Two years ago, I went on a quest. It was called, Quest: Lose my Chub. I tried losing weight previously and I lasted all of about one week, if that. Can we say lazy? Well I don’t know what lit a fire under me but one day I woke up and spontaneously decided it would be a great day to start a diet. Okay, it was New Years…but hey it worked! I started to workout 6 days a week for at least an hour a day. This led me to my most dreaded form of exercising, running. Why I wanted to abuse myself is beyond me but before I knew it I was running 5 miles a day and was in the best shape of my then 25 year old life. I lost a total of 35 pounds in about 5 months and I felt great. I had more energy, I slept better and it became routine for me to eat healthy.
Then last summer, I decided to go back to school and finish my degree while working full time. This, my friends, is where the excuses start. Ever since I started back up in school and especially now that I’m trying to start a business while working full time has led me to being very inactive again. I still eat healthy 80% of the time because I’ve just kept up my eating habits so I’ve kept most (not all) of my weight off. I’ve sworn to go back to the gym and even woke up one morning at 5:30 to go before work. Yeah, you read that right, once. I’ve gone back and forth a few times but now that I’m blogging for all the world to see, really all of my 5 readers, I figured this is a way to get me more committed again. I’d be shamed for life if I didn’t stick to it. 
I’m trying to find a better balance in my life. Right now everything is work, then come home and work on our website and the many other things that come along with it. I love what I’m doing but I need to learn how to fit everything in, because that’s not happening in my life right now.
I’ll take words of wisdom if you have them!
Here I am on the left looking like I just ate an entire cheesecake in one sitting.
Now here I am working off my poundage.
So, Thanksgiving whizzed right on by huh? I had a great day with Pat’s family (thanks Diane and Jeff for the awesome dinner!). Now we’re officially on the fast track to Christmas! I have to admit, I’m pretty excited about it. I love shopping for gifts, decorating my house and watching the movie Elf over and over again. I also like humilating my dog by making her wear Christmas costumes. Lets hope I can find a cute Santa outfit for her this year! She will then officially hate me but I’ll accept it because I would hate me too.
Aside from all of the holiday madness, Pat and I have officially launched our new website, obrienphoto.net! The .com was taken, grr! We’ve been working on it every night after work for over a month now and everything is finally coming together. We also started a new blog to go along with it, because that’s just what I need, to mange two seperate blogs! I will have help with it, so it won’t be too bad. 
For now, we took a couple of my posts from my blog just to have something there since we haven’t had time to write anything on it. Maybe that’s what I should be doing right now instead…oh well, this one is my baby. Anyway, make sure you check out our new site and let us know what you think! We still have a few tweaks to make but it’s in audience worthy condition at least.
Follow us on twitter: @obrienphoto
Here’s a link to our main site:
The link to our blog:
Last but not least, our brand new fanpage on Facebook. We just launched this last night after eating too much turkey so we’re looking pretty pathetic. Help us out and like us!
http://www.facebook.com/OBrienPhoto
Somehow, it’s that time of year again. You know, the time where family and friends come together, enjoy each others company and eat tons of delicious food. That’s the thought behind it anyway. In my family, it usually starts out that way and then a couple of hours go by and someone is bound to cry. Oh you have to love family drama! It’s my favorite part of the holiday; especially when someone says please pass me the turkey leg and it goes flying across the dining room table into someone’s face. Ok, I’m exaggerating a little but it really depends on who’s getting together to celebrate!
This year will be different because we are going to Pat’s families for Thanksgiving. They are nice, quiet and peaceful. You know, just a good old fashioned nice time eating mashed potatoes and stuffing while making a few jokes…then I bring him to my family’s parties and I think he wants to run and hide in the guest bedroom for most of the day. We are loud, we are crude and dude, we are rude. Totally kidding (kind of), I really just wanted to rhyme.
My personal highlights are when my grandma gives me and my cousins the “alcoholism sneaks up on you” speech while she’s pouring her forth glass of Bud. Or when my mom and my aunt’s battle like it’s WWIII for no apparent reason (you can try to deny but we all know the truth). I also love when my dad breaks out “The Kenny” dance…I can’t even describe this dance as you barely move, you just have to sway your arms in and out and you have it down. Don’t get me started on his “my back hurts” dance…
In the end, we can all make each other laugh so hard we cry. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we enjoy each other’s company…most of the time. Although we might be a little crazy, I wouldn’t change it for the world and that’s what I’m thankful for this year.
