personal work // 36

Today, I am 36.

While my mother was visiting last month, we had a really great conversation about aging and what it feels like getting older. We laughed, but also lamented on how tragic it feels that our bodies seem to age quicker than our minds. That the sharpness and vitality of our brains doesn't match up to the never-ending gray hairs, the age spots that have creeped over our skin, and our slowly diminishing energy.

We revealed to each other the "true age" we feel inside, despite the number of years we've been on this earth. My magic number is 28. My mind feels 28, and my body generally feels 28 until I look really closely.

I know I'm still relatively young. I hope I'm still saying that when I'm 70 years old, and my mind feels 55.

I'm on Ello!

Are any of you fellow creatives on Ello? I joined last week on a whim, and I'm really liking it so far. The minimal, clean format makes my brain happy, and it's easy to discover new art, whether you like photography, gifs, illustration, etc. I also love that it lets you indicate which of your works are for sale, and allows you to link directly to it.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with how many different social media platforms I use to share my work (flickr, instagram, tumblr, facebook), so it seems counter-intuitive to join yet another one. But I've found I use each one a little bit differently. I've been on flickr the longest, so it has all of my old work from 2007 on, plus a lot of my travel photography and scanned film photos. I use instagram to share more of my day-to-day life, especially life as a mother with twins. Tumblr is sort of like my online scrapbook of art I love plus my own work. And my facebook page is sort of a mish-mash of all that. And now I officially feel like a crazy person for sharing in so many ways, but for now, it works, and it makes me happy.

I think I'll use Ello for sharing just my best, personal, recent-ish work. You can check out my profile here!

the shape of a mother

This is my post partum body.

For the past eight months, I've been struggling with this new version of myself. Some days, I feel rad and proud of what my body achieved: growing two tiny humans from scratch, and housing them safely for 35 weeks and two days. They were born healthy, and couldn't be more perfect. But then those other days. Days where I look in the mirror, and I don't recognize this soft, pliant belly. This stretched-out navel. Days where I touch my C-section scar and cringe, even though it was the only way to get my babies out safely. Days where I realized I'm still wearing my maternity jeans because they're the only ones that still fit me. Days where I feel and look like I've aged five years instead of 8 months, because holy cherries on a stick, these babes can run me ragged.

I'm still adjusting to motherhood, still finding my way. I expect this journey will continue for the rest of my life. I'm trying to find some kind of balance. I'm trying not to step on the scale so much, trying to forget what my pre-pregnant weight was. Why do I care so much about a number? I'm trying to eat moderately healthy, and that's hard too, when there's two babies who demand my attention for most of the day. But most of all, I'm trying to be kinder to myself, and do good things for my body and mind. I started taking barre classes three months ago, and it's been the biggest source of my confidence lately. There's just something about sweating it out while doing power squats and pliés in a room with other women (many of them mothers too) that makes me feel strong and beautiful. 

Even the act of taking these photos for this post was empowering. I hadn't done any kind of photography just for me in such a long time, and it felt strange but good to roll down my seamless backdrop and go through the motions of doing a simple self-portrait again. I've missed it. But the most surprising thing of all was when I looked at the photos I'd taken after uploading them to my computer. Instead of seeing a battered, stretch-marked body, the one I've been so negative about these past months, all I could see was a beautiful mother. A mother who is doing the best she can. A mother whose kids love to climb all over that soft, stretched-out belly. A mother who loves her kids so hard. A mother who is learning to love her body again.

photoshoot flashback // specimen

Photography: Lisa Kimberly // Fashion design: Annalynn Luu // Jewelry: Sweet1985 // Hair: Badri Kermani // Makeup: Danielle Henry // Model: Mio White // Assistance: Kristina Yamamoto

Once upon a time, before the twins came along, I collaborated on a really fun photo shoot with some talented women. And then I never got around to blogging it, until now. So here goes! 

