Oceanside, California : Nature

So as most of you probably know, we have been getting hit pretty hard core lately here on the coast with some storm systems. The other day my son's karate class was canceled because of the storm. The road down by the beach was shut down and there were quite a few cop cars roaming around. So what did I do? I ran home grabbed my camera and headed back into the "danger zone". I pulled off in a little round about right where the road was closed and got out into the storm to take these pictures. I got pretty wet as it was pouring at the moment, my two kids were safe in the van next to me. Pretty soon a cop came along and told me I should probably move.

Maybe I should become a storm chaser photographer when I grow up? What do you think? The ocean was crazy, but I loved being right there in the action. I am really excited to be putting these up on my blog, because I am so backlogged in my photo blogging it is a little ridiculous. Dont worry I still have Christmas card designs and Christmas family pictures to put up on here, but I am excited to blog something I actually just shot and am excited about. If you want some cool art, order a fine art canvas of one these here!

I Heart Faces

The challenge this week is going back to the basics, just that we heart faces! I shot this last week at my local farmer's market. I loved this face and I honestly love nothing more then shooting close up portraits of peoples faces. Makes me pure happy. Happy Birthday iheartfaces!

More Faces : Oceanside, CA

I took my camera out to our local farmer's market last week. The farmer's market is seriously one of my favorite places in the world. This is the kind of photography I am truly passionate about, people and their faces. I love to see all different kinds of people and look at their faces. Sometimes my husband feels like I look at people too much (especially when they are driving by in cars), but I just want to see who it is. I love trying to see who a person is through their face. For the photography challenge this week we are only allowed to choose one picture for our submission, but I loved these other ones too, and wanted you (my loyal readers, you must be out there somewhere:) to see and appreciate these faces too. Just a small taste of the flavor here in Oceanside!

My Story in Photos : Thankfulness

I am grateful to "I Heart Faces" for this weeks challenge. It was so fabulous to shoot these pictures of what I am most thankful for, my wonderful boys! I love all four of them so much. We just went to a local park and to the beach for a moment to take these and I love them all. They are my story and my life! I love you guys! See the rest here. Is it bad to post pictures I didnt take? Confession : my five year old took the first picture in this post. Isnt he talented?

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge

Sometimes your only comfort on a sick day is a deflated balloon from the weekend.

Oceanside, California : Details

These are some shots from my home. I love my house, I dont know how I will leave it when our time in California is up. The home is just so picturesque, and I love living here!

Southern Utah : Beautiful Landscape

I have spent a great deal of my life in Southern Utah. Being raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, the mountains above Cedar City, Utah have long been an escape from the heat in Vegas for my family. I love it there. Before my move to California I was able to spend some time up there with my mom and my boys. It was a great time. I took these pictures on a hike up in Brian Head. If you want to order any of my fine art work, click here!

Chelsea, New York City

More from the Mine

Here are some more shots from the Eldorado Mine. Someone asked in the comments if anyone could shoot there. While I was there I asked the guy and he said they charge $20 for personal portraits, so like bridals, families, seniors, etc. If it is commercial work (like Anthropologie, I would assume), it is more, but yeah it is only $20 for just normal pictures anywhere on their property. What I was doing, just the stuff, free. :) I would recommend fall time because it is pretty hot there. :)

Eldorado Mine

Took these at the Eldorado Canyon Mine outside of Vegas. It was a really cool place and has been used as the set for tons of movies, music videos and fashion shoots. They had a catalog from Anthropologie where they shot all the photos there. It was awesome. Basically these people have like never thrown anything away. Especially if it is metal....If anyone is up for a drive to do some really cool fashion senior pics or bridals this is where we should go.

Last Ones

These are from a grove up on Cedar Mountain. My family has a lot of heritage up there from both sides and this is where my Grandpa has carved all of our names into these Aspen trees. I decided to stop and take some pics. To see the rest of the pictures from the family reunion go here.

Some More

More from the reunion up Cedar Mountain in Southern Utah.

A new member of the family...

I recently got a new lens, it is a fixed 50mm 1.4 and I love it! I havent really shot with fixed lenses since I stopped shooting medium format film, and I was recommended to this lens by a friend. So glad I took the recommendation. It is all I took with me on our Fourth of July family reunion this year, and I shot with it the entire time, wide open. It was a fabulous experience! Here are a couple of my most favorites. I will probably post more from the trip tomorrow too. Love it!

Happy Fourth of July!

Don't you love summer! I sure do. BBQs, sunshine, swimming, beach and vacation, it doesn't get much better than that. In celebration of summer and the Fourth of July, Anna Rasmussen Photographs is offering a 20% discount on all reprint orders made between July 3rd and July 7th. This link will take you to the storefront where you can find your event and get some pictures! Happy Birthday America!

http://annarasmussen.instaproofs.com

Washington State

I took these pictures at my the home my parents own outside of Seattle, Washington. The town the property is actually in is called Lakebay. The original house was built in the 1930's and it is just so gorgeous there. They have had a couple people book weddings there and I cant imagine a more gorgeous place to hold or photograph a wedding. I love to travel for my photography, and once shot engagements here. There is an aisle of roses, and it looks right out over the bay like this sunset picture. Really if you turn around from the picture here of the house you will see the picture of the bay. In fact that is basically what I did. :) If you want to order any of these pictures to grace your home or business go here. Enjoy!

Ella Bella

One of my favorite people to photograph, my niece Ella, an aspiring pianist. :)

EE Ward Young Women

These are some of the youth I work with at my church. I have recently found a renewed love for photographing people in general and these youth are no exception. I just love capturing people and finding their seperate special individuality. The rest of the pictures from the activity are here.

