I'm pretty much the worst at school projects. I am a complete slacker and usually don't look at the requirements for the assignment until the night before.
This is the situation I found myself in last week. It was t-minus fourteen hours before my digital photography assignment was due and I was getting freaked out. The assignment? An animal portrait. Me? Has no animals. Status? Problem.
So I did what any other desperate, animal-less, Idahoan teen in digital photo would do. I hit the foothills. With my dad as my chauffeur (thanks Dad!) and my beloved camera in hand, I wandered the foothills until I came across some horses and cows. Though both kinds of animals made great easy subjects for my last minute assignment, the cows stole my heart. They're like a mix of a cow and a labradoodle and it took all of my strength to not reach beyond the wire fence and pet their shaggy foreheads, right between their huge stab-y horns.
After a little internet search on my new loves, I found out that they were Highland bulls. Do yourself a favor and Google "Highland calf" and squeal and ooh and awwww.
I think I've gone and fallen in love with a cow.
Oops.
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I'm certain that there's something to the statement "practice makes perfect". Obviously, if you work hard at something, you're most likely going to improve, and I can see the opposite being true as well: if you don't practice a skill, you're going to quickly notice when you finally return back to it. For example, there was a few months awhile back when I didn't pick up a single book. That was extremely unusual for me since I typically go through one to two novels in a week. Anyways, after a period of not reading, I notice my vocabulary starting to shrink and the next time I did pick up a book, it took me an extremely long time to read and comprehend it. The same is true with my photography. In eighth grade, I started really getting into it and was doing photoshoots with friends on a regular basis. I saw myself improving. However, due to lack of models and time, I haven't done many photoshoots since last year and as a result, have seen my photographs getting worse and worse. When I take a big batch of pictures (around 500 a shoot) there are only a lucky few that I deem "decent but definitely needs work". It's actually really depressing. On my snow day last month, I convinced my lovely friend, Anna (say hello to Anna everyone!), to model for me and she did a wonderful job. It was my first photoshoot in almost a year though so I was a bit rusty (aka I had to double check where the shutter button was). However, I wanted to share a few of my pictures because by forcing myself to show people my failures makes me want to improve myself so I have something stunning to show y'all in the future. Re-looking (that isn't a word is it?) at these pictures makes me realize how much more I need to and want to practice. I want to be great at what I do. I'm still learning though, and my understanding of photography and how it works is growing and maybe one day I will be great. For right now though, I'll just try to be content with my current skill level and try to not beat myself up over mistakes or a set of pictures that only contains one "decent but definitely needs work" photo and 499 other displeasing ones.
After all, it is said that your first 40,000 pictures are your worst. I still have at least 30,000 to go! #confidenceboost I just have to keep on practicing and taking advantage of Anna's loveliness! Thank you for being a perfect model Anna, even though I ruined your gorgeous face with my rusty photographer skills. Aaaaaannnnnddddd I'm back. Hello again! I'm not really sure what "grass jelly" is, but I think I could take a pass if the contents of this can look anything like the picture. The stuff you find in Chinatown.... While my family wandered the streets in search of matcha, we also watched a movie crew come through and set up for a take. I had no idea what the movie was or who was in it, but it didn't stop me from slowly walking by the camera guys a few times, hoping for my chance to be discovered and become a star. Next stop: the Waialua Sugar Mill on the North Shore of Oahu. This one was a new stop for me, but my parents had already been. The old sugar mill is a strange mash of things; a soap factory (warning- don't smell the soap. It's disgusting and then you can't rid your nasal passages of the scent for another hour), a sugar mill, a coffee, cocoa, and sugar plantation, and a large gift shop in a warehouse. My mom swears by their shaved ice. After devouring my lilikoi shave ice, I would have to agree with my mother and say that the Waialua Sugar Mill is where it's at. Waialua makes their own all-natural syrups, using the sugar cane they grow on their plantation, which is pretty cool! While on the North Shore during previous visits, I've made a point to stop by a cute little fruit stand and pick up a bag of mixed tropical fruits. I reeealllly love fruit, and getting to try all the exotic ones is really fun. I found the same fruit stand I bought from the last time, but the women running it said that they no longer cut up their fruits. Lame. But their stand still earned a quick photograph. Disappointed in the lack of mixed