Weekend Shots

I'm leaving for California on Wednesday, so I'm trying to stay busy in MD. It's kinda tough with people having jobs, so I must admit I've watched a lot of Netflix in my room at my parent's house. I have gotten to see friends and go dancing a number of times. Here are a couple from the past few days.

Freedom Plaza Milonga

Bentley's Happy Hour

Horsing Around at Assateague Island

I went to Assateague Island with some friends to camp out near the beach for a night. It was a nice, relaxing day trip, aside from the wind and having to fight off the horses.

Teddy's Commissioning

Today I went to campus to see Teddy, one of my old OAs, get commissioned as an officer in the Marines. It was also graduation day (part II). It was nice to see old faces and the new grads.

(Note: Obviously I'm not currently in the cornfields of Illinois, despite the name of this blog. After a summer on the coasts, I'll be back in Champaign in August.)

Prime Location

Taking the Oath

Teddy's First Salute

One more night...

I'm heading back to Champaign tomorrow. To be honest, I'm more excited about my awesome boarding number (A20 woot!) than actually flying back to Champaign. However, I welcome the idea of having productive stuff to do every day. I've been sitting around too much.

Here are a couple shots of my last night hanging out in DC.

Glenmont Metro

Amanda and Leela

Christmas Fun

Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you all had a great day!

Marie sports her new hat

This is supposed to be dancing.

Cards and Cookies

Went down to Steph's place in California (California, MD that is) to spend some time together before the holidays. Her parent's spent a few hours after dinner the first night trying to teach us to play bridge, which is a regular trick-based card game in turns of the general rules and objective...but an extremely complicated game in terms of bidding rules (it's basically it's own language) and game play.

Then we made cookies, which is much simpler.

Bridge Face

Chocolate Crinkles

Late night musings, friendly faces...

Supriya had a holiday party at her place this past Friday night. I did something I rarely do, which is forget my camera. I noticed it before we even left my cul-de-sac, but I didn't want to turn back. While it was kind of liberating to not be carrying or worrying about my camera and flash, I still found myself seeing photos I could be taking in the middle of playing Taboo or catching up on life.

Next to my first prime lens, buying the Speedlite has been the most important camera purchase I've made. The possibilities for indoor photography have grown drastically, and I've learned some valuable lessons about light and contrast. I find myself falling into post-processing habits that I don't want to get locked into. Part of it is my personal taste and style, but some of it is a rush to upload. I feel like I'm not using Lightroom and Photoshop to my full creative potential. Sometimes I just want to get these pictures to Facebook, but I think one thing I'll do over break is go through some old photos and see what I can make out of them. It's been a while since I've really played with the developing process outside of standard leveling.

Break is not even a week old! It's been a busy four days of baking, board games, and wine bottles. Here's to more fun times.

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My Baker Ex-Roommate

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