Coming to a close...

I know my countdown clock says 16 days until school is over...but it's actually only 12 days. wow. 2 years looking back sure went by in a hurry, and I can't believe it's over already! Looking back it feels like I've only been gone for a couple of months, but during the 2 years it felt like I was gone FOREVER!! So glad for it all to be coming to an end. I have one more week of class next week, and one final exam the monday after and then I'm finished. But I have about 6 different projects to hand in over the next week! Yikes! I guess it'll be one last super busy stretch until I move home. Wow. Oh, I also got a job :) Praise God! I'm working in a photo studio in GP so it's perfect! So excited that everything out. Just waiting on a potential roomate to see if she wants to live with me and my other roomate, then if she says yes, we have a place lined up too! Pretty neat :)

Lots O' Learning!

I've been in Medicine Hat since last Friday shadowing under Rachel Shultz of Madchen Studios (pronounce Maychen which is german for "little girl") and have been learning a ton! I'm FINALLY getting accustomed to Mac computers and might just have to spend the *money* on one! She's been showing me all sorts of tricks and tips to save money on backdrops and reflectors and everything and I'm so excited! She's also been letting me do some of her editing (Brave girl!) and today was allowed to pick out some of my favorite images from the shoot! She also let me design a baby announcement card for one of her customers! She's mainly a children's photographer that does families and weddings too. Today we got to photograph and adorable one year old boy with these HUGE blue eyes and spiky blonde hair. He was such a ham for the camera! It's been so much fun and I'm looking forward to the next week with her!

Houses and Jobs and Stress...Oh my!!

Last Wednesday I was able to go up to Grande Prairie to do some major job searching since I'm 4 weeks away from graduation (yikes!) I dropped off sooooo many resumes and was actually quite disappointed when I left that no one had phoned me before I left town. Feeling a bit defeated, I drove back to Edmonton for a one day school week (and you're asking what I need to be stressed about? haha :) Well it turned out to be a very busy week indeed! In three weeks, I have to hand in a complete business plan for a photographic studio that is run by myself and two classmates. We just started working on this plan yesterday...yikes. Then today, I received an email from a studio in Grande Prairie wanting to do an interview on Thursday (SO good but also yikes!) Which means I needed to get all 4 of my projects that are due this week done and handed in by 4 pm today (I received confirmation of the interview at 1 this aft.) So I quickly got all my stuff together and got to my school by 3:30. Unfortunately the computer lab at school closes at 4, which means I had to book it! I had to hand in two projects (luckily digitally) print another project, and hand in my portfolio all in a half hour. It was quick! BUT I was able to get it done! Then tomorrow I have a demo at a studio in town on doing a glamour portrait, and then I head to GP wednesday Afternoon, stay the night, go to my interview on Thursday, drive back to Edmonton, do Laundry and pack on Friday and drive to Medicine hat on saturday for two weeks! *phew* Anyways, without boring you guys with my future plans, prayer that the job interview goes well. I don't think I could do another year away from GP. I need to get a job!

Photo Blog

Hey Everyone!
I started a blog specifically for my photography that will include all the goings on of my photography life! I think at this point I have decided to jump into photography with both feet once I'm done school, so I'm kinda panicking! But I figure I'm one of those people that if I don't do it now, I won't do it at all! So here's to being successful! Anyways, the address for my photo blog is www.karilynn-photo.blogspot.com Check it out and let me know :)

PPOC Image Competition

If you haven't heard of the PPOC it is the Professional Photographers of Canada and it's a great association to get involved with. Anyways, they're having this big symposium conference thing this weekend and as a project at school, we were all required to submit 2 images into their print competition for judging. I decided to enter four since it was the same price to enter two as it was to enter four, so it just seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately for me, only one of my prints was accepted but at least I got one in! So that was nice. It was a long day though. I ended up staying from 9:30 - 4 today to watch them judge all the images, and there were some pretty amazing ones! Anyways, the one image that did get accepted was the one I took of Logan in October! You can see it in this post and it is the very first image to show. It's also one of my most favorite photos to date!

More Portfolio shots...

Here are the photoshoots from the house that I was talking about a few posts back. This house has endless photo taking opportunities! So here's a few for my portfolio

My sister Marlys

My Bro-in-law Terry

And this is the one I'm going to use for my fashiony shot because it has more of a fashion feel and less of a portrait style to it.

Drum roll please....

Alright, So I decided and I'm going to stick with it this time! I'm happy with the name and I love the logo. Here it is!
The writing looks black here, but it's actually brown! I really like it. I wanted to work a really nice pink into the logo as well, but it wasn't working out. I might try again some other time, but I really like the Teal!

