To which I responded, “Yes!”

And then night time actually rolled around and I was super tired. But I was thinking to myself, “It’s only for a few hours, no big deal.”

It was when we were on our way, past the point of no-return (i.e: the point where I could have said, “No, I think I’ll stay home and sleep.”) that I was informed we’d be out until 3, maybe 4 in the morning.

Balls.

Thankfully, it wasn’t that late (or is it early?) of a night. When all of our toes started to freeze off, we packed in the telescopes and tripods and headed home at around 2:30 am.

I do not, however, regret the near toe-loss to frostbite. Mainly, because of these images:

And my clear favourite:

I’ve started writing a lot of posts lately that I haven’t finished & published yet. So today, I’m going to try and get some of these done. I’ll upload this post with links to the new entries, since some of them go back a little ways and might now show up in RSS feed readers.

Full Couches to Empty Houses

One Year, Twelve Cameras – Olympus ME (December)

Dreams really do come true!

Closet music.

Review: The DarkRoom.com

Happy Birthday to Me!

Photojojo Tutorial: Keep Film Fresh

Photojojo Tutorial: Keep Film Safe on Planes

Another Photojojo tutorial! I have lots of experience with this one and from all my travelling, I haven’t damaged a roll yet. Read how here.

I’m back working on tutorials for Photojojo! Here’s the latest one.

So here’s 2012′s look back on 2011. Give or take a few months.

My favourite events from my 27th year (in no particular order because playing favourites is for chumps… most of the time).

	Jonathan “Riker is a Ladiesman” Frakes Oh the flirting! This man made my comic con. I totally thought Kirk would be the highpoint, but the what girl can say, “no” to Jonathan Frakes?! Have I told you I’m going to meet Sir Patrick Stewart this year? My knees are already weak. (Read the original post).
	Erinn graduated. I know this isn’t something that effected me much personally, but I was just so proud of her. Erinn had found something she was passionate about and brilliant at and finished a degree in it. Where she goes from here is up to her, but Erinn’s eye for beautiful art is one of the best. (Read the original post).
	Photographing Ian & Christine’s wedding. I’ve photographed a lot of things. As the years go by, I’m doing more and more as a professional photographer. It’s a slow game, breaking in and making a name for myself. Ian and Christine’s wedding was the first time I felt like I really belonged somewhere as a pro photographer. It was like I wasn’t pretending or making it up as a I go anymore and it totally showed in the photographs. I’m proud of the work I did for them and it was such a beautiful day, filled with so much love. (Read the original post).
	Putting ancient ceramics back together. I love archaeology and I found a new type of archaeology that I love. I wasn’t sure how much I’d enjoy fiddling with tiny pieces of ancient ceramics in an attempt to put it all back together again, but my god, it was fun. It’s so satisfying to see something go from shards of nothing to a complete something. (Read the original post).
	Falling in love with one of my favourite people. I don’t often get too personal here on this site, but this is one I feel comfortable sharing. Friends for years, neither one of us saw this coming, but I couldn’t be happier or more satisfied with how things have progressed. It works.
	Archaeology Day with Sashiere If you haven’t noticed, I need a little adventure now and then. If I don’t get adventures, I get restless and slightly depressed. Adventures make life feel so much more satisfying. (See the photos on Flickr).
	Beautiful Bulgaria I had trouble leaving for Bulgaria. I really did. I loved Bulgaria though. It’s a great place with amazing sites. As eager as I was to get home when it was all over, it was bittersweet. Seeing Bulgaria makes me want to explore more of the Eastern European countries. I have my eye on Romania at some point, Macedonia, too. (Read more posts about Bulgaria).
	Menta One of the greatest discoveries I had in Bulgaria. Mix it with Sprite and you have a party in your mouth. I wish I could find it here.
	The best photo I’ve ever taken My sister’s wedding was great. Beyond great. She married one of my favourite people in the world and I couldn’t be happier for them. And then, I got the privilege to not only be maid of honour, but also their photographer. And then I took the best photo I’ve ever taken. (See more of their photographs here).

Now I’m going to go have a drink for the coming year!

Unfortunately for Calgary photographers who like to use film, it’s really hard to get 120 film developed anymore. Everywhere has to send it out to be done and it’s terribly expensive.

So, I’ve been looking for an alternative and I might have found one in the form of thedarkroom.com. I sent them two 120 rolls a little while ago and thought I’d rate their service here.

I spent $10.00 USD to get their basic service. It includes developing, scanning to a CD, and an upload to the Internet.

Overall, I had a good experience with them. The service was quick and it was super cheap, which made me happy after paying as much as three times that to get my film developed and scanned before.

