©Jen Brown Imaging... and other conversational nonsense

Fog in Texas. (it happens)

2010-11-11T06:45:00.001-08:00

I woke up Wednesday morning at the usual time for class, 6:30, and noticed central Texas covered with this beautiful fog. I have a project due in class for a cd cover and packaging that just really reminds me of foggy Americana. SO with a short note to my professor, a quick cup of coffee and a bagel, and a fresh battery in my Nikon, I was off. I decided to head out to the little towns around Lockhart, Texas. Specifically Dale. It was amazing. I'm not kidding. Driving down back country roads with a camera, a cup of coffee, and an abstract mission, I felt like I was exactly where I should be. I might as well have been driving down the Dennysville road headed to West Quoddy Head. It felt that good. Funny how when I made my way back to the city, the beautiful fog had lifted, reality was much sharper, and all the muscles in my body tightened back up. Not a good sign.

Creative Department magic. Genius Ikea commercial.

2010-10-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

Anything that appeals to the humanism of the masses = brilliant. I love this ad.

and this one...

New and Improved! (or maybe just a little different)

2010-10-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

So I'm bailing on the whole facebook thing. Instead, I've decided to keep up a little more on my blog. For those of you who care about what I'm doing and/or care about things that interest me, this is where I will be posting stuff like pictures of maggie, videos of ads that I like, and just general stuff. Feel free to comment or just shoot me an email to say hi. My email is posted on my blog, or if you don't feel like looking, it's jenbrown.06@gmail.com.

Notes about Love.

2009-12-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

There I said it. Love. Sure has been making me smile, ... and a little anxious. J/K! ... maybe. :) Anyway. This is my new favorite picture. All I can say, is there is no definition big enough to encompass the Love a dog has for his/her owner. I wish we could all love each other (as cliche as this is) as much as our dogs love us... although Maggie does chew underpants, so maybe not that much...

Notes about New Posts!

2009-12-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

OK OK! New post time. It's been a while. Just wanted to share some new photos of a really great dog:) Enjoy Remmy. I certainly do. Oh, and I like his Daddy, too:)

Notes about nature

2008-08-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

I randomly wander up onto what seemed like a very intimate moment for two beetles. Seemingly, I had my macro lens mounted ever so conveniently on my camera and decided to pop off a few frames. Oddly, I didn't feel like I was intruding, and the beetles didn't seem phased. After bringing up the image in photoshop, I decided it might be cool to have 6 legs...

Notes about Maine

2008-06-08T15:43:00.001-07:00

My Dad and I went for a hike at West Quoddy Head State Park in Lubec, Maine today. It was beautiful as always. I thought I would share some pictures. I hope you enjoy them!

Notes about Hamlet

2008-04-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

I understand how tough it was to get through this in class, so here is something to watch on the lighter side. Enjoy!

Notes about Dog Parks

2008-03-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

Maggie and I met a few friends today at Bull Creek. I brought my camera as usual and snapped a few photos. I'm trying to get back on track with the Barklyn Park gig but have kind of lacked time to pull things together. Let me know what you think of these pics. Thanks!

Notes on Spring Flowers

2008-03-28T12:15:00.001-07:00

Maggie and I went to the Bull Creek trails again today. Thought I would share a few spring flower pictures with you. Let me know what you thing!

Notes about Maggie

2008-03-26T15:55:00.001-07:00

I have felt kind of creatively dead lately, since I graduated from ACC's photo department. I guess we all go through a period where, for a long time we have been forced to do something, and even though we enjoy it, it is still somehow seen as a pain in the butt because it is forced. Then given the opportunity to do it on our own, it takes some serious determination. Most of the time we just don't do it at all. That has been my delemia. Fortunately, I have Maggie. The way she runs and plays in the water is kind of inspiring. How could I NOT want to capture the splashing water she kicks up when she chases a stick? She has been a sort of relief to my creativity. Today I was teasing her with a stick and I think she got sick of it so she barked at me and just laid down in the creek. It was real funny. So I used my brain and figured that if I hold the stick just above the camera, I could get this picture. Viola! It worked. Then batta-bing-batta-boom... a little photoshop later, and I am proud of the end result. Hope you find it inspiring:)

Notes about Photos

2008-03-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

Maggie and I went out for a walk at Bull Creek today and I shot this picture of a new spring bluebonnet. I though I would share it with you all. Spring is full of good picture opportunities:) Hope you like it.

