Dear Edwina,

If you don't know Maddie, you might not fully appreciate this post (but you'll definitely still think the video is cute!). You may remember her from videos such as these ones, where she can be heard (over the music) loudly "asking" her little friends to do her bidding. It should be no surprise then, that she recently played the part of Edwina, a 6th grade "advice-columnist" who answers questions from her neighborhood friends in the form of a musical show. I didn't make it out to CA for the show, but when in was home in January she was already rehearsing and there was one line that stood out to me, it was something like "Too bad there's not a prize for telling others what to do" (if there was, Maddie would win it hands down). Edwina's brothers and sister are always getting prizes for their achievements, but Edwina's talents aren't really the kind that win prizes ;)

Anyway, it was all caught on tape, but the file was really big so my dad just posted this clip for me, enjoy:



I'm so proud! I think she's awesome, and I wish I could have been there. Can't wait to see the whole thing in a couple months...

Complementary Colors

Here's this last week's shot for Color and Light, highlighting the complementary colors red/orange and blue/green.

 And this week's shot which shows analogous colors:

 This is the beginnings of my final project for this class, which I was forced to narrow down a bit this week since I had to turn in a proposal explaining exactly what I want to do. Most of the photos I take from now on in this class will be geared towards my final project so that I'll have lots (hopefully!) to choose from in the end. I'm going for a mysterious feeling, where you're not really sure what's happening in the photos, you never get the whole picture. Another example...

By the way it's still really cold here and I made Brent take of his jacket for an extended period of time while the wind was blowing, and there was minimal whining/complaining. What a trooper.

Now off to start a new project...I'm kind of nervous about this one. Hopefully I'll have something worthy of posting in a couple of days...

Maddie's Twelfth, and my BIG debut...

Over the years it has become a tradition for me to fly home for Maddie's birthday, and there was no way I was going to miss it this year because she turned 12!! I know, I can't believe it either. We always have some kind of crazy party for her and this year it was a real LIVE concert! Seriously. Here's the invite (that I made):


And now for the best part! My brother Chase is in "Carbon Charisma" the band (he says it's not a "band"...you can be the judge) on the invite poster, and they played for like an hour at Maddie's party. I told him when we asked him to play that he would have to do at least a couple of "girly" songs, and he reluctantly complied. Then about a week later I got an email from him asking me if I would sing the girly songs so he wouldn't have to! ha. Of course I said yes, and got to work memorizing lyrics, though as you will see, it wasn't really necessary...



Don't I make a great Miley!!?? haha. I'm not a huge fan, but you have to admit that song is awesome (and it was stuck in my head pretty much the entire month of January). Ok, next up: Taylor!! So the guitarist is totally awesome, and I think the acoustic versions of these songs might even be better than the originals (seriously) but somehow we started this song waaaay lower than when we practiced it that morning...you can tell when I'm reaching for those low notes! ha. Still fun though, and the kids pretty much sang the whole thing for me, so no worries...



Maddie is the crazy one with the short hair, in case you were wondering. Climbing up on top of everyone and grabbing the mike for her own solo! Needless to say the party was awesome and a fantastic time was had by all. Thanks Madeleine Pickett for the awesome flip camera skills (and the singing! I totally heard you ;)  I already can't wait till next year...

RGB Love.

Last week for Color and Light, we had to make a photo that showed off three primary colors, either the painter's primaries (RBY) or the photographer's primaries (RGB). I wasn't sure that I would be able to find all three colors together so I told Brent to put on a red shirt and bring his blue jacket and we would look for either yellow or green. I ended up finding both, but I really liked how the image with green turned out. We went exploring in "Old Salem" which is the oldest part of town, with buildings from the 1700's, and came across this old brick wall with really bright green moss on it. Voila:

 My teacher said he really liked it, and he thought it looked like Brent was about to "get all hot and sweaty" going for a big run or something! haha. Brent, running. What a joke.

Ok, actually, when it's not too hot or too cold (which accounts for like 2 weeks out of the year here) he will actually run with me, but the day we took this?? Definitely not.

Anyway, for some reason I really love this picture. The ones I took with the RBY theme just felt too much like a circus, and the circus is creepy (Ok, I've never actually been to one...but I'm guessing they're creepy).

Also, I have a new website! It's not quite fully functional yet, but it's getting there. Check it out:

Courtney McNaught Photography

Subject Intent

This week for my Concept class, we had to pick one subject and photograph is 5 different ways, for 5 different "meanings". The point was that subject matter, can be totally different than the actual subject of an image. For instance, someone might take a picture of a grave, but the subject of the image isn't the tombstone itself, it's death.
In case it's not obvious by now, Brent is totally my new favorite model. Why did I never use him before?? He follows directions (mostly) he's easy to bribe (treats, backrubs, etc), he's readily available, he's fun to be around, he's cute...seriously, I should have started using him a long time ago! I took a couple pictures when we were in bed reading (a new daily occurrence for us before we turn the lights out each night, Brent is reading "Return of the King" in these pics - good choice!) and decided that to keep the series unified I would take them all "in bed"...sexy I know!! Ok, so here are my fab 5:

1) Depictive Subject - show it like it is, the subject matter is the subject. Easy.

 2) Expressive Subject - use the subject matter to express a feeling/mood/emotion. See if you can guess what I was going for here ;)  This is funny because it wasn't staged, he was just getting tired.




















3) Illustrative Subject - use the subject matter to tell a story or create a narrative. Since I finished my books (Abhorsen Series - Garth Nix - highly recommended if you're a fantasy lover like me) Brent has been reading aloud to me, he's got a great "Gollum" voice ;)

4) Statement Based Subject - make a statement about something with subject matter. Can you guess?





















