A few weeks back @Zeref and I went on a sunset river cruise on the Belle of Louisville. For a little background information, the Belle of Louisville is a steamboat that is still in operation and was built in 1914. Per Wiki- "She initially operated as a passenger ferry between Memphis, Tennessee, and West Memphis, Arkansas. She also hauled cargo such as cotton, lumber, and grain. She then came to Louisville in 1931 and ran trips between the Fontaine Ferry amusement park near downtown Louisville and Rose Island, a resort about 14 miles (23 km) upriver from Louisville. From 1934 through World War II, she operated a regular excursion schedule. During this time she was outfitted with special equipment to push oil barges along the river. She also served as a floating USO nightclub for troops stationed at military bases along the Mississippi River." & Now you can take fun trips on her during the day or take an evening sunset cruise which is what we did : D
Sorry the pictures aren't that great but the sunset from the boat was really pretty and we were pretty fortunate that we were on a smaller cruise & the boat wasn't packed. It was easy to walk around and get views from all sides of the boat without having to wait for other people standing around.
These are pictures of the sunset from the boat:
These are pictures coming back into the city after dark:
Note ~ The bridge pictures are the walking bridge as it's known here, it constantly changes colors & you can walk across it from the Louisville side to the Indiana side and end up in Jeffersonville.
These were prior to leaving while the boat was still docked & daylight pictures going upriver:
That's all for now, hope you guys enjoy the pics ;D
A couple weeks ago I went on a really nice hiking trail with @Zeref and took a buncha pics. The day was one of those really nice ones with the perfect blue skies we've been having a lot of lately. Another perfect weather day too which is always nice for walking. I've really liked going out for hikes and walks lately and just being in the quietness of nature. I think that's really good for mental health too. Being able to be somewhere quiet and relax and just enjoy the peacefulness of being alive. It's definitely helped me.
I really liked this particular place we went to because they had all different types of trails depending on what kind of hiking experience you were wanting to have such as ones for more experienced hikers or flatter ones that were only around a mile long for people not that experienced. We kind of stuck to the latter ones because I wasn't really feeling climbing up a buncha complicated things that day lol ~ Anyway I really wanted to share the pictures from there because I thought it was a really lovely place 💜
I'll put most of these behind spoilers so it's not to overwhelmed with pictures:
Out in the wooded part of the trails:
I really liked this tree because it was a place people could carve their initials on ~
And here's some pictures of the sky ~
Lastly, I just thought the paintings on the building were pretty ~
We drove to the river front the other day to the Indiana side to watch the sunset and I thought it ended up being really pretty so I decided to share some pictures from it. I won't make this a long entry because I don't have much else to say or add with this. This is from the Indiana side of the Ohio River looking towards Louisville, Kentucky. Usually I'm over on the other side taking pictures because we live on the riverfront but it was nice seeing it from the other side looking towards the larger skyscrapers.
I thought the sunset reflecting on the water with the bridge in the back looked really lovely 💜 Plus it was very peaceful just having milkshakes and watching the sunset. Hopefully this weekend I'll have some better pictures because we are going on a sunset cruise on the Belle of Louisville boat :3
I've been in Chicago for what feels like forever even though it's only been a few weeks. Sunday I got back home to Kentucky. Luckily the plane ride isn't so long and I didn't feel tired when I got home so @Zeref and I decided to take a mini road trip out towards the countryside of Meade County, KY. There's a steakhouse out there we wanted to meet some of my aunts and cousins at for Sunday dinner. The drives about 45 minutes to an hour so a pretty nice long drive out there with a lot of pretty scenery along the way. I took a buncha pictures of everything. The sky was so beautifully blue! I also got some really pretty shots of the Ohio River when we went over it on the bridge. I thought I'd share those from that day here since it's been awhile since I posted a blog entry.
First I want to put my favorite ones here ~ the rest will be behind the spoilers 💜 The first ones are when we were crossing over the Ohio River and the rest are all pictures from the countryside scenery as we were driving out. Everything has gotten so green now that Spring is here and the sky was perfect that day.
I'll put the rest under spoilers here. These are pictures from my Great Aunt's farm such as views from her property and the old barn that has been there for 60 something years.
The rest under this spoiler are just pictures of the Kentucky countryside. There's also a few more of the Ohio River in these.
That's all for now but I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures ^^
I won't be back to AF for a little while again so I wanted to post a blog entry and some of the pictures I've taken this past week before I leave. These are all from my road trip back to Chicago with @Eris and @Sarada. We really had a fun time. We got a bit turned around and ended up in Missouri instead of Illinois the first night.. yeah yeah my bad LOL By the time we realized we had gone the wrong way we just decided meh, whatev's, let's go see St. Louis, so, we did! What would a road trip be anyways without some adventure?
