played charades in the afternoon that was fun, Jordan had to be herbie the love bug and I had to act out the sone jingle bells!! We drank hot chocolate, talked, went to ethans board of review for his eagle (he passed!) and then headed up to Lacey (60 min away) for some thanksgiving shopping. We stopped on the way back home, leaving the groceries with the boys and the girls went prego shopping at old navy. They had great clothes and a lot of ripped pants that we got 50-60% off. My lovely seamstress mom sewed them up for me and hemmed them to my length. They fit perfectly!

Wednesday Mandi, Ryan and the kids showed up! :) Jordan and Eldon team taught seminary that morning. ( my mom is the seminary teacher and it is at our house ) Mom, Ethan and Chelsea all go to centralia college and still had class on wednesday and like goobers actually went! Jordan and I realized how slackerish we have gotten, who goes to class? So chelsea dragged me into going, it was fun tho to see the little morton campus. Eldon brought his 4-wheeler and that was awesome, despite protests from the fam (jordan was ok with it tho) I went 4 wheeling with chelsea first and later Eldons best friend Blake came down from Seattle with his 4-wheeler and took chelsea and I on a 3-4 HOUR trip!! It was sooo much fun. I rode with eldon and Chelsea rode with blake. My parents live in the booney's so we drove about 20 min to find a random spot up in the forested hills and started looking for trails in the forest. After finding some logging sites we finally found some really fun trails. My poor little legs were too short to reach the foot holds sitting in the back so everytime we went over a little jump and got any kind of air I was completely off the seat, which was really funny, it always felt weird to land again. We wound through the trails so much I was amazed that we actually found our way back to the truck. The trails were awesome, nice and muddy! At one point Eldon asked if the trail looked familiar, and it did, but I swore it was familiar going the SAME way, and sure enough it turned out we were going in circles!! That was hillarious, lucky we had chelsea she remembered the trail off the circle route that led back to the main trail that eventually led back to the truck, which we still werent 100% sure was going to be there till it popped out of the trees at us.

The next day was TURKEY DAY!! Overall we had 26 people in the house. Amazing. The chatmans arrived that morning along with Jennie and Seth and NEW baby Olivia Fay Post and my aunt Sandy, Uncle Larry and Jennies brother Nathan. Sis Chatmans new baby Jaleece is adorable! she had soo much hair, it was fun to hold her, and with two babies I was able to pawn them off on Jordan every time I got the chance. Trying to break him in as much as possible. Olivia is 4 months and Jaleece was 6 weeks. Around 8am all the boys went to play turkey bowl. My dad, Eldon, Ethan, Ryan, Jordan etc... I usually go but wasnt feeling that great. Jordan said it was the funnest football game he ever played. Of course it was really muddy, but the temp wasnt that bad. They had a great turn out and played for about 2 hours. Jordan made a touch down! and several passes to touch downs. Jordan loved how everyone played their guts out and there were a lot of big guys from the ward that made it fun, along with some of ethans friends.

We ate food all day, and around 5 sat down for the feast. My stomach is doing SO much better now a days, and liked all the turkey and potatoes. Jordan fell in love with candied yams and I devoured rolls. Afterwards we all went upstairs and did the traditional "say what your thankful for most this year" Jordan like the awesome guy that he is said he was most thankful for me, and being best friends and doing everything together, and my healthy body and pregnancy. Then we went around the room everyone saying what they were thankful for. I am most thankful for wonderful easy going righteous people in my life. I was so excited and blessed to be in that room with all of my favorite people around me. I really am grateful for my family and friends and how they think and how they live their lives and are always the same great people no matter how long it is till I see them again. I also am most grateful for Jordan, helping me through school and being my best friend 24-7, playing and being creative and goofy and working together. And last I said how grateful I was for my body and ability to get pregnant as planned. I really am SO grateful for all of those, but I really appreciate happy wonderful conservative people who are family oriented and so excited for you and your life and so easy to talk to and hang out with.

We played pictionary that night with Jennie, Seth, Mandi and Ryan. We won. :) then we got all 26 people in the living room and played Charades again, everyone put in their own ideas in a hat and then we went around and drew, everyone played even my dad and bro chatman. Eldon put in the hat " a carberator" and of course I drew that, it was really interesting to act out a carberator. It was hillarious, that was my highlight. Jennie and Seth spend the night and the next day all the girls left to go shopping. Of course it was only supposed to be a 3 hour trip but obviously turned into 8-9 hour trip and we were gone all day. The boys all stayed home and played with their man toys. Eldon has a sweat remote control car that goes like 45 miles per hour. We went to Jo Annes and Micheals, Panda express and then the catcher was Ross. Soon all the girlies were trying on billions of outfits. Aided of course by our all watching "What not to Wear" one to many times. It was a ton of fun. Being prego really does kill shopping, its not as fun to try on clothes and you definately dont want any knowing you wont fit them in 6 months.

Jennie and seth left saturday morning and the rest of the fam just hung out. I got really sick and couldnt make it to Mauras brothers home coming, which was sad but after church on sunday chelsea conducted her wards young women in Excellence program. She displayed her beautiful Sherbert Orange prom dress that she made. Eldon and Mandi and Ryn left on sunday. We did homework (chemistry lab report) all day monday, watched christmas movies and did paintings for chelsea and Ethans art class. We left Tuesday at 3 am to just barely make it for our 6 am departing flight...seattle airport is crazy busy everyone time we go. That was the one we missed our honeymoon flight to Hawaii at.....luckily that one returned to the seattle airport 30 min later and we were able to get on....we like to say heavenly Father sent it back for us as a reward for getting married in the temple ;)

We got into Pittsburgh at 4:30 on Tuesday and rushed like crazy taking our luggage to class with us to take our chemistry lab final at 6 pm...we were 10 mins late. Talk about cutting it close! But the test went well and then we were back home!

Overall thanksgiving was AWESOME!! It was sooo relaxing and just what we needed. We came back ready to focus on school again and get through the grind of finals this week and next week.