 5) Form Based Subject - the lines/shapes/contours of the subject matter become the subject. This is my favorite!! Haha. Sorry to those of you who hate feet...I know you're out there.

What do you think? Did I nail it?? No grade yet on this one, I'll keep you posted.

The other assignment...

I was going to put these in the last post, but I forgot! So another class I have is called "Photography Concepts" and it's all about having intention in your work and being conscious of all of the decisions that you're making when you snap the shutter (lighting, angle, settings, subject, timing...). This week we were supposed to make two portraits of someone, the first was to be as "objective" as possible, trying to take our "artistic selves" out of the equation. That's really not possible since every choice you make effects the outcome of the picture...but here was my best shot:

I know that the way I cropped and lit the portrait are subjective choices, but I had to make it interesting somehow!!

And the subjective shot - this is Maizey, Teri's baby. She is the funniest dog I have ever met, and we went over to play with her last week when Teri had to neglect her aaaaalll day. Can't you just see the love oooozing out of this photo?? Totally subjective.

Color Temperature...gone horribly wrong...

This week I had two assignments, the first was for my color class and we had to take photos in different types of light (natural and tungsten) using different white balances. To put it simply, your eyes compensate for the different temperatures of lights we see every day from varying sources and we never even have to think about it, and if you put your camera on "auto" it will also compensate for you. BUT, if you're in manual mode on your camera and you use the wrong white balance, such as a tungsten setting in natural daylight, this will happen:



Our challenge was to use the different colorcasts in meaningful ways, not just make it a "technical exercise" and take three shots of the same thing in different types of light (which most people in my class did...can people not read???). So I told Brent to just relax his face and think about nothing so that the color temperature would drive the mood, which I think it does...doesn't he look depressed?? Good shot for Valentines Day ;)

This was the "natural shot" under daylight conditions, with a daylight white balance (though you can see that there is some tungsten coming from behind her). Fitting I think, for such a sweet little girl...





The last shot is tungsten light shot with a daylight white balance and I was going for "creepy" - looking out the dark window across to the neighbors dimly lit house with my blurry reflection hard to make out...I explained this, but my teacher said he didn't really "get it". Whatever! I think it's creepy (though I'll admit it's not my favorite).
Oh yeah, and my theme for this assignment was "Windows"...in case that wasn't clear ;)

Happy V-day by the way! The McNaughties are HUGE fans of cheese fondue (or any fondue really) but we haven't had the best experiences making it ourselves...but this time we got it perfect. Mmmm...Gruyere and Camembert melted to perfection...highly recommended.

ph613: Color and Light...

Color and Light is one of my new classes this semester (and yes, my semester just started last week!). My first assignment was to show how I typically use color in my work...uhhh, typically? I don't feel like I have any kind of "style" yet, so this assignment was tough for me. I decided to just take some pictures that were a little different than what I normally do and see what happened.
My trusty model/reflector holder/kid entertainer Brent came with me and we walked about a block down the street from our house to this little creek that runs under an overpass. As you can see there is tons of "interesting" graffiti down there and it was almost sunset so there was just a little bit of light passing under the bridge. I dared Brent to jump across the creek which I didn't think he would/could actually do, it was probably 7 or 8 feet across, but he cleared it...barely, and I took pictures. Here's the one I turned in:
























And here's one that really shows off the amazing work of the Winston-Salem graffiti artists:























And here is Brent's cool new shirt (thanks Mom):
























Also, it was like 25 degrees outside when we took these and Brent was a good sport to take his jacket off for me (ok, he did whine a lot, but he still did it).

Now onto this week's assignment. Maybe I'll post about it if they turn out!

Christmastime!

We spent Christmas Day in Idaho Falls this year, and it was my very first Christmas without my family. I wasn't sure how I would feel missing Christmas at home, but the McNaughts have a lot of their own...unique...traditions (oranges and peanuts in stockings??) which made it fun. I think the kids in their family must be a lot smarter than we were because they make a big deal about using all the same wrapping paper from Santa, and all the Santa gifts have to be in the same place, and have to come out at the right time...etc, etc...I don't think I ever would have noticed!! haha. Let's be honest, I just wanted presents.

Anyway, we had a grand old time making candy sleighs and racing them for prizes, making Christmas treats, watching old slides, and playing with our adorable and entertaining niece and nephews...but I hope that we'll be somewhere a bit warmer next year. No offense Idaho (but seriously, it was frreeeezzzinnnggg).

Brent's sister Anna and her little man Vincent:

Grandma Jean:

I got recruited to take the family picture, which I was a little worried about....

But it actually turned out pretty well...

Idahoooo

We were lucky enough to get to go to both of our homes this Holiday season! Idaho was freezing, so we went up to Brent's friend Chad's cabin in Island Park to make the most of the winter wonderland. You have to drive in on snowmobiles, carrying all of your stuff, which was funny and entertaining, especially when people fell off. The best part was hanging out with people we hadn't seen in yeeeears...like Matt:

and Chad:

And Kat:

Brent was there too...

Among others....like Blake and Will:

Matt was kind enough to give me the opportunity to exercise my second amendment rights for the very first time! Unfortunately the first shot (when I fell over backwards) was not recorded, but the second shot (when I look really confused awesome) was.

In case you're wondering I was shooting at a tree, and I shot it twice!! The same tree!! Impressive, I know. Here's the cabin:

Then we sat around burning stuff in the coal stove. The glass shattered when someone accidentally splashed some melting snow drops onto it...oooops. At least it looked cool.

There was also a lot of Nintendo, which I forgot to document, and some delicious chicken tortilla soup (even without the beans and corn which we forgot at Walmart checkout...) and several movies (including Contact). Thanks Chad's Dad, and Chad, it was a trip to remember!!

more pictures here.