Spring Break has sprung... a good chance to catch my breath. Also a perfect chance to get all lazy and crap. But, no! I can't let it happen! I need to stay focused! After spring break comes two months of crunch time at school... which I would normally be dreading... but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... and that light looks a lottttt like Italy! So I need to stay on track, especially with art history readings, or that class is going to be the death of me.  I also will be working as much as possible, trying to keep the cash flowing... so that I will be able to afford an endless supply of pizza and cappuccinos abroad. Luckily, I have several photo shoots lined up this week, including a wedding on Saturday! It should be a smashing good time! Also, I have three photo projects in the works... which have absolutely no cash flow potential but that's what makes them so enticing. I have total artistic freedom... or whatever they call it :). The projects are . . .

White Rock Road : The Long Way Home
A series of black and white photos that explore a beautiful countryside where rodeo cowboys reside and wild horses roam.  but there's a twist.  the photos are meant to be seen with one heatbreaking truth in mind... in the near future these thousands of acres will be transformed into just another strip mall and tracked home haven.  (the project will be film based but i'm still developing the first few rolls so here are the few digitals i snapped)

Kitty Hawk
What happens to kids who get kicked out of school?  Well, some of them end up at the Kitty Hawk Campus. (i will be photographing the students mostly, but here's an ironic glimpse of the school)

Good Morning Sunshine

Most of us look in a mirror within minutes of rolling out of bed and I think most of us cringe at the sight.  But you know that's the real, raw, natural you and I think it's time to embrace that. You can first look forward to a series of self-portraits... fresh-out-of-bed.  Eventually I will move on to photographing others for this series.  (this was kind-of inspired by my last post where I posted a shot of myself first without make-up and then with make-up)

no samples yet but I want this project to be an opportunity to explore some different lighting techniques like in these f*cking masterpieces

trippy

i took these photos barely two minutes apart. so, tell me, what's the difference between them ... ?

prom

this week i started a new photo-project at a youth academy... a school for kids who got kicked out of school.  i think the project is going to be a slow and steady one... i'll keep you posted.  but anyways, i met some of the students on friday for the first time and i got to talking with sarah.  sarah's girlfriend goes to one of the other high schools and invited her to the prom.  she said she was so excited she wanted to cry.  i offered to take their photos before the dance.

so, here you go, sarah & kyesha:








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the fisheye resurfaces...

photos by Adalto :)

me in my bedroom

maverick in my bedroom

neglect

oh my gosh! dear blog, i miss you! it's been 4 days since my last post and thats nearly an eternity around here! ;)

so! lets catch up! today i drove the wrong direction on a one way street. twice. i booked a photo shoot: lesbian high school prom photos. the weather has been ridiculously beautiful, especially the breeze thats been picking up in the late afternoon, mmmmm. exams. art shows. concerts. dark room. cowboys. currently i'm on a jewish music kick and somehow i've managed to spend, like, an entire lifetime with one person in the span of a week. matter of fact, i think the only time i've spent alone lately was my one-hour of quality mall time.

shannon = cher 4 life!

and i guess i should probably get to sleep so i can get up at the crack of dawn for work. again.

europeans and fashion?

hmmmmmmmmmmmm...... yaaaa.... okay so you know i love europeans to death but, c'mon guys, seriouslyyy???

holla!


dress? okay then.


sweet nike sneakers!


and some more nikes for you... these ones have the shock absorption feature... sweet. especially cute with capri pants.


muahah :)


shameless i tell u


well, at least he was joking around ;]


socks and sandals, sexy kindaaa


but my favorite were the t-shirts the Romanians wore with english text on them... "graffiti makes sense to the our grey walls"


"glitters" and "glamour", eh? the best part is that he has no idea what it says :)

countdown

70 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

white rock, day 1

so, i'm getting going with my theme based photo project. saw the usual sweet goodness out there on white rock last night. spring is here now and it's just becoming real pretty out there. the actual project itself is all being shot on black and white film, but the meter in my film camera is broken so i have been metering with my digital to get an idea for the settings... so these are just a few of the tester shots.

ironing?

