A blog for Tanya Mathis!!!!

So I finally got an update on my friend Tanya! We have known each other since 7th grade for me and 6th grade for her. She is a year younger than me, and has two older brothers my age that I am also friends with. Well we were inseparable growing up. I have missed her dearly lately and she finally emailed me and started a blog! We call each other Sissy and I am so excited to finally get a chance to see what she is up too! Hopefully she keeps blogging because that would be awesome. I decided to post some photos of us through the years… so here they are! Miss you Sissy! See you in July!!!! LOVE YOU!!!

Thanksgiving 2006

Christmas 2007
Feb 2002Jan 2000

Photo retouching

So I finally learned how to retouch photos! A link that I find really useful when working with faces is http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/photoshop-touchup-tutorials/ Its got many tutorials on how to fix blemishes, teeth, etc. Anyhow I did my first practice one on Carla and I and it turned out great! Here is it!

If you click on the photo it will enlarge it so you can really see what I did.

Also here is the original....

Photography turn in??

So for my photography class I was assigned to take two close up/macro photos and two landscape photos. I just cannot decide which ones to turn in tho! Some of them are different crops of the same image, but let me know which two are your favorite in each category because I am stumped!

landscape 1

landscape 2
landscape 3

landscape 4

landscape 5

landscape 6

now here are the close up/macro photos

close up/macro 1

close up/macro 2

close up/macro 3

close up/macro 4

close up/macro 5

close up/macro 6

close up/macro 7

Kumos personality

Kumo just looks so smug in these I had to post them for my Mom. Love you! Miss you!

More photos for class

So my assignment was to use light in three creative ways. Here are my three photos:


1) Here is a photo only using ambient lighting. I was not allowed to bring in any light to take the photo. I had to use the light only from the subject. This photo was taken with a 15 second exposure. It turned out nicely.

2) This photo was taken using a technique called light painting. The trick is to take a longer exposure of an object and introduce secondary light. In my case I set the exposure and used a LED flashlight to light up the parts of the photography that I wanted to highlight. You can see where the surrounding lights are more golden, the LED that I used has more of a white light.

3) For this photo I used a technique called fill flash. I never knew that I could really take good pictures inside. Whenever I used to try the photos were either too dark or the flash was just so obvious. I learned how to use flash to my advantage and make it subtle. Kumo face was shaded before I used the fill flash. So I set the flash way low so that I could bring out the colors in his face without showing that I was using flash.

Photography class

So I have started a summer school class at the U. My Momma let me borrow he amazing camera so I could get some good photography experience in. Our first two assignments were to take a photo using a fast and slow shutter speed to capture a moving object. I chose to do the water fountain in our apartments courtyard. We were also assigned to capture a short depth of field and a large depth of field. Here are my four photographs.

Updates on Kumo's Brothers and Sisters

Can you guess which one is Kumo? These are pictures of his whole litter....

picture #1

picture #2

picture #3picture #4

picture #5

picture #6

picture #7

picture #8

As you can see one little guy looks identical to Kumo! It's crazy because that was the pup we were originally interested in! Kumo is now 8lbs 9oz and outweighs all his brothers and sisters by a whole pound!

picture#1:Kumo picture#2:JerseyJoe picture#3:Kumo picture#4: JerseyJoe picture#5,6: Flash picture#7,8: Diamonds.

Diamonds just went to her new home in Tuscon AZ and JerseyJoe went to New Hampshire. Flash is still with the breeder and is going to Canada soon.

Carla and Kiley come to visit!

Bryan left for Washington DC on Thursday to spend some time with his Dad and visit some law schools. School ended on Wednesday and so Carla and Kiley came into town to keep me company over the weekend! We had tons of fun together with visiting Grandma, playing up at the University with the dog and watching a movie! Kiley loves Kumo and so I just had to get a picture of her holding him. He is getting so big and looks huge in Kiley’s arms. The other pictures are from the day before they arrived. Kumo loves to hang out on the end of the couch watching while you are in the kitchen. Here are the pictures:

Kumo gets wet

Well after Ben's wedding we had some of our friends over and we all went down to the hot tub. I just stuck my feet in because I wanted to be able to watch Kumo. Our hot tub is fenced in but I had him on a leash just in case he wanted to try some funny business. Well I guess he wanted to be with all the rest of the people in the hot tub and he jumped in! The hot tub is so hot and I immediately scooped him up. It was hilarious because when he gets wet you can really see how skinny his legs are.... huskies are known for having small frames hidden underneath their thick coats and Kumo looks just like Nakita when he gets well with his small legs. Anyhow everyone was laughing and I thought it was pretty funny, but I immediately had to take him upstairs to wash the chlorine off him since he is still a pup and I don't know what chlorine will do to his skin. Anyhow I took some pictures in the bathroom after dunking him in the bathtub... he was not happy with me... here they are:

Ben's wedding!

So Ben(Bryan's mission companion, who he is still very close with) got sealed for all time and eternity in the Salt Lake temple yesterday to Allyson! It was a beautiful day here in Salt Lake. It has been raining for the past few days so everything is just so green! Here are some pictures from the day.