Make time for yourself

Being a photographer and business owner is not always the easiest career, but it is one of the most fun and rewarding choices I've made. I often get so overwhelmed with the every day things that I need to have done and don't take time out for me. One of the things that I frequently forget to do as a business owner is to take time to have fun with the people that I love. The best advice I can give to anyone making their own hours is to schedule in time for yourself! Treat yourself to something you love.

Dave's always reminding me I work too hard. We decided last minute to go out for dinner late one night at a local restaurant called the Cosmopolitan. I felt like I hadn't left my studio in forever! It felt so refreshing to go out just the two of us doing something that didn't involve being at home after work with netflix.

 As we were finishing up dinner, they started setting up speakers for a DJ to play music. I knew they did Karaoke at the place on other nights, but after the music was over I found out they also have a Salsa Dancing night where they teach everyone and then let them have fun. I didn't even know they did that around here!

Get out, Have fun... Go dancing =D!

We like to make goofy faces and weird hand gestures. Well, I do. I think it's rubbed off on Dave though.

Best Motivational Video

I remember seeing this amazing video a while ago. I found it again recently and had to share. This just shows how powerful the spark inside every single one of us can really truly be if we just fight for what we want in life.



And just another amazing person who is showing the world they can make a difference no matter what tries to hold them back.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1330043/Acid-attack-victim-Katie-Piper-poses-glamorous-magazine-shoot.html

New Modeling pics and Gwen Stefani

I received another new photo today from back when I modeled for M.A.R.s School! I immediately posted it on facebook and one of my friends commented, "gwen stefani was caught in 'spiderwebs' too; eh eh? lol back when she was in no doubt at least.." It made me remember some fun times growing up..... (thanks Steve)

 

Model/MUA: Me

Photography: Donna Andrews

 

One year when I was a teenager, I briefly worked at Hot Topic for a seasonal job. They never really let me do anything except for stand up front and greet people as they walked in. I guess my massive collection of Corsets and lolita outfits intrigued people to enter the store.

I remember one day this kid started following me around. I finally got tired of it and confronted him -- he stared at me and stuttered as he simply said, "You look like a Red-Headed Gwen Stefani." Now I personally don't really see the comparison, but throughout my modeling career, I have heard that quite a bit. Either way,  I'm a huge fan of No Doubt -- "I'm Just a Girl" is probably one of my favorite songs of all time -- I used to practice vocals to "Tragic Kingdom" back when I was singing. (Another random fact for today - I was Classically trained.) I probably couldn't hold a note very well now though!

First of all, I want to remind you guys of my absolute love of Alice in Wonderland. (I love Alice in Wonderland way too much.)



I sort of feel like this all the time. If you want something, sometimes you've just got to go out and take what you want. You can't wait around and expect everything to be handed to you! I've learned you have to be yourself, work hard, and put your heart and soul into everything you do -- only then will you stand strong where you want to be.

While i'm at it, here is "I'm Just a Girl." I sang this song at a coffee house when I was in High School =D Check out the imagery difference between the video above and the two videos below.... big difference! -- The lighting, Lens choices, styling,... everything!  While I adore No Doubt's music, Gwen's new music videos are very story telling in my opinion!



And of course Spider Webs, which started this whole post to begin with! =X

Christina Aguilera

Ok, so I know coming from a girl who has a background in Metal, Rock, and Underground Industrial music, this may be odd, but I have always loved Christina (among many other pop singers) -- she won me over with Genie in a bottle (in which I still enjoy belly dancing to, to this day!)  She recently (sorta) did a music video I fell in love with instantly. It's really fun to see the mainstream industry bringing in influences from the Alternative industry. This is something I've been doing in my work for years. I've slowly been seeing it integrated more and more over the years. It really shows in this video! For some reason, I can't embed the video, but you can watch it on her website.  I would probably suggest not watching it at your place of work -- it's a little sexy and fetish oriented! It's pretty sad when I can recognize latex designers that made some of her wardrobe =X  http://www.christinaaguilera.com/us/videos/not-myself-tonight


 Anyway, so even more respect -- She has a movie apparently coming out soon and I can't wait to see it in the theater!!! It's about burlesque dancers! With my acting experience, i've always had a secret passion for the thrill of the stage and the art of the performance, so I am excited to see how well this movie takes off!

The Mantis

A few days ago I looked out on the deck of my Patio and saw the largest Pray Mantis I have ever seen. As I watched it, it started walking up towards me. I bent down to take a better look at it (through the patio door). It was such a beautiful creature. It stood there, watching me, almost face to face, inches from one and another with nothing but the glass separating us. As I stood there, I felt my breath taken away. I just wanted to stand there in