adios 2012!

Today is Christmas Eve, and I have grand plans to watch the entire fifth season of Mad Men, snuggle with the kittah, and Skype with the Mister.

This year has had its share of good fortune and sucky deployments (the latter is still on-going), so I'm trying to stay positive for the most part. Going through the holidays while your other half is thousands of miles away for several months at at time is tough, but I've been fortunate to meet great people here in San Diego who not only let me occasionally vent about the aforementioned sucky deployment, but remind me how much I really do love living in this city.

So here is my official sign-off for 2012! I'll see you guys next year :)

creativity works // debbie

And so begins a new photo series! I've been wanting to start a new photography project that involves taking portraits of rad people who work in any kind of creative field, so first up is Debbie Chialtas of Soapylove Soaps! I first met her over the summer at a Creative Connection event, and not only is she an inspiring business owner, she's super gracious and makes some pretty good photo booth faces. She also recently started a new line of products called Super Simple Soaps that use three ingredients or less. Right up my alley.

While we were doing this little shoot at her office, I couldn't help but take more photos as I wandered around and took a peek at all the neat products she makes. Her space is so bright and happy, and I love all the color and framed prints on her walls.

Debbie, you rock. Thanks for letting me photograph you :)

from where I stand, aka "I look at the ground a lot"

Sometimes it's worth the time to take a look down at your feet and see what's there. I do it. 

Maybe a bit too much :)

oh crap, it's December!

 I took this photo on the east coast recently, where their autumn is way cooler than ours.

Where the heck did November go? It feels like the election was just weeks ago! Thanksgiving was practically yesterday! I'm not ready!

But actually, I am. There's just lots of things/projects I'd like to get done before the Mayan-predicted apocalypse happens. Such as:

1. My car needs an oil change/tune-up. I know, real boring life things, but I keep putting it off.

2. Send out Christmas cards. I meant to do this today, but nope. Even if I send them out later this week, I'm still ahead of the game right?

3. Get a bunch of my poster prints framed, so I can finally commit to putting things on some of my bare walls. I've been living in this house for just over a year now, so it's kind of embarrassing that the main wall in my living room is still empty.

4. Finish my Christmas shopping. Of course. Like I would ever have this done before December first.

In photography-related things, things are looking up! I found out today that one (or more) of my photos from this shoot will be published in a local magazine next week, so I'll definitely be sharing that soon. And I've got a new portrait series in the works that I'm starting next week as well. I'm excited to see where it takes me...I've been itching to photograph new faces!

photo booth faces!

Just some silly face-making from last night's Queen Bee Market in Carlsbad....it was nice to catch up with these ladies! I've been having a rough couple of weeks, so this was exactly what I needed.

let's eat!

I love to eat. I love to eat even more when I don't have to make it myself. And therein lies my weakness of living in San Diego: there's so many good restaurants here, sometimes it's hard to convince myself to cook at home. Especially when the person I love to cook for the most is currently thousands of miles away for his job. (sigh)

So here's a couple of rad restaurants I had the pleasure of trying out over the past few weeks.

After attending an event with some fellow Navy wives, one of them suggested we hit up Kahn's Cave in Clairemont Mesa for apps and cocktails. It's sort of an Asian-American fusion place (like me! ha!), and the food was excellent. There were four of us, but we probably ordered enough food for eight. Pork gyozas, calamari, panko shrimp, lettuce wraps, fish sliders...yep. Just get in my tummy. Right now.

A friend and I were wandering around Hillcrest with the intent of finding a "new and adventurous" place to eat, so I turned to my trusty Yelp app on my iPhone to see what was around us. When Kous Kous popped up, I remembered that I had read about it before and knew it was supposed to have good Moroccan fare. I was smitten the moment we walked down the stairs to the front entrance. Cozy benches with patterned pillows, rugs, and poufs greeted us before we even stepped through the door. I wanted to hang out there all day. And inside was even more of the same, with comfy couches and hanging lamps everywhere.

Since we were Moroccan food virgins, we asked our waiter to suggest good things for us, like the Kefta Kabob and the Chicken Tagine. It did not disappoint. Their pita bread is the best damn pita bread I've ever tasted, and the hot mint tea made a perfect after-dinner drink. Oh Kous Kous, I am so going back to you.

wearing masks

 of flesh and blood (2012)

"We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin."

I've been feeling quite introspective lately...and it wasn't until after I took this photo recently that I began to notice the frequency with which I use masks -- both literally and figuratively -- in my self-portraits. For me, self-portraiture is a way to visually document my thoughts, dreams, fears, and joys. So if that's the case, what am I revealing about myself?

So I wanted to share some of my past masked self-portraits and tell you a little bit about why I made it, or what it means for me now.

there are some remedies worse than the disease (2009)

I had just finished watching the movie Surrogates, in which people in a futuristic world interacted with each other not with their own bodies, but through a robotic version of themselves. These "surrogates" would experience life for you --beautiful, perfect, and impervious to sickness and danger -- while the "real" you would live at home in isolation. I think the concept moved me deeply, because the idea isn't too different from all the online interaction and social media we use today. The fact that I'm writing this blog post right now, behind a computer screen, and will publish it online without ever stepping outside, is proof of that, isn't it? So I think in this image I wanted to convey a sense of loss of one's true identity, the real self we hide under a mask of something artificial and seemingly impenetrable.

dress up (2010)

When I originally uploaded this to my flickr, I wrote, "I am 29 years old and I still play dress-up." It's funny, the things we put on our bodies to fit in with social conventions. Another mask? I think so. I may lounge around at home in pajama pants and a holey shirt, but I'll definitely put on something nicer when I'm going out to meet friends for dinner. It's more than just clothes too....tattoos, piercings, how we cut our hair...another layer. Another mask. We're all just trying to fit in with our own particular modern day tribe.

 little bird (2010)

When I bought this old bird cage at a Spanish flea market, I had a feeling I would end up wearing it for a photo. Like the title suggests, I wanted to convey the sense of being locked away like a little bird in a cage. Safe, but confined. And now that I'm looking at this image again, it reminds me of a book I've been reading lately by Desmond Morris called The Human Zoo. He's a zoologist who proposes that people who live in confined, urban environments (cities, basically) exhibit the behavior that resembles that of captive animals, such as stress, random violence, self-mutilation, attacking offspring, etc. It's a fascinating book. He writes in the Introduction:

"The modern human animal is no longer living in conditions natural for his species. Trapped, not by a zoo collector, but by his own brainy brilliance, he has set himself up in a huge, restless menagerie where he is in constant danger of cracking under the strain."

 there's something wrong with my head... (2009)

I've always sort of felt like I never really fit in. Growing up, I moved from place to place so often, so maybe I never had time to. Or maybe I use that as an excuse. So I sit on the outside a lot. I observe. But I'm comfortable with that now. I can hide easily. I do it all the time behind the camera lens. Even when I'm in front of the lens, with all these weird self-portraits, I'm still hiding, showing only a small part of myself. See me, but don't see me. Here I am, but not all of me. I think this self-portrait epitomizes that feeling. Also, I wanted to see what I'd look like with an ink blot as my head :)