I've really enjoyed being back home. The reasons why I'm here are for mental health reasons so it's a bit personal and not exactly the best situation to be home for. Despite how I'm feeling I've felt more at peace since being home. Seeing the places I used to go to, meeting up with friends, seeing my family, staying in my dad's house. It's made me feel relaxed, safe, not stressed out, and just peaceful which is better than I've been in what feels like a really long time. Everything has just been kind of building for months and then kind of came crashing down at once.
I decided to try a black and white photo which is not something I usually do. I tried the first one with an angle of a street I liked and the second one is downtown Chicago. I really like the way the black and white looks on the first set it kinda gives it a really old look. Not sure about the second one I think I like the way the colored one looks more.
The ones below this spoiler are from the road during our trip here. The sunset that day was so pretty coming through the clouds that I had to take some pictures of it!
Another one of my favorite things to take pictures of is the city lights at night. It was a bit cloudy as usual in Chicago this time of year, but I kinda think it just adds to the atmosphere. Or maybe I'm weird but I've always liked foggy and cloudy Chicago when I can look up at the huge skyscrapers and can't see the tops because they are in the clouds ~ Most of these are in and around the Chicago Tribune building which is right at the main center of the Magnificent Mile and the other is from out on Navy Pier.
Below is just a few pictures of when we first headed out to walk around. The last picture is at The Field Museum. The Field Museum might look pretty familiar because it's been in a lot of movies such as Night At The Museum which is actually a movie I really like : D
I guess that's all for now. I really wanna say thank you to all my friends though on AF who have been there for me lately. You guys mean the world to me 💜
Last weekend, once I was out of the hospital, my friends, my sister and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. A little mental health walk as we called it lol Those can actually do wonders because it kind of lifted my spirits when I was feeling really down. The Dogwood trees in the area are blooming now, as are a lot of the other trees, and things just looked really pretty so I took some photos to share of it 🌺 I really love Spring once everything starts blooming and the trees are coming back. The temperature is always just perfect too usually between 50-60 and I'm not hot or cold and I feel good being outside and taking walks.
Dogwoods and Cherry Blossoms are some of my favorite trees when they are blooming ~ I think the pink ones in the photos are Cherry Blossoms and I'm not sure what some of the other ones are such as the red trees. The whole neighborhood area is blooming with them right now though ^^ Anyways hope you guys like the photos. Hopefully I can get back to creating blog entries again soon after I start to feel a little better. I think I messed up resizing some of the photos but it'll haveta do for now lol
I was looking back on some of my favorite Springtime photos today and thought I'd share those ~ I'm really hoping to get some pictures like this in a few weeks once the flowers really start coming out 🌼Some of these are from the parks, some from my dad's neighborhood, and some from my dad's garden. Every year he always does tons of flowers and I've always kind of wanted to be able to do that too but I was honestly never very good at it. I've somehow gotten to be pretty good with plants this past year though so I'm trying to expand into planting some on my balcony this Spring.
I think my favorite photos from this are the pink trees (not sure what they are) that belonged to a house near my dad's and the neighbor said I could take pictures of it. They are probably some of my favorite flower pictures that I've taken and I hope you enjoy them too ~! I'm trying to get out on the river soon as well and take some pictures of the sun setting over the Ohio River but with the flooding and all I'm not sure that's going to happen this weekend x.x If it gets a bit better possibly during the week next week I'm hoping to get out on the boat 💜
Welp, I'm going to just post these here this time instead of under a spoiler ⬇️
I thought it would be fun to post some of my older photos today ~ these particular ones were some of the first I took when I started doing photography. All of these are from the neighborhood I was living in with my dad at the time when we had a pretty good snowstorm. I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and walked around taking pictures of the snow scenes. The neighborhood was so peaceful and quiet and I just remember it being a great memory, one of my favorite in fact.
I did edit these on PS such as with the lighting and color, which is something I don't do as much now. These days I do enhance colors on photos but that's about it. I still think these are pretty though with the way I edited the lighting/coloring/adding bokehs.
