Hello!

Gah! Has it really been almost a month since I posted anything?!

My school work has been consuming every single day. Most days I get to school between 6:50-7:05. Sometimes I have a bus duty that starts at 7:05 and some days I have breakfast duty at 7:30 so if I can get there a half hour early, it really helps me--I have lots to set up and clean and organize and the extra time in the morning helps. A bunch of teachers have started working out with some short DVDs after school. This is so nice because I can get my workout done by 4:00! But that also means I am not working in my room from 3-4 like I did last year. I need to get motivated to stay and work in my room after working out, otherwise I will never feel caught up.

This year, I have really cut back my involvement in extracurriculars. Aside from a few social things here and there, I am not responsible for teaching or organizing lots of extra things. I feel so much less stressed and overwhelmed because I actually have more free time. Actually, I look back at all the  things I used to do and I wonder how I did not have more melt downs!

One of the main reasons I haven't been blogging is because my D5000 was stolen a few weeks ago. I am so mad at myself and the jerk who took it. I have been too depressed to blog--even though I've got plenty of iphone photos I could share.

My camera was stolen very late at night on Labor Day. The week that followed was one of the worst weeks I can remember. Nothing was going right that week. You can see my shoes that got destroyed by a black paint spill on Wednesday.

And I was trying to prepare a screen for a cool screen print and I just couldn't get the emulsion to work--even after 5 tries. On Friday, I was super excited for my Nelliepalooza retreat--but freakishly on my way I was caught in a scary storm. With high winds over 80 MPH, I had to pull over behind someone's house and then I had to use my best stunt car driving skills to dodge downed power lines and trees in the road. I even drove through the ditch to get to the campground.

When I arrived, the power was out! It stayed out all night, which meant that we were 'crafting' in the dark. The camp's water pump runs on electricity so I was worried we would have to cancel. Everyone was so nice---even though it was a very bad end to a very bad week. Saturday, the sun came up, the power was back on and it the horrible awful, no good week was over.

Lens Baby: Kansas City Art Walk

The Kansas City art walk is one of my most favorite things to do. It seems I only ever get to go in the summer, so it is always super hot.

I love wandering through the galleries and taking photos of the people in the streets in the Crossroads District.  I really really love the Hammerpress studio....and the Grunauer, the German restaurant.

A few of these photos are neat shots from the weekend in KC, but most are from the art walk. 

These are from a little Moroccan place in Westport.

Art Walk with Lens Baby Part 3

The sun vanished last night just after we finished dining on the 609 patio for dinner. Many of my photos have a blue-ish tint and I kind of love it. Art Walk is one of my favorite things about Joplin. I love running into old friends and making new ones. 

 Last fall, I took my D500 around town with the Lens Baby attachment. You can see photos from that trip here.

Fisheye Photo Outing

Even though I stayed in bed past 11 a.m. this morning and could've laid around in my pjs all day, I managed to force myself to join up with a little photo outing this afternoon.

One of my super special Christmas presents this year was a fish eye lens attachment for my Nikon camera. It is just a cheap little attachment, but I love using those kind of lenses because they give the digital a little bit of a lomo feel. I was also shooting with my Holga and Instagram on my iPhone 4.

I am excited to see how my Holga images turn out....I'm always nervous whenever I use 100 speed film.

Below you can see some of my favorites from today's shoot with the fish eye lens.

Machinery on the farm

 As grotesque as it looks, I could not stop filming this deer skull. I even made a little stop-motion video with it....

Robert let me bring it home. It is on the mantle now....should be a great source of inspiration. (A little O'keeffe in all of us, right?)

The hip-hop-hippy on a windy day.

How many cameras does it take???

Interior, old shed

Wasp Nest Bird Cage

Jeepers Creepers, where'd you get those peepers.

Destruction in the Heartland: Part 8.....homage to the memorial built by volunteers

When my aunt sent me this article from the New York Times about Joplin, she suggested that I go find the house and take a few photos. I knew exactly which house the article was referring to and I really wanted to take photos.

I haven't photographed much of the destruction since June...it just hasn't felt right. But this is a really special place. And many of the destroyed places have been rebuilt or are in progress, so things are looking good in Joplin again. It looks like a scene from an art installation, and it feels a little erie wandering through the property. I felt like a trespasser, but amongst all the volunteer signatures, I felt like I was paying homage the memorial, dedicated to the people who spent hours cleaning up our city.

Please read the article above, it tells the story.

 You can see a new home going up beside this one.

With frozen fingers, I juggled my iPhone and my Nikon to snap a few additional photos.  I like some of these even more than the others....a different, edgier feel to the photos...a bit of redundancy, but still very moving.

Thanks for reading.