another day...

started the day with some earl grey... (that rhymes!) good company... and yummy pastries. on a side note, i've been really enjoying tea lately. i just found out they have chai in tea bags, not the powder kind, at coffee bean. exciting!

yep, in my backyard again... backyardigan. my nephew loves that show...

do you see the ant? it's so cute!

bumblebee bumblebee... what do you see?

the female and male...

not a good angle of this flower, i know, but the colors! the colors are so vivid and vibrant!

sometimes even weeds are beautiful...

orange tint...

*edit*
i figured it out! just had to change my white balance to custom white balance... awesome!

________________________

why do i get this horrible orange tint on my pictures? i notice it happens in low-light levels. it must have something to do with the settings on my camera, but i don't know what i'm doing. usually, the picture is too dark, so i slow down the shutter speed... and change the white balance. then, magically, everything becomes oompa-loompa ish!

*shrugs* beats me! i've tried playing around with iso and aperture but perhaps i'm playing around with it in all the wrong ways.

=(

A Funny Day....

I was about to step into the shower today when...
"Please, kind lady, help me... I need a towel."
I couldn't help but start giggling at this... thing, this... drowned rat with very large ears.

"Okay, that's enough. Give me a towel lady."

I wrapped the thing up and it dozed off...

Suddenly, it awoke, exclaiming, "Ta-Da!" To which I blinked and stared at it blankly.

"You mean, you don't recognize me?" I replied, "Hmm... you do look familiar..."

The thing became very sad and hid. I scratched my head, now where have I seen this thing before?

It suddenly became very angry. "IT'S ME! IT'S ME!!!!"

"You mean, you really don't know who I am?"

*Sigh* Food has lost its appeal...

"Woe is me..."

"JUST KIDDING, MADELEINE! I knew it was you all along!"

"Don't stick your tongue at me."

p.s. on a completely unrelated note. i have no idea how to crop pictures... help!
I guess I should rephrase that. I am able to on my computer... but I don't know how to. As in, I don't know what the "rules" are...

Why do I love photo editing programs?

Here is why:

notice the pale vampire-like skin and the bad composition.


Wow... a 2 minute tan. =) And got rid of the shine on my eyeliner.

Now all my moles and freckles on my face are gone. And the bags under my eyes. And the stray flyaways... So is my nose, but then again, I've always hated my nose. Also made the composition much better. Now it looks like I was actually looking at something. (I wasn't)

Awesome!

Adventures in Little Tokyo

I've noticed that I like when my pictures are super saturated. Maybe it's because when I upload them onto this blog, they look dull and lifeless... *shrugs*

Andrew and I took a little trip to Little Tokyo the other day...

The food here was SO good. I think it was called Joy Mart. yumm...
I got sick of cropping this picture. It's hard to try and apply the rule of thirds when you've got a crappy angle and composition to work with. It can still use some work but I got sick of it.
okay I made myself go and recrop it because it was bothering me. better? worse? same?

This thing looked unnaturally HULK-ish green before I uploaded it. It's lost some of it's "zing".





This umbrella gave me such a hard time. It was mounted really high up on the wall and I couldn't get a good angle of it. So I decided to just shoot a million pictures of it and crop when I got home. Well, I couldn't crop it very well... so I just gave up and picked one randomly... then SUPER saturated it. =)

I eventually got kicked out of the Hello Kitty store.

I am addicted to fixing the saturation on all of my pictures. It just makes me happy...

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!

Went to the L.A. Zoo today and took some pictures. Also realized I need a zoom lens.Thought that this was the funniest sign ever. A bit scary, but funny.

The alligators didn't move much.

This isn't a good picture, but I found it funny that the giraffes would look straight into the camera, as if they knew...

I know, I always take pictures of flowers, but I couldn't resist. They were just so pretty... (this is the only one from this post that is SOOC, btw...)

This picture actually didn't come out well, but I fixed the color and saturation on my computer.

Another flower, I know. This wasn't at the zoo, but in my front yard. Love the color.

Caulfield Ave.

I've noticed that picture color looks less saturated after uploaded onto blogger. Is it just me? On my computer, they look much more vibrant.

I was going to take some pictures around UCLA after class, but it was so gloomy and overcast, so I just came home. When I got home, the day was nice and sunny so I took a few pictures in my backyard...
I love the color of these red things... I wish I knew what they were.

On the LCD screen, the pink flower looked white, so I was happy to see the color came out when I uploaded it. (Although now uploaded onto blog, it's not as vibrant... so strange)

Can you believe this was in my backyard? Reminds me of the Korean countryside...


I love this mobile, it used to be in my room when I was younger. I played around with it on my computer a bit to get this effect. I'm quite pleased with the results.

It was fun to notice things that I never really saw before. Funny how the camera really gives you a third "eye" huh?

A photo journal

So I've decided to turn this into a log (blog?) of pictures I take. I just got my camera yesterday, and I'm still learning how to use it... as well as the basics of photography. If you'd like to leave any tips or suggestions, please feel free!

p.s. Any tips on how to take pictures in direct sunlight?

Favorite pictures of today (all sooc):

And a favorite from yesterday: