Count down!

I feel like this blog post deserves a "goofy rena warning label" before you read on. It is very early in the morning and I have had very little sleep and I'm a wee bit goofy. I can see myself scrapping this in the morning.

The countdown is now at 4 days...ish to Pennsic! (Technically since it's 2am Thursday morning and we are leaving Monday or Tues o.O;)  The studio is completely packed full of camping supplies, tents, tarps, food, clothes, etc etc. If I've mentioned the studio looking like a war zone before -- I really mean it right now =X! My brother leaves Friday morning with my friend Joanna. (She's Jzino of Jzino Bodyart which I use quite often for graphic and bodypaint needs... and also a new makeup artist in training!)

I will be gone August 2-15ish with extremely limited internet access. I will respond to any messages as soon as I return!

So anywho, Weee! The boyfriend has been off on a mission so I've had a week with the house to myself =D (sort of)! Lots of music blasting, Singing at the top of my lungs (Someone should come join me in Karaoke so I can drive my brother insane. j/k. ^^;), dancing in circles around my sitting room (getting ready for bellydancing at pennsic!), and best of all, my own bed with lots of space to stretch across! ...Sort of. I still have Six kitties that seem to like to pile up around mommy at night o_o;

Dave drove down to Florida to visit family so I've been catching up like the busy little bee I am. I was going to post images of me hanging out with an old friend of mine, Keith, who is in the service and was here for a week to visit.  I haven't seen forever, but Dave took the camera card with him. Punk.
Dave starts his 16+ hour drive home... *looks at laptop clock* now...?ish?

So far I've finished retouching over 50 images for two magazines! I've also hunted down 150 or so of my favorite images off my many many terabytes of hard drive space and resized them to send to PPA! The images will be shown in my part of "The Ignition" presentation at Imaging USA this year! You should totally be in Texas this year. Have you seen the line up so far? Not to mention me =D (a shameless little plug... !) I still have one magazine submission left to retouch (*crosses fingers I can narrow them and retouch before vacation* ) I will announce them all as soon as they have been published! I've also finished a few images from a couple of my own personal projects... Some that I've been sitting on for several years. It's such an artistic relief to see your finished product finally posted on the interweb.

Anyway, serious question. Has anyone had any experience with the Mytouch Slide vs the Samsung Vibrant. I've had a t-mobile sidekick for 3 or 4 years now and I really seriously need and upgrade. The poor thing is falling apart. I've heard technical pros and cons about both but I want to hear what real people have to say.

Rathana Sin, Model & Makeup Artist from Philadelphia

 I somewhat recently found out that a good friend of mine, Rathana Sin, is sort of retiring from the glamour and pinup world of modeling! Those of you who watch my work know her as the beautiful asian model in my portfolio. If you have been photographed by me, you know her as the fashion loving, amazing Make up Artist (MUA) I work with on a regular basis! I made an album that I titled, "Over the Years," to show all the years of work and different styles that we have done! It's also a tribute to women to show them how they can transform themselves in so many ways with just different makeup, hair and styling! I hope you all enjoy -- There are so many sets we've done I actually ran out of room in this 100 page book before I even hit our most recent work! You can full view the pages on my FB here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=179579&id=87975462002

I wanted to show a small sampling of the makeup work she has done for me in the past few years! 

Check out her website at:

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1138287

Sometimes you just have to listen to the Universe

You know how sometimes the universe keeps giving you signs about something and you keep ignoring them and then one day they sort of just slap you in the face?

Well this happened to me.

My photography is a form of art for me -- a way to express myself and the people who I work with. For a little while I was feeling in a little bit of a circle, doing the same sort of pieces over and over again, different person. I decided to go back to my roots for my own projects and start doing some of my flower series again (I absolutely love flowers). I started getting a lot of feedback, and the universe said, "yes, yes.. good.. You are on the right track." So I spent another month playing with my flowers, but the universe realized I still wasn't getting what it was trying to tell me - so of course chaos began to brew. Well, as Pennsic drew nearer a light bulb in my head went off! I really miss my fantasy artwork! So I  decided to start pulling out all my old imagery and props to do some faerie-esque style of work. Without doing anything, I receive a completely random message from a girl saying how much she adores my Fairy tale work. This, mind you, is a comment I have not gotten at all in recent years as I have mostly done fashion, beauty, pinup, and boudoir style work... Thus the universe was happy.

So I was randomly going over the "should I photograph kids" conversation with my mother again. I get inquiries of this type quite often and enjoy doing them when I do, but have never felt I can get as artistic as I feel I could be. I had an epiphany after all this and my brain went DING DING! I can build my fantasy sets just as I do for women and photograph children in them! Next thing I know, I am getting things out of the back of my car and here I find a photography book, "How to Photograph Children." Sometimes I think the universe enjoys messing with me... 

So the moral of this story is, if you are pregnant or have children you have been wanting to have photographed, now is the time! Check back real soon for lots of fun new sets and things in the near future (After I get back from Vacation that is =X!) And for the women watching the blog -- if you've ever wanted to be a fairy - get ready =D!

Scarlet Fairy Designs!

I know I haven't blogged about this yet, but I am co-owner of the clothing design company, Scarlet Fairy Designs. It started when I was drawing up designs and ideas for outfits that I wanted for photo shoots and my Mother would sew them for me. After a while we decided, why not make them for others?

Image above was Photographed by Ivy, Wandering Bohemian. Model is me =D!

Designs are by Scarlet Fairy!

Although I don't do much of the sewing, I create a lot of the designs and do all the marketing and promotional work for the business! My mother is the other half of the business. She is a creative designer and the main seamstress! We have several new outfits we are currently working on so I wanted to show you a few designs. These are unfinished and the final product may be completely different!

These two are definitely not together, but I will get another image when they are =X! 

You can view more information and images of our work at www.ScarletFairy.com. If you enjoy Scarlet Fairy, keep and eye on my blog as I will be posting updates, sales and specials, and teaser pic of outfits coming soon here!

Paint!

As promised, I have pictures of the painting commencing! This is our second hallway! We decided not to put the light greenish faux texture on it (with this pretty light brown for in the corners to vignette the wall) ... mostly by default because Dave didn't feel like doing it. (I painted most of the rest of the wall and I'm terrible and faux finishes =X). What do you think? Should we have put the greenish on the wall?  I'm excited to get pictures hanging!

These pants have been through every house i've ever painted since forever.

They are Epic.

and of course our mess =X

Here is a terrible photo of the first hallway we painted! The lighting fixtures still aren't hanging and we still need to finish staining the doors  =X! You can't really see the faux finish, so I will get a better picture of this hallway soon!

Here is a picture of Maddie modeling in my hallway! This woman is so amazing and sweet that I will be doing an entire post about our photo shoot soon very soon!  Here is a teaser photo (and a photo of the hall!)

Yay for Props and Pretty things!

This past weekend I photographed yet another wedding with Ivy.  Been busy! Wait until you see the images we took of them in the tower at their reception hall!She's been busy getting ready to move again so we spent the afternoon hanging out after this last wedding. She gave and loaned me a ton of very cool pieces of wardrobe and props to play with that will fit into what I will be playing with in the near future! (Of course Destiny has to lay on top of all the new things.)

She also loaned me a beauty dish to use -- (I'm in heaven now, Beauty dish AND octabox =X!) Again, sorry about the terrible pictures. I just grabbed a few snap shots since everything is torn apart!

Dave also finally got his Wescott Spider lights. I've had a chance to play with them once so far when the model Lily Deville was at my studio. She flew in from Colorado! =) I will be posting those images as well soon! What do you do with all your gear when all your soft boxes are almost as big as you? 

Vacation time in Pennsylvania! =D!

Busy Busy Busy =D!

My favorite ALL TIME Vacation is coming up in just a few weeks! Every year since I was born except two (when I was two years old and during my parents divorce), I have gone to an event called Pennsic in Slippery Rock, PA. We drive a 7-8 hour drive from South Jersey to the other side of PA with a car packed so full we can't even see behind us!

I will be gone from August 2nd to the 16th with extremely Limited internet!

This blurb is taken from http://www.PennsicWar.org under FAQs

"Pennsic is an annual event, in the guise of a "War", between the Kingdoms of the East and the Middle of the Society for Creative Anachronism Pennsic is also the largest Society event, with attendance in recent years exceeding 10,000. The scheduled activities include large melee battles, tournaments, archery, stage performances, dancing, and hundreds of classes on medieval topics. The marketplace has over 200 merchants selling a variety of wares." 

Imagine about a 2 mile around packed with that many people camping in tents! I've personally taken classes on everything from Bellydancing to playing instruments to massage =D...but there are classes on everything from Welding to History! There are also amazing parties every night. It's fun to follow the drumming from camp to camp -- or see fire dancers spin flames, bellydancers or sword dancers perform ... and bards telling stories around camp fires. It's a magical place that makes me happy =D

I've been so busy I haven't even had a chance to check my garb and make sure I don't have things I need to repair =X!! (Dave has a habit of ripping his pants in places I really need to repair before we go -_-;;;;) hehe. These are a few pictures from last year of me and my friends, family, and boyfriend. You can view the entire album here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=501818293&aid=136664&s=0&hash=a49d20a6a10fcadc600a7d3675538e1a 

and you can also go to www.Pennsic.net for more information.

That being said, the house and studio are torn apart! It's like a war zone here right now, hehe. We finally got the hallway in the other side of the house painted (yay no more white walls. For some reason they remind of my hospitals.) They are a sort of vintage green color. When I first painted it, I really disliked it because it wasn't green and it wasn't blue and I really wasn't sure what to do with it. We went back to the paint store and bought a light LIGHT green paint to texture the wall. When I came home I saw an aztec or tiki sort of mask in the bathroom that we had brought home from my grandmothers house -- all of a sudden it hit me! Light wooden framed images with the tiki mask on the wall and the hallway would have a very tiki vintage look! Too bad I already bought all the extra paint.... Will post tour images here in the blog soon ^_^

In other news, my good friend Gino gave me a really cool Octabox when I came to visit him! I need to get a new speed ring for it, but as soon as I do I am super excited to get to do some beauty work with it!! Here is a really quick terrible picture of it =X