Anyways, I hope you like looking at them ~ ❄️
I got the most random text from my mom last week where she texted me "I'm in Vegas!!" I'd no idea she was even going or how she got there lol It seems like she had a good time though and she sent me a ton of pictures. I won't share any of the actual Vegas photos, they are mostly just blurry pictures of old people partying in casinos lmao
While they were in Nevada they rented a car and did some sight seeing through the mountains and visited my step-dads brother who also lives there. Some of these views are from outside of his home I believe. It would be really awesome to step outside of your house I think and have that kinda view lol ~ it's much different than my city views here, though I like both of them in their own ways. Oh and the last picture I think is from one of the little towns they were visiting through. She asked me if I could clean up some of the photos on PS for her and enhance the coloring so I did and she said I could share them. That's all there really is to this post is I just wanted to share the really stunning mountain views she had 💜
Yesterday was kind of a crazy day. I went out with @Zeref and my friend from school who is known for being a little.. interesting lol I know I'm crazy but she's next level. Anyway, the plan was nachos but we ended up on about 10 different side quests. One of those side quests ended up with us in a graveyard so we walked around looking at old graves (some were from the early 1800's) and I took some pictures. That was actually kinda nice because graveyards are a nice place to take pictures. I'd have preferred to do it at dusk for the darker aesthetic feels but I also don't really want to be in a graveyard at night lol At least not in the particular neighborhood we were in.
Here's some pictures from the cemetery:
We also ended up hanging out on my roof for awhile and I took a few pictures there. You can see the river and all of downtown from there. I personally prefer it at night with all the lights twinkling but it's harder to take pictures at night:
The next ones are from today. It was raining all day which kind of matches my mood tbh ~ I mostly just laid in my bed and stared out the window watching the storm moving in. There's been a lot of stuff I'm working out in my head recently and I know how to fix it, but it's also not that easy. Well, maybe it would be, but then I overthink it and I talk myself out of it. There are times I wish I could turn my emotions off and simply not feel anything, for anyone, ever again. I think it would be much better than whatever the hell I'm feeling lately.
Well, that rambling aside, it's really kinda nice to watch storms here. We are so high up I can see really far in the distance such as the storms coming in and even rain falling far away. Being so high up is also a really great place for taking pictures of the storms since you get such a good view and when I'm laying around in bed it's nice to cloud watch and think.
Last one is still just the rainy pics but you can see that little street better where all the pretty white trees are ~
I decided to go on a walk today, which ended up turning into this 4 hour-ish journey venturing around my neighborhood and the parks in the area. I had planned to go sometime this weekend but all morning had 0 motivation and was only sitting around on the couch feeling sad from the events of this past week. I decided to force myself to get up, get dressed, and dragged myself outside, much against my own will (and believe me I protested A LOT) lol ~ I ended up being really glad that I did.
I went to see some of the trees that are blooming first, then visited the parks, and after that I decided to walk around some of the streets behind my house where there are a lot of old Victorian era houses built in the 1800's. Old Louisville is pretty much made up of these huge beautiful houses that have really cool architecture, big tree-lined streets, and beautiful gardens. You can Google "Old Louisville" actually and see some way better pictures than mine under images. It's really such a beautiful neighborhood, and while I do miss Chicago often, I think this is one of the prettiest places I've lived. Despite being right next to downtown, walking around here is very peaceful and there's so many cool things to look at.
There was a street I can see from my apartment windows (I'm 17 floors up so I can see pretty much everything) that was lined with blooming white trees I wanted to visit so that was my first stop. Below in the spoiler are pictures from that. I initially thought these were Dogwood trees but turns out they are called Callery Pear trees.
These are from my walk down a couple of the streets in Old Louisville. The Magnolia trees are already blooming and I love those ~ I really like the architecture on a lot of these older houses too. The details are really cool to look at and I noticed some of them even have things like Gargoyles on them and just really intricate patterns carved into them. I love those huge round windows a lot of houses in this style have too ^^
Below is one of the Victorian mansions in the area known as the "Pink Palace" and it's part of the ghost tours around here (Old Louisville has ghost stories about pretty much every single house lol). Apparently there is a ghost named "Avery" who lives in the home and is a protective and peaceful spirit. He usually appears to residents to help them. Two such stories I've heard were 1 a woman was taking a bath in an apartment in the basement part of the house when Avery appeared to her. She freaked out (naturally) and jumped out of the bath just a few minutes before a cement block came through the window because robbers were trying to break in and the block would have hit her. Another story is Avery appeared to residents right before a fire broke out leading them to the kitchen were the fire had started and they were able to put it out before it did any major damage.
This is another supposed haunted Victorian Era mansion called the Conrad-Caldwell House, or just the Conrad Castle. I actually did a historic ghost tour of this place back at Halloween and it was super interesting. It was built between 1893-1895 and it's currently a museum. I'm not sure how many ghosts are supposed to be in the house, but I've heard somewhere around 9 different past residents haunt the home. They've done several TV shows such as Ghost Hunters on the property as well which is kinda neat.