I worked with two very different designers and a sculptor, not to mention a fantastic creative team. It still blows my mind what can happen when all sorts of creative types input their skills and talents for a shoot, and how lucky I feel that I get to photograph the magic. Looking at this image humbles me, because I know that I am just a slice of this image; it takes more than one person to make a great shoot happen, and this is proof of that.

This dress was designed by Annalynn Luu, and it's made out of....wait for it....trash bags. Unfreakingbelievable. Our mood board for this shoot was a little bit Victorian, a little dark, with some insect imagery thrown in....so while editing this, I decided to add the moth, and it seemed to fit pretty well. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also partly inspired by Miss Aniela and her ongoing surreal fashion series. She often incorporates animals or objects into her fashion images, so this is a bit of a homage to that.

Those beautiful elk sculpture were made by the uber-talented Zynada, and they fit in so perfectly with this shoot. Not too long after this shoot, I photographed more of her sculpture work individually, which you can see on her website. Sweet 1985 also provided some of her rad jewelry for these looks, which was another bonus.

Photography: Lisa Kimberly // Fashion design: Jaqueline Hazel // Hair: Badri Kermani // Makeup: Danielle Henry // Model: Mio White // Assistance: Kristina Yamamoto

This amazing cardboard dress was made by the second designer I worked with on the shoot, Jaqueline Hazel. Another creative soul who makes her garments out of unconventional materials. She was inspired by sort of an underwater vibe, and to me, Mio looked like this beautiful, ethereal mermaid.

I wanted to play around with some in-camera motion blur for this garment, which is harder than it looks to capture. But out of dozens of images, this one spoke to me the most.

This was probably my favorite look/shot of the day! Another amazing cardboard dress design by Jaqeuline.

And here's some behind-the-scenes from that day!

Badri Kermani did her hair magic for the shoot, and I've worked with her before, so it was great to see her and collaborate with her again.

My good friend Danielle graciously lent her makeup skills, and she really nailed it with all the different looks. So many creative women working together under one roof = my heaven :)

From left to right: Zynada, Annalynn, and Jaqueline.

This was seriously such a fun shoot, and I'm glad that I was a part of it. Hopefully I'll be doing more artsy fartsy things in the near future :)

bits of california on 35mm

I shot these on a trip to Salvation Mountain and Palm Springs a few years ago. Expired film in my Minolta x-370. I don't shoot with film much lately, but I'm trying to remedy that. I've been shooting with my dad's Canon A-1 for a new photo project this year. It's supposed to be a daily photo thing, but these twin babes are keeping me busy to the point where I've been forgetting here and there. But even if I can do a couple photos a week, that's fine by me. I have so many rolls of new and expired film laying around the house, so I want to put them to good use this year :)

personal work // blended portraits

New year, new blog post! 2016 feels so weird to type, like we're living in the future. I'm not ready for it. But on the plus side, I was inspired to give the 'ole blog a makeover, so I did. New theme layout, more minimal, and it just feels more like me. And today, I want to take a break from the momming/twin posts, and share some portrait work I did back in 2014.

I wanted to do something interesting with some of the portraits in my archives, and I was partly inspired by my ego sum series, where I merged bits of nature to my own self-portraits. I created some of these images on my iPhone using the Image Blender app, and I created others in Photoshop.

The original portrait of Mio was from a fashion shoot collaboration back in 2014 (which I just realized I never blogged about! Must. Remedy.), and the rain on glass image was something I shot at home.

I merged a photo of foggy woods from a trip to the east coast with a portrait of Kristina that I took in Yosemite. Sometimes I have to experiment with blending different background images until I find a combination that just feels right and looks right.

I love this one so much. I shot this portrait of Kaila in my studio, and months later, I snapped the background image with my phone at a car wash from inside my car. Instead of soapy bubbles, I saw something that reminded me of the cosmos, something otherworldly. In Photoshop, I added the light effects around Kaila's face.

I shot a beautiful series of nudes of my dear friend Debbie, and decided to merge one of them with a simple iPhone shot of a succulent plant. You can see the original image of Debbie here.

Another portrait of Mio merged with tree and sky from my backyard.

