Bokeh

Is a technique used in photography to make lights look blurry.

I tried it out on my Nikon.

To do it, you need some lights (like Christmas lights or a chandelier),

a camera,

and a black piece of paper.

On the black piece of paper, cut out a little design in the middle.

I chose a heart.

Next place the card over the lense of the camera.

Make sure your camera is on a manual setting to get the blurriness.

Take a picture of the light.

See your result and keep on trying.

Here are my failed attempts and an example of good bokeh.

Here's a nice example of Bokeh.

Attempt Numero Uno-Fail

Attempt Numero Dos- Fail. Too focused.

Attempt Numero Tres- Ok. Not too bad. Looks like a strawberry.

Numero Quatro- Not too bad. Kinda cool.

Numero Cinco- Eh. Better than others.

Well. At least I tried.

If you want a well written tutorial, hit up this site

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/how-to-make-bokeh

Happy Picture Taking!

Oh by the way, its International Hug a Filipino Day :)

-Nikki

Thinking.

In life,

there will always be a time where one is troubled with numerous amounts of ponderous thoughts.

I'm having trouble on deciding on what I should do.

Put it this way.

I have two rings.

One of them, from sixth grade, and one I this year.

I haven't worn the ring from 6th grade in a while until now,

but I've been wearing the one I got this year for about two months now.

I've been wearing the same rings for a couple of days now,

and I can't wear more than one ring.

And I don't know which one to choose.

My ring from 6th grade is one of my favorites and I've had it for a while.

It's a very inspriational ring. It has deep meaning to it, and it's classic.

My ring from this year is very bohemian hippy chic.

My ring from 6th grade goes with all of my outfits,

whereas my ring from this year doesn't.

I can't really decide which one I want to keep though.

I'll feel terrible if I depart with my new ring because it's new,

but my old ring really shows who I am.

When I wear my old ring, I'm happier for some reason than I am with my new ring.

I think I just need a deep meditation session.

What should I do?

-Nikki

Jewelry

I dig rings...

and jewelry

Especially unique ones made out of fake metal.

My mumzy always said to invest in jewelry because they'll have some kind of value no matter what.

Well...that really only applies for "real" jewelry because real metals like gold and whatever have more value than metals like...the ones I have that turn my fingers green.

So I'm starting my collection now.

But here are some pieces that I really dig.

-Nikki

This owl ring is pretty sick. I think it's from Forever21.

This bracelet's really cute. I really like the big turquoise-like stone in the middle and the peace signs and the red stones.

I love the detailing on this pendant. It adds texture as if the elephant were real and the red stones add color.

Again, this pendant shows a lot of detail/texture and I really dig the owl so yeah.

This is a charm ring. It's got a red heart, a black ball with purple stone things, and I'm not sure about what's next to that, but I really like the silver color and the contrast with the colors. 

FML?

Okay so seriously,

I hate it when people have statuses and are like,

"Oh emm geeee fml...this suckss. I hate youu"

First of all spell correctly with the correct amount of letters.

Second, do not say hate and then the next day be like "I LOVE YOU".

Because hate is a strong word (Plain White T's good song)

and so is love. So use the terms correctly.

But I CANNOT stand the term FML.

FML stands for f*ck my life.

Why would you say such a terrible thing?

Yeah, life sucks at times, but to take it to the extent of saying f*ck it?

Seriously, that's life.

Things happen.

Get over it.

Stop being a drama queen/king.

Plus, some of these people do not know how lucky they are to have a life in America and to have a home and food and access to a computer.

Okay, there are millions of people in third world countries that don't have clothes.

GET OVER YOURSELF.

People don't realize how much they have these days.

Come on people. Open up your minds.

Watch what you say next time.

'Nuff Said.

-Nikki

Seriously?

Okay so I just got back from a soccer game,

and I've seen plenty of terrible refs,

but today was the most ridiculous game I have ever seen.

You cannot take a goal away from someone if it has been already played.

If the other ref is saying something to a ref, STOP the game and dont let it continue.

Seriously, the head ref was listening to the sidelines shouting the calls and calling the calls 2 minutes later.

Come on.

I think that even with all of the chaos, someone should have been carded.

That's how bad it was.

'Nuff Said.

-Nikki

Blah

Some Pics.

Enjoy

Drew this on my arm yesterday in first period Health.

My Lucky Brand ring and my blessed buddha beads my dad got me at this meditation thing.

I have to do this project for my photo class where we have to pick a subject and take pictures of three of the different thing. I chose rings.

My old rusted heart charm ring with Alissa's iPod.

Me wearing my dad's ring. I don't know what the little symbols mean though.