fruit bags, we continued down the North Shore until we came across a different fruit stand, this one that had precisely what I was searching for and more. My family also split one of those fried banana lumpia things that were advertised on the sign (side note: lumpia is a really gross name for a food) and it was quite tasty... and I can't stand bananas! Take a second to look at those fruits... guava and dragon fruit and persimmons and lychee, and papaya... oh my! A fourth point of interest is the store HE>i. HE>i is a Christian lifestyle brand that aims to provide creative, quality items in a way that gets people talking. The company got their name, He Greater Than I, from John 3:30. He must become greater; I must become less. Every member of my family owns at least one product from HE>i, and I am currently debating whether or not I should get a sticker for my car (if you go to their website -here!- you can help me choose!) Quick, random story about HE>i... since the greater than symbol and the "i" are really close together in the logo, my family originally thought that it was a backwards "k" and began calling the company "heeki". The name stuck with us, and now I can't talk about the brand without referring to it as "heeki". I love this brand because of their cool message and their super soft tees! I think while in Hawaii, I had the strangest eating experience of my life. We were famished after a full day of swimming and snorkeling and desperately searching for food. We came across a local Thai restaurant and were all interested in what was on the menu. We were dreaming of pad thais and curries the entire drive to Opal's Thai and after an hour wait, we were finally seated. The owner came up to us, took our menus out of our hands and threw them to the side. "Now," he started. "Name five thai dishes." I don't like being put on the spot. I don't do so well. The only dish I could think of was curry and I'm not even sure if the word ended up coming out of my mouth. Opal, the owner, asked my family a few more questions about what kind of flavors we like, what kind of meats we're okay with, how hot of food we can tolerate, and what we last ate at a Thai restaurant. Once we answered his series of questions, he assured us that we would be taken care of, scribbled a few things on the order pad, and walked off. I think we were all a little dazed. What just happened? Then the food started coming and I know exactly what happened. We ate it and we ate it fast. We were starving and the Thai dishes were extremely good. At the end of our meal, after three appetizers and three entrees had been devoured by our table, we asked what we had been served and Opal refused to answer. So who knows what I ate? All I know is that I think I was okay with it, despite my control freak nature. Okay, this is the second to last time I bring up food in this post. I promise. So my dad's friend owns a restaurant called the Grass Skirt Grill, also on the North Shore. Every time my parents go to Hawaii, they stop by to say hi and indulge in some delicious food. The Grass Skirt Grill sells a lot of tasty stuff. Apparently their fish is really great, but if you aren't a seafood fan (like moi!), then anything else on the menu should suit you. I got a mushroom sandwich with some sort of red pepper sauce and it was oh-so-good. I attempted to take a photo with my phone and it didn't turn out so great, so you'll just have to trust me when I say that the food is fantastic. And. The. Fries. The fries. THE GARLIC FRIES. That is why you go there. That's the real reason. I don't know what kind of drugs are in the garlic sauce that they drizzle over their fries, but they ought to be illegal. Seriously, those fries are addictive and earn some serious drooling from me. Now you know that evidently all I did on this trip was eat. However, this is not the case! I laid out in the sun to tan and read, swam, or snorkeled among the tropical fish most days. Here's a quick Instagram snapshot of one of my favorite days. It was our last day in Hawaii, a lovely sunny Friday, and I spent the final few hours of our trip laying in the sand, soaking up rays and a bit of color, sipping rose lemonade in my over-sized shades, and reading Rilla of Ingleside (the final book in the Anne of Green Gables series.... I'm so obsessed!). This is the last time I talk about food, I swear. Anyways, I had read online that Honolulu Coffee Company sells macarons and I got extremely excited. I was even more excited after finding out that their flavors were all fun and Hawaiian. I stopped in and bought two just before heading to the airport, a haupia and a lilikoi flavor. They were so stunning, but unfortunately, the only place to take a picture was on the dark airplane just before departure, so I apologize. I feel so bad that you can't see how beautiful the haupia one was (below). Oh well. Though I'm sure I could come up with dozens more stories, I'll try to cut myself off. I just couldn't help not sharing some of my favorite Hawaiian places with you guys. Hopefully you weren't too terribly bored.
Goodbye for now lovely readers! |
About meCoffee drinker. Book reader. Thrift shopper. Photo taker. Globe traveler. Jesus lover. ♡ Archives
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