Notes about Maggie

2008-03-24T13:56:00.000-07:00

Seriously, she has to be the cutest dingo EVER! Maggie has evolved a new found love of fetch, and she LOVES the creek! We went for a hike along Bull Creek today in North Austin. This is one of my favorite pictures from our hike. Hope you all like it!

Notes about College

2008-03-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

I think I understand why there are kids that drop out of college or find themselves confused after the first year of college life. Who on earth wants to take a full year of history, math, science, and english after they have taken four years of it in high school? It's so frustrating as someone just beginning a program to not get at least a taste of classes in a major I am interested in. Maybe it would help students decide their major before they get into their junior year, and then changing it because they decided they don't like it. And what if the school they are attending, where they have the major they thought they wanted, doesn't have the major they now want? After investing 3 years in a degree there, they have to transfer? How frustrating. I just think if colleges made it easier for lower leveled students to get into classes for their major sooner. It would keep kids interested in classes because they are involving themselves in new classes and not stuff they already took in high school.

Notes about Bad Days

2008-03-24T08:37:00.001-07:00

hahaha! I've been feeling frustrated lately. I just wanted to share one of my favorite youtube videos. Enjoy!

Notes about Maggie

2008-03-13T11:33:00.001-07:00

Haha! One of my new favorite pics! Maggie got the zooms in the creek. She loves the water.

Notes about Maggie

2008-03-13T11:31:00.001-07:00

Seriously. How can you not love this face. Went to the park today. This is one of many good shots. I will post another one in a minute.

Notes about Bad Days.

2008-03-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

So this is one of them. Nothing seems to be going right, and everything seems to be going wrong. If I can say anything to someone thinking of going on birth control, pay very careful attention to how the added hormones effect your emotions. I can't seem to stop crying today, and this happens to be the day I am suppose to start another month of birth control. I think my body might have a dependancy on the added hormones. The day began with a nice kiss from by BF as he left for work. A few hours later I got a phone call from him, of which I thought the content was to vent about some bs that happened at the station he works for because they are busy with sxsw. Much to my surprise, it was not. The editor of the magazine that I talked about in a previous post had emailed our entire conversation to the PR person at the station. The PR person in turn emailed it to Josh telling him he needed to write and apologize to the editor for MY actions. He called me irate. What a mess. What a terrible insecure spineless woman to email all of my correspondence with her back to the station. We had a huge fight on the phone. I am still crying about it. So to make myself feel better and I know Maggie wanted to go anyway, we went to the dog park. I put an extra compact flash card in my back pocket because I brought my camera with us. When we got home, I pulled the flash card out of my pocket and it slipped out of my fingers and landed in my cup of coffee. It is obviously destroyed. So from here, I have to work tonight. I hope my bad karma doesn't follow me there. I would just like to get through the night in one piece, without any assholes or kitchen mishaps, and hopefully dry eyed.

Notes on being worn out!

2008-03-03T12:37:00.001-08:00

Thought I would share with you one of my favorite restorations. The original picture is one of my boyfriends grandmothers house when she was well enough to keep her gardens amazing. It was one of Josh's mother's favorites. Josh asked me to restore it for her. It was a fun project. I was quite proud of it.

Wow. That's all I can say. I can't wait until spring break so I can get some much needed R&R. I am super-duper tired. The drastic weather changes aren't helping either. I just want it to stay a perfect 62 degrees and sunny, with a slight breeze. Is anyone else just totally spent?

Notes about Maggie's first day at Dogtown

2008-02-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

Maggie went to doggie day care for the first time on Tuesday. They liked her so much, they decided to video her and put it on YouTube for me to check out! Nice folks, huh? Anyway, I thought I would share. I'm a shameless parent...

