Change.

So here I am, 35 years old, married and a mom to a beautiful daughter, currently laid off for the third time in one year while my husband is deployed a half a world away. Now I don't like change, but change has grown quite fond of me as have his buddies obstacles and challenges. Turns out that this time around I'm going to try and embrace these things and make lemonade.

As little as a week ago, I was working a regular job, 40 hours with a lengthy commute and had next to no time at all to fiddle with my beautiful new camera I received for my birthday back in March. I had no time for anything at all, really. So I took pics when I could and that usually meant racing around after my two year old and getting lots of shots of her doing two year old things. Suddenly, I've got my freedom back, not having to worry about that pesky career and I've dove head first into experimenting with my fledgling photography skills.

After much hemming and hawing, reading and reading, I resigned to the fact that I must shoot all manual if I'm going to learn how to get it right. So here are my first shots done 100% manually. Clearly I have an unhealthy relationship with lightroom, too, but it's new to me so I splurged and when a bit apeshit on the pics. Still really like them.

These were taken near the branch that's by our house. For four years now I've driven past it regularly and have always thought it'd make a perfect spot to take some photos. It felt pretty good to finally get there and do it. Editing brought out specs and spots from the drizzling rain. I really liked them in the end so I left them there.