Race for the Cure 5/30/09

I admit I should have done this blog sooner, and I fully meant to...The delay is because I wanted to get some pink flowers to do a photo with, or just a photo of pink gerber daisies, but I realized that I'm just never going to make it to the florist during the week (and have been out of town on the weekends).



So! Saturday, May 30th I will be running a 5K race for Susan G. Komen, race for the cure.

If you have a few extra dollars to donate to the cause you can sponser me by:
1. Go to this website
2. Type in my name: Kristina Cirves
3. I'm the only name that comes up
4. Click "support kristina" above the yellow box with my goal meter.
5. Enter your payment information.

Easy!! I hope that you will, it's a good cause, and there are far too many women out there who suffer from it.

______________________________________________________________________________

"How Many Women Get Breast Cancer?

The American Cancer Society's most recent estimates for breast cancer in the United States are for 2009:

192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer
40,170 deaths from breast cancer
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer.

The chance of a woman having invasive breast cancer some time during her life is about 1 in 8. The chance of dying from breast cancer is about 1 in 35. Breast cancer death rates are going down. This is probably the result of finding the cancer earlier and improved treatment. Right now there are about two and a half million breast cancer survivors in the United States"

(This last section was copied and pasted from theAmerican Cancer Society website.)

Captain's Walk Winery - Green Bay, WI (ARrrrRRrRrrrrRrrrr!)

If you ever happen to pass through Green Bay Wisconsin, be sure to stop by the Captain's Walk Winery! What a pleasant, friendly and fun place to enjoy your favorite wine, or learn about wine. I personally know nothing about wine other than I like the sweet stuff.

On May 16th the Captains Walk Winery hosted a pirate themed wine tasting festival. Live music, wine tasting, and delicious foods, and pirate attire encouraged!



Not only was the event fun, but it also was a great opportunity for candid portraiture. The two portraits on this blog are my favorite from the day. The two also happen to be my friends who I did an engagement session with.

Hey it's May!!

So...last time I wrote a blog I typed that I would be better about blogging weekly, I think I've slacked a bit!

BUT!! I have a good excuse! I have been very busy and behind on editing! That's the thing, taking these unpaid gigs I don't feel quite so pressured to edit these things in a timley manner.

So far I spent a weekend in Wausau to visit my mom for mother's day, was a fun, fun weekend. Nothing in particular to blog about there.
Then the following weekend I went to Green Bay to visit a friend, do an engagement session (almost done editing those!), and went to a pirate party. The Green Bay trip will be a blog of its own as soon as I'm caught up on editing. I suppose my friend might like to see the photos before I blog about them!

As for the rest of May, I have a session planned to take photos of a month old newborn. I cross, cross, cross, cross my fingers that it won't be canceled! And after that I run the Susan G. Koman race. Exciting times in May!

A geek in pink

On Sunday May 3rd John and I got to see Jason Mraz live for the 2nd time. This time we got seats instead of being squished in the pit. The seats were unbelievably better with an elevated view.



Jason Mraz was excellent as expected. He does marvelous riffs and bends his voice in his extended notes. When ever he belted out a long note my jaw dropped and yelled, "damn!!". Although "I'm Yours" is his most over-played song on the radio, I love it and think it's genious. The lyrics are so perfectly inspiring. His entire album, We Sing We Dance We Steal Things, is very feel good.

One thing that annoys me about going to big named artist concerts is that they won't allow DSLRs into the venue. Yet pocket cameras are just fine. In December when I saw Carrie Underwood I brought my Canon SD600. The photos that I got just weren't up to par. They were very noisey and not as sharp as I would get with a DSLR.

For Jason Mraz John borrowed a friend's Canon SD700 and I borrowed my mother in law's polaroid point & shoot. The polaroid managed to get the photo above, which I am pleased with, but I did attempt 30 other photos that did not turn out. The polaroid was very slow, after I took one shot it took a minute for the camera's recycle rate to be ready for another shot. John attempted a few photos during the opening bands and decided right then to give it up. But after seeing some of his attempts I wish he would have tried a few on Jason, some of his attempts weren't that bad.

I understand that venues don't want recording devices into the concert, but why is having a decent looking photo so wrong? The tour merchandise doesn't include decent looking photos that I could buy.

The one time I did attempt to sneak a DSLR in the security guard sent me back out to my car. Then there are times when they don't check your bags very thoroughly and I could have snuck the camera in.

I know I need a new point & shoot for occasions like this. And I have asked for advice on good point & shoots, and later found out that they were in the $300-500 price range. Yikes, that's a lot of cash for a point & shoot. For that kind of money I could get a new lense!

Oh well, we had a great time, Jason Mraz is a genious; it's our god forsaken right to be LOVED LOVED LOVED!

100 Years Later

Friday evening John and I stopped at Ancora coffee on King Street near the capital to see Craig Wilson's showing of his arial photography. My favorite photograph was a incredible panorama of the city by the Monona Terrace. It was great to see the photograph in a large, real life frame. It's gorgeous on the computer monitor, but to see it on a wall is another experience.

Next the his modern day arial views of Madison, he had George Lawrence's first take on the Madison skyline in 1908.

Craig spoke about the pieces and explained the significance of George Lawrences arial photographs in Madison. At the time these photographs were taken, airplanes did not frequent the sky. George Lawrence's eyes were the first to view Madison from above.
"To photograph something that no one's eyes have ever seen, that's just like wow!", Craig explained.

To think about that statement puts a new perspective on the things I photograph. Most likely I will never do anything as ground breaking as George Lawrence, but I am definately inspired.

Still not forgotten.

Hello blogger, it has been far too long!! When I started this I had planned on a weekly post, and so far I have failed. Let's see if I can be better about this in the month of May!

In April I had 2 scheduled sessions and both were canceled. I hope to get them rescheduled, but I will leave the ball in the client's court as I don't want to be too pushy.

One thing I did accomplish in April was my first run in a race! I ran the Crazy Legs Classis, which is an 8K race. 8K = 4.97 miles. I finished at 48 minutes and 44 seconds. That's my personal best time, but I'm going to continue training to aim for a better time next year. That's right, next year!

For May, I would like to attend a photocamp in Milwaukee, hopefully learn some new tips & tricks, and perhaps find some photo opportunities.
The following weekend I plan on a trip to Wausau to visit my mother for mother's day. Hopefully she has the weekend off. Also hope that I find some photo opportunities there!!

And at the end of May I'm registered to run the Susan G. Koman race for the cure. This is a 5K (3 miles) race. For this race I am supposed to get donations to benefit the cause. I have set up a page for people to donate, but don't know the URL at this moment. It's written down at home. So a new blog will be up this week with the URL and I plan to do some sort of self portrait to promote the donation.

Thanks for checking in with my slow moving blog! Happy May!

blogger, i have not forgotten about you.

Not sure if anyone keeps up with this blog, but just incase I thought I would check in.
Lately every time I have something scheduled something comes up & the shoot is cancelled. So in the meantime, while I have no one to shoot, I've been shooting myself.



"An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight. . . The truly wise person is colorblind."
--Albert Schweitzer

So I will paint myself green with optimism that timing will work out for everyone!