Browse Category: photos

Vendor #3 is in the Mouse House!

cards

Back in October, when Eleen was putting together her list of vendors for her Modern Mouse shop, she offered me space in her store to sell my photos.  I was initially excited but then dumbfounded by all the logisitics.  What do I print?  How much can I spend?  How much do I charge?  Well, I went out on a limb and chose four photos that would go together in a themed set and printed blank greeting cards.

packaged

Once they arrived, I was surprisingly pleased with the quality of the paper and how well the photos turned out.  I then went to Kelly Paper for some clear plastic sleeves and printed some labels to give it a complete look. Ta Da!!

On Friday, I stopped by the store to drop off my first set of 40 cards.  Eleen added them to her inventory and I helped put price tags on them.  Yay!  To make it official, she put them up on display and now they’re for sale!

Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with a cleaver name for my mini photo business and build a classy website this coming year.  Until then, you can find my stuff at photosbynina.smugmug.com.

Sunday Outing

SFMoMA

For the past 2 years, Jes has said that his company has special membership privileges at certain museums in the city.  We finally used it today to visit SFMoMA.  Fortunately for me, there were lots of photography exhibits on display this weekend.  It was also the last day of the Richard Avedon exhibit.  He’s a well-known photographer who took lots of black and white portraits with plain white backgrounds and also shot fashion photos for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

richardavedon_01

Dovima with Elephants

richardavedon_02

Carmen (Homage to Munkacsi)

These two were my favorites, which also happen to be soe of his most famous ones that are also displayed at The Smithsonian.

holidaylights

Afterward, we took walk around Union Square to find lots of holiday shoppers, lights, and signs of Christmas all around.

thai iced tea

For dinner, we had some Thai food and just the smell of the restaurant made me happy.  There’s something so comforting to me about the smell of garlic fried in oil.  Reminds me of Mommy.

Anyway, this evening was a nice way to end this year’s Thanksgiving weekend…especially since I spent most of if at home in my pjs.  🙂

Modern Mouse is now open!

Grand Opening

sign

Modern Mouse is now open for business and it’s located in a shopping center in Alameda.  It was kicked off this afternoon with friends, family, Haamoni drinks, and Teacake Bakeshop goodies.

Teacake Bakeshop

store_01

It was so exciting to see all of Eleen’s products alongside the 40 other designers’ items.

store_02

products

Everything was so cute and interesting that they make me wish I could quit my day job to do something more creative.

Eleen was kind enough to offer me a little space in her shop too but I couldn’t get my act together in time for today’s event.  But she was very cute in making me a nametag anyway with the name “Beakatude” underneath my name…funny.  I’m actually in the process of thinking of an actual name for my photog stuff so stay tuned.

Congratulations, Eleen!!!

Here are the rest of the photos.

Lights, Camera, Photoshoot!

backdrop

Last Thursday I agreed to take product photos for one of Eleen’s friends who also makes handbags.  She’s building a new website and needed photos taken of her bags.  Eleen warned her that I had never taken product photos before but Penny hired me anyway!  I don’t know how much others charge but I must be a bargain!

test shot

So, I borrowed Eleen’s 500-Watt light and supplies, rented a lens from Borrowlenses.com, and rented an umbrella from Adolph Gasser.  With Eleen’s foam sheets, I made a seamless backdrop and experimented with the set-up until I got it just right.  Here’s a test shot of a bag that I already had lying around the house.  Yay!  Not too much shadow and plenty to work with for whiting out the background with Photoshop.

planet penelope

This morning Penny came over and we spent 2 1/2 hours taking over 150 photos of her 9 bags in different positions and getting the details just right.  Here’s a sample photo of one of her bags.  Her website goes live next weekend (www.planetpenelope.com), which will be just in time for Eleen’s Grand Opening of Modern Mouse.

Speaking of Modern Mouse…I visited the space on Friday and it’s huge!  The products that she’s already received are really cute and I’m so excited to see them all on display next weekend.

Belated Birthday Pictures

Jes' birthday

Back in September we all went out for Jes’ 34th birthday.  We celebrated it in Italy on our own but I thought I would be fun to have our friends together a week later.  We all met up at Hi-Dive for some burgers and beer.

Ta Da!

Gerard also did his bottle-stacking trick for us and although it could have been a really bad scene if they came crashing down, it didn’t.  Pretty impressive.

I’m not sure how these photos slipped out of the rotation but I JUST went through them this weekend.  Here are the rest of the photos.

Michelle’s Bday

Michelle's Bday

Tonight we had dinner at Ironside to celebrate Michelle’s 33rd birthday.  The usual crowd was there and it was fun catching up and enjoying some tasty roasted corn and butternut squash soup. Happy Birthday, Michelle!!

Here are the rest of the photos.