yah it only happens about once a decade so i wanted to make sure i documented the occurence...

left my heart in leucadia?

i have a habit in life of living in towns that have yet to earn themselves an official city title. that's right, if you want to check the weather on-line for the hill-billy town i live in now you have to type in the name of the town next door. if you wanted to send me a postcard when i lived down south you had to address it to 1784 pacific coast highway 101 apt #6 enciniats, ca. but, see, i didn't live in encinitas. i lived in leucadia.

leucadia is hands down the funkiest place i have ever been. it's territory is a two mile stretch of land along the pacific ocean. everywhere you look theres 100 year old eucalyptus trees and tiny surf shops. no two buildings are the same. not a starbucks or fast food chain in site. just about as many mexicans as there are old surfer men. a half-way house next door to a yoga studio next door to a tattoo parlor next door to a seashell shop. every morning most of the town and their dogs gather at a giant yellow house with a giant pegasus on the wall that serves the best coffee you'll ever taste. nobody thinks they're cool and nobody gives a hootin' holler if you are either. everyones shabby little residence shakes a bit in the middle of the night when the freight train plows through. dolphin sightings are frequent and love is in the air 24-7.

i lived in a refurbished 1940s motel two blocks from seaside. $700 a month, which is about $3 per square foot. did you do the math? approx. 230 square feet just for me! tiny! we were a perfect match! my front door was lime green and my neighbor never sprayed insect-killer because she believed with all her heart that ants and spiders were messengers from a higher spirit. well, actually, she thought everything was a message from a higher spirit and the day i left she said that the spirit told her that one day i'd be back. i hope like hell that she's right.

[backyard]




[in the hood]


[the inside of my apartment, and if you think there must be more to it than this... you couldnt be more wrong :)]


[my street]


[dolphins :)]


[and, hey, me]

self portraits, revisited.

i used to be quite the self-portraiter. yes, more than now. all embarrasingly self-indulgent, no doubt. but i gotta say i was a creative little f*ck.

[january 22, 2007]

michael scott

"A.S.A.P. as possible"

In the spring of '06 this kid I knew was moving across country.  He had a pretty hefty drive to undertake from California to Virginia.  I think he wanted some company and so he asked me to join him on the road.  I agreed.  Jesus, of course I agreed!!

Our first stop-over was the Days Inn in Utah. I have no idea what town in Utah. Who cares. I do recall, though, that the town had one main road and we walked to the end of it. Actually, the road kept going but no sidewalk continued past the auto-shop so we turned around and walked back to the motel. We ate dinner at the diner downstairs and we asked the waitress what the bee-hives meant. She told us in her raspy voice. I'm convinced that all waitresses in diner's have raspy voices.


I'm also convinced that all major highways in Utah are perpetually empty...


In Colorado we found ourselves entrenched in a snow storm. Neither of us had ever seen snow so fierce but i think we made it out alive.


Kansas graced us with complete flatness and our little pony graced us with good luck...


Kentucky was my favorite state. For the first time in my life I was the one with the accent. We pulled into Lexington just as the sun was going down ...




We found a place to sleep down the street from the Waffle House. The motel was really just a refurbished horse barn but at least they had hot water, which is more than i can say for the night before in Missouri.


And after five days on the road we made it to his new house in Virginia.  


We took the train into DC.


The cherry blossoms are not pictured here but rest assured, they were right above me when I took this shot.


I stuck around for a few days.  He wanted to make sure I saw the Shenandoah River.  One morning I took his photograph and then I hopped on an airplane back across the country.

sunday

last week was crazy, verging on stressful, and when i finally made it to my only perceptual day of calm all i wanted to do was surf.  so i took my underwater lomography camera and my surfboard (and wetsuit, definitely a wetsuit) out to the LAKE and paddled my little yellow surfboard amongst a lone sail boat and a couple fisherman. hey, the ocean is 120 miles away, a girl gotta do what a girl gotta do ;). haven't gotten around to developing that film yet. but after i got out of the freeeezan cold agua i grabbed a few digital shots of the beautiful scene. it was all about the tropical clouds. mmm.