Tax Day: If Only It Were This Easy

I found this on fellow photographer Carey Viohl's blog and thought it was too cute not to share!

Almost done editing the images from Cristy and Amaury's engagement shoot! Expect to see images before the end of the day!

Happy Leap Year... Day... Umm.. yeah whatever

ha! Happy Leap Year ya'll! If you're like me, you probably realize about this time last week that this was a leap year. Or, if you're like other people I know, you're reading this post saying "I guess it is a leap year isn't it??" ;-)

A little Leap Year trivia for ya!

• Century years (1800, 1900, 2000, 2100) are not made leap years unless divisible by 400.
• Leap Seconds! Some years are longer than others. This is mostly due to weather. Every few years, scientists agreed to add or remove a second from a year right at midnight on January 1st or July 1st. This is called a Leap Second.Newsflash: Scientists have now discovered that the Earth is not rotating as fast, and have deemed this practice unnecessary!
• If you're a "Leaper," you will have beaten the 1,506 odds against being born on Leap Day.
• In the United States, some people have referred to this date as Sadie Hawkins Day, with women being given the right to run after unmarried men to propose.

Alright ladies! Now's your chance to ask that special someone to marry you! ;-)

For more leap year facts click here. Have a great day everyone!

Blood Red

As I type, the lunar eclipse is ending. If you missed it, you'll have to wait until 2010 when it happens again to see it. Or, you could just look at the photos below. :-)





I can honestly say, my clients have almost made me forget how to take photos. OK, not really, but I can say I am much more used to doing portraits and weddings than landscapes. I went outside to take photos with no tripod. I took a couple shots and thought, "I'm not going to get this exposed right, I don't have fast enough glass!" (My fellow photographers, feel free to laugh now). The above images where taken on a tripod with about a 10 second exposure. I can't even tell you the last time I took a photo where my shutter speed was slower than as 1/15th of a second. I've got to get out more! ha!

What a Sunday!

Today has been fabulous! Granted, I haven't done a single thing today that I wants to do, I did a lot of things I didn't think I would get to do! I started the day out by SLEEPING! If you know me, you know I'm a little bit of an insomniac. Its not uncommon for me to stay up til 3AM only to get up in 4 short hours and start working again. I've never been able to sleep very well ever since I was a teenager. I can remember once going 5 days without sleeping. 5 DAYS! Its not like I didn'y try to sleep. I just couldn't. So any day that I sleep until noon, is amazing for me. Granted, I'll have to pray really hard to get to sleep tonight. Cest la vi I suspose.

Anyways, I cleaned out the garage today. I can almost fit my car in it! woo hoo! There's nothing I hate more than having an entire garage full of crap (and I have a lot of it). Then, after that was almost completed, I rewarded myself with a nice dip in the pool. This has been the first day of the year (really the first day since I moved) that you could get completely in the water without feeling like you would have to amputate something. It was so much fun! Ringo likes to go swimming as well (although he doesn't like to actually get in the water.) I have this little inflatable boat and he just loves to sit in it as I swim. He also likes to sit on this mini surf coard and I'll drag him all around the pool. He's a surfer dog! ;-) I wish I would have had pictures, but since I was soaking wet, I didn't want to chance ruining my camera.

Now, I'm at my parents house getting ready for the Super Bowl. My dad is fixing a brisquet (its like Texas barbque. Its VERY tender and VERY good) and my mom is makingher famous potatoe salad! YUM! Between the food and the homemade margaritas, its going to be a good night. I know nothing about football, so I guess I'll be rooting for the Patriots. I'd like to see them have a perfect season and the fact that the quaterback is pretty cute is a plus! ha ha!!

Also, don't forget to check out Melissa's blog at Events on a Budget. The entries for the contest have been narrowed down to four couples so be sure to stop by for your chance to vote for the winner! Thank you for all those who entered!

Have a great evening everyone!

Small Find, Big Excitement

I just may be the most easily amused person you will ever meet. I drive my friends and family crazy sometimes with my randomness. I just look through the world with rose colored glasses that's all. I try to notice the simple things.

With that in mind, imagine my excitement when I went out last night at 1:30AM (or should I say this morning, I went to bed really late last night) and found a little creature on my doorstep. I was letting little Ringo go out side when I happened to look down to see a tiny snail trying his hardest to cross the sidewalk. I was immediately excited. I ran inside, grabbed my camera, and started snapping.

When I first went up to him, he got scared. I can image how big my camera must have seemed to him.

He's kinda cute in an ugly sort of way.

This is my favorite! I set up a timed exposure to show him "racing" across the sidewalk. The shutter speed for this shot was 2 seconds.

What do you mean it's not time to wake up yet?

Is it just me, or do you LOVE daylight savings time? I hate it in the Springtime, but in the Fall, I think it just might be one off the best days in the season. I love waking up in the morning to find out I can still sleep for a whole hour more. I, by far, am not what you would consider to be a morning person. I'm generally a very friendly person, but if I haven't had my first cup-o-coffee, it would be wise not to speak to me. My husband says I can be pretty mean in the morning. Unluckily for him and fortunately for me, I tend not to remember any conversation I have with anyone when I first wake up. Grumpy and grouchy first thing in the morning, wake me up and you might just be putting your life into your own hands. ;-) This is why Daylight Savings Time is, in my opinion, one of the best days of the Fall. It is, dare I say, empowering to wake up in the morning and know that God has granted you another hour of rest. It makes me feel free. Maybe I should add it to my list of things I'm thankful for each year...

Can you believe, Thanksgiving is only two weeks from Thursday? TWO WEEKS!?!? Is anyone else as shocked as I am?

Welcome to the official blog of Melissa Powell Photography!

Welcome! I am jumping on the blogging bandwagon so that I can be better connected with my friends and clients! If you have ever wanted to get inside the head of a photographer, now's you chance. I will warn you it can be a scary place! ;-) Life can definitely be a little insane for a traveling photographer. Let's face it, sometime's life's a little insane for anyone no matter who they are! This is just a collection of my random musings along with a little bit (ok, a lot) of what I love, photography!