KodaSnap

I Suppose...

...as much as I hate the state of Florida, I need to accept that yes, it does have some things that I cannot deny the awesomeness of. This is one of those things.

This is how we spent our Sunday...

Stump Pass Beach from kristie kulik on Vimeo.

Inspiration

It is easy to get inspired in the world of photography...there is eye candy in every direction. There is inspiration, and then there is Inspiration. I have been meaning to share this video here for a while now, but I am a flighty girl and I forget things as soon as I tell myself to remember them. This video is Inspiration. It draws me in. It slaps me in the face. It asks me hard questions. I. love. it.

http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2009/archives/3433

This video is by Zack Arias, who is one of my favorite photographers. The amazing music? That is his wife, Meghan.

Why am I sharing this video? Because I truly think that every. single. person. can take something from it. I don't care if you are an artist, an office worker, a public servant, you can grow from watching this video.

Binge & Purge, Samsung Style

My happy little Blackjack II had a full tummy of photos. I was scrolling through them last night and discovered that I take an awful lot of random cell phone photos. It is sort of like peeking into someone's medicine cabinet when you snoop at their cell phone pics :) What is a girl to do with all of these photos? Well, create the world's most annoying blog post, that's what! Who doesn't want to be flooded with a ridiculous amount of bad randomness? Certainly not you!

 my happy little pond :)

the grass that I planted. yeah, that's right, I'm proud! That was not easy work I tell ya'!

A fine piece of literary fantasticness. I have a sick obsession with chuckisms.

this adorable little face...

...is capable of this kind of damage.

driving through Vermot makes me a happy girl.

I have been known to harass my dogs

who wouldn't want a slice of this awesomeness?!

I have been known to harass hubby also.

sometimes, I like to frighten my friends with my lunch choices. it's tasty goodness, I swear!

how does one go about getting nominated at the superstar of the month I wonder?

everyone should own a pair of Doc Martens. I have had these since I was in highschool. I was excited when I realized this...and obviously had to document them!

I have fantastic friends that send me tastiness.

do I really need to say anything?

I am getting domesticated *gasp*!!

Who has the coolest boss in the world? I do! He and his wife picked me up a pair of kissing pug salt & pepper shakers!!

I am so domesticated that I can now make apple pin cushions! *yes, that is a twilight book in the backgroung, what of it?

the older I get, the more practical my shoes get. dammmmmmmit.

*yeah, that's right, no socks! you have a problem with that???

I begged. I pleaded. I just cannot ignore an animal in need. sadly, I went home without a deer head. sigh.

this is what my couch looks like when I no longer have the flu and am able to peel myself off of it after living on it for daaaaaays.

I have a dog that humps my computer every day, all day. He makes little noise, so I keep him around for entertainment purposes.

And that, my friends, concludes the world's most annoying and unneccessarily long blog post. ta-ta!

edited to add....HOW could I have possibly forgotten this??? this is a cup of awesomeness sprinkled with some fantastical!

Leaf

I have not been shooting lately. remember, my mojo went mia? I apparently haven't been editing either, because I found this set of photos unedited. I took these when I was drowning in my little black cloud otherwise known as depression. I look at them and wonder, why did I even pick the camera up that day? Anyone that has been depressed knows that you don't want to do anything when you are wrapped up all tight in that glominess. I had picked the leaf up off the ground just prior to stepping over the welcome mat into the abyss, and had made a mental note to shoot it. It had some amazing color and texture to it, and I wanted to make sure to capture it before the color faded. instead, it sat out on the lanai for weeks. One day I finally saw it, and realized I was going to kick myself if I didn't shoot it before it lost it's awesomeness. So I forced myself to pick that damn camera up, and I shot for only maybe ten minutes. But I shot. And I am happy that I did, because the next week, the awesome leaf was no longer awesome, it was just another leaf.

 

color ones to make an appearance shortly :)

contest entry...

 

ok, I am entering this photo into a contest for a free canvas print. so bear with me and ignore this post if you must :) but I need to post it here as part of the entry. I also need to post the following text:

“I am entering this photo in the MCP Actions/Color Inc. Win a Gallery Wrap Canvas Photo Contest at http://mcpactions.com/blog.  I certify that I took this photo and give both parties permission to use this photograph on their blogs/sites.”

that's all. back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Dusty Camera

My camera is dusty. well, not technically, since it is in it's most happiest of happy homes (otherwise known as my favorite camera bag), but it is metaphorically dusty. I suppose the camera bag, though, is dusty. The point is, it is not getting used. It is strange to be a photographer at heart, and not have the desire to take photos. It is uncomfortable to have a photography blog, and not have the photos to blog about. There are days when I feel like the oomph is coming back...and then just like that, the oomph slips away. I have been busy wrestling with life and the complications it seems to enjoy throwing our way, and have somehow allowed my one and only passion to slowly slip away. Boo on that.

