Personal Work || Life Lately v. 4

First off: Happy 21st Birthday to my brother, Ryan! He's not much of a one for a big to-do, so we had a pretty quiet celebration with homemade cupcakes on Saturday and ribs on Monday, his actual birthday.

Also on Monday, I went downtown to location scout a venue. I'm photographing an event at the Four Seasons in September. Their staff were fantastic, from valets to event co-ordinator!

Books made a reappearance over the past few weeks, this time starring Agatha Christie. The first book of hers I ever read is featured front and center: Murder on the Orient Express. I bought it years ago at a homeschool book fair at the Palmer Events center. I was probably about 13 or so. (I think Misty of Chincoteague might have come home that day, too.) Book fairs were equal parts tedious and entertaining. I mean, you had a wait while Mom looked at the dreaded Saxon math textbooks, but you also got to browse crates of paperbacks!

Also, in my personal opinion, David Suchet was born to play Hercule Poirot. (FYI, Google Chrome is trying to spellcheck Poirot.)

The other day, I took some more self-portraits. Taking self-portraits is always a challenge for me. Since I can't be behind the camera composing the shot and in front of it at the same time, it's a guessing game when it comes to posing. I'm really happy with how these turned out, though!

Mom is removing wallpaper in my brothers' bathroom and I was intrigued by the texture of the walls. Plus, the boys' bathroom/bedroom catches the best light in the house. Gotta go where the light is.

Leighann made some pretty incredible bread last week, which deserved a photograph. Cinnamon challah - "three rises on that sucker."

On Tuesday, I was browsing through old images and came across this one. It's from 2014, but I'd never edited since I didn't really think it had any potential. I decided to give it a try and I'm super happy with the results. Moral of the story: re-evaluate your castoffs. Here's a before-and-after.

Finally, a pretty simple image from our backyard, but one that will probably make it in my "Favorite Images of 2016" category.