Super Ecliptical

The supermoon eclipse on Sunday night was actually kind of hard to view on the West Coast, let alone get interesting shots of... as evidenced by the last lunar eclipse I tried to photograph in April 2014.  Photographing astronomical phenomena is like trying to play with freaking Goldilocks - last time we had to stay up late for it.  This time, it was almost too early and still too light out for a great shot.  Last time around, I focused on getting interesting and clear shots of the moon itself by experimenting with exposure times and a tripod.  This time around, I stepped up my game to think about interesting composition, but perspective wasn't working out in my favor. The holy grail shot I was going for was a huge moon next to some interesting landscape, but it wasn't dark enough yet when the moon rose and the eclipse started.  And it was pretty hazy out by the beach.  Seeing the extraordinary images pop up all over the internet, I'm sure I could have gotten it if I traveled for hours to a dark and isolated place with some interesting mountainous backdrop, but that wasn't going to happen given my schedule as of late.

Still, I'm pretty happy with the shots and loved the opportunity to bust out the tripod at the beach.  As I posted on Instagram on the moment: Day 5: The beach, a tripod & my DSLR. I'm in my happy place.

Active Shooting Hours: 3 Review Hours: 2 Hours To Date: 283

Nighttime in Waikiki

Yet another throwback post - so fitting considering I'm traveling right now for work. As much as I love taking pictures with my iPhone (which admittedly has a much better camera than my first digital point & shoot), there are shots you just can't get with a phone camera. This series, taken from my hotel room balcony, would not have come out like this without the DSLR. And the wide angle lens really takes you there and plants you on that balcony in that moment.

I love these images - smooth and rich colors, capturing a primarily serene beachfront with the hustle and bustle of Waikiki night life just peeking in from the edges. It's exactly how I felt looking out from that balcony. Granted, these took time and patience since each shot was exposed for 5+seconds and I experimented with various apertures and shutter speeds. Not to mention, sacrifice - a few of the shots are from 3 in the morning. While I didn't plan to wake up then, it was the first thought that occurred to me when I woke up and I ended up fiddling around for close to an hour taking pictures instead of sleeping. My boyfriend woke up and thought I lost it because I was sitting outside on the chilly balcony hunched over my camera and obsessing over shots. To a large degree, these remind me why I love traveling - seeing other parts of the world and finding these serene moments.

Active Shooting Hours: 2 Review Hours: 1 Hours To Date: 221

The Unsavory Chore Board & To Do List

It's still astonishing to me how dusty and dirty a room can get through the course of daily living.  And cleaning is just such a tiresome chore that is procrastinated (inevitably) until the next weekend... and the next... until "all of a sudden," everything is dirty!  Not to mention, most people who work a full time job just don't have the time or energy to spend a day cleaning everything only to have dust settle back in quite comfortably within the week. Since I'll be starting business school part time in addition to working full time come fall, a few weeks ago, I set out on a mission to find a system that limits the time spent cleaning and breaks it into manageable 20 minute tasks.  After all, I don't want to spend what precious little free time I've got cleaning!!

I call it, The Unsavory Chore Board:

The whole idea is to break chores up into 20 minute (or less) tasks and to rotate through the board by completing just 1 task per day.  With 10 chores on my board, I rotate through them all in just under 2 weeks.  Underneath the chore board is my Post-It To Do list, which I love because I can just grab the Post-It and go if there's a grocery list or the like on it.  I also thought about how you could go down the Y (vertical) axis with names if you have more than 1 person in your household that need to share chores.

So far, with 3 weeks into the chore board, it seems to be working!  My apartment is certainly cleaner than ever and each chore is actually easier now that I clean everything more frequently, so dust doesn't have a lot of time to build up.

Instructions are below, unfortunately no pictures of the process, I got distracted by the TV while laminating the cards.  The best part is that it's highly customizable and you don't have to go all crazy crafter and print/laminate.

The Unsavory Chore Board:

Materials:

• 13" x 18" magnetic board - can vary depending on the wall you plan to mount it on
• magnetic clips or magnets to glue to the back of each chore - 1 magnet per chore
• chores printed or written on each card
• Optional: colored card stock or construction paper, laminating machine & laminating pouches, glue stick, hot glue gun & cartridges, Post-Its for the to do list, white erase markers for the board

Instructions:

1. Print or write chores onto separate pieces of paper.  This can be done directly onto the cardstock or like I did above by printing on white paper, laminating the entire sheet, cutting it into the chore squares, and then gluing to the colored cardstock to make it more cheerful.  With my lamination machine, the cardstock was too thick and would separate the lamination, which is why I just laminated the white paper
2. Attach to the magnetic clips.  In my case, I have clips so I just clipped it together.  You could also purchase magnets from the office supply store and glue these to the back of the chore cards.
3. Mount it somewhere visible! I have mine right next to the door.  You could also get a larger board and make the To Do list part of the board itself, but I like having that part just on the wall.

On a photographic note - I upgraded to the D3300 body and didn't understand why the max shutter speed I could get with flash through this series was 1/200.  After experimenting and playing around with different settings for a solid half hour, I turned to the Internet and discovered that that is the max shutter speed with the built-in flash because any faster and the shutter would actually click closed before the flashbulb, basically resulting in the same effect as no flash.  Looks like I might need to get an external flash!  The "if you give a mouse a cookie, he's gonna want a..." problem strikes again!

Active Shooting: 0.5 hour

Review / Book Learning: 0.5 hour

Hours to Date: 166