Sara Lynn Paige Photography

Earrings, A Cat Banner, & Lights Bokeh Lights

Sara — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:35:09 +0000

There’s only two more digests after this, and I’m eager to wrap it up because it means I can start a new project. (I think five months off is enough recovery time, don’t you?) I’ve also been making minor adjustments (and will continue to do so) over the next few days (more like weeks if my track record proves anything) to the site design. They are changes I meant to do when this design was new, but was too busy doing client work that I just didn’t get around to it. Now I’m making time!

FAVORITE Even though it didn’t stitch properly, I love the “Habits” photo because of the crazy light bokeh from the tree and then again in the reflections.

NOT SO MUCH The very first photo for the prompt “Street”. I had so many good ideas but I just didn’t get a chance to go out on the street like I wanted to. One of the downfalls of having a good word on a busy day, I guess.

BEHIND THE SCENES The book featured in “Historic” is one I picked up at a second hand shop in Rochester, New York. I love it so much it sits on my desk now.

“Street” Dec 5th (Day 339)

No snow…

“Ice” Dec 6th (Day 340)

Here’s the video.

“Habits are cobwebs at first, cables at last.” Dec 7th (Day 341)

The photo stitch on this didn’t really turn out very well, so it makes the living room look tiny, but I like the rest of it too much to care!

I’ve always wanted to feel okay (and not panicked) if someone decided to randomly stop by the apartment, whether to drop something off or to come in for a cup of tea. However, that’s kind of hard sometimes when you live with lots of people. Even if you break up the chores, sometimes they don’t get done, etc, so when Tom and I moved into this apartment together I was excited that my (sometimes overboard) cleaning desires could be put to good use. It’s habit for me to clean up the dinner dishes while I’m waiting for the meal to cook, and Mondays I wake up by mindlessly vacuuming. These are just parts of my routine. Just a few days ago our super asked us if he could show our apartment to his bosses, and I didn’t have to do anything except open the door. Fifteen minutes a day insures the apartment is spotless all the time. Ah, cables at last indeed.

“Rainbow” Dec 8th (Day 342)

A beautiful cat banner (and holiday card) arrived in the mail from Peregrine.

“Bird” Dec 9th (Day 343)

Cover of my 2012 planner!

“Historic” Dec 10th (Day 345)

This Singing World
An Anthology of Modern Poetry for Young Children
Printed December, 1928

“Button” Dec 11th (Day 346) & “Crunchy” Dec 12th (Day 347)

“Silver” Dec 12th (Day 348)

I don’t wear earrings because when I do unfortunately they must be sterling silver or 14k gold otherwise my ears become very sensitive and itchy. Mega bummer.

Photographs © Sara Lynn Paige.

I Love You, Mom

Sara — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:08:22 +0000

Taken by my dad.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my mom readers, and to all my reader’s mum’s!

Photographs © Sara Lynn Paige.

The Three Whisketeers

Morn — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:49:48 +0000

Hello friends! It’s been a while since I made a blog post, but Sara & Tom are out doing their laundry so I decided I could say a quick hello and share some photos! Atlas, Pumpkin, and I have been pestering Sara for ages to let us set up a blog just for us, but she kept saying saying she was far too busy to maintain it. I promised her the three of us could and would handle it ourselves, and she finally gave in! We’ve had an Instagram account for a week or so and today she set us up our very own Facebook page (“Like” us to get our updates on your feed, or if you don’t have Facebook, you can follow us via RSS too!) We’d love it if you shared photos of your feline friends on our wall, or if your felines use the computer (or instagram) we’d love to hear from them!

Have a great weekend and Happy Caturday!

Photographs © Sara Lynn Paige.

Hello MacGyver

Sara — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:35:59 +0000

I take forever to buy new things, even new things I need for work. My last computer was over ten years old, the video card had melted, and though I had put in a second hard drive, if anything else happened to it I basically found a way to MacGyver it to keep working, because I didn’t want to spend the dough on a new computer. My heart rests with photography and I’d rather save up for photography related things like lenses, so when I realize I need new glasses or a new computer, I whine and drag my feet and put it off for months and months. You might remember my computer crashed on me a few months ago? Well, I said right then, “That’s it, I’m getting a new computer.” Aaaannnndd, I waited some more.

