For the love

If you've never read 

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" 

by T.S. Eliot, 

Do it. 

Now. 

Road Trip!

So I'm heading back home to Seattle tomorrow and will be visiting my family until next saturday! I'm sad to leave the sunny weather, but the rain of Seattle has it's own beauty as well:) 

I have a couple shoots planned with some friends which I am wildly excited about, and then on Thursday I am thinking about taking a road trip to the Olympic Peninsula! I hear it is so amazingly beautiful and I can't believe I've always lived so close and never explored before! There are all sorts of ocean views, trails, even a wildlife preservation and rainforest.

The plan is: 

I am going to rent a car, since i don't want to inconvenience my family by stealing one of theirs for two days, then I am going to drive south from my home of Federal Way, through Tacoma, then West to Port Orchard, then up to Port Angeles, where I'm thinking I'll stay the night. I plan to make lots of stops along the way, taking any road that intrigues me so I'm anticipating the 4 hour drive to turn into an all-day event. 

Then the next day I'm going to drive onward to Forks (okay being a Twilight fan I'm kind of stoked) then drive to La Push (twilight again) and then depending on how I'm feeling either I'll head back home the way I came, or loop South along the coast and take the long way home. I am so excited so stay tuned for lots and lots of pictures when i get back!

Sadly though, this means I most-likely won't be blogging for about a week or so but maybe I'll try and jump on occasionally. Happy break week Brookies!

Excited!!

Well i haven't been able to shoot much lately,

mostly due to the fact that I don't have a camera at the moment (ugh)

after ordering my new D300, I sold my D80

but due to shipping complications it is taking much longer

than i thought just to get my freaking camera!

But I will have it in two days, 

and will get to use my shiny new 

lens (Nikkor 18-105) and battery grip I bought today!!

Ahhhhh I can't waiiiiiit!

ugh.

I fainted today,

again,

shocker.

ugh.

At least i was with my very closest friends :)

Vagabondage

Regardless of how much in love I am with Santa Barbara, I've been feeling a very strong and distinct need to get out of here and soon. I have a one week break from school coming up in a few weeks and I'm working on planning a trip, preferably by myself, to somewhere random and AMAZING.

Perhaps Mexico, or even driving to Utah or something.

I felt this way in smaller degrees during Christmas break, so i tried to satiate the vagabond urge in me by taking a few day sabbatical to the LA area. I drove down to see the Getty Museum, something I've really been wanting to do, and it didn't disappoint. That place is spectacular. After that i drove down to spend a few days with my good friend John Mahoney in Orange County. Actually i would call him more of a soulmate than a friend, that guy is one of the more amazing people i've had the pleasure to know :)

And then on the way back up i did some time in Venice which never disappoints either. After getting some henna done and incense i felt ready to tackle another session of school.

But sadly, now the feelings are back and stronger than ever before.  I think i just hate monotony, waking up and knowing what to expect from my day already. I need to do something to break up the tedious march of similar days.

I've included a few photos I took at the Getty, 

just silly little things i took but i love them all the same :)

Oh, just walking around

In the words of Bono: "It's a beautiful day"

Happened to have my camera with me when i went grocery shopping and to the gym, these were shot with the Nikon D3 (LOVE/LUST) and the Nikkor Fisheye 10.5mm lens

pic#1 is completely RAW! 

i merely did a proper white balance in ACR

i am completely in love with this.

pic#2 is relatively untouched as well, 

though i couldn't resist doing a little split toning in ACR. 

i threw a few points of lavender into the highlights 

and some pink into the shadows and messed with the balance a bit.

The Sky

Yesterday I was riding my bike to the gym around 5pm and came to two realizations;

1. i LOVE riding my bike. It has been raining which has forced me into my car, and I hadn't realized how very very much I love riding my bike. Hearing the sounds of the city, the smells, the wind in my hair, the exercise, helping the environment, it is bliss.

2. There was the most breathtaking, beautiful magic hour sky I've ever seen in my life. 

If you live in Santa Barbara I hope you saw it! Sadly, all i had on me was my little Cannon point and shoot, but i managed to snap some pics without hitting any cars, though i very nearly got hit by one myself haha. 

These are just jpegs, the only post work i did to them was to bring down the foreground with a curve in Adobe Photoshop CS4 so that the attention was directed to the sky. Enjoy.

The Rocks!

Last Thursday me and a few friends took a trip up the 154 into the mountains to do some exploring, and even though i thought i would freeze in the winter wind I am so glad I went! We had so much fun and i took a bunch of shots with the Nikon D700, accompanied by the Nikkor Fisheye 10.5mm and my Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens. It felt really nice to just relax and shoot things for me and not for school assignments. All of these images were lightly adjusted in Adobe Camera Raw (CS4).

LACMA

(Arriving at LACMA!)

So i'm WAY behind on my photoblogging, but i'm gonna try and get back at it, i'll start by posting several drafts that i haven't wrapped up yet.

Firstly, I want to discuss the Vanity Fair exhibit at the LA County Museum (LACMA) that I attended with my good friends Adam Reynolds and Jennifer Strauss on Valentine's day, it was truly amazing! The exhibit was made up of about 6 rooms, with images spanning from 1913 to 2008. About 4 of which concentrated on some of the earlier images in Vanity Fair's history. It was amazing some of the photos they had in their archives! Portraits of people like Pablo Picasso and even author Thomas Hardy (The Mayor of Casterbridge) just shortly before his death at age 80. 

As the images progressed more toward the 80's to present they became more recognizable, with many famous images done by the world-renowned Annie Leibovitz and Patrick Demarchelier. The exhibit featured two different mediums, they combined large and small prints of the photography along with several flat screen t.v.'s showing some behind the scenes footage of the photographers at work. One that i particularly enjoyed was some footage (without sound) of Annie Leibovitz working with Jake Gyllenhaal, the way she got such an amazing and intimate shot of him just by having a simple conversation with him throughout the shoot was inspiring. I'd like to try and incorporate this technique into some of my shoots in the future.

If you haven't checked out the exhibit yet, I strongly suggest you do! LACMA is the only North American stop on the exhibit's tour I believe.. and it will be at the museum until the first of March.