I decided to play around with an older self-portrait from 2012 and blend it with a coastline image from Big Sur. I did this one in the Blender Image app, so the image quality isn't great, but I still quite like it.

And now I'm inspired again to create more of these this year :)

6:30 am thoughts

I'm writing this at 6:30 in the morning, because I had a horrible night's sleep, and I woke up in physical and emotional pain. I had an awful dream that I thought I was losing part or all of my babies. Something felt wrong. Something was trying to come out of my body much, much too early.

I haven't been sleeping well for the past several days. Even with my enormous 'pregnancy pillow,' this massive U-shaped thing that was so helpful when I first got it, doesn't seem to help with all these new aches that I'm waking up with. It feels like a burden. This morning I wanted to stab it violently.

Up until now, I've had the normal pains and uncomfortable-ness that comes along with pregnancy, and I've dealt with it pretty okay, and then the posterior pelvic pain (aka pelvic girdle pain) came along as if to say, "Since you've had a fairly easy pregnancy so far, let's show you how much it can fucking suck." And it did. And walking from the living room to my bedroom felt like it took an hour, with every painful step. I popped Tylenol all day yesterday for it, which only helped so much. And then I felt guilty for taking medication, even though I know rationally that Tylenol is safe to use during pregnancy. Some twisted part of my brain feels that I deserve to feel every sharp stabbing pain, every cramp, every inconvenience, because I wanted this. I wanted this pregnancy so badly, did everything I could to achieve it. 

As I write this, our guest room that will become the nursery has yet to be cleared. Still unpainted. The only piece of furniture we bought so far is the rocker. I feel so horribly behind. We need to have a yard sale. I feel like the entire house is filthy and needs a professional cleaning. I feel like we're losing time. The only upside so far is that I've become obsessed with throwing out all the boxes and paper trash we've accumulated over the past four years. Why am I hoarding all this tissue paper? Do I really need 23 gift bags? It's a slow start, but it's a start.

 My husband has been my rock through all of this. So supportive, so willing to do anything to make me feel better. But he doesn't always see me when I break down in tears. I try to keep that from him. He has so many of his own fears and uncertainty about impending fatherhood, and we talk about it together. He's being so strong for me, and I'm trying to be strong for him too.

I know this is all temporary. I know this won't last forever. I'm halfway through this pregnancy, and I just need to push through. My babies are so worth every single physical pain. Whenever I feel their tiny bodies kick from the inside, my heart swells and everything becomes more bearable. They are going to keep growing, and they need me to be strong.

I will be strong for them.

photo taken at 19 weeks, © Lisa Kimberly

bits of life // april

1// Hey, I got published! Slo Life Magazine contacted me a few months ago, asking if they could do a little write up about my wallflower photo in their April/May issue (which you can see full-size at the link) that was taken at the Madonna Inn. Of course I said yes, and it came out lovely! I wish I could link you to the online version of the article, but there doesn't appear to be one. So this quick Instagram shot will have to do. Oh, and this is one of the many photos I took during my little jaunt to Yosemite/Big Sur/San Luis Obispo with two other photographers, which you can read about here.

2// If there's two things I hoard, it's camera stuff, and home decor/design books. Especially when it's a book published by a blogger I love, or a book recommended by a blogger I love. I've been following Justina Blakeney's blog for at least three years, and its always been the best eclectic boho eye candy for me. She's inspired me to be more adventurous with using more pattern and color in my home, and I can't wait to look through every single page of her new book.

I read about the new book Design Mom via Emily Henderson (another great blogger), and thought to myself, "Welp, I'm about to have two little hellions running around my house; this might be a good book to have." Especially since I don't want to necessarily sacrifice everything home decor-wise once I have children. (I say that now, but easier said than done, right?)

3// Look, I'm outside! Not nauseated and miserable on my couch! It's a first trimester miracle! Some girlfriends and I had a pool day last weekend, and it was one of those rare days when I felt 100% not pregnant at all. No morning queasiness, no heartburn, no bloat. It was bliss, and it felt good to put on a bikini, showcase my tiny baby bump, and just spend some time in the water with some rad ladies. My morning sickness has definitely waned over these past few weeks, which I'm so so grateful for. The nausea still hits me at least once a day, but I'm getting more energy back, and showing my face in public again. It's grand.

