Cookie Dough Fudge {Food Photography}

This recipe was a pinterest find from here.

Most of the time I'm more excited about taking pictures of the

food than eating it... and sad to say, I don't really like the way this fudge tastes.

It definitely tastes like it's supposed to, it's just not what I like. 

Give me peanut butter melt-in-your-mouth fudge any day over this stuff, haha.

So that's why I'm not going to share the recipe, just pictures ;)

Multi-tasking: Combining the cooking step with the

"take pictures" step, resulting in a head-less selfie ;)

And then.... comes the trouble!

Completely dumped all the sugar

out on the floor {don't ask how it happened}.

And this was just the start of

many, many tragedies.

{maybe that's why I don't like the 

way it tastes, hmmm...?

I had to modify the recipe

several times}

I was doing this in my room, by the way, because it was late at night and it was easier

to get better lighting.

I'm always playing eye spy to get some props for photography.

Then I find something awesome: like this scale from the basement {just how cool is it?}

Then I have to rack my brain to make it work: like I had to think of some sort of 

tray to substitute as a weighing boat and something to connect the two.

And, wheeee! This post was supposed to be published long ago, but I've been trying to do
some experimenting on Lightroom, so I have to watch tutorials... and read :( and that just hurts
my poor brain way too much. ;P

-MarLeahJoy

Marty and Alyssa {Engagement}

I'm super excited for their wedding coming up in November. 

Yes, it's my sister getting married. :D

I'll basically be the only child at home...

with my oldest sister always traveling when she's not at work ;)

and Alyssa moving to the East.

I guess it's a good thing I'll be busy with college

and hopefully a job.

But I think I'm definitely going to get pretty lonely.

We took some pictures at another place, but I can't figure out how to get

the edit I want on them in Lr, and my sister's not home to help me 

figure it out. ;) Actually, she made an edit to one of the pictures that looks

really great. Nothing like having a "client" show you up on an edit, haha ;)

With all that said, I will be posting a few more of them later. :)

-MarLeahJoy

Hailey

This girl is full of life.

She's a senior this year and she will be working herself

hard with her tough schedule: AP Calculus, Anatomy and Physiology,

Physics, AP Physiology, etc. 

I couldn't do it but, you go girl!

She came and visited me at Monark one day, and it happened

to be the day that I was taking portraits of a family, so she tagged along

and I got a few of her after their session.

We went to a lot of band competitions together. And naturally

we were always together since we were both in the low brass

section. She plays the tuba, believe it or not, and is really good, too!

And she only slightly embarrassed me with all the guys

she would meet and become friends with, haha. ;)

This was always her outlook on life...

Laugh loud and dance often! :)

This was my first time to use Lightroom. At first I was like, "Nooo! I want Photoshop back."

But I began to find that Lightroom is quite a bit better for what I'm 

doing (for instance: resizing photos, so much easier).

There are a few more things that I feel like I'm missing, but I'm sure I'll soon

learn Lightroom's way of doing what I did in Photoshop.

-MarLeahJoy

Cramming It All In

I would blog everyday. For some reason I really like to. Somehow for two whole months I blogged everyday, and that was when I was still in school. I don't know what has happened to me. Maybe, it's that the newness of my camera and the blog has worn off. Or maybe I just don't know how to respond to this new stage in life. I've always been very schedule oriented, so maybe losing the structure of going to school and having a certain amount of hours at home every night has been messing with me.

Anyway. I actually seem to stress and worry about not getting to post on here due to trying to fit everything-under-the-sun into my summer. And... so the past week, when my mind would wander back to that mental check-list that is always going on, I kept re-visitng the one that said something like "you need to blog!!! ekkk!" 

So this isn't anything that has been on my list of things to blog about or anything... but it's just a little bit of what I've been up to lately. 

I don't have my photoshop trial anymore. So pooh! But here are some good ole SOOC images for you! Hopefully a few more scholarships coming soon will solve that Photoshop/Lightroom issue. ;)

{SOOC explained: just because you were wondering ;)}

National church camp... Monark! This year was better than the best! But then again, that happens every year I go :)

Lunch Line. 

God answered our prayer for rain, and we had such nice, cool weather during the meeting.

Davion

Plenty of bugs for the boys ;)

Baptismal

"Upon the confession of your faith..." :)

:D

Such a familiar sight... I love it :)

Well, tomorrow I'm off to another camp meeting. :)

-MarLeahJoy

First Morning Camping {Personal}

It rained really hard last night. (it sounded pretty cool inside the yurt - btw)

So this morning it was still drizzling and our hopes 

to make a nice big breakfast over a campfire were kind of canceled. 

But someone who woke up early left us a perfect fire going on in a pit inside the activities pavilion. 

So we got to make a nice breakfast after all, hitching off of someone else's fire, hehe. :)

yummy, yummy food :)

Sis. Rosie put the biscuits in with the coals... she said there are a certain amount of coals you are supposed to put on top so that it will cook right. Nifty, nifty... I never knew that!

Heather took this one :)

Slightly burnt, but they weren't shabby. :)

hehe ;)

Depending on the weather, we might go kayaking today. :DDD

-MarLeahJoy

Senior Trip {Personal}

I've had a blast today. It all started with withdrawing several hundred out of my bank account, haha. Heather and I headed out to Hot Springs together, and we were the first to get there of all the girls so we went shopping for all the food. 

Okay, now for a crazy obsession-confession: I love socks!

We stopped at Ross so Heather could get some socks, and I just couldn't resist.

I just bought socks YESTERDAY! So do I need more socks? NO!

But while she was looking for some I found the best socks ever, so I bought them. And that's almost all I've been thinking about this evening. Every-time I would go back inside I would change out of my flip-flops into my socks (just ask Heather, lol).

"Oh, DEAR!" I don't think anyone can understand my sock obsession... But it's very real! 

And why am I saying this? Hopefully, so someone will get a good laugh at my insanity.

Enough of that. Here's our Yurt!

It is so cool to stay here. I almost feel like I own it because it is secluded enough. 

We walked down to the dock on Lake Catherine at night,

 and it was so foggy you couldn't even see the water. 

Our yurt at night.

Us girls getting wifi at the conference room at 1am. :)

 The only normal picture we got. 

I'm already having such a great time... 

-MarLeahJoy

Summer Nights and Fair Lights

Before I went to the fair I was thinking... "Okay, my main object is to get some clips to make a short film with, but if I'm not getting what I want at least I can take pictures... I know how to do that." 

Well, I was more than pleased with how my ideas started coming together on video, so much that later when I was going through the files to get some pictures to post I realized that I had more videos than anything, and I was hard pressed to find some pictures. ;)

I even broke out my Lensbaby Double Glass optic (for like the first time since I got it :O) and I thought the effect was quite fitting for the fair.

(The last 5 images were taken with the Double Glass optic)

And it's not really a good experience until you get some overpriced fair food. ;)

-MarLeahJoy