The Munchkin's Notebook

Today we slept in till 5:30 AM. I know a whole 30 minutes from our previous times, but it can make a difference.  We were on the road headed out of Albuquerque by 6:30 AM which was fine since it was only going to be a 6-hour drive to the Grand Canyon.   Because it was only going to be a 6-hour drive, and we couldn’t check into the lodge till 4:00PM we made a few stops along the way. The first stop was for gas and breakfast. We stopped at a Love’s which had Carl Junior’s. Jim got a breakfast burrito, which he said was pretty good, way better than McDonald’s breakfast burrito. I just had a standard sausage biscuit. With the car fueled and breakfast in hand we were on the road again.   The landscape along the drive was much more interesting as we headed out into the desert, and more along the lines of what I was expecting to see.  I think I was subconsciously comparing landscapes to the cartoon landscapes in the movie Cars. (Disney strikes again.) To get to the Arizona...

  “If you ever plan to motor west,   Travel my way, take the highway that is best.  Get your kicks on route sixty-six.” —Songwriters: Troup Bobby We got up this morning at 5:00AM, mostly because I forgot to turn my normal weekly alarm off, but this got us on the road early and out of Oklahoma City before it got busy.  We grabbed breakfast at a 24-hour McDonalds about a half hour outside the city limits.  We also started driving on and paralleling old Route 66, since part of the old route has been merged with I-40 starting in Oklahoma City and then parallels outside of Oklahoma.  We didn’t stop at any of the Oklahoma Route 66 attractions as they were all still closed while we were in Oklahoma.       Normally when you cross into a new state the welcome center is either right there or a few miles down the road, unless you are Maryland about 25 miles into the state.  However, Texas puts them all to shame, we cross into Texas and I’m exp...

We got a better night’s sleep last night in Jackson, TN, but hopes for a good night’s sleep are looking slim due to the redneck pool party four floors below us.  The whole hotel is fully booked, with some kind of group that, trust me, pings every redneck stereo type identified by Jeff Foxworthy. Today we got up at 5:00AM again, and were on the road around 6:00AM after stopping at Jack’s for breakfast.  I got a sausage biscuit and Jim got the county fried steak biscuit. He wasn’t impressed by the steak.  The drive through Memphis was uneventful.  We do think Arkansas is trying to secretly annex land because their welcome sign was placed on the  bridge over the Mississippi River before we crossed the actual state line. We saw this again when we crossed from Oklahoma back into Arkansas, I’ll get to that in a moment.  We stopped at the welcome center to pick up a map and use the restroom. Good thing we did because Arkansas does not appear to believe in regularl...

Rainbow T oday we got up at 5:15AM today, just because of our internal clocks and the light on the HVAC unit being bright blue and lighting up the whole room.  This means we did not do hotel breakfast but grabbed breakfast from McDonalds and ate on the road.  Unfortunately, the medication I’m on for my stye upsets my stomach and breakfast did not stay down.  I can now add puking on the side of the road to my life experience list, not something I needed to add.  After that I felt fine and we continued on without issue.    Welcome sign at visitor center The traffic today was actually fairly good and lighter than yesterday. It also helped that we were on the road at about 6:00 AM, which allowed us to avoid a fair amount of the traffic.  However, the semi truck drivers seem a lot worse at driving in the past, with following too close and cutting over really close to people.  During the drive we made a stop at the Tennessee welcome center so I cou...

  27 May - Day 0 Did you know today was National Road Trip Day ?  Jim and I didn’t know that when we planned the trip, so it is a nice coincidence that our road trip starts on National Road Trip Day.  What is even more exciting is we are doing one of the quintessential American road trips out to the Grand Canyon along Route 66.  Well not exactly Route 66 it is more along I-40 but that parallels the old Route 66 so it is close enough for me.  Today we started later than usual, compared to previous trips, as we left Sterling, VA around noon.  We left later than our usual 6:00 or 7:00 AM because Jim had to work a half day.  Thus we have really only made it out of the beltway and surrounding areas to Christiansburg, VA.  The drive was mostly uneventful, we started in light rain and it petered out once we got on I-66 and then was sunny most of the way down I-81.  Though about 30-minutes before we got to our hotel, we had to drive through a torrent...

On May 7 th I did a very special session for Karishma, who was celebrating being a Hodgkin Lymphoma Cancer survivor.   The ribbon color for Hodgkin Lymphoma is purple, so I incorporated purple into the set lighting and flowers. I also discovered while doing research for the session, that several images for the cancer awareness and survivors included butterflies, which I used as inspiration for the set design. For this session I used: Photography Equipment Props Cannon 80D Trigger 2 strobes 2 c-stands 2 Backdrop stands 2 speed light clamp mounts White backdrop Sandbags 1 octabox 72-inch umbrella with sock Dome reflector 40-degree grid 3 light stands 2 speedlight Purple gels 18-inch-tall posing box Fake flowers Purple tulle Fake butterflies Wire   The set up For this shoot I used two sets of backdrop poles, one to hang the backdrop and the other to suspend the cancer ri...

On May 1 st I did a cosplay session with the lovely thenext.jeneration and thebreezybiz (Instagram names) at Meadowlark Gardens .  The garden was a great place to shoot their Tangled the series cosplays due to the mix of wooded areas, gazebos, and open lawn that allowed us to capture the essence of the series locations. For this shoot I kept my equipment to a minimum and brought my husband to assist with lighting, since light stands are not allowed.  I had my Cannon 80D, 18-200mm lens, trigger, speedlight, a painter’s pole, and a trash bag. For this session I used ISO 400, because I was mostly shooting in the woods with medium to heavy shade and it was an overcast day which further diffused the light. I used an aperture of F8, since I was group images and wanted to ensure both cosplayers were in focus throughout the image.  My shutter speed varied a lot from 1/40s to 1/1000s with the most prevalent shutter speed being 1/100s. My shutter speed varied due to where we...

On April 30th I did neon inspired session with model, Anastasia and MUA, Caroline .   The whole session revolved around the neon fabric I bought over a year ago and finally was inspired to use. Equipment Cannon 80D Trigger 1 strobe 1 c-stands 1 boom arm 1 Backdrop stands black backdrop Neon fabric overlay Sandbags 1 beauty dish 2 tiny soft boxes 1 curved reflector (gold) 3 light stands 2 speedlight 1 posing stool The set up For this shoot I knew it would be all about the make-up and how it went with the background, so I did a basic beauty set up, using a modified clamshell set up.   For the modified clamshell I attached a beauty dish to a boom arm so I could get the light high and almost directly above the model, then placed a curved reflector on a light stand below that to reflect light up and fill the shadows. I then place two speedlights with tiny soft boxes to either side pointed at the backdrop but fea...

On April 9 th I did two flower headpiece sessions.  For these sessions I worked with two models, Tekeya and Sarah who wore the fuchsia peony and cherry blossom headpieces respectively.  I also worked with Marlena , who is a very talented MUA.  For these two sessions the theme was fairy queen, and I divided each session into two parts. For the first part, I focused on getting beauty shots to highlight the headpiece and the make-up and then for the second part I did full body with the model sitting in a throne made of flowers and sticks. For this session I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon 80D Trigger 2 strobes 2 c-stands 1 boom arm 1 Backdrop stands Grey backdrop Sandbags 1 octabox 1 beauty dish 2 tiny soft boxes 1 curved reflector (gold) 3 light stands 3 speedlight Purple and Pink gels 18-inch tall styrofoam triangle Sticks Fake flowers White and silver fa...