Notes about George W. Bush as a Frat boy

2008-02-10T07:43:00.002-08:00

I just finished watching an interview with good ol' George conducted by Charles Wallace of Fox News Sunday. I have to admit, W happens to be, IN MY OPINION, the smartest idiot I have ever listened to. He is a real charmer. After fumbling over himself and using slang and disregarding a question, he pulls out at the end and says the thing the American people want to hear. All through the interview he states that American history, i.e. his presidency, cannot be determined at this time because there is no such thing at short term history. It will take years to determine the effect of this presidency on America because it needs to be studied. He finally state, when the new president is inducted into the White House, he will leave them a letter that says "Let each day be guided through by a higher power". Wallace asks him if this is true? He replies, Yes, it's the only way it will work. Being a country founded on Christianity, and given a strong sense of forgiveness Christians carry, of course this was the right thing to say. He also states that dethroning Sadam was the right thing to do. Naturally, I agree. However, I think of the relationship with Bush and Iraq as this:
If you have ever been out one night with the girls or the boys, and you are without your other half, and someone of the opposite gender responds to you in a positive manner. No one else in your group had been hit on all night and this gives you a feeling of glory amongst your friends. It gives you a smile on your face that feels good. You know you probably shouldn't go there, because after all, it is a slippery slope. You do it anyway. Have a couple of drinks/dances with this person, and after one too many, you make a drunkin mistake and give your number away. Oops! You told this person you are single and you kind of have an attraction with this person. Over the next couple of weeks you do a delicate balancing act with maintaining like your relationship is normal, and occasionally making a phone call or two to the person from the bar. After about a month, you wake up and think this is crazy. You want to cut it off with the bar person, but you don't know how. You are in too deep. There is a tangled web you have to navigate out of to get out of this one; thus begins your journey.
Bush is in the same thing with Iraq. He made the decision to pursue Sadam and Iraq, and just thought it was a one shot deal. Dethrone Sadam and Iraq will be good. Nope. His relationship with Iraq was his slippery slope. The web kept getting more and more tangled. Other "friends" aka allies, got involved. Its a big mess. Now, he is trying to get out of it. It's not as easy as it seems, getting out of these messy drunken relationships. Iraq is like a needy single drunk girl at a bar, and Bush is like the frat boy that wants to impress his brothers at a bar, even though he has a girlfriend, who conveniently isn't there. Then he actually likes the attention of the bar girl (Iraq) and all the publicity he is getting. Then it all goes bad and all his brothers (America) hate him, because he is playing his girl (Canada and American Allies) and destroying relationships. He tries to get out but the bar girl (Iraq) just gets more needy. Ick! What a situation. To be continued...
Possible outcome: The Fraternity (America) kicks out Bush and his girl breaks up with him. The fraternity inducts someone else in his place that is honest and kind and wants to fix all that Bush f-ed up. Bush's ex-girl is friends with all of his ex-frat brothers and keeps hanging out and then starts dating the new guy because he is the opposite of Bush. In the meantime, the bar girl (Iraq) doesn't see Bush very appealing anymore because he got kicked out of his frat and has no friends. So she leaves him alone. All of a sudden Bush is no one. Figures, huh? At one moment you are the desire of the world and then the next minute, you are nothing.

Notes about History homework

2008-02-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

This is what I feel like when I have to sit down and do history homework. I don't know why it's SO hard to make myself do it but every time is set aside time, I can always make up 8 million other things that are WAY more important. We have our first quiz this week and test next week and for the life of me, I can't sit down to study. ARGH! Any advice?

Notes about Dog Parks

2008-02-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

So Maggie got attacked yesterday at the Bull Creek dog park in north Austin. What really upset me is it was by a girls pitbull that she had said she only adopted 2 days ago! The Magster has a big teeth gash on her back that is open and bleeding. Man, did this upset me. So I went to the "pets" section of craigslist and this is what I posted...

"I understand that in a perfect world we would all have a dog that loves and trusts us and we could let run off a leash freely at a dog park, and he/she would run and play and bring much needed joy to our hearts. However, living in the cruel reality that we do, this is not always true. Please take more time to make an effort to evaluate whether it is a good idea to let your pet run off a leash or not. Example... If you have adopted you dog less than a week ago, my assumption is that the dog no more trusts you, than you do the dog. If that is the case, then you probably don't know the dog enough to know how he/she will act off the leash and how he/she will react around other dogs. Socialization is a process. It doesn't happen when you have only had the dog for 2 days. Please do other dog owners and dogs a favor, and leash your dog until you are fully aware of how your dog will react in given dog park situations. There is an unfortunate stigma placed on certain breeds that is unfair for the breed because they have owners who aren't responsible for their dogs. Please don't add to this stigma. Be a responsible dog owner, especially at dog parks. These parks are put in place for all of us to enjoy."

