Delicious Treats and Exiting the Comfort Zone...sort of.

It has been one busy week! I went out for a girls day with my mom on Monday, shopping at South Center mall (which was quite disappointing--do President's Day sales not exist anymore?!) and then had lunch at Claim Jumper....YUM! We seem to always end up getting the Frisco burger and onion rings every time we go, we also got some calamari as an appetizer but since it took about 15 minutes for anyone to come take a drink order the calamari was free! I'm pretty sure it tasted better because of that! ; )

The school week was short but jam packed with things I had to do! Two chem labs, a genetics lab, and LOTS of reading--glad it is over! Friday night I got to talk to my photographer friend and overall he thinks I've done some great work with the pictures I have taken, but definitely need to work on some of the finer technical elements of taking photos...which I knew. I needed some objective criticism! I am really excited about learning all the things I'm not really familiar with. He gave me a little "assignment" to do this weekend, which I feel like I have royally failed so far : P  He forbid me from using my zoom lenses so I'm stuck with my fixed 50mm lens and doesn't want me to use the auto setting for the shutter speed/aperture--all manual and my feet are my zoom : )  I went and walked around UW and Union Station in downtown Tacoma, but before taking pictures I wanted to grab something to eat, decided on Subway and discovered that they have a new cookie flavor--Raspberry Cheesecake!!!!!! They were SO good, I'm going to have to keep myself from going there just to get cookies!

Now, the goal of the outing was to get pictures of people.......and that was terrifying to me! He reassured me that there was nothing "illegal" about taking pictures of strangers because they are in a public area. Understood....if I had my zoom lens I would be all for it! But a 50mm? Ugh. That means I have to get somewhat close to get the effects I wanted, and that is completely outside my comfort zone! Despite the fact that it was FREEZING outside and therefore weren't a whole lot of people out because of that, I managed to get a few but they are far from glamorous.....

Just not feelin' them.....but making them better requires stepping outside my box, and apparently mine is a rather large, Costco size box ; )

Later that night I took Cody, his roommate Jeff, and my good friend Brent out to The Rock (LOVE that place!!)...I took the opportunity to take a few more people shots of the boys with my new restrictions. I quickly discovered a 50mm is not good for taking pictures of people at the table with you, so I was the girl standing in the middle of the bar snapping shots, but I was okay with that : )  Brent was the one I got the good shots of, Cody hates pictures and I think he sends those vibes to the camera so I can't get good ones of him *lol*

This one is blurry, but I kinda like it...

Hanging out with Cody's sister's family tonight...maybe I can catch some good ones of Joey if he'll stay in one place : ) I guess I'll be visiting downtown a few more times this week--here's to hoping I can break open that box!