portraits // new year's eve 2013

Yes, the month of January is already half-over, but it's not too late to share some rad photos I took on new year's eve, right? Some friends of mine were hosting a new year's eve party at their place, so naturally I wanted to take over a wall in their house and set up a little backdrop area to take portraits of everyone's beautiful faces. I got a little overzealous at the Party City store, but it was worth it, because that wall ended up looking pretty dang festive.

Here are some of my favorites!

 This was so much fun. Everyone was photogenic and just let loose, and weren't afraid to get a little silly. Which makes the best photos, in my opinion. Also, adult beverages help. A lot.

AND! I shot so many photos that night (453 to be exact), that I decided to put them all together in a quickie time-lapse video for funsies.

let's wander // a day trip to julian

Last month, a couple of friends and I decided to take the hour-long drive to the charming nearby town of Julian for (possibly) apple-picking, wine, and just to take in the sights. And this is how I know that I'm an adult in my early 30's, because 23-year-old me would not have squealed with the amount of glee that I did upon partaking of this trip. They had me at "day trip." Who needs sports bars? Give me apples and wine!

The drive there was freaking beautiful. Lots of twisty roads and wonderful lookout points such as this one. We stopped and photobombed the place, as one does.

Naturally, we took a vino break. Blue Door Winery was small and friendly and unpretentious, which I appreciate since I can barely discern a syrah from a merlot. But the wine was yummy, and there was a friendly dog running around underfoot happily eating all our crackers.

Not pictured: gorging on some of Julian's famous apple pie at Apple Alley Bakery. I had the apple crumb with whip cream and I regret not buying a whole pie on the way out.

So we knew we were about a month late to do any actual apple-picking, but we hoped we could at least walk through one of the nearby apple orchards and frolic around. Yes, I may be an adult, but I still like to frolic. So at the suggestion of our friendly Blue Door Winery guy, we stopped at Calico Ranch, but alas, they were closed. So the best we could do was park on the dirt road surrounding the property, and do more photo-taking and lament the poor apples on the ground that nobody wanted. It was still awfully pretty though.

I'm coming back for you next year, Julian. Get your apples ready.

tuesday music mix // no. 04

1. Nouvelle Vague // Dancing With Myself
2. Peaches // Boys Wanna Be Her
3. The Shangri-Las // Sophisticated Boom Boom
4. Cheyenne Marie Mize // Wishing Well
5. The Parlour Suite // Everyone's Looking
6. Solange // Losing You
7. Tori Rogg // Roy
8. Mapei // Don't Wait
9. Lykke Li // Silver Springs (Fleetwood Mac cover)
10. Kimbra // Settle Down
11. The Mynabirds // Generals
12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs // Hysteric (acoustic version)

photoshoot // wet hot electric summer

Oh man, this blog post is waaay overdue. I shot this over the summer, and even though I've already shared the final images on my flickr and facebook pages, I wanted to write up a little something to share how this shoot came about, some behind-the-scenes, and even some unedited raw images because there were so many great ones. So here we go!

This was my second time shooting garments made by my fashion designer friend/favorite Serbian lady Tea Ninkovic (You may remember my forest shoot with her last year). I'd been itching to try some kind of swimsuit shoot, and I knew she already had these unique swimsuits on hand, so it seemed a natural collaboration. In fact, Tea had already had some of her suits photographed before by a different photographer, but we wanted to make it a real summer-y shoot, complete with a swimming pool.

A friend of mine who lives nearby has a pool at her place, but I'd never seen it before, so I went over one day to scout it out.

(from my Instagram)

Um, yes please? Not only is it a great-looking pool, but there's tons of greenery and plants and fruit trees surrounding the backyard, so I knew we could make it work. I was inspired immediately. I kindly asked my friend if we could take over her backyard for a day, and she said yes. So far so good!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I asked my friend Debbie Chialtas if she wanted to come on board and help style the shoot. She has a background in fashion design and loves to collaborate on freelance projects, so she was totally game. We decided that Tea's suits would lend themselves really well to a sort of 80's-but-more-modern vibe. Edgy, but not too gothic, and using bright colors. And this is where the blessed Pinterest comes so in handy for mood boards. We started pinning our little hearts out. Here's a couple screenshots!

We were basically pinning ideas and inspiration for the hair/makeup looks, accessories, posing, mood, and even post-processing/editing. It's also a really good idea to have these mood boards handy on the day of shooting, and of course, to show them to your model and hair/makeup artist well in advance. It keeps everyone on the same page. But on the flipside, I also like to keep things flexible when I shoot, and not feel restricted to doing only certain looks. Sometimes happy accidents or impromptu ideas make the best shots!

So the day of our shoot arrives, and we set to work!

Kalia White did the hair and makeup, and I worked with her last year on another shoot, so it was great to have her on board. And the lovely Salina Rene was our model, who I met through Debbie. She's done pin-up type modeling before, so I knew she'd be comfortable in front of the camera. Not to mention the swimsuits fit her like a glove.

Accessories! Better to have too much than not enough, amirite ladies? Also worthy of note: those rad yellow pumps that Debbie helped me find at a thrift shop for 8 bucks!