Kyle

My brother Kyle is visiting here for a couple of days, and I wanted to use him in a photo shoot. I LOVE the new "Star Trek" cover and loved the lighting on Kirk, Spock and Uhura, so I decided to try to duplicate it. I realize the quality isn't that great, but I always downsize my images when I put them on the internet so that if people take them and try to print them, they aren't very good quality! But you get the idea. Anyways, this is the result!Annnnd then we decided to take a nice picture for my mom because she wants a new one of Kyle to put on the wall...and as you all know Kyle does not like serious pictures :) We ended up getting one serious picture that's really nice, but I haven't edited it yet. This is one of the outtakes. Meet Kyle:

Yep, he's a goof :)

*Edit* For those of you who haven't seen the Star Trek Covers, Here's the picture:

Name Ideas...

I'm still having a hard time with the name for my business. I know I shouldn't be so picky about it, but I don't want to be changing my business name very often, otherwise it just confuses clients and can just be such a pain! It's kind of hard having to be rushed to do it as well, as I need to make a website within the next two months and make a facebook page. Anyways, I have a few ideas floating around my head but I'm still unsure about them. Here they are:
1.Kayel Photography - my initials are KL but I figured that would be boring so I decided to make a word out of it. Don't know if that's how I want to spell the word, but you get the idea.
2. KLiK Photography - I like this one too, but I'm worried it'll sound too gimmicky. It uses my initials in it (KLK) which is a bonus, but I'm also going for something more feminine?
3. Karilynn Photography - I like this one, but I've recently discovered 4 other photographers (3 of which are in my class) that are using their middle names in their business name and I'm worried it might not be original enough now? I don't know. Tough decisions!!
Anyways, if anybody out there has some input or ideas, leave a comment below! It would be awesome to hear what anybody else has to say!

*Edit* Due to a unanimous facebook vote, I think it's going to be KLiK Photography!
*Edit #2* Nevermind, even though everyone on facebook likes KLiK, most people have been reading it as K-Lick rather than Click. *sigh* back to the drawing board!!

A Bunch of Oilers fans!

About a week or so ago, my sister and her family came up for the weekend for a visit and wanted me to retake some of their family pictures in the studio. Last time I did there family pictures it was outside and they were wearing their Oiler's jerseys, but the background was really dark, so they wanted some family pictures done with a white background. These are the results:

Evan is 11 months old on March 1 and he's just getting so big! He has four teeth now and is super funny! He's starting to "dance" by wiggling his shoulders :) So cute. Anyways, when Mom and Dad got back from Maui, they brought Evan a little Hawaiin shirt and shorts. We also had a ukelele and my grandma's first guitar (which she bough in Hawaii) so we decided to put them all together and get a cute little shoot!
I've started to get some pictures done for portfolio using the house I'm house sitting. I have a few portraits of Marlys and Terry that I love that I need to post, but they are on my other hard drive. But, I did take this self portrait there (first successful self portrait haha) and might use it for a portfolio shot (don't know if it's fashiony enough though...)

Anyways, those are the latest photos around here! I'm looking to do some more "Star-Trek" inspired shots using either my brother or a classmate...who knows?

School Blog!

I Finally made the school blog!! Well, technically I made it before, but I didn't have permission from the subjects in the photograph to have my teacher post it on the blog. Anyways, I made it onto the blog for my "Executive Portrait" Check it out here.

Winter Princess

I had this idea for portfolio that I just thought would be so neat! I'm starting to enjoy doing fashion photography basically because it gives you SUCH creative freedom. You can basically do whatever you want and it will work haha :) So these are the result, I'm again, VERY happy with how they turned out. I also took a leap and did the hair and makeup myself too! Take a look...
This last one, is very odd. But yet I like it. I don't know, it has a psychotic straight jacket look to it, but yet it's very much a fashion shot. It's so strange.

Photoshoot with Rachelle

Rachelle's in Edmonton for a week and a half, and I needed to take advantage of that opportunity! I was so excited about the results that I had to show everyone! The last one is my favorite, and I'm going to be using it for my portfolio! Enjoy.

Thesis night teaser

We have our annual thesis night coming up on Monday, and our program blog just posted a teaser. My classmates are extremely talented and create such amazing photography it's really neat to be in classes with them!
Check it out here.

And so begins another semester...