In the end though, the quality of the scan was not what I expected for a base-level scan. The resolution was only 1024 x 1024px at 72dpi, where I would have prefered something more like 3000 x 3000px at 300dpi (or something). I find it strange that they say that resolution is a good one on their website, as from experience working in a photolab, I’d say it’s fairly low-quality for anything over a 4×6 print.

I did like that the photographs were automatically uploaded to the internet. As soon as they were done, I had digital copies of my files, even though I hadn’t received my negatives back. It made it easy to get to work right away on what I wanted to get done.

I do plan on using them again, but the next time, I think I’m going to upgrade the scanning and try again. At an additional cost of $5 per roll, it’s still less expensive for developing & scanning than it is here. Hopefully, this will get the resolution I’m after. If it’s not, I’m afraid it’s a dealbreaker for my use of The Dark Room. In the end, what do you have if it’s not of usable quality?

All in all, I give them 3 out of 5 film spools.

Chalmers: Good lord, what is happening in there?!
Skinner: Aurora Borealis.
Chalmers: Aurora Borealis? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen?!
Skinner: Yes.
Chalmers: … May I see it?
Skinner: No.

Thanks to all these nifty solar flares we’ve been getting, it was a gorgeous night to photograph the Northern Lights.

We were driving along the highway and I spotted something in the distance that looked like clouds, the closer we got, the more we realized it was a huge ribbon of aurorae.

Pulling on to a dirt road, we found a good spot that was far enough away from the city lights to get a decent shot. We set up our tripods in the middle of the road and started photographing.

I have to say, the Lights are magical. Such a beautiful chance event.

I point you in the direction of this page. Go on. Click. And then come back. I’ll wait.

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DID YOU READ IT?! Oh. My. God. Not only is the whole cast reuniting, but THE WHOLE CAST IS REUNITING AND THAT INCLUDES SIR PATRICK STEWART!

I swear to you. Once this year’s Comic Expo is complete, I can die a happy girl.

I have loved this man since I was a little girl. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him. A friend posted this on my Facebook page and I’m worried this will happen to me:

I mean, really, what do you say? Here is someone who crafted a character that shaped a good part of the way I approach things in life. Captain Picard had a sense of honour, appreciation for using one’s brain, being resourceful and abiding by a strong moral compass. These are things I wanted to emulate (and definitely found attractive – not going to lie!).

What do you say??

Anyway. I’m super excited and have some time to figure out what I’m going to say to my favourite actor and the only celebrity that can initiate this response from me (it’s an audio clip of me HeyTelling my sister the news):

Don’t worry, she couldn’t understand me either.

The best photo I have ever taken.

I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate my sister and her now-husband. Yay!!

It was a great wedding, the best I’ve ever been to. I’ve never had such a good time in my life. It was interesting to be both the maid of honour and the photographer, but I think it turned out alright in the end.

I love them both dearly and have not doubt there is only happiness ahead of them.

It’s the last one. For December, I chose the Olympus ME. It doesn’t belong to me, I plucked it off of Stephen’s shelf because it looked just so pretty.

The reality of it was that I didn’t much like this camera. I suppose things might have been better had I put some batteries into its lightmeter, but I don’t think it would have been much different. The lack of full manual control got to me and I found myself struggling to use it much (though that might just be an excuse).

So with that, this project is over. It was fun to give my cameras a little test drive, since I hadn’t used many of them for more than a few rolls (it’s hard when you have such an extensive collection – but I love them all). I did find it creatively stinting.

Lately, I’ve been more interested in really working with my photos, not just in post, but in sets and recreating dreams I’ve had. Or at least, that’s what I’ve wanted to do. The problem with using film cameras is that you can’t check your progress as you go and have some limited options in post-processing.

So, this leaves me deciding that though I began photography in film, I think I’m a digital girl now. I wouldn’t touch a point-and-shoot again (unless it’s underwater, since housings for my SLR would be prohibitively expensive for once-in-a-while happenings like that), but I do heart my SLR.

And that brings me to my next announcement…

Meet Lux.

With everyone talking about the Canon 5D Mark III, I’ve recently become the proud owner of a Canon 5D Mark II, whom I’ve named “Lux” – the Latin word for, “light.” I love her dearly. I was able to borrow her off a friend when I went to shoot my sister’s wedding. My own 5D Mark I, my beloved Seshat, had – after 40,000 exposures – started to go a little. She still works, but the quality just isn’t the same anymore.

After borrowing the 5D Mark II, I had the opportunity to buy her. I know Nicole had taken expert care of her and I knew the number of exposures, so I was getting a great deal. It’s not that the Mark III isn’t a great camera (omg, it is), but it isn’t worth the $3800 price tag. At least, not right now.

So, now I look forward to getting back to more creative photographs. I love film, but there’s so much that can be done with digital, too.