It's not all grammatically correct, however, it was in the heat of the moment...
Update on Maggie: She is ok. I put some peroxide on her open cuts so they wouldn't get infected. We went to a different dog park today and she was up to her chipper self wanting to play with every dog in sight.

P.S. I dare to think of how I would ever raise children seeing how protective I already am with a dog...haha.

Notes about Dog Photography

2008-02-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

So I have finally decided to launch my own Dog Photography business/website. I just want to get some feedback if anyone would like to add their 2 cents. I have decided to call it Barklyn Park Photography. I take a lot of candids of peoples dogs at the dog park at town lake. This is where and how I want to start marketing, and just see what evolves. I want to know basically what people want, whether it be out playing at the park or home on the couch. This is a "ruff" draft of my header for my website. What do ya'll think? I would appreciate your input!

Notes about Maggie

2008-01-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

This is my roommate, Maggie. She is an American Dingo, otherwise known as a Carolina Dog. I found her out a country road headed to Pedernales Falls State Park nursing 7 puppies. They all came back to Austin with me, and the puppies all have new homes. When I am not at TSU, doing homework, or waiting tables, you can find Maggie and I tormenting the local squirrel population at Town Lake in Austin.

Notes about spicing up my Blog

2008-01-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

Just thought I would add a presidential poll to my blog. It's totally anonymous, I don't know who votes. I feel like I know very little about the people I share space with for 2 1/2 hours a week and with the elections being a hot topic right now, I thought I would run a poll for 2 weeks. I'm interested to see the dynamic of the class.

Notes about my MBTI, relating to Sundance

2008-01-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

I guess I should add to the before posted and relate it to class. Having written on my MBTI, which is INFP (introverted intuition feeling perceiving), and concluded Myers-Brigg was quite dead on, I do have to admit, events such as taking off for a photo trip that I know nothing about during a semester is rather unlike my personality profile. My intuition always tells me to stay at home and continue my semester. Take care of the important things like school and rent. I'm not a huge risk taker. I like things to run even keel and steady. So to take off like that, I have to admit, I had some intense anxiety while I was there and I came back a little discombobulated. All of this was to be expected. I also don't like to be away from the comfort zone of my apartment for an extended amount of time, unless I'm home in Maine with my folks. But needless to say, it was a great experience and an even better resume builder. All in all, I made the correct decision.

Notes about Sundance

2008-01-30T12:45:00.001-08:00

If, in case, you were all wondering what on earth I was talking about in class on Tuesday, I am a photographer. I had the opportunity to go to the Sundance film festival last week with a friend of mine. He jumped into a film as an Executive Producer (this just means he funded it, and he really has no creative say in making the film) that obviously made it into the festival and wanted a photographer to come and chronicle his premier and parties. It was quite an event, if I do say so myself. I knew nothing about the film before I left and I had no idea where I was going. All I did know, is I was flying into Salt Lake City, Utah, it was going to be cold, and there would be a car service looking for me when I landed to take me to the house. I packed my camera gear, my laptop, and lots of sweaters, and headed to ABIA. Needless to say, when I landed, it was cold, yet amazingly beautiful. I got to the shuttle and headed through the mountains a half hour until I reached gorgeous Park City. (This also was the place that hosted many 2002 Winter Olympic events.) The festival was crazy. There were way more people in little ski town Park City then the town could hold. Celebrities were everywhere, whether it was noticeable actress Sarah Jessica Parker or faceless directors and producers. I spent the first day there meeting people and getting to know the area, and went to the cast and crew party. The second say, the film world premiered, we had a premier party, and tried to squeeze a little shopping in between. The third day we went to another screening of the film with an intense Q&A session with the director and producers, when to a Sundance Channel exclusive party, and went out for sushi with the producers. Finally, the fourth day was the last and I was on my way back to Austin. It was a whirlwind of a trip. As I sit here at my computer, I am processing over 200 images that I shot. I will post more in the blog of celebrities as they process. If you are interested in the film I went to support, it is called "Downloading Nancy." It stars Maria Bello and Jason Patric. I will post a link to the trailer, but I will warn you, it is a graphic, contravercial film, that exploits some scary topics. If you are sensitive to contraversy, you might not want to check it out.