Sunday Edition :: Kicking off the Holidays

I hope that you all had an absolutely lovely Thanksgiving weekend!  This year I am finding myself very ready for the holiday season and this was the most perfect weekend to kick off the season. 

We had the chilliest weather yet this fall; that made for the perfect excuse to make the weekend cozy and relaxing.  And I just might have started a little bit of holiday baking and decorating...

 I am so looking forward to yummy holiday treats, sparkly decorations, and having our apartment smell like pine.  So lets talk holidays... 

Are you starting to get excited too?  What little holiday decorations are making their way out of storage first this year?  For me it was a bowl filled with red & silver balls and shiny new garland wreath.

Sunday Edition: The Good Stuff

I think that I would enjoy the season a bit more if I wasn't so preoccupied with taking photos.  If I didn't care as much about those fleeting moments with natural sunlight.

I signed up to do the Souvenir Foto School Food + Foto session.  For this session I am focusing on the good stuff.  The way a simple treat can be elevated by the ingredient or by selecting quality over quantity.

This first week I sat in my office all week while the abundant sunshine faded by the time I got home and thought for sure there would be a chance to get some lovely fall light for my first photo over the weekend.  But no. It was quite gray this weekend.  And the bit of sun that poked out was not when I could take the photos. 

So I threw a little fit while trying to set up a mock studio in my little apartment with a couple of lamps and three chairs and a white sheet held by my husband for a diffuser (lacking white tissue paper) and a too rigid tripod along with a couple of discarded backdrops and various plates that didn't quite work for me. 

In the end I just cranked up the ISO, accepted the shadows, accepted the grain and called it a day.  All the while doing a little prayer for a sunny day next weekend... and reconsidering flash.  I meant to take a picture of the disaster that was my mock-studio as it was quite ridiculous- next time.

Sunday Edition: Fading Fall

November is definitely the downhill slide of autumn into winter.  Daylight savings always throws me for a loop; I am not sure I love that tomorrow it will be dark when leaving work.  The brilliant colors of autumn are fading.

I am rather liking the quiet that November is bringing. This bit of time to just be before the bustle of the holidays is upon us.

Sunday Edition: Halloween in the Neighborhood

Growing up, we decorated the house for every holiday.  For halloween it was pretty simple with jack o'lanterns and skeletons in the windows, a few halloween themed candy dishes, and of course the standard jack o'lanterns on the steps.  People in Chicago take it up a notch.  Living in a neighborhood with lots of kids adds to this; I would say around 75% of the houses in our hood are decorated... a lot of them going all out.

We aren't dressing up or decorating for halloween this year.  I am just not that into it this year and halloween is pretty low ranking on my holiday list.  But I could get into hanging a cute halloween garland once we have kids.  For now, I am enjoying the festive sights when we go out for a walk.

Hope you have a happy halloween!

Sunday Edition: October

Right now in middle of autumn I am loving...

• Baking apple crisp and making carrot soup
• Brisk family walks
• Visiting photography exhibits
• Speed-work runs
• Saturday afternoon naps
• Smearing paint onto a canvas
• Pulling the cold weather clothes out of storage