Monday, August 22, 2011

Click, Click, Snap?

...decisions, decisions.  I hate making them and wish someone else would put me out of my misery and decide for me.

With less than 20 days to go before I leave for Paris, I came to an outstanding realization....Mama needs a new camera.

My 5 year old Sony PowerShot 870SD that I purchased my sophomore year of college has run its course and now its time for a much needed upgrade! I love photographs and I admire the process of photography but for once I want to be the person behind the camera taking great pictures instead of the person in front of the register dropping serious dough on some nice pictures.  I figured my fast approaching European excursion would be a great opportunity to upgrade to a DSLR photography as well as truly make photography a hobby of mine.  I have been admiring the image quality and "artsy-ness" of DSLR cameras for a while now.  The problem is I don't know how to properly use them and $600 is wayyyyyy to much money to speed to use the camera's automatic setting.  Plus, I don't know how to use Photoshop, nor do I have l'argent to buy it...so that's out of the question.

I like DSLR cameras because if used properly with a good eye and good composition, you can capture the pure essence of a moment in time.  I love photography, because each story tells a story, for example, this picture was taken by my very talented friend Beth Fortson.  I've seen photos that have ignited a passion in me, made me feel happy, sad, angry...a wide variety of emotions.  For me, I feel like there is a rawness that little point-and-shot cameras can not express.  Sure, you can get pretty and clear shots, but sometimes I crave more than that.


But another issue for me is the size.  Good grief, those things are chunky!  Because of my inexperience, I am not used to holding a heavy camera, so a special camera bag is needed.  Well, me being the research whiz that I am already found an alternative to this issue:

Voila! Ultra feminine and super fabulous camera bags that actually look like women's handbags! These particular bags are from Kelly Moore.

But it gets even more complicated; what do I do when I just want to go out with friends to a bar or a club?  Hauling a big $600 camera would not make because there's nothing artistic about being completely inebriated with your friends in a dimly lit bar plus there's the concern of losing it or breaking it, so a point-and-shoot will do.

grrrrrr....I just don't know what to do! Should I replace my poor PowerShot with another point n' shoot or should I take a bold step into the world of DSLR photography???



Tuesday, August 9, 2011

...and so it BEGINS!

The countdown has officially begun!  I have exactly 30 more days until I move to Paris and I couldn't be happier!  Before today, I was way too lazy to keep track plus a 30 day countdown is easier to mentally cope with than a 75 day countdown!

(I made a countdown calendar and stuck it to my wall as a reminder to myself and everyone else!)

To be honest, I do hope these last 30 days don't go by tooo quickly because there is still a lot that most be attended to before I board the plane, one of which is going head-to-head with all five of my lenders (we'll see how that goes).  Plus there are shopping trips that must be made, weddings and baby showers to attend and many many many goodbyes.

random tidbit....
So after a fantastic workout at the gym, a thought came to me as I was washing off the gallon of sweat I had accumulated, I have decided to add a couple of new featured posts to my blog.  Because I really want to force myself to take this blog seriously (step 1: makeover, check!) I need to spice things up and increase my viewings.  More details are to follow, but within the next 30 days you will see some "featured posts" relating to things that I am either passionate about or interest me.  They may or may not directly correlate with travel but this blog is a hodgepodge of things that I like.......so stay tuned!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Update #3: A much needed facelift

Hmmmm, if you have been following my blog, you will notice something slightly different about the appearance. ;-)


If you are new...


Welcome to the new and super-fabulously improved 
"The Traveling Pretty Bird" Blog!!!


After reading numerous blogs with beautiful layouts, I was starting to get jealous that everyone else seemed to have a nice looking blog but I was still using the carbon stock provided by blogger.com.  Even though I was jealous,  because I am "artistically challenged" I did not even know where to begin to make changes.  Well, thanks to the inspiration and advice from fellow blogger I Fly A Star Ship, I have finally personalized my blog to make it unique to me.  When I saw the finished product (after a couple of hours of OCD-like tweaking and nit-picking), I had to give myself a pat on the back for creating something beautiful I could whole-heartedly and proudly call my blog (yes a bit sappy for a blog...but hey, it's the little things in life).

so.....out with the old.....


new month....new look....oh the possibilities!