Katie Pertiet : Documenting + Designing

Taking Christmas Card Pictures

It's that time! Getting Ready to make Christmas Cards!
And that means trips to the park in hopes of that perfect shot. This weekend, after I convinced Kelly to put on the red sweater [for striking photos ;)] she convinced me to drive down to our old neighborhood and pick up the boyfriend and head to a park down there. She needs to get drive hours in and I needed to get out so it all worked out. I think I might even have gotten *the* shot. And then I got a few bonus pictures with the boyfriend too.

Still deciding what exactly I plan to do for my cards this year, but have you seen the new Christmas cards coming to DesignerDigitals from Janet Long? And there are more coming! Love them!

 

It's Her First Birthday

It's hard to believe but Dixie turned ONE... back in January!

I know, I know... I'm not keeping up with the blog but I am doing my best to keep taking pictures and posting when I can!

I acted as the trainer for these pictures and Randy was behind the lens. Randy posted some of his pictures to flickr and got a notice that one of Dixie celebrating her big day was on dogbreedstore.com!

I got the dog-only birthday biscuits at a specialty dog store. When I saw them I *knew* that Dixie needed them for her birthday!

This is one well-loved dog!

A Reflection

Today and heck, for that matter, all this week it's rainy and dreary so I'm especially drawn to my cruise pictures. Going thru and remembering warm days of relaxing and exploring. Good days with someone cleaning up after us and cooking for us. I could get used to that life! ;)

Then I came across this picture. I took a number of self-portraits on this trip. Not something I've done much of before but Ali Edwards inspired my to look for reflections. I signed up for her scrapbook on the road class and although I haven't even found the time to get thru the full class, just the first lesson got me going. I've been thinking and rethinking how to capture this trip and seeing side projects in-between with these self potraits.

This week has me busy creating [guess it's good it's raining] to get ready for our 2nd Quarter sale at DesignerDigitals. The first release of products is on Thursday and then a second release on Saturday morning. And Saturday we are in the chat room all day with chats from 8am-11:30pm EST. Hope to see you there!

Words + Pictures

As I've gotten older, the value of family has become so much stronger. Family is the root of our existence. It connects us and keeps us grounded. It is the link to our past and the foundation for our future.

This past weekend my cousin Jamie was married in an absolutely beautiful service at a church that I remember going to Latin masses with my grandparents at. Randy and I made the trip up to Long Island with my parents that had flown in for the weekend. The road trip up was filled with stories from my Dad [he's the biggest storyteller you'll ever meet!] and lots of time with extended family and sharing of more stories. It made me think more about how important scrapbooking is to tell this story. And although I've been mostly a random scrapper, chronological books need to be done to tell the story of the evolution of our family and all the people we've connected with along the way.

My Dad has been writing a book of his stories and I look forward to that treasure and hope to connect it with my scrapbooks someday because it is about not only the words but the pictures too. But for now I treasure my time with family and the photos I've taken to keep the memories intact.

4.6GIG of photos

a week away and 4.6GIGs worth of photos later, I'm back at my desk. Downloading and editing pictures, creating new products and finding normal again.

with thousands of pictures comes hundreds of outtakes and I'm thinking about a creative way to use all my outtakes and make a book while it's all fresh

it was a good spring break and Kelly had a great birthday at sea... getting back on schedule is sure a challenge though!

:)

Win on Wednesday!

I may be off on spring break...

but one of my friends gave me this great game to give away!

Would you like to win a NEW Photo-opoly Game?

The winning is easy! Simply leave me a comment telling me if you shoot RAW or JPEG AND if you shoot on Auto, Aperture Priority, or Manual etc

I'm not sure what my internet access will be while I'm out so this will end on or about Friday evening! And ONE winner will be chosen at random.

Good Luck!

A Sunday Amongst the Cherry Blossoms

Yesterday we were lucky and the forecasted snow didn't arrive! So Randy and I went down to DC amongst the Cherry Blossoms to attend a National Georgaphic seminar by Catherine Karnow and Aaron Huey on Travel Photography. It was inspiring. A favorite line was that we, as photographers, are Light Hunters. Love that! We need to look for the light because there is no photograph without light and good light helps you to make a good picture. I have a feeling I will be looking at things completely differently when we go on spring break in just over 2 weeks!

the photo above was taken with my iPhone 4 and framed with Transparency Frames No. 7

Up Close with Dixie

I love my new iPhone.

I have the new 4G iPhone and the camera in it is soooo much better than my old one!

Sometimes the big lens just doesn't want nose prints all over it ;)

It's been a Snow Week

This has not just been a snow day, but a snow week! Monday and Tuesday school was out for teacher in-service days and then we've had snow days Wednesday, Thursday and today, Friday.

Dixie absolutely loves the snow!

And Kelly loves playing in the snow with the neighbor girls that she babysits and they love her too!

But we're done with this now... bring on spring please ;)

Snow Delay

Ice and snow overnight led to a snow delay today of two hours.

And after today we have a long weekend with Monday and Tuesday off for teacher days of some sort with more snow expected Tuesday into Wednesday so we could be looking at a really long weekend!

But Dixie absolutely loves the snow! Eats the snow, sticks her head in the snow and seems to enjoy a little brain freeze LOL :)

And I'm enjoying my iPhone 4--the camera is so much better than my old iPhone so I keep it in my pocket on walks for pictures like these :)