This picture is definitely the wrong Holiday, it was Easter, but it’s the only embarrassing picture I have of my brothers, cousins and I that is on the interwebs. I’m on the far right. Look how happy I am to have my finest outfit on. There are no words for this photo…just, no words!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I’m going to just throw it out there and say I had a great weekend even though I sat staring at a computer screen expressionless for the entire weekend; with the exception on Friday night. On Friday, I got to go see the amazingly hilarious Kathy Griffin. Love her! She tells it like she sees it and I appreciate that quality in people. I wished I possessed even an inkling of that quality but I’m too scared of the repercussions!
I went to this show, you know with dirty jokes and other things I won’t discuss, with my family…quite the normal family outing right? Well, that’s because we’re definitely not normal. First off, my dad just wants to go anywhere there’s a vodka drink waiting for him. “This one’s for the knees”, he says. Oh Papa, you never fail to make me laugh with your excuses. My mother on the other hand…lets just say she’s a little out there. In a good way…I think. People tell me I’m like her so yes, definitely in a good way! It’s completely normal to have your mother teach your friends how to burp the ABC’s at your birthday party right? Or was that just at my household? Anyway, I also went with my aunt who is exactly like my mother and my favorite cousin of all time, Dave. When we get together we’re like Siamese twins and we’ve been that way since we were little kids. Our fun usually consists of ragging on our family, tipping back adult beverages and talking about the Real Housewives….of any city! So the combo of our own nuttiness along with Kathy Griffin’s made for a very entertaining night!
I’m adding this photo even though it was taken with my Droid since I feel the need to provide one with every post. Excuse my martini squint! I mean, I was just fa-realrealz happy to be at a comedy show.
For the rest of the weekend, I took out my other personality and got all serious and studious. I sat and watched Tamara Lackey on CreativeLive.com all day Saturday and Sunday. She’s a childrens photographer and I wasn’t familiar with her work but I decided to check it out anyway. Although I don’t want to specialize in kids photography, I’m always looking to find new perspectives in the business. Let me tell you, she did not disappoint; especially in the business portion of the workshop. I learned so much about marketing, client relationships and pricing just to name a few. If you didn’t catch the live feed of the session, I highly recommend you purchase it if you’re looking for new and creative ideas. You can thank me later!
Did any of you catch it? What did you think?
I’ve wanted to be a photographer since I was in high school. I made my parents buy me my first SLR film camera for my 18th birthday. I had no idea what I was doing! But that didn’t stop me from taking blurry, underexposed pictures on a daily basis. Hell, I didn’t even know what underexposed meant. I brought it with me everywhere and documented me and my friends doing awesome things like sitting around our bedrooms, driving around aimlessly, pretty much doing nothing like all teenagers do. One day, I was in a bright and shiny kind of mood so I brought it to a friend’s house and they were really impressed with my little SLR camera. They were snapping pictures left and right, having quite an amazing time, and then preceded to drop it on the ground, in front of me…it landed next to my feet. In my mind I saw this in slow motion and thought, “NOOOOO”, but out loud I shrugged it off as an accident and swore it would be ok. Well, it wasn’t and dog nabbit I’m still mad about it! From there on, I was just a broke, non-camera owner teenager. I couldn’t afford another so I shoved my photography dreams in the back of my mind.
Years later, the photography fairy definitely had my back and hooked me up with a prospective male friend. She sprinkled sensor dust all over me and sent me on my way. Today, I call that male friend Patty O’Brizzle. You know, my live in boyfriend, my infamous photography sidekick, my soon to be business partner and my way too many things rolled into one human being, Pat O’Brien (follow him on twitter @obrienstudios). He not only had a camera when I met him but he had a REAL camera. “Oh, the possibilities”, I thought! There’s a but here though, he didn’t want my grubby mitts messing with his camera all over town. Rude right?! For a long time we went out on photography excursions and I was camera-less. How depressing.
Then one amazing day, he started talking about upgrading and trading in his camera. Oh, no no no I thought. I have dibs! What a gentlemen folks, without reservation he handed it right over to me with no strings attached. I still use this camera to this day. I started out taking one picture a day around my house and I haven’t stopped since. Everything I know about photography is because he taught me around our house. We took shots of pretty much nothing but I learned everything. We tried taking pictures in the dark; we tried light painting, we took pictures of my dog like crazy and even took shots of just my feet. There was nothing fabulous here but it was fundamental to my growth as a photographer.
The point of my story is, to get better, it doesn’t matter what you’re taking pictures of. Just take a picture of anything and play with your settings. See how things change in different lighting scenarios. You will learn that camera like the back of your hand and one day become amazing, famous and rich…oh wait, these are my secret dreams for me.
Here are a few of my pointless pictures to prove they really were of nothing.
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