Erin

I was so happy to be able to dust off the camera and do a little photo sesh with my good friend Erin this past weekend!  I have been wanting to get some portrait practice lately, and she was the perfect person to shoot. As you can see, she always had a smile on her face and she was a great model. The shoot went as smooth as possible, and we got a nice big breakfast afterwards to top off a wonderful morning :) Check out some of the pictures I took of this lovely lady!

Happy Friday!

Why We Rescue

I have always admired those who rescue.  I have three dogs, two of which are from shelters and one of which was a stray. It is such a gratifying experience to rescue an animal.  You are saving these animals from living in the shelters and worse: becoming another statistic. The Humane Society of the United States says that 6 to 8 million animals enter shelters every year, and 3 to 4 million of those are euthanized. By rescuing an animal from a shelter rather than adopting them from a pet store or a breeder, you are changing this statistic and saving a life.

Okay, now that I'm done with the PSA, I want to tell you about something.

So there's this guy named Theron Humphrey. He seems like a pretty cool dude. I'm not sure how I originally heard of him, but somehow I found him on Instagram and was blown away. Every picture he posts is beautiful (he's from Washington so that is expected), but the photos I love most are of his dog.

Her name is Maddie, a coonhound rescue, and she is in almost every one of his pictures. He actually published a book about her (you can find it here) called "Maddie on Things", where he poses her on top of all different sorts of objects for fun.  There is also a blog of the pictures he takes here.

Apart from his adventures with Maddie, Humphrey has been working on a project. It's called "Why We Rescue", and it is essentially a documentary of people from all 50 states who have rescued animals.   There are beautiful pictures of the pets, the owners, and their homes.  Along with this Humphrey recorded the people telling their stories so as you scroll through the photos you can hear them speaking to you. He made this documentary so that others can see the beauty that comes from adopting, and how these everyday stories display just how transformative pets are.

I love this project.  It really communicates in a beautiful way how such a small act of adopting can change lives.  I know this to be true, and now other people can see how great it is through "Why We Rescue".

If you want to check out his project, click here!

Have any of you guys ever adopted pets? If so, tell me your story!

Photography Tips, Part I

As a blogger, being good with a camera is something that will get you very far.  When coming across a new blog most everyone's eyes are always drawn to the pictures on the page.  Luckily, I have been toting around a camera long before I started this blog, and I have definitely collected some tricks for shooting a good photo or two.

I have decided to start a new series here on We the Sea where I will share some helpful hints about photography.  These tips come from lots of places, but mostly classes I have taken and articles I have read.  I'm hoping these posts will be helpful to you guys, whether you have a 'fancy' camera or not. At the very least you'll be able to give your Instagram a creative face lift :)

In the first part of this series I am going to show you guys a great tip for composing visually appealing images. This tip is called The Rule of Thirds.  Basically, when you are looking through the viewfinder of your camera, imagine a grid over your picture like this:

As you can see, this grid separates the photo into thirds vertically and horizontally. Supposedly the human eye naturally goes to the four intersections of the lines instead of the middle of the photo. The idea of the Rule of Thirds is to center the focal points in your pictures where they cross.

The lines themselves also provide useful places to align elements in your photos.  As you can see, the dog's paw and facial features hit three out of the four focal points, and the line of the floor is close to the line of the grid.

Essentially in following this rule your picture will become more balanced then if you were to, say, put the focal point right in the middle of the frame.

Now, obviously some rules are meant to be broken. I have taken a few pictures I really like that don't necessary follow the focal point rule. For example, in this shot the girl is right in the center. It isn't following the Rule of Thirds in that sense, but the columns, the stairs, and the roof do fit closely with the lines of the grid.

Hopefully this helped you guys! This is one of the few rules that I think about almost every time I take a picture. It is a very basic concept that, when embraced, can set your pictures apart from the many others out there.  Happy shooting! (haha)

San Fran

I think one of my favorite things to do is exploring cities.  I love being able to go somewhere and find all the little nooks and crannies that the normal tourist wouldn't find.  Last weekend my friends and I took a semi-spur of the moment trip up north to San Francisco to tour the city and see a concert by an extremely talented band named Gungor.  This trip was equal parts amazing and chaotic, and I think the combo of the two is what made it so memorable.

We only had one day in the city (we got there on Sunday morning and we were to leave Monday morning) and all but one of us had never been to SF, so we had to hit every single iconic part of the city in about 5 hours.  We went to Chinatown, Pier 39, Ghiradelli Square, and Union Square, to name a few.  We walked to every single one of these places, which, while very painful on the feet, was such a fun way to see the city.

I am so excited to go back to San Francisco soon and discover more of the culture.  In the mean time, I will be reminiscing about the trip with some of these pictures I took.

Sorry for the picture explosion!  I just had to share :)