Moroni, Utah

I went on a little (really quite a long) road trip with my mother and my boys. She had found this little boutique out in Moroni, Utah and wanted to buy some more stuff to decorate her cabins there. Well the little town and the store itself were a delightful array of colors so I had a little fun with my boys. Enjoy!

Springs Preserve

My husband was off of school, so we took a day and went out to the Springs Preserve. It is a really cool park/museum/agricultural place here in Vegas run by the water district. We had a good time and I took some pictures of the plants there. Here is my favorite of a cactus. IF you want to see a really awesome website in my opinion check theirs out. The other couple I took are here.

Every Day in May

May 7th

May 6th

May 5th

May 4th

May 3rd

May 2nd

May 1st

Every Day in May!

Last August I stumbled onto this blog where a painter decided to paint every day in May. I thought it sounded like such a great idea. I was going to try "every day in August", but felt it just didnt havc the same ring. So now I am creating every day in May

Here's how it works:
Commit to create something every day in the month of May. (Note: Élena Nazzaro (the painter) made one painting every day her first year. That was a little overwhelming, so she now just works on art every day, rather then finishing a piece every day. You can do the same, or do 31 separate paintings, or take 31 photos, make collages, write a page of your novel, write a song, work on a film every day.)

They can be tiny.

They can be crap. :)

They can be about anything you want.

I feel like I may hate them all! I may have one I love, or I may think all of them are my best work yet. I just feel that I am better when I am creating and I think we could all learn something from it! Here is a quote I love about art

"Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world." ~Pierre-Auguste Renoir

So...who wants to join me? Click here to go to the group on Facebook and post pictures of your experiment!

Spring is Here

Don't you just love spring!  It is my favorite time of year.  I just love the feeling of warmth and shorts.  I think I am a true Vegan (as in Las Vegas native, not some sort of vegetable eater) through and through, and just crave the sun.  This spring I have already enjoyed taking pictures of some flowers and our Easter egg dying.  It is all about the bright colors of spring!  The roses are from my Vday bouquet, thanks to my wonderful husband.  Happy Spring everyone!

Fremont Street

While I was at the WPPI convention down at Bally's I took about a thirty minutes of time and headed over to the Fremont Street Experience. It is just an area I have always wanted to photograph, so I took my camera and saw what I could see. I became slightly infatuated with the way the signs looked and especially since I was there during the day the way the neon lights look with no neon. Plus being a Vegas native, I can tell you that these signs mean more to Vegas then some of the big ones down south. I still want to go to the graveyard of signs where they have all the ones from the imploded hotels. Anyone want their pics done there - it would be awesome. Maybe one of you edgy seniors, I cant think of a better way to say "I'm from Vegas baby!" then having your pics done there.

Anyway, random tangent, back to my Fremont Experiment. It felt a little like an old school assignment from Val Brinkerhoff about lines and colors. But I kinda like the graphic quality of the images that came out of it. My two favorite pictures of course ended up being of people (plus a fascinating graphic background). I had fun, leave a comment and let me know what you think... Click here to see more.

My stuff

I had some great trips over the holidays and had some relaxing time where I was able to work on some personal things. I have been wanting pictures of trees a lot in my house lately, and then my mother has been wanting some brown toned barns and fences, rural looking pictures for her cabins. I shot some things up in Oregon when we were visiting my husbands parents there and then I got to go to Parowan, Utah and shoot some more. Here is one of my favorite pictures from Oregon. View all the Oregon pics here.
This old tree is right off the exit ramp into Parowan, and I have wanted to take a picture of it like since I got interested in photography back in high school . I finally hit it right at the right time. To see more of Parowan click here.

Cabo San Lucas

My husband and I went on an amazingly relaxing cruise for our five year anniversary. My profession being what it is, I always try to really go on vacation, but never seem to manage it. I always take my good camera, because I figure, I will be really upset if I want to take a picture and can't. But then instead of fully relaxing, I always end up exploring where ever we are photographically. Sometimes it feels like a curse, but most the time I love it. I took this picture at "lover's beach" in Cabo San Lucas, and just loved the contrast of the yellow and blue. See more of these pics here.



I also started (during one of the "at sea" days) taking portraits of my fellow cruisers. It turned out to be a pretty interesting collection of portraits. I also wrote down each of the people's # of cruises they had been on, and plan to submit it as a photo story about the kind of people who go on cruises. The boat was full of fascinating people. Here are a couple of my favorites, check out the full collection here.

Trees

I saw an amazing exhibit in MoMA in New York. It was by a photographer named JoAnn Verburg and was called "Present Tense". It was an interesting exhibit in that it had a wide range of photos that didn't seem initially related. She had some amazing portraits, but the thing I loved the most were her photographs of trees. She had the most amazing focus and out of focus relations going on. If anyone needs to know what to get me for Christmas I would love her book "Present Tense" :). I was up at the cabin for a short time this week and was trying out some focus things with trees. Let me know what you think.

You can check out some of JoAnn's photo's here

That first olive tree with stormy sky is my favorite. Enjoy!

New York, New York

I just loved this little spot I found in New York. It was so...New Yorkish to me ("Don't you just love New York in the fall...makes you want to send someone a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils..." - You've Got Mail). OF course it wasn't really fall while I was there, but for some reason all the trees had lost their flowers at this cafe, so I had to grab a shot of it! For more pics from the Big Apple go to my online proofing site.