Sunsets, Windblown Rabbits, Etcetera (October 2022 Photo Dump + Update)

Greetings, friends!

I realized recently that I've taken quite a lot of photos lately and have shared very few of them. In this post, I aim to catch up a bit on the photography-sharing thing that good bloggers are supposed to do, and perhaps I'll also give a general update on life since August or so.

"But wait!" I hear you say. "What happened to, like, summer? Surely you did things besides take in the neighborhood views and cry over Marvel characters?"

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up* with the collage I made for the cover of my summer Spotify playlist:

Yes, I did do other things. Basically, I hung out with some awesome people, took aesthetic photos, spent two weeks on the back of a horse, lost my mind and found it again, and recovered from my sophomore year. The end.

Now that THAT'S out of the way *flaps hand dismissively*, we can continue onto the main purpose of this post. I tried to sort the photos into general categories for your convenience. I think at least the majority of them are lightly edited? Read on for a truckload of random beauty and even a bit of silliness. ;)

Vacation

Let's start with some fun images I took on our family vacation at Lakeside, a tiny town on the coast of Lake Erie. We kept it super low-key, so I had lots of time to wander around and experiment with lighting and shutter speed.

Little rock structures were everywhere along the waterline, quite picturesque!

I tried editing this one to make it look vintage and I think I was fairly successful.

My mom and I got up early one morning to catch the sunrise and- *screams*

Dew + morning sun + anything = LOVELY.

These droplets were made by a little sprinkler. Can you see the blurred spray in the background?

I am a bit annoyed at myself because before the few days in Lakeside, we went to a family camp weekend at a camp that's owned by old friends of my parents and I did not take a SINGLE photo. :/ I'll just say that old-fashioned camp is one of my favorite things in the world. There's really nothing like it!

Portraits

People are one of my very favorite subjects to photograph. These first few are from the last time Emily spent the night, the same evening as the photoshoot in this post. We randomly decided to sit in my car (covered in raindrops from a brief shower) as my sister Tes looked on.

Tes is the most photogenic human...

I have no idea what kind of flowers these are, but they're really cool.

**cutie friend alert**

Ah yes, now a bunch of random self-portraits.

This acrylic canvas was one of my summer projects, and I recently sold it on Etsy! It's a very cool feeling to have a random stranger like your work enough to buy it.

Last week I had a sudden idea to set up an aesthetic fall photoshoot featuring my camera's self-timer and my bunny, Willow. It was rather windy so the camera kept tilting to one side, and poor Willow just kind of flattened herself into a furry puddle until I brought her back indoors ':D All in all, it was rather disastrous.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Mooooving on, this is not a person but still a dear friend of mine. His name is Boots. Boots says hello and also wonders why I'm sitting in the dirt taking photos of him from such an unflattering angle.

Sunsets

You guys, the sunsets around here have been insane lately! I sadly haven't managed to get any on my DSLR lately but the phone pictures are still impressive.

Like---!

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I wrote a few scraps of poetry the other day about that inexplicable longing for something which we all feel from time to time. The sky always makes it hit me harder than ever. It's like the lavish beauty is just so intoxicating it hurts. Can anyone relate?

Miscellaneous

Pretty self-explanatory- just random images that I like. ;)

A barn friend and I have matching boots!

I apparently really like shoe photos...

This last one is a spoiler for a post coming in November... This year I'm trying Inktober for the first time! :D I'm excited to see what progress I make in my art skills this month.

As you may guess from the number of outdoor photos included here, it's been a pretty nice few months for me. ;) I'm settling into my junior year pretty smoothly, enjoying my meandering but full life right now. As usual, I'm loving the books I get to read for school and the topics I'm learning about! I'm babysitting for the same family again this year, meaning early mornings and a newly discovered appreciation for power naps. XD Still spending a fair amount of time at the horse barn, always my favorite part of the week. I love that my home education allows me to do such cool things and grow in my interests in a unique way. The world is just so big and there's so much to learn!

That's all for now, ramble-readers! Thanks for looking; I hope some of my pictures brought a smile to your face. I challenge you to find some simple beauty in your week today and capture it somehow, whether in art or writing or photography. It does the soul a world of good. :)

-Alayna

*The words of Anigo Montoya, the second-greatest fencer there ever was. He's out for revenge.