Well, I did it! (Well, let’s be honest here, I needed a lot of pushing and nudging.) And here’s the kicker, this 15+ year Windows user is finally trying a Mac! And let me tell you, I’m having so much fun! Editing photos is about a hundred times faster, and that couldn’t have come at a better time because I had a busy shooting weekend. I’ve spent the last few days getting everything sorted, freaking out at how awful my photos look on a Windows computer vs the Mac screen after I edit them, tweaking the way I edit so that it looks good on both, and rearranging my desk (which is always my favorite thing to do.) I love changing things around! It makes me feel like I’m in a whole new office! (Our new-to-us filing cabinet helps with that!) If you’d like, you can see my old set up here. (Yes, Tom and I switched sides of the office!) For you Mac users out there, what are your favorite apps?

Photographs © Sara Lynn Paige.

Cats From The Flickrverse

Sara — Sat, 05 May 2012 13:56:22 +0000

Goooood morning! Today I thought I’d share with you a few of the cats I’ve seen on my travels through the Flickrverse. For those of you that are into Pinterest and would like to pin any of these, I’ve created a board with these photos already, because if you pin them from here my website will get attribution and we don’t want that, so please pin them from there. HAPPY CATURDAY!

Photographs © Sara Lynn Paige.

Christmas Decorations, A New Tree, & Rochester In The Morning

Sara — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:54:01 +0000

It’s kind of weird seeing the Christmasy photos popping up in my digest of the Spurred project, as winter is the last thing on my mind right now. No ma’am, I’m ready for the warm weather that the weatherman has promised! Last night we had a thunderstorm (I believe it was actually Atlas’s first)- and instead of hiding like our other cats did during their first, he sat at the window and watched in curiosity. Of course he did.

Favorite My favorite photo of the bunch is “Cool”, because it was a struggle to get that sucker to stitch properly! I’m not that tall so to try and get a stich without changing the angle was a little hard!

Not So Much My least favorite is probably “News”, again because I just didn’t put that much effort into it. It could have been a lot better. I will always give kudos and totally respect those photographers who pump out an amazing work of art every day for an entire year.

Behind The Scenes Our awesome friends in Rochester have a crazy assortment of board games, and this really spurred on our board game obsession during Christmas. The photo for “Natural”, of board game Dead-End-Drive is a game we actually played. I was the cat and the old lady and in the end it was down to Tom and me. (I won.) It was so much fun!

Happy Friday! (Less than 30 days left on the Spurred project digest! What project should I do next?)

“Everyday” Nov 26th (Day 330)

Atlas bathes us every day. I try not to let him bathe me because my hair is longer and I don’t want him to choke. Doesn’t stop him from trying though, the cutie.

“Childhood” Nov 27th (Day 331)

My favorite is “The Snowman”.

“Package Nov 28th (Day 332)

I pulled the Christmas decorations out of the box in which they were packed.
Stitched together from 8 images.

“News” Nov 29th (Day 333)

Tom and I won NaNo!

“Fun” Nov 30th (Day 334)

Someone clearly had fun poking around in the fireplace today.
Oh, Atlas, my little explorer.

“Different” Dec 1st (Day 335)

I put up my old Christmas tree but the lights and a few branches had been damaged in the move across the border so after a few hours tearing my hair out trying to get it to work, we brought home a new one. We like it much better because it has pine cones!

“Cool” Dec 2nd (Day 336)

We brought home a new (artificial) tree this year, but we re-used our older ornaments. I’ve always wanted to have three or four “themes” to rotate in between every year, and this is a very “cool” tree, so we’re thinking next year we’ll do warm tones: perhaps bronzes and reds.

“Natural” Dec 3rd (Day 337)

In early December we went to visit friends we met online and spend the weekend at their apartment. It’s always scary at first, wondering if things will be different when you actually meet in person, but meeting these two was like meeting up with our best friends from junior high. As exciting and as natural as can be.

“Grey” Dec 4th (Day 338)

A grey morning from our weekend in Rochester.

Photographs © Sara Lynn Paige.

