Cliche Photos

Want to take some cool slow light aperture photos?

It's super easy to do. All you need is your DSLR camera, a flashlight, and preferably a tripod.

Now, I'm not sure if you can do this with other cameras so if you have anything other than a slr I would research it!

All you have to do is:

 -Set your camera to aperture mode, which on a Canon is AV mode. If you do not have a Canon refer back to your manual if you don't know which setting is the aperture one. 

-You would then want to set your camera to a high ISO speed, this will allow more light to reach the camera's image sensor. Try to stay at 800, anything higher may make your photos grainy and noisy (we don't want that).

-Set the aperture low. Low aperture lets more light in and allows you to take photos in situation without much light, so no flash is required.

-You want to set your camera's shutter speed to the slowest possible. Now this is where a tripod comes in handy. Since your camera is at a slower shutter speed ANY movement will show up in your photos. Now blurry images look pretty cool in this case but it would be even cooler to reduce the shake in your photos. Put your camera on a tripod with the slowest shutter speed just before the manual setting (you can manually control the shutter speed, which is what we did for the above photos but it may cause your images to come out blurry). Then with the shutter speed on low, set it to a self timer.

(You can always try the manual mode since you will be able to take the time you need to finish your light photography but once again the longer you wait the more movement you may be allowing into your photos. Just play around with it first. If you don't like the manual mode you can just stick to the self timer.)

-Then when the camera goes off, with a flashlight, draw what ever you'd like. If you're writing words just make sure you write the letters backwards!

That's it! This may not have been the best tutorial but I hope it helps anyone interested. My best friend and I had so much fun with this although we didn't have a tripod with us as you can tell from the blurriness. We even sat by the local highway and took some cool light photos of the passing cars (if you're going to do this DON'T use a flash! Just being obvious for the sake of safety haha). 

Have fun with this. Draw whatever you'd like and get creative! It's super easy and you don't have to be a professional to know how to do it. :)

New Jersey

Collective photos from my week home here in Jersey.

St. Patty's Day in New Jersey

Matching outfits with my best friends on St. Patrick's Day.

 Hope everyone had a great holiday and celebrated accordingly ;)! (and responsively of course!)

A walk down by the river

Top- Lucky Brand

Shoes- Vans

Ring- Brandy Melville

Ray Bans

Nails- Flip Flop Fantasy by China Glazw

I seriously cannot get enough of this spring weather even though winter isn't over until next week. It is seriously my favorite! Yesterday was a lovely 65 degrees so Stephen and I decided to go for a walk down by the river. These are some of the shots we got. 

I love where we live so much. New Hampshire is absolutely beautiful.

Patchwork

Jeans- Cheap Monday
Sweater- Free People
Jacket- Empyre


Just another beautiful day in New Hampshire.

Home is where the heart is...

A little Jersey inspiration for a homesick girl. 

I'm going home in a week for the first time in almost two months. Wow, I cannot wait!

We're always so happy to get away from the usual that sometimes we take things for granted. Even if you're out there pursuing your dreams, just take a minute to think about where you came from. Would you be where you are if it weren't for the people back at home? 

Home is where the heart is. Never forget about your origin, it helps make you the person you are today. 

To my friends and family I cannot wait to see you in a week! Thanks for being such an amazing support system.

Hope everyone has a great weekend, just another random post :p but as always

Channeling my inner Jackson Pollock

Sorry for the iPhone quality but I really wanted to show off my nails (or nail) here. Jackson Pollock is one of my favorite post modern artists so I opted to replicate his work on my nails. I would show you a better picture if this wasn't taken a week ago and my nails weren't badly chipped by now. I was planning on re-doing it however. I only painted my ring finger leaving the rest the plain powder blue color, this time I might do it on all my nails. I'm still on the fence with repainting them like this or not though.

I also did just order China Glaze's Flip Flop Fantasy too, which should be here soon. It's a lovely peachy pink color that I saw on Pinterest. As soon as I saw it I knew I needed that color for my nails!

Decisions, decisions.

This probably won't be the last time you here about Jackson Pollock here either. If you don't know who he is I encourage you to look him up. His story is more than just splatter paint; it's very interesting!

Sorry for the random post but I wanted to get some more blogs in before the weekend. I'm hoping with the nice weather coming to New Hampshire I'll be able to get some great shots with my camera this weekend. Hope to get some lovely posts for next week. :)

Love at first sight: Colorado Edition

We all have that special place where we'd love to go to escape. Maybe we have been there before, maybe we haven't yet. Maybe it isn't even a real place but a made up one in our minds. Where ever our place may be, we all have one. We all need somewhere to escape.

I've been really in the mood to get away lately, or more like, in the mood to go back to Colorado. This is kind of a different blog post but I have been lacking inspiration lately. I find that most my inspiration comes from the things I love most. So here I am posting about how much I cannot wait to go back to, the place I'd love to escape to, Colorado.

I bought this Colorado state flag pictured above off Ebay as a room accessory. It hangs right above my bed as a reminder of where I want to be. It's my motivation to help get me there one day. When I wake up every morning it's one of the first things I see right after checking my phone for a lovely "good morning" text message of course (hi babe!). It reminds me of the beautiful sight of the Rockies while driving down the highway and the fresh crisp mountain air that is so breathable you can feel it lightening up your lungs. I absolutely love it there!

To whomever believes "once you've seen one mountain, you've seen them all" I encourage you to rethink this opinion! ;)

They say this for a reason! (picture taken from Pinterest)

[Colorful] Colorado Springs, Colorado Found here on Pinterest

Colorado Wall Art found here on Etsy

You've probably guessed by now that mountains are my favorite. :P

February Recap through Instagrams

Right to left:

1. Mom's text a minute before the Giants become the Superbowl XLVI Champs! 2. Adventures with Stephen. 3 & 4. Valentines day treats made with Stephen. <3 5. Ben & Jerry's Exclusive Banana Cream Pie Flavor. Yum! 6. Martinis with Mama when she came to visit. 7. My two babies at home who I miss dearly! 8. School closed for a snow day :). 9 & 10. Viva Glam Nicki, loving it so far!

I've seen people post some Instagram photos on their blogs before and I honestly loved the idea. I have decided to do an Instagram recap every month to share on my blog. Since February just passed two days ago, here is my monthly recap. February, I must say, was a good month. It was filled with a good amount of adventures and fun times. I usually take more than 10 Instagrams a month but I guess I slacked a little in February. Maybe I'll have more exciting ones in March. Hope everyone starts their month off right. Here's to spring coming soon!

follow me on instagram: @megmarra