Well, I'm just "finishing" up my second week of my last semester of school and boy does it look quite challenging! (I say "finishing" because I never have classes on Wednesday's and this week and I think every second week I don't have classes on Thursday's either) I don't have very many projects, but what projects we do have are BIG projects! This semester we're taking a small business course that goes over the basics of starting your own business, which will be very helpful! we have another portrait class, a self promotion class (we have to make a website and business cards etc. Look for that in the future :) And a class called "Major Client" where we are broken into groups of four and are assigned a non-profit organization to have as a photographic client. We have to set up a meeting for them and go over what they want photographically and when certain events are. Throughout the semester, we need to acquire 50 hrs. of shooting time as a group altogether. Our group just had our meeting this afternoon and I think it will be interesting but challenging to say the least! We were assigned The Bissell Centre here in Edmonton which is a non-profit organization with about 18 different programs they run from day-care to a homeless shelter, so we'll definitely have quite the variety of shooting I think! I'm definitely a little bit nervous though, it'll be the second "job" I have done since beginning school, but I think the experience will be invaluable :) We also have a fine art class which is going to prove expensive as we move back to 4X5 film photography.
Over the past few weeks it's been pretty stressful as well, as I have basically wiped out my savings and am looking for a part time job for the semester with no luck so far. I haven't recieved a call back from any one place yet...so I'm kind of nervously praying that something comes! I would like to move back to GP in may, and money is a necessity for that, so here's praying!
There has been a few hospital visits around here as well! (not us being in the hospital) My grandmother has some heart problems and had to get an angiogram done (they inject dye into your veins to make sure everything is as it should be, which it was) but after the angiogram showed fine, she went back to her hotel room, and layed down for a nap. When she woke up she got an instant severe migraine and my grandpa and aunt took her back to the emergency room where they had to do a CT scan on her head to check for clots, and a spinal tap to make sure there was no blood in the spinal fluid. After a 13 hour wait, the tests came back and she was fine. So praise the Lord for that! I'm looking forward to having my grandma and grandpa coming to stay with me for the next week.
As some of you know, our dear friend Karen is currently being treated for lung cancer at the cancer institute here in Edmonton. She has had I think 3 weeks of chemo and radiation so far, and has another 3 to go, but we went and saw her tonight and she is looking and feeling fantastic! She was happy, energetic and just doing great! Just goes to show how powerful prayer is :) She said without people praying for her, she's sure she would not be doing as well as she is, so keep praying people, it's definitely working! :)
So those are the updates in my life. I could use some prayer, if you ever think of it. I think this semester is going to be very stressful as I am doing graphic design schooling, full time schooling, possibly a job as well as looking for a job in GP and a place to live. I was also put into a group for one of my courses where I am very nervous about how it's going to work out. I'm a little worried that I may end up doing most of the work, and as you can tell, I do not have time for that!! Prayer that everyone will pitch in and do their share and that we'll pass! Also, prayer for the job and savings situations. Definitely nervous about that one, and praying hard! Hope you all are doing well!

And today's Chuck Norris made me giggle a little bit:
"Simply by pulling on both ends, Chuck Norris can stretch diamonds back into coal."

Name Change...

No, not my actual name. Just my business name. I've been thinking about changing it to something more fitted for someone who's doing the business by themselves. I really like Knappshot, I think it's really clever and funny, but when I hear it, I think it's more of a company name than a single photographer's name. I also don't really want to go with "Kari Knapp Photography" because it doesn't sound quite right to me...hmmm. I am kind of leaning towards finding a really neat word with a great meaning behind it, but can't seem to think of the right one. So, if any of you out there have any ideas, let me know! I'd love to hear 'em!

Hooray for being broke (Haha!)

Today was an expensive day. That makes it depressing! Today my mom and I had a few errands to run around town getting groceries and doing the recycling, and since it is a new semester, I needed to purchase my next round of bus passes which comes in at a whopping $316.00 for the four months! In the long run it saves you quite a bit of money, but 300 bucks at one pop can be pretty mind blowing, especially when it's a good chunk of your savings! I was fine in getting the bus passes and I was doing good, but then we got the mail. Back in October I was in GP doing a work experience week, and ended up accidentally running a red light!! I was driving toward the intersection, noticed the light was yellow and that people were still driving through it, and so I looked down briefly to see what was brushing my arm, looked up, I was in the intersection, the light was red and the flash came! I was so upset and worried and I felt terrible! I don't do things like that! Anyways, a month came, then two months and no ticket, so I assumed I was in the clear, but then I got it in the mail today finally on January 4th! I ran the red light on October 29, they mailed the ticket December 11, got it today, and now I have until the 26th to pay...$287.00!!!! Hard lesson learned! Here's a hint to saving money...Don't run red lights!!

Daily Chuck Norris January 4th:
"Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster take pictures of Chuck Norris"

Last project of the semester

Just finished it, and it took me FOREVER! I think I put more effort into this project than the rest of the projects from the semester. But I'm very pleased with how it turned out! We pretty much had free reign on what we wanted to do, so I decided to turn myself into a cartoon and then make my hand look as if it is disappearing into a cloud of swirls and flowers. Looks really cool! Check it out...

School Blog

Our school program started it's own blog and posts events and photos regularly. It's pretty neat to see the talent all my classmates and the first years have! Take a look!

Should Probably pay attention....

In photo shop class our teacher always gives us a sheet going step by step what we're going to go through, and today's was really easy, so I kinda went ahead and did it making my own changes. This was the result...
There was supposed to be the writing, and then one red jet above the writing...I thought that was too boring. :) Click on it to make it bigger! Then you can see the little details!