So where does that leave me? It leaves me with the task of somehow trying to find my mojo. I had it once, it told me it was going out for a pack of cigarettes, and it never came back. I am going to make missing posters, reward included of course, and post them on all the light posts and 7-eleven windows I can find. But in the meantime, I still have this blog. So where does that leave you*? Well, it leaves you with the task of looking at old crap while I ever-so-slowly clean out my external. it will be fun times had by all, I swear!

And so, tonight I ask you to suffer through yet another pupper post.

the cutie pie Tinker completely unaware that she is giving false advertising here.

 

lol, she is such a ragamuffin, but I love her just the same!

 

she kills me every day with her cuteness.

 

thanks for looking. and seriously, if you see my mojo, could you please ask it nicely to come home? 

*by you, I mean YOU. my one and only reader. yeah, that's right, I can check my stats on this bad boy, and I know you are out there. and by the way...thanks for sticking around ;)

mine, all mine

 

see this furry face? he's mine. alllllll mine. I always wanted my own dog. mind you, I had dogs around for most of my life, they just weren't mine. I begged and pleaded for a fluffly little white dog. You know what I got instead? A pair of fluffy white slippers. thanks mom! So once I was an "adult" I figured I had hit the jackpot and now, finally, I could have the dog I had always wanted. There was a small catch though...the hubster was not a dog person. at all. I worked at him. I chipped away at the hard exterior filled with lots of unforgiving "no"s. I plotted for years, yes, years, on how I could possibly convince this non-dog lover that we simply had to have a dog. I begged. I pleaded. When asked what I wanted for my birthday I responded with two words, "a dog". What do I want for Christmas? "a dog". I think I slowly drove him mad, because one day, he said yes. He said yes!!!!!

  

and suddenly, fate put a dog in my hands. just like that. We had a friend that had a friend that owed him money, but also had a pregnant dog. perhaps instead of a green payback, he could get a fur-lined payback. I wanted a female, the woman agreed to only give us a male. Koda was the only male in the litter...and also the pick of the litter. And he was mine! alllllll mine! I didn't have to agonize over which dog I should pick, he was already picked out for me.

Koda is one of the most stubborn creatures I have ever met, but also one of the coolest. He is grumpy and moody, just like his mom :)  He is incredibly loyal, loves to simply hang out, shakes his stuff when he is walking as if he is in a dog show, got the name grumble-butt because he is such a vocal grumbler, and scares himself every time he toots. He is the dog I never thought I would get. The dog I under-appreciate. The dog that watches me get ready every single morning. He is the dog that lovingly walks around wearing the horrid hair cuts that I give him without complaining and the dog that is determined to destroy every toy that comes through our door and the dog that is so very aloof, but turns into a snuggler the moment he senses that I truly need it.

He is mine. all mine.

nature

I like nature. I have been ignoring it lately, which makes me wonder. Is that part of the void I have been feeling? The lack of nature? I am not good with nature, being a princess and all, and tend to scare the wildlife off with my heavy walking and loud talking, but I still like it. I like the feeling of being alone. The feeling of being somewhere seperate from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. And yet I have been ignoring it. keeping away from it. I need to fix that. I need a good old fashioned nature fix. In the meantime...some old photos will have to do the trick.

It is amazing how easy it is to lose photos. I have been slooooooowly re-organizing my external hard drive and so every time I sit down it is like my birthday, finding surprise photos that I had forgotten about. This folder was titled "nature" so obviously I had to see what it had in store for me. Along with some catapillar pictures, there were these. I love the berry shots. and the flower? I just like it...it has been a resident of my backyard for a very long time, and it still intrigues me.

 

 

Gator Stew

Over the weekend the husband and I went to Myakka State Park, which almost always includes some sort of a wildlife encounter. This time around we had close encounters with an armadillo and some itty bitty baby alligators.

We were discussing how, being Floridians, we aren't really as impressed with gators as much as we should be. Really, they are pretty impressive creatures. But, we see them and just think, meh. Every now and then we will see a very big one, and then we are a bit more awed (or scared, if it happens to be residing in our canal, which happend in 2004- the year of the moster gator).

So while eating lunch, we learned through the grapevine that there were some baby gators and mama gator down by the water. Obviously, we had to go check it out. Getting near baby gators is sort of like getting near baby bears....you had better know where mama is! In the video, while the camera is trained on the babies, I am watching mama like a hawk, and the moment she went under water and headed our way, I was out. of. there. So really...there is nothing very exciting in the video, honeslty, I just really love the sound that baby gators make and wanted to try to get it on "film". So ignore my senseless incomplete sentences and look at the cutie pie baby gators.

baby gators from kristie kulik on Vimeo.

*no baby gators were harmed in the making of this video :)