playing host is totally fun. and exhausting. but mostly fun.

I feel like I'm just now catching up on regular life things, and can now do a proper blog post. I've been totally slacking this month on keeping up with this space, but hey, it wasn't like I was sitting around doing nothing. The mister and I were enjoying our duties as Official San Diego Host & Tour Guide for a good friend who visited us from the east coast. Yay! We love when people visit!

Okay, less talking, more photos.

The nice thing about still being kinda sorta newish to San Diego is that some of the places we showed our visiting friend were new to us too. Like the San Diego Zoo! We were totally impressed and had a blasty. Also, I just realized that in the photos above, there's only one in which the animal is real. Ha. Hint: it's not the one where my husband is being petted/molested.

We like to dine and wine our visiting friends. It's only polite, right? There was obligatory tequila-sipping at Cafe Coyote in Old Town, and sushi boat coma time at Zen 5 in Pacific Beach. AND! We found out through a neighbor friend that La Mesa has its own food truck gathering every friday. WHAT? How did we not hear about this sooner? Cheap food, four or five different trucks. We are so going back. And of course, a visit to our city would not be complete without visiting a local brewery. It seems like you can't throw a rock in any direction without hitting at least one. So we hit up the Ballast Point Brewery to sample some very tasty beers and take a little tour of their operations. A word of advice: the Habanero beer is exactly what it sounds like. Oh. My. Word.

At some point during the week, I got the idea in my head to get my husband and his bff together in a kiddie pool. With lots of Yuengling. And assorted props. And take a picture of it. Just normal dude stuff right? You can check out the final image (plus two more) on my flickr page. 

making new photografriends

I like to think that two people with a passion for photography is always better than one. There's something magical that happens whenever I meet a like-minded soul with similar interests: I get excited. And not just excited in the "Oh-cool-you're-a-photgrapher-I-like-photography-too!" way. But excited in that I remember all the reasons why I started shooting in the first place. I get inspired all over again, and being able to share that energy and excitement with another photographer is fantastic.

Such an occurrence happened a few weeks ago when I met up with Kristina. I started following her work earlier this year, and was stoked to know that she lives in San Diego (since I knew I was about to move there). She's a photographer who shoots for West Coaster magazine, she recently was a part of Phoot Camp this past summer, and she's an all-around lovely person. That's her above!

She invited me to help her with a self-portrait idea she wanted to do, as well as just walk around her neighborhood of Pacific Beach to shoot, talk, and whatever else inspired us. You don't have to ask me twice. I'm pretty much always game.

The nice thing about hanging out with a fellow shooter (and we talked about this very fact that day) is that when you want to photograph something and need the other person to stand in the frame, you never feel bad/awkward/silly for asking. It's like ingrained in our photographic DNA to be totally fine with not only posing wherever they need us to stand, but to do what the average citizen might find downright insane just to get a photo. Oh, you need me to stand in a shallow lake fully clothed? What the heck, we've got towels in the car! Oh, you need me to throw leaves and a scarf simultaneously in the air twenty times for the perfect shot? Let's do it! No instruction is too weird.

{shot by Kristina, with my camera}

Kristina doesn't mess around; she brought her flash setup complete with umbrella onto the beach. Which is awesome. And also makes me feel like a chump for not being as ambitious. Just kidding. Sorta.

Whilst on the beach, she photographed a couple of surfers that were out and about, and then wanted to try something else. So we approached these two gentlemen and asked if they wouldn't mind being an impromptu model. They obliged. Kristina photographed the gentleman on the right with her fancy strobe setup, and I photographed the two of them with good 'ole natural light. Thanks dudes!

These are some snaps with my iPhone from that day. I'm finding that mobile photography is getting more and more addictive, but I'll save that for a future post :]

So here's to making new friends and photo adventures! And both in the same day is pretty darn sweet.