Took some family photos for a friend and her 3 month daughter.  It was a beautiful day out and we took photos outside and really came away with some cute shots.

Enjoy some of my favorite shots.

This site hasn’t gotten nearly the love it should be getting.  I’ve been keeping myself busy lately with a cupcake project.

The ones pictured above are sour cream chocolate with peanut butter buttercream.  They’re so popular I’ve made them twice.  Eventually I want to make cupcakes more of just a hobby thing.  I’m trying it out slowly and trying to post more photos.  There will be more to come, especially when I get a bigger kitchen.

If you like what you see and want to try some cupcakes, e-mail: vanessakskocz@gmail.com

I recently returned from a trip to Australia for a week.  Why for such a short time you ask?  Well, I promised a friend I would travel with her when she finished her study abroad term and since that was the most time I could take off work then there was no question about going.  Do I wish I could have stayed longer?  Of course.  Do I regret going?  Never.  In a week I visited a beach, hiked up and down the mountains, went skydiving, went sightseeing with my French roommates, shopped till I dropped and met tons of cool people along the way.  I love traveling so much this is my 7th country I’ve visited.  Trust me, there are plans to see many, many more.  It’s like an itch.  Once you start scratching, you can’t stop.  This photo I took was at Bondi Beach.  We went there on Tuesday for the day.  At first we had planned on hopping around to different beaches but then we found it a lot easier to travel where we wanted from Sydney and we didn’t have to lug all our stuff around.  Naturally, there were plenty of surfers to be had, which mad me nostalgic to surf.  There were hardly any swimmers in the ocean without wetsuits on, however, because it was winter.  On average the temps floated anywhere from 65-70 degrees depending on where you were.  Perfect weather for me but not so much for laying out/hanging out at the beach.  We were glad it was just a day trip.  Enjoy the photo.  I took plenty to blog about to be on the lookout.

When it comes to summer I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to weather and storms.  I love thunderstorms and I would go storm chasing in a heartbeat.  We had a pretty massive storm that set off the tornado sirens.  We all knew it was coming considering how humid it was today and then it suddenly cooled off, that always spells trouble.  The sunset was after the storm passed with some awesome cloud cover, might I add.  The photo may not be super star quality but I thought it was pretty cool, plus you’re the one visiting my site, right?  Just kidding.

In other news, I’ve been a bit on the stressed side having to deal with moving out of my currently living situation thanks to the owners of our house wanting to move back in.  After debating back and forth I decided to move home with my parents (for a max of 3 months) so I have time to collect apartment furnishings and save money for deposits. My goal is to find the perfect sweet apartment I’ll want to stay at for more than a year.  We all know moving sucks so let’s hope I don’t have to drag everyone in to help anymore than necessary.  So yay!  Here’s to moving and apartment hunting, yet again!

This weekend was filled with lots of photo taking.  I shot an art exhibit at the Bemis Center downtown on Friday.  I haven’t submitted the photos yet so I’m not sure if it’s kosher to post them here, but in due time.  Then Saturday I took some photos of a good friend of mine, Heather, because she’s graduating college.  She wanted to have some senior-esque photos of her and of course I jumped at the chance.  I’ve been scoping out Elmwood park here in Omaha for quite some time.  I’m sure it’s a favorite spot of many photographers but the nice thing about this park is there’s so many elements to it that I’m sure there aren’t always the same shots twice.  We had a blast in the muggy evening and got some good shots to boot.

This weekend I also figured out that the hot shoe of my 20D is officially shot.  While I should get if fixed I’m almost thinking I’ll wait until I buy a new camera.  I’m still mulling it over.  Until then enjoy the photos.

When we wrapped up the shoot I decided to wander Elmwood a bit to take some fun nature-esque photos.  It had just rained that morning so I couldn’t resist because the leaves were looking extra green today.  I think I managed to find some blog worthy photos to share here.  Enjoy!

For some reason I really like taking solidarity photos.  I felt weird creeping on this guy because he looked like he was trying to having a moment to himself.  Maybe the reason why I like taking photos like the one above is because I like to imagine what they are thinking.  Sure, the view is ok, but there’s a reason why they are here alone clearly out of visible public sight.  I also felt a litle scared of taking his photo, maybe I’ve lost a bit of my photojournalism touch but I was worried about what would happen if this man knew I was taking his picture.  That, or I was afraid of ruining his moment alone or ruining the natural moment I was trying to capture.