Seasons – Spring Comanion Action Set

Sara — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:03 +0000

The other day on Facebook I asked for readers to send me some photos to help kick off and showcase the release of the latest action set in a four set mini pack series called Seasons: Spring Companion, which I’m happy to say is now available. I wanted to create some small companion sets to compliment the seasons, and create actions that highlight the tones and colors of spring (greens, blues, pinks!) and that also counter act the harshness the weather can add to your photos during this season.

These images were so lovely, and so much fun to play with, I think I’ll make this a new tradition! It was so nice to see the work of others and to test out my actions on images other than my own. Thank you Alix Bannon, Foxtale Photography, Samantha Burnett, and Moira Brown for sending over your work!

An Instagram Caturday

Sara — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:11:12 +0000

Happy Caturday, everyone! This week I thought I’d share some of the photos I’ve been taking on Instagram. (My username is saralynnpaige if you want to be friends! Let me know you’re from the blog & I’ll add you too!) Instagram has actually been really fun (and frustrating) for me because it forces the perfectionist in me to relax and remembering that photography is about capturing moments that I want to keep, not about the perfect photograph. The lomo style that accompanies taking pictures with a cellphone has been really good for me. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it’s certainly going to be mine forever.

Suzy knew there was something off about Cathy…

Sakura Picnic

Sara — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:52:33 +0000

Spring is here for us! It’s slipping from warm to cold back to warm again, and the flowers are blooming and critters are coming out to play. A few weeks ago Tom and I went to a park to see the sakura blossoms, but the park was actually closed when we arrived, so we didn’t get to go in. There were still some trees on the outskirts, however, which was more than enough for me. In Japan the cherry trees are a big deal and entire cities carry the smell. It really signifies spring and brings back a lot of fond childhood memories for me, so I was happy to have the chance to enjoy them.

These photos were all processed with an action (Our Picnic In The Grass) from the new set, and it’s pretty much my new favorite action, but I wanted to wait to share these photos until I was closer to releasing the set. I wrapped up the final touches today, will be whipping up some sample shots, and should be placing them in the shop next week.

Have a great weekend, friends!

view the bokeh panorama version of this shot!

A Lot Of Red In November

Sara — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:45:15 +0000

If I seem quiet over here it’s because I’ve been working really hard to get this next little batch of actions ready for you photographers before spring really hits and melts right into summer. (And before work starts picking up for me.) Life for me lately has been packed with busy, but filled with good stuff too like tea, yoga, really fast showers, and detoxing from the day with television shows. Tom has also been working on a play, so Saturdays are spent all day at his dad’s doing laundry while they work, bike rides, and now that the weather is nicer: photo walks.

“Sound” Nov 18th (Day 322)

I wish I had more time to play! (I also wish I would finally get around to bringing home a ukulele and viola!) Though I recently just downloaded the Garage Band app and have been in heaven tinkering with making music in my spare time (Ha, what spare time?) – I actually made the looping track used in the video of my latest hair tutorial. Pretty neat, huh?

“Numbers” Nov 19th (Day 323)

Here in Canada there’s pretty much a monopoly on the internet/telephone/cellphone providers. They charge an arm and a leg for service (and charge per bandwidth, which shocked me silly when I first came from the States) and cancellation of your contract early can be up to $400! (Actually a bill passed here a few weeks ago to cap that to $50! Thanks, Ontario!) So back in November we were switching our service over to another company and we had a few days where we were without a phone line because our old company was just that awful.

“Memory” Nov 20th (Day 324)

I find I have fun doing a double exposure of a photo taken one year previous on the same day. I thought for “memory” it was fitting. (Photographers can grab a free double exposure action.)

“Short” Nov 21st (Day 325)

I’m 5’4″, but I still love wearing flats, even though I often feel short.

“Welcome” Nov 22nd (Day 326)

I have a little cupboard with tea and desserts stored just for when we have guests come over. In Ireland Tom’s family greeted you at the door and immediately offered a cup of tea and cookies, no matter how brief your visit. When we came back I realized it was something I wanted to do as well.

“Heat” Nov 23rd (Day 327)

Cozy socks and the baseboard heater.

“Unfamiliar” Nov 24th (Day 328)

For Thanksgiving (we celebrate Canadian & USA) this year I took a risk and cooked something I’d never tried before, crossing my fingers and hoping it turned out all right. It was delicious, and now I’m craving some!

“Grain” Nov 25th (Day 329)

4 Photo Stitch