More photos

Hey everyone, I know I've been silent on the blog lately. Having a new baby has been hard on my free time. Anyway I finally got around to putting up the majority of the photos that we have taken of Aven on the web so feel free to browse through them if you want.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.k.bailey

I'll try to keep posting more up there as we take them, until we hit or storage limit that is.

A Few of My Favorite Parts

So many irresistible little parts to admire. The new thing I noticed today are two hairs on the crown of her head that are about and inch and a half long, twice as long as all the other hairs on her head. I have a strong urge to spike them up with pomade because they're so cute.

Flowers at the Park Bldg.

I was out taking photos of the new Park building facade, and I the trees all around it were flowering. So I thought I would take a couple of pretty flower photos. These are for you Cara. Love you.

MillCreek in Winter an Artistic Interpretation

Now that I posted the photos we took of us at MillCreek, I wanted to post a couple more artistic photos I took while enjoying our hike.

This one focuses on Grace but I was really enjoying the look of the blurry background with other hikers to add to the scene. I also like the curved lines of the cross country ski tracks. I think it really adds a nice visual line that leads to the hikers in the background.

This one is from Grace's point of view.

I liked these little dead seed pods as well. This one shows a blurry hiker traped between the twigs of the branch.

This one includes a blurry Grace and Cara walking away from the camera.

An Aven(t)-full life.

Some of you may have noticed the new title and banner at the top of the blog. I've been wanting to come up with a better blog title for a while now and I also wanted to put my own personal photo for the top of the page. The photo is one I took in Washington D.C. the leaf was caught on the edge of a fountain. This is one of my favorite photos that I have taken in a long time.
This is the original photo. I cropped it down to fit the page title space. It's still a little bigger than I want. I might do more tweaking to it later.


As to the new title of the page. We have finally decided on a name for our new daughter: Aven Bailey. Aven is going to be the first name, unless we change our minds in the next 2 months, which is possible. We are also still deciding on if were going to do a middle name or not.

Floating

Floating



I just found this shot I took last summer at Flaming Gorge.
It''s more impressive at full resolution, Click on the photo to make it nice and big.
What do you think of it?

Vacant Lot

Here are some photos I took while I was out looking over a vacant lot for a class project. I took Grace with me since I thought she would enjoy the walk. I also managed to find a few little quirky things to take photos of.


Here's a cute dog wondering why we are stopping to take a photo when there are many more places with interesting smells that need smelling.

These are a couple of photos that I took of the crushed mailbox that you can see in the background of the photo with Grace. The little orange thing on the mailbox just begging to have it's photo taken.

Night photos

Night time is perhaps my best time for inspiration, photography wise. Some of my best times out taking photographs happened at night. They don't always turn out to be the best photos I've taken, in fact that's rare. But something about being out at night in the quiet solitude, just inspires me to grab my camera and start snapping away. I love to just walk around on a nice quiet night and see what turns up. The photos below are from a recent trip to visit my Father in Law (Craig) down in his home in Redmond Utah for Christmas. The nights down there are wonderful. It's quiet and it's dark so the night sky is actually visible. This particular night everyone had already gone to sleep for the night. Except Craig who was doing his best to try and stay up until dawn watching TV. I went out alone in the darkness. I wasn't up for a long walk, maybe some other trip down when it's warmer. I took all of these just around the house.


Here's Orion, one of my favorite constellations since he's so easy to find. This was taken by placing my camera on the ground and holding the shutter open for about 30 seconds, or so. I never really time it I just guess and use trial and error until I get the shot I'm looking for.

This was across the street, I liked the way the inflatable snowman looked illuminated in the darkness.

This one's down the street a little. I just liked the way the snow glistened on the road.

I Heart Andrew Wyeth

My favorite artist, Andrew Wyeth died January 16th in his sleep at age 91. If you haven't heard of this artist or are not very familiar with him I suggest that you read the Wikipedia site about him or visit his official website. I fell in love with his work several years ago when I was just a young art student. I think he has remained my favorite artist for so long because I discovered him on my own. I was not lectured to about him in art history, shown examples of his work in any of my studio classes, or told how great he is or isn't by some higher art authority. In fact, I cannot even remember any of my art professors mentioning him or his work even once. I have always felt a sort of kinship with him since we share a birthday, but that is where any similarities between he and I end. I just love his work, his process, and that he lived his life exactly how he wanted to- he didn't take crap from anyone. With that in mind, enjoy a few of my favorites:
"Pennsylvania Landscape", 1941. I have this print and am just waiting for my darling husband to hang it up. It is almost impossible to really enjoy this painting without seeing it, or a print of it, large and up close. In this small picture it looks like just another landscape, but it is incredibly detailed and much more bleak that your typical landscape, but in a really beautiful, unique way. It is also painted with egg tempera, a really difficult, precise medium that has almost died out.
Above is "Ides of March", not sure about the year. If you know me at all you'll know that I included this because it's a painting of a dog. Like the image above, seeing it small on a computer screen does it absolutely no justice.


"Winter", 1946. This is one of Wyeth's first egg tempera paintings outside of the bright, splashy watercolor style he started his career with. Bleak, haunting, and you have to love the boy's shadow- brilliant.



I couldn't pay real tribute to Mr. Wyeth without including a painting from the "Helga Series". The above painting is titled "Letting Her Hair Down", 1972. Andrew Wyeth painted Helga Testorf in secret for 14 years before showing the extensive collection of drawings and paintings to his wife, and then the world. Sorry Ian, I don't care if you have an art degree, no making art of naked women behind my back.

Farewell, Mr. Wyeth. I'll be enjoying your work and spreading the word about your brilliance whenever I can.

Editor's Note, Cara posted this message without realizing she was signed in as me. So despite saying posted by Ian this was posted by Cara.

Our Yard Panoramics

Here's the Panoramic photo I took of our back yard as promised in the earlier post. I told you it's not that good. I did it really quickly. Maybe someday I'll find time to make a better one. It does a decent job of showing how small it is back there.

Here's the original of composite of the photos before I cropped it. I like this one because it shows the neighbors giant tree that dominates the backyard, and it shows the porch off to the right. It also shows our cute dog who thinks I'm out there to play with her. Lucy's in this photo as well, You have click the photo to enlarge and look close, she's a small dog.

Here's the panoramic of our front yard. as you can see it's better quality but I missed a couple of spots for the bottom corners. But we still got a cute dog in there. I think she's trying to figure out if she can make a break for it.

This is from the same photo set It was later that day when we took Grace for a walk. I did this series for a project about my home and neighborhood. Taking Grace for walks in the nearby park is part of my neighborhood so I included it.

Panoramic

I'm at work and I have a headache so enjoy this Panoramic photo I took of the campus just south of the Library.
You'll have to click on it to see it in full glory.

Cara's Kaleidoscope

Cara took this photo at my parents house during their Christmas party. It's a Christmas tree looking through a glass. I like it.