That's all I have for now, hopefully you enjoyed looking at the pictures. I'm thinking about taking a walk to the riverfront tomorrow, so I may have another batch of photos to share 💜
The last few days have been really hot and it's made me miss Winter so much. I really wanted there to be at least 1 more snow but I'm not sure we're going to get that. The temperatures have been going up to the 70's/80's F (21-27C) already and I'm not sure the ground will freeze up again for snow to stick. I think we've moved straight out of snow season now and into tornado season since there seems to be more tornado chances lately and high winds than snow. I could be wrong though and we could end up having a brief "second Winter" where we get some snow accumulation. I hope so because I didn't really feel like I got a chance to do much in the snow this year. Even when we had that huge amount of snow it was impossible to make snow people in or play in due to the layers of ice over it.
I decided that I'd put together some of my favorite snow pictures from the snow we had last Winter. I had gotten out and taken some pictures of the pond and park area when I went for a walk with my cousin at her house, which is kind of in a more rural area compared to where I lived in downtown Chicago. I was able to get some much better pictures of the snowfall and scenery. Taking pictures of nature is always my favorite type of photography and snow is always so lovely when it's first fallen.
Some behind the spoiler ⤵️
The past week has been somewhat draining and exhausting and a lot has happened with my uncle's funeral + some other life issues that I'm still working on sorting out and processing. I always find it amazing how you can do everything for someone and they still end up treating you badly or backstabbing you in the end. I think I might attract the wrong kinds of people sometimes and I'm just too dumb to realize it. BUT! I won't try to focus too much on that because I also have some really amazing friends who I've formed deep long-lasting friendships with that I also know will always be there for me in any way I need and that's what's much better to focus on.
I guess that's about all I have for this blog entry. I hope everyone who happens to read this has an amazing rest of your week.
Oh! One final thing, a couple more pictures. I know these are pretty awful but I don't have some amazing, high-powered camera, so it is what it is and taking pictures of the moon is never easy but I did think the moon/sky was extremely pretty last night and I tried to get a few pics of it.
Spring is coming soon, and while it's not exactly my favorite season (much more of a Winter person), I am looking forward to seeing all the flowers. You really can't go wrong with flowers as the subject of your photos' or take a bad picture of them. Nature is definitely one of my favorite things to photograph and Spring always creates the perfect backdrop for any photo in my opinion. With so many parks around the area that I'm living in right now I'm hoping to be able to get out and take some walks and a lot of new photos this season.
When I think about Spring the #1 thing that also comes to mind is new beginnings which is kind of where I'm at in my life. Working through a lot of different feelings and emotions and trying to let go of the past and work on my present & future. I'm hoping to start a new chapter in my life in more ways than one. There are some days when that feels more difficult than others, I suppose today would be one of those days but I'm trying to deal with it as best as I can. The beginning of things can be scary, whatever that is, whether it's a new chapter in your life, new love, new school, new whatever. With me, there's just a lot I need to process for this next chapter of my life but I'm hoping it blooms into something beautiful that I can look back on some day and be happy that I took the steps that I'm taking now.
Here's a few photos I took last Spring to look back on ~ The butterflies are from the Chicago Butterfly Gardens that you can walk through and most of the flower pictures I believe are all from my Dad's yard.
There hasn't been anything particularly interesting to post about in my blog lately, just been trying to get through school days and life in general. I've been going through some confusing emotions and trying to learn how to let go of some things from the past which have been harder than I expected. In some instances I think it's easier to hang onto past things or people because you've held on for so long that it becomes all you've really known and even when it's hurting you, you don't want to let go of them or the situation. Even when it hurts at least pain lets you still feel like it's with you or a person is with you even when they aren't.
In my case, I'm tired, and above all I'm tired of hurting and waiting for someone that is never coming back and that's really just something I've accepted. I feel like I deserve to move on and be happy with someone in the present instead of constantly living in the past and never moving forward. Though this is all a little personal and I guess that's really all I want to share about it at this time. On the happier note though I have decided to let myself find something in the present to be happy with and I'm proud of myself for that much.
Onto some pictures since of course this is still my photography blog lol ~ These are some of my favorite pictures I took from the roof of our house back in the Summer during a really pretty sunset over the city & I hope you like looking at them too ✨
Under the spoiler ⬇️
These are some of my favorite pictures that I've taken that are Autumn themed ~ Obviously this was from back in the Fall. Pessi & I visited a lake and camping area and it was absolutely beautiful there with the leaves changing. It was also pretty quiet and there really wasn't very many people, which made me enjoy it much more. I hate when I visit places in nature and there are just people everywhere running around and screaming. It's like you go out to relax but how can you possibly do that when there's a million people running around lol ~
Pictures are below in the spoiler ⬇️
Second part ⬇️
I guess I really don't have much to talk about in this blog, so sorry about that. There's nothing very interesting going on in my life right now but I just wanted to share one of my favorite picture series I've taken in my lil photography blog 💜 I suppose Valentine's day is coming in just 2 days as far as holidays go, but I doubt that's going to impact my life very much.