4// Might as well show the 'ole bump. I'm officially 12 weeks today, so I'm nearly done with my first trimester! I had my first OB appointment since transferring from my infertility doctor two days ago, and it went really great. It was a 45 minute long appointment, and my new doctor was super thorough with verifying my family medical history, giving me a full physical exam, and answering my questions. Then she did a quick ultrasound scan of the twins at the end, which showed Twin B moving around and Twin A taking a nap, apparently. They're growing great, and everything looks good. 

I still can't believe sometimes they're really in there, just growing and moving around and basically renting out my uterus for nine months. So these ultrasound scans are really special to me, because I can see them in real time, bunked up next to each other, and I think, "Those are mine. I'm really having them."

:)

bits of life // november

1 // My 52 weeks project is still going on, and even though I'm a few weeks behind, I can't quite believe it's nearly over. Above is my week 41 photo. Once again, I seem to be forever drawn to merging skin with nature.

2 // Speaking of skin, I was so excited to have some of my recent photos included in the latest issue of Clear Nude Magazine. It's a fantastic quarterly magazine that celebrates the nude form in art, and it looks even more beautiful in print! My cat clearly approves.

 3 // Back in September I went on a little road trip with two other photographers to Yosemite National Park, and it was seriously just what I needed. Fresh air, nature, magical golden hour light, and so much photo-taking. I'll have to do a separate blog post soon on just the portraits alone, and how geeking out with fellow photo nerds makes my heart so happy.

4 // I also went to the east coast recently for some family bonding time, and of course all the fall foliage and foggy mountain mornings were just begging to be photographed. As much as I love living in southern California, I really do miss the more moody weather sometimes (cause it's 90 degrees today in San Diego, and I have so many mixed feelings about that).

:)

personal work // ego sum

ego sum hortus

Unlike my previous projects (my 365, 52 weeks, etc) where I consciously set out to do a series of photos, this one wasn't born that way. This post is a bit difficult to write about; I usually try to keep things light and inspirational here in relation to my photography, but I also want to be open and honest with my readers. Real talk, if you will.

ego sum in flore

Earlier this year, I started taking fertility drugs to help me get pregnant. This was after quite a while of trying the old fashioned way. Months of ovulation tracking and becoming an expert on my cycle. Charting absolutely everything. I hated to admit that I needed help with something that seemed to come so naturally, so easily, for everyone else around me. That in itself was a struggle for me.

ego sum a vase

The mister and I had previously been tested/checked out for any conditions that would explain infertility, but nothing was found. We are both, by all accounts, healthy and should be able to conceive....so why weren't we? The doctors calls it "unexplained infertility" which sounds even worse somehow. All it did was make me feel broken, faulty. 

ego sum viscus et cruor 

I have to admit, all of this was putting me into a mini depression. Outwardly, I appeared fine to my friends and family (at least I think so). I still went out and did things. But social media started to feel toxic to me. I checked facebook less and less to avoid seeing photos of babies and pregnancy announcements. I had no desire to blog either, or to read other blogs that I was following. I even temporarily deleted mine, but thankfully, blogger was able to restore it when I came to my senses. 

ego symbiosis

So I think making these photos was my way of dealing with all the emotions of simultaneously feeling like a failure and trying to stay positive and hopeful. I think I wanted to merge myself with bits of nature and living things, maybe as a way to feel connected to something bigger than myself. In making these images, I think I wanted to celebrate my body as still something worthwhile and beautiful and useful. Still alive and breathing.

ego mulier

It feels really good to write these words out, to share what's been weighing on me. I've been in a much better place now for the past few months. Project Make-A-Baby is still underway, but I'm blogging again, shooting more, and I have some photography collaborations coming up that I'm really excited about. I'm feeling like me again.

ego sum silvis