Also, New Banner and Other Blog!

I just took a bit of time to make a new banner for this blog :) It's got something to represent all my artistic mediums, and I'm quite happy with it! Photoshop is nice :) If anyone who happens to be reading this blog (please, PLEASE, let there be someone reading this blog... haha) has a blog or other website of their own, and needs a banner, I'd love to make you one. For free. And it would probably look better than mine does... Anyways yeah... comment? pwetty pwease?

And, I have a second blog! Actually, I have three, but I'm only posting on two for now.... Anyway, my other blog is a review blog, for books, movies, music, tv shows, etc. I only have one review posted as of now, but more will be going up soon! So check it out, please!
http://geekeryreviewed.blogspot.com/

Film Photos Taken on my Trip to Austria!

I was born in Germany, and my whole family is from Austria. My parents, my brother, and I moved to California when I was only two, but almost every summer of my life, I have spent 3-5 weeks in Austria visiting my extended family and my Austrian friends. Ever since I was old enough, I always took a ton of pictures on these trips. But up until this summer, I always just used some little point and shoot camera to take pictures of stuff I thought my friends back home wanted to see. They were generally very traditional touristy photos. But this summer, I brought along my new  (well... new to me...) Canon T60 film camera, and decided hat I was going to take a lot more artsy pictures. I'm really happy with the pictures I took, so I figured I'd put them up here :)

All of these shots ended up having a very vintage look to them, which is what I like about film. Film pictures usually look older and have a warmer tone, but those aspects of film photography are even more prominent on these shots, for some reason :)

Anyways, without any further rambling from me, here they are :

 These first few pictures were taken after I got home. I still had a few shots left on the last role of film I'd been using in Austria, so I just took a few quick shots in my backyard.

 I'm pretty happy with this one, it's very sharply focused, which I was really excited about, because I've had some issues with focusing before.

 There's this one spot in my backyard where there are always at least 5 or 6 spider webs, and even though I'm completely arachnophobic, I still love spider webs :) I was trying to focus on the webs, but it was a little difficult to see whether I'd focused it right, which is why this shot is a little blurred.

 I love this shot, the colors are so vibrant and the light is perfect :)

 Dead flowers and spider webs.....

 Here's where the Austria shots start. My aunt took this, because she insisted that I needed a picture that actually had me in it.... she didn't focus it perfectly, but I like the flowers in the background, so I figured I'd share it.

 This car is cool. That's all.

 This shot is pretty blurry, but for once, I actually really like the way the blur makes this picture look. I just think the soft edges and the slight overexposure give it this really dreamy look that I quite like.

That's a statue, not a real bird.... oh and by the way, these shots so far and the next several pictures were all taken on a little day trip I took to Gmunden, which is a really pretty city in Austria.

 Just a nice building....

 So I took two shots of almost exactly the same subject. This one is just taken normally. It's nice, but when compared to the next shot, it's not nearly as good, in my opinion.

 This version of the shot was taken using my sunglasses as a color filter. I totally love the way it looks. The warmth is amazing, and the water looks gorgeous. It definitely pays to be resourceful!

 Sadly this shot is a bit over exposed, but otherwise, I like it. The very pretty little swan contrasts nicely with the grittiness of the moss covered rock wall :)

 Again, it's overexposed and a little blurry, but I think it has that same dreamy look I mentioned earlier.

 Random water jet in the middle of the lake.... I love the way the water looks :)

 Same jet, taken from farther back, on a shady balcony.

 Earlier, there were three wasps all crowded onto the top of this coke bottle, but sadly they flew away just before I took this... I still like it though! I just wish I'd had a macro lens so I could have gotten closer....

 Dreamy looking, again!

 Now this shot and the remaining pictures were all taken at my grandma's house, which is out in a rural farm are, so there were plenty of things to photograph :) Including the sunset view from my bedroom window!

 The sunset, again.

 Some flowers....

 I love this shot! The tomatoes are totally in focus (SUCCESS!) and the flowers in the background add a nice touch.

 Mostly unripe blackberries, but the ripe ones were yummy!

 Apples! My grandparents have like five apple trees...

 Apple trees and a telephone pole!

 Daisies :) I got my clothes completely wet and dirty when I laid down in the grass to take this....

 I love how red it is!

 Pretty flowers!

 More flowers!

 Dead slugs and a watering can....

 Flowers.... again....

 This was taken Before I even took my trip, while I was still in CA.... I have no idea why it was just in the middle of all my Austria pics... but I like it! I just wish I'd had a macro lens....

 I love how it's just the silhouette of the branches :)

 Another slug! But this one was alive :)

 A really old cement mixer....

 Some slight light leakage here, but I like the way it looks :) Very warm...

 :)

 KITTY! This shot is just a little blurry, because the cat was jumping off the pillar just as I took this.... still, I love the whole composition of this shot, and the lighting is pretty :)

 Same cat, less blurry, but there's an arm..... oh well.

 berry type things....

 Apples! I like it :)

 Mr. Snail!!!

 Berries!

 Spider web that you can barely see!

 Another KITTY!

A dried rose! I love dried roses....

Anyways, those aren't all the pictures I took, but they're my favorites :)
So is anyone reading this blog yet? If you are, please let me know, and leave a comment! Seriously, it takes like two seconds, and I'll love you forever!

Some Drawings and Photos :)

So first of all, there's this rose drawing. I started this an embarrassingly long time ago, considering that I just finished it a week ago. I'm talking months here. It's not that it just took months to finish, it's that I started it, then left it alone for several months before finally finishing it.... Such is the tale of most of my drawings.... But now that its done, I'm quite happy with it! It was a great opportunity to try out some cross-hatching and other techniques that I'm not used to using.

Then there is this rather unimpressive photo, which I took, with my tiny little old digital camera, through the viewfinder of my film SLR. I wasn't really focusing so much on the subject of the picture (which, by the way, is the corner of my bedroom), because I was mostly just trying this out to see if I would want to use this technique to take more pictures. And I must say, I do quite like the way it looks!

This is a very large eye that I started (yet, once again, not finished....) a few days ago. I've been trying to perfect every detail of the eyes that I draw, so that they will turn out better when I draw portraits....

Some people will get this, others won't.... It's my attempt at drawing the mockingjay pin from the Hunger Games, and I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out :)

This is one of the pictures off my first ever role of film that I took a few weeks ago, and it is now the background of this blog! I wasn't actually trying to take a picture that would look like this, but it was a pleasant surprise that it turned out this way! I quite like it....

Some of the flowers in my yard... I hate taking so many pictures of just flowers, but they're just so convenient!!! They're everywhere, and they're pretty.... Still, I have to find something more interesting to photograph....

This is the same lamp that was in the earlier picture in this post, but less blurry, because I was actually focusing on the lamp this time, and not something in front of it.... Haha... I like it... I'm not sure why....

Well that's that..... More things shall be posted when I return home from my trip to Austria.... I have lots of pictures of Austria that I'm really excited to develop!

If you're out there.... please comment? Pretty please? You'll be my favorite!!!!