I've had a strange last week-ish when it comes to emotions. I don't really know why I can't get mine in check lately. I feel like I'm going from one moment of extreme happiness to the next moment an hour later to extreme sadness. I probably actually have a good idea why, which confuses me even more, but I don't think I'll get it under control until I figure out this situation. I've spent the last few years not having any type of real feelings for anyone else, and honestly I was fine with that. There was 1 person, and this 1 person only, who I haven't seen in awhile & he never knew how I felt to begin with, but I'm not going to get into all that here lol ~ and then I went and caught feelings for someone, ew.
I was debating telling them until they called me and started telling me about some girl they had just started dating. I don't think I've really felt "okay" since that happened last week. While that hurt I also felt kinda.. glad? After I really thought about it. Mostly because I feel like I'm getting feelings for someone else and those bother me even more because I can't figure out if I really am or not. Also that person lived in Brazil and while we've met once before IRL I always felt like he was just using me for various things and as if I was just someone to talk to when there was nothing better going on. When I look back on it all though I realized I never said *anything* to him at all about anything I felt and basically was just living out whatever I thought we were/could be in my head. May have been a good thing though.
As far as the other person goes, I haven't figured that out yet either, and I feel nothing but extreme confusion with whatever I'm feeling there. I mostly just want to go out into the woods and scream at a tree about it. I don't know how I went from years of being content with just me and understanding that was all it was ever going to be, to being hurt by some idiot and absolutely losing my mind about another guy at the same time. Though neither of them know/knew and odds are I won't tell this other person either. I never know how to confess that to someone so instead I just put up cryptic Discord messages and try to hope they are psychic or something lmaoo
All that aside though I went up to the roof today to think about all this and there was the most magnificent sunset I've seen in a long time 💜 I sat up there watching it until all the colors had gone from the sky. That's what I have pictures of today for this, so I hope you enjoy looking at them and sorry about the rambling.
Piccys below vvv
There is also a short video I took of it:
https://i.imgur.com/ei92yRX.mp4
I've been going through some of my old photography from Chicago and I've realized how much I miss it. I usually just ignore feelings when I can, especially sad ones, but I suppose it hit me really hard today/last night. I know I have to be where I am right now for school but I don't know how else to put it other than it sucks.
I miss the school I was going to there, I miss my friends, I miss living down the hall from my sister, I miss the little store I went to on the way home from school, I miss sitting by the lake, I miss going to the aquarium and the Beluga whales I got to play with sometimes while doing class credits, I miss being near my dad, I miss walking downtown at night listening to music, I miss the trains and subways, I miss the little spot I'd sit at on the river walk and do my HW, I miss going to Grant Park, I miss riding the electric scooters downtown, I miss going to the shopping center in Rosemont, I miss going to all the anime conventions around there, I miss doing silly things like the time the power was out and for some reason me and some friends just went Naruto running in the park lol, I miss the apartment I lived in, I even miss he way the air smelled (which is weird for it being a city). I just miss a lot of things and I've never felt so homesick.
Oh well, I guess I really have no choice but to just get over it.
Here's some picture I had taken from the place I used to sit quite often and have lunch at. I had a specific bench that was "mine" lol
I've decided to make a blog on here mostly to post my photography because I love to take pictures. Mind you, I'm under no circumstances a professional photographer, I just like to take pictures of things I find pretty. That'll mostly be nature such as flowers, animals, sunsets/sunrises, water scenes from when I'm out on the boat (I'm studying to become a Marine Biologist so I'm on the water quite often), snow scenes or architecture because I'm quite fascinated with buildings.
I'll also probably ramble here occasionally about whatever's going on in my life or my mind at the time.
For now I'll just start off with posting some of my favorite pictures I've taken. Most of these were taken in Chicago, Illinois. I'll always keep these behind spoilers so they don't overwhelm the page. You can just click on it to view the picture.
Chicago at night:
Some water scenes:
Random architecture & parks:
Welp., that's all for now. I'm still sorting through some of my old photography so I'll try to do that tomorrow and post some more of it in my next entry on this. It's just a matter of organizing it but I seem to not have a lot of time during the week with classes going on. By the time I get home half the time I just get in bed anyway and play on my phone.
