little moments

I haven't been taking a lot of pictures recently because my heart medicine has been wrecking havoc on my nerves in my left hand and arm. There, I said it. Once again, my heart is keeping me from doing what I want to be doing. While the doctors and I are working on fixing things so I can get back to being a Photoshop-addicted shutterbug, things are slowing down on the blog. At the moment, I am having a rather difficult time as I am reducing the dosage of my medicine to get my arm back to useful again. What's a girl to do to battle the difficulties and take advantage of her arm while ignoring the pain? Obviously, I decided to toss my telephoto lens on my 50D (the heavier of my DSLRs and my favorite) and go for a walk. I looked up and down and all around and just tried to appreciate the little details.

I found a crayon and I smiled. And then I smiled some more when I got back to my computer and realized the angle I took the shots gave me a pretend tilt shift depth of field.

I twirled in the golden afternoon sunlight reflecting off the paving stones and soaked in every ray and lens flare I could.

I marveled over how strange it is that Abacoa wants to be this perfect place when the beauty is in the imperfections.


I enjoyed the details that were just perfect in that moment as I took the shot, knowing that this moment was mine and mine alone.



I befriended some birds and worked on my tree faces project some more.



I wish there were photos of me swinging on the swings. I managed to hold onto the chain and swing really high. It was amazing and I felt like I was flying. It was the first time in a long time I could do that and I don't know when I'll be able to again.
On the walk home, I caught a gorgeous sunset over my beloved B sign.

It's moments like these that remind me how beautiful the world is, even when I think it sucks sometimes.

preschool princess [52:17]

I don't know what came over me. I needed some sunshine and laughter. One minute, I'm looking at the project 52 theme for the week and wondering why being a princess is so desirable and the next thing I knew, I was bringing my tutu to Cassidy so she could complete her 'preschool princess' look. Make-up was smeared on haphazardly and glitter was sprayed every which way. And then we were at the playground, climbing on things...

I'm still not entirely sure how this shoot happened but it was pretty funny.

warm and fuzzy [52:16]

After the seriousness of the last post, I needed something cute and lovable. Since Erin posted on twitter that she wanted a bunny, I thought I'd let my stuffed bunny reply.

Unfortunately, she was too short to reach all the keys, even when she was sitting on my photo album.

thankful

Dear home,
I don't write a lot of personal stuff here. I'm not one of those bloggers who talks about her day, let alone pours her heart out onto the keyboard. If you just come here for the pretty pictures, you may not really be interested in this post. But this is perhaps the most amazing thing I have ever had the honor to write about.
A friend of mine has been struggling a lot lately with mental illness and the way life is so unfair sometimes. (I don't wish to talk about her business on my blog so pardon how vague I'm being.) Her blog posts have been getting darker and more depressing and her friends/readers have been getting more and more concerned. When she posted what amounted to her obituary on her blog, everyone left comments about how they love her and hope that she didn't kill herself. And then, we all turned to each other. We kept commenting and refreshing her blog until we crashed it. Conversations were had via twitter as everyone mobilized to track down her family, her friends, and ultimately her. I could hear a collective exclamation of "thank God!" when the news came in that she's alive and getting help.
I don't have words for the way this makes me feel. The idea of a community getting together online to support each other isn't exactly a novel concept, but this still blows me away. People from far away were messaging local friends and calling around because they all love.

While I don't have a large reader base, I have the fortune of knowing the majority of you personally. I am doubly thankful that good people in my life are close in proximity to me if I need them.

see my heart [52:15]

I almost didn't participate this week but I got a great idea at the last minute.


Some people see the zig-zag as implying that my heart is broken. Others see a lightning bolt and see how hard I am fighting. A few see the way I am holding my hand and realize I have limited use of my arm. And if anyone can see the yellow lightning bolts, they know how much pain I am in.

Sadly, the only thing people seem to see when they look at me is my heart condition. I wish I could be more than that.

life's a drag sometimes

Believe it or not, I've been shooting a lot. I just haven't been blogging. I missed project 52 last week (and am currently on a crash course with missing it again this week too) because my recent projects have been for people who haven't given me permission to blog them. That, and my health is getting in the way. But I don't want to look back on this and see how much the pain held me back; I only want to see what I did that was so amazing. So now that I've given the obligatory mention of the heart suck, I can move on to what makes my heart shine.
Under things I'm not allowed to share are a Bar Mitzvah, a Girl Scout event, and chasing a toddler around a bookstore. In other words, the fun shoots have to stay top secret.


The good news is that the most off-the-wall shoot I have is completely open to sharing. There was a drag show on campus Wednesday night to kick off the Day of Silence a day early (because of the honors symposium today). I had a great time and I feel like it was beneficial to opening up some difficult dialogue.



















I think the highlight of everyone's night was the question-and-answer session. The emcee was expecting the typical "what's your favorite color?" style questions while the HC audience was asking about proper pronoun use ('she' and 'her') and performing arts training.



[Pictures hosted on Facebook because I didn't want to have my flickr photostream labeled as 'adult content']

fairy tales and false utopias

Sorry for the long time between posts. Another day, another diagnosis.
That, and I had a LOT of photos to edit. On Saturday, I covered a Girl Scout event, followed by one of the most amazing personal project shoots ever. While officially, I am turning in one of these shots for my digital art class, I took these for me.

First, a fairy tale. The piece for class needs to be based off a fairy tale or traditional folk tale. I decided to go the crazy, inspired route and do the Brothers Grimm version of Sleeping Beauty. My inspiration was the fact that the original story references a spindle, not a spinning wheel, and I just so happened to have a friend with a drop spindle. Some fake blood, a princess dress, and two tiaras later, we had these.











I'm planning to make a mixed media piece with fake blood and the yarn she was spinning. I can't wait to have it hanging on my wall.


We also decided since she was bloody anyway, we might as well have some fun with it. I have an Eve hypo from Bioshock and decided it would be fun to have her be a splicer trying to stab me. Sadly, we ran out of time before we could light up the hypo and go crazy.




But there's always next time