My mum's pearl ring with her pearls on her old scrub uniform.

-Nikki

Mood Board

So pretty much of all of April so far,

I've been working on my mood board.

A mood board is pretty much a board (in my case, a wall),

that has pictures or sayings or anything that inspires you.
I put mine in a place where I'll see it every day.

Mine has a lot of prints and pictures of runway models for m designing needs,

and I've got some little phrases on there, like shop for good and make peace, relax, eat. play. work, etc.

Some days I'm just so stressed out with school and life and I forget to chill.

Sometimes I get so caught up in taking pictures or drawing sketches that I forget about school, which is what I really need to focus on.

I've got three more years of high school, and picking out colleges will come around soon.

I'm not really sure what I want to go to college for yet though.

I really want to either pursue a career as a designer or something in the medical business such as a doctor.

I'm kind of stuck in between with the two of these paths right now, but we'll see.

The colleges I really want to go to though is Santo Thomas, or NYU.

You've probably never heard of Santo Thomas.

I think it's the oldest college in Asia and it's located in da flipz (the Philippines).

My dad said it's one of the best colleges too and they have a pretty sick medical course.

NYU is my second pick though because it's a pretty nice school and it's in New York and I really want to chill there.

New York's very diverse and you can pretty much express yourself there and its accepted and it has great shopping.

But for now, I'll just try my best in school and attempt to get some sort of scholarship or whatever.

-Nikki

Here's My Mood Board (Wall)

It's backwards because I took the picture with my webcam,

I had to cut out pics from every single TeenVogue issue that I have collected so far.

I guess it was worth it because my walls looking pretty sick as of now.

Once I get a working printer, I'll be able to add more lovely little things to it.

Style

So the past few days were gorgeous days,

and my photo class went outside to take pictures.

The first four are from today.

The rest are from yesterday

A lock from a locker.

A pretty beat up notebook.

A blooming flower on a tree.

A frog. Yummy.

I was in love with these tree.

The colors were gorgeous.

Legit, it was standing out in a crowd of dead old flower bushes.

I loved the pinks and the contrast with the white.

My camera doesn't zoom in that close without being focused so this was the closest I could get.

-Nikki

Macro

I'm really into macro photography,

which is when you take pictures of object up close and they're super focused.

So the other night it was raining, and when I woke up in the morning and went outside,

I saw that the flowers had water droplets on them so I was like, "AHH".

So I went to go and get my precious D50 and take the pics.

I also made a little quick sketch of dresses.

Happy Spring.

Enjoy.

-Nikki

Daffodil

Another Daffodil. You can't really see the droplets on this one though.

I don't know what these are, but they're purple. No raindrops here.

And here is the sketch that I drew for my dear friend Holly.

Spring Break and Love?

This week so far,

so boring.

some spring break.

Everyday, I've waken up around 7:30, automatically.

I didn't really go anywhere besides Delaware and Maryland.

Fun there, but it was only a couple of days.

Nothing special really happend.

Beiber has a new video, I forget what the song is, but it's about him with another chick.

What a surprise.

I couldn't really hang with any of my friends, so I was home every single day of the week.

I've been pondering a certain question to myself.

How do you know when you're in love?

Some say it's when you get butterflies in your stomach when you see "the one".

Others say that it's when you know that you are ready.

But how do you know if you're ready?

Also the word "love" itself is overly abused.

"I love my best friend____ (two weeks later, I HATE ____).

Seriously. Love is abused.

I hear little 12 year old kids that are supposedly "dating" saying "I love you" and they only go out for a week?

It's not cool to have a boyfriend/girlfriend when you're 12.

Yeah it's cool to brag and be like"Oh I'm gettin' some",

but honestly, you're really not getting anything, other than a huge ego.

I guess you know you're in love when someone/something is constantly on your mind all the time, and  you can't get rid of it.

I'm not like saying the cheesy scenario of a teenager daydreaming in class,

I mean if you see something, and it reminds you of a someone, and you think about the time that you've spent with someone, yeah.

This doesn't only apply to those relationship things, but with friends and family as well.

Like if you see a word, you instantly think of a person in your life.

Give me any word, and I'll name somebody near and dear to my heart.

Love also takes time.

You can't just take a glance at somebody and say "Omigah I love him/her"

You have to get to know the person.

All of these lil 8-year-old girls are like "I LOVE JUSTIN BEIBER/ROBERT PATTINSON/ THE JONAS BROTHERS" when they have no clue what they're about.

They just fall for their looks.

For all we know, they could be crack addicts (I'm not saying they are).

So yeah, the word love is abused and you don't find it, it comes to you.

-Nikki