Me, on a crate. This photo makes me laugh because it kind of looks like I'm 12 weeks pregnant or something, but I assure you, I was not. Just a food baby, I swear.

Here's one of the resulting images from me standing on a crate. I love this photo so much. It makes me wanna go to Palm Springs for a week, and do absolutely nothing by a pool.

This shot really epitomizes the whole mood I was aiming for....just this sun-drenched, scorching-hot, almost...hyperreal quality. With all that expanse of aqua blue water. I love it. And I have to note that Tea also made the rad umbrella hat that Salina's wearing. So quirky and fun.

So by this point in the day, the sun was high overhead, with practically zero clouds. I really wanted Salina in the shade for this shot on the diving board, so we had to improvise. There were a couple really tall standalone umbrellas next to the pool, so Tea helped me drag one over, which was not easy due to the extremely heavy metal base. But it worked!

Another one of my favorite shots. I really should show you the original photo sometime, because man, there was a LOT of clone-stamping/cleaning up I had to do in this image. There was a pool-cleaning hose/pump thingy inside the pool, so whenever I shot her in/next to the water, we'd have to move the hose around as best we could to get it out of the way. But inevitably, it would end up in the shot, because the hose would start moving around like a snake as soon as you let go of it. Such was the case here, but I loved Salina's pose and the composition so much that I refused to let a silly hose ruin the photo.

And now I present to you some of the raw unedited images from that day that I really like.

I briefly messed around with the idea of Salina posing with a beach ball I brought, but not all ideas work. She still looks great though. And the yellow pumps make an appearance!

Pretty close-up makeup shots. And the zipper-tie necklace is made by Tea as well.

I really like the rainbow bokeh flare going on in the left photo.

So behind the backyard is even more backyard, and it's all wonderfully overgrown, so I wanted to try some shots there. I had brought my flash kit and wanted to use it back here, but lo and behold, my flash trigger battery was dead, and I didn't have a spare. Bummer. But I shot some natural-light images anyway. Also, more umbrella hats!

So we were basically at the end of our shoot, and feeling great, so we told Salina, "This is a bathing suit shoot, and we have a pool, so like, get wet or something!" It didn't matter if her hair and makeup got messed up, this was just for fun. And I started snapping away. She floated around, and I learned that it's really hard to make a still photo of someone floating on her back with her eyes closed NOT look like....lying dead in a pool? (no offense to you Salina, you looked amazing, it was all me). I must work on that :)

So long story short, it was a successful shoot, and I'm so grateful to everyone who participated and helped make it happen. One last final gif group shot!

tuesday music mix // no. 03

1. Tame Impala // Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

2. Beck // I Won't Be Long

3. Electric Guest // Back On Me

4. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros // Better Days

5. Timber Timbre // Black Water

6. Washed Out // It All Feels Right

7. The Neighbourhood // Sweater Weather

8. Of Monsters and Men // Six Weeks

9. Grizzly Bear // Will Calls

10. David Lynch & Lykke Li // I'm Waiting Here

thoughts // the here and now

I can't stop thinking about what I read recently in the November issue of Real Simple magazine, because it resonated with me so much, and it's something I've been conscious of for a long time now, but could never fully put into words as succinctly as Roxana Robinson did in this excerpt:

It's easy to drift though the day, to move without thinking from one activity to the next. Our lives are so crowded, and we do so many things, often at the same time. We're caught in a web of tiny threads, all tugging at our attention. We're on the street or in the car, on the phone, with the radio on, already late, distracted, our minds leaping ahead, worrying away at the knot of obligation and expectation and urgency that blinds us. Maybe drift isn't the right word. Maybe spill is better, as though we're carried by a river in a spate that rushes and spins us along. Often it seems there's no way to slow down.

But actually there is a way. We can stop that hurtling rush at any moment. It's easy -- like opening a trapdoor into a secret world.

What I do is focus.

I think: Right now, this minute, I'm in the midst of my life. Waiting at this red light, watching that man in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt cross the street. Standing by the window at midnight, listening to the owl send his liquid cry through the darkness. This is my life, each second. Pay attention.

I do this partly because I'm a writer and I want to record the moment in my mind. But this isn't for my work, thought it might end up there. This is for myself. I want to remember what it's like, being human, right now. Of course, I want to remember when things are great, but I also want to remember when things are dull, when I'm still sitting at the gate hours after my flight should have left, or when things are painful, when I'm in the middle of a fight with someone I love -- even then. Those are the moments that make up my life. I need to know them. I want to pay attention. And doing this gives me a certain power. If I stop to pay attention during a fight, I may hear myself and think, Is this the person I want to be? Is this the way I want this conversation to end?

This attention gives my life meaning. If a moment is meaningless, it has no value. Then I've spent it for nothing. I've wasted it. But if I'm aware of it, the moment becomes valuable. Then I feel exhilarated. I feel a kind of richness: I am lucky to be alive and watching that man crossing the street, or listening to the piercing call of the owl, or caught up in a passionate conversation. Paying attention means that I'm valuing the moment. Joan Didion once wrote, "Every day is all there is." She's right. And every day is made up of moments. They're ours to cherish.

So you can stop that rushing flood tide. Pay attention, just for a moment. Think to yourself, This is my life, right now. I need to remember.