A new me!! 22!!!

So it was my birthday January 31'st and it was great!! I am now 22, but I don't feel any older. I think I will once I am officially out of college and trying to start up my own studio, but until then..

My birthday dinner was at this german resturaunt Saint Louis Gust Haus. It is really really good, but hopefully wasn't too fancy for a birthday dinner. I think everyone liked it. Not everyone could make it, but they all had valid excuses so its fine, I still had a great birthday!

The next day on sunday I had to work from 12-9 in the darkroom, but this girl Ashley I worked with made me my favorite cupcakes (up above). Then me and Kholood (another girl I work with) ordered TONS of food and she brought TONS of food and we watched the superbowl. Which was I have to admit, pretty good (except the commercials). So overall my birthday weekend was very very good!

It also snowed the week of my birthday. ALOT. ha. It snowed for about 3 days and we got about (i think) a foot and a half of snow. I loved it, except for the many times I almost got in car wrecks. But all is well, my car surprisingly does really well in the snow and ice. AND PLUS, school was canceled 2 days, which was amazing, cuz I got to catch up on sleep.

Another few things really fast. I got published on the front page of our school newspaper that my friend Alex Bates interviewed me for. I also fought on the phone with Adobe telemarketers and actually got my way (a photoshop update) which was amazing and very different for me cuz im a pushover. I was proud of myself. I also have been reading like crazy, hopefully will finish my 2 and 3rd book tonight at work. I also have been going crazy with school, added another class, officially taking 20 hours this semester! YES TO STRESS!!! I also have decided to walk across the stage and graduate! ha. AND, (here is the great ending) Kapper pooped ALL OVER MY BED while I was sleeping, and my room!! woohoo!! ha. ugh, its been a very event fulfilling past two weeks.

Next week we will have more!!!
Come back and have your little dose of me!! ha

IM COMING BACK!!!

Sorry about the lack of writing this past month! I have been doing finals for school, which, looong story but quick short ending, DONE WITH CHEM AND BIO!!!! :) But after finals I went home to Norman, Oklahoma for a day, then went down to San Antonio for Christmas. From there I went o Dallas to spend a week with my sister, well more like Fort Worth. It was soo much fun!! I love spending time with my sister because its really the only time all year we really get to hang out and catch up. It was awesome seeing her. Derek also came down to Fort Worth to spend New Years with us, and it was so fun spending our first together.The weather was so warm down in Tejas that when I started going back up north, the normal 50 degree weather that was always so nice started becoming terribly cold!!

I got back to Norman and got to see my two friends Keely and Meag. They are my two bestest friends and will be for the rest of my life. I also saw my great friend Kelsey and hung out with my good friend Mia and Lauren. We did are nightly movie nights which are always relaxing. Sipping hot tea and talking about books (thanks mia). I also had some quality time with my Mom which was nice, but never long enough. Even though I wasn't able to spend to much time with any of my friends, it was still better seeing them for a few hours than not at all! I miss all of them so much!

When I got back to St. Louis, school started, sucks, and the weather every day for the first week was below zero. What a great welcoming back right? ha. But it was nice to be back, and not to live out of a suitcase. School isn't nearly as bad as it was because well, im not doing Bio and Chem at the same time!! I still have my work cut out for me because all my classes practically are 8 weeks, so all my work is jammed, but not NEARLY as bad as last semester. Now that I'm back and mostly settled I will try to work on writing on this more often!! So start checking back on my blog regularly!!!

LOVE YA ALL!!!

My past weekend..

So, what a crazy weekend! It was a really nice weekend, and I LOVED every minute of it, but it was also (and this is going to sound stupid) but it was life changing! ha ha. I'm not even joking.

On Friday, as you will read in the post below, I went to Borders, one word, amazing. Then on Saturday I went to work and me and the this girl I work with Meg, watched Christmas music videos which lead to watching The Christmas Shoes, a Hallmark movie everyone should see. While watching this movie I had an epiphany, ha. There is a part when the grandmother picks up a picture of her son when he was a boy, and you can see it touches her, she stares at it and remembers that time in her life. Well it got me thinking.

This whole year I have been wondering where I want to go with my photography and I think it would be really cool to take pictures for families, seniors, weddings. I know, crazy. But, I would rather have my pictures mean something to someone like that grandmother in the movie, then my pictures end up in a trashcan or on a girls wall for a few years with them striving to be skinny and beautiful like the models in the pictures. I would rather have my pictures mean more to someone personally, then be a blimp in the entertainment world for a month, and then disappear.

I'm good at networking, and I think I have the personality for it. As a family portrait photographer and wedding photographer, I could bring in pretty good money, and still become famous for it down the road. I have this idea that instead of making photos of models for girls to strive to be, how cool would it be to take (for instance) a regular senior girl or whoever, get to know them and what they want, and take a portrait of them, but in a fashion magazine manner. For instance, setting up, not just a white background for a normal senior portrait, but setting up elaborate scenes in a type of Americas Next Top Model manner. So they can be their own fashion spread. All you need are good ideas, collect props and scene items, even think of locations, and that's it. I would market my studio in a way I haven't really seen done before.

I mean, when your working for a fashion magazine, a lot of times, your photos really aren't what you could be as an artist. Fashion photography is really not art, but a form of advertisement, good advertisement. Thats all. And the photographer really doesn't have free reign on their own pictures because the whole time they have someone over their shoulder and editors to crop and pluck the photo to their leisure.

As a portrait photographer, it would be my control. I would make it my duty to get to know the person I am photographing, and give them the opportunity to get an elaborate shoot done they wouldn't have the chance to do anywhere else. Instead of them looking at fashion spreads or picturesque family scenes in O-magazine and Vanity Fair, they could be their own. I mean all it takes to get those pictures are good clothes, good photoshop editing, good placement and a good idea.

I just think I could do something with this. Allowing someone to be their own fashion spread. Not just the typical senior picture of white background, fake letters, fake outdoor scenery with fake lighting. My studio would go to cool locations, set up elaborate scenes for each individual person, go to wherever that person feels they are as much themeselves, using natural light as much as possible. There is a photograher Michael Franzini, who published a book, One Hundred Young Americans. His portraits are amazing of these teenagers, but its because he allowed himself to understand them. I wouldn't just be another senior portrait photographer, but I would want to understand exactly who they are. Go to the link below, look at the pictures of these teenagers, I just think they are great, but so simple.

http://www.100youngamericans.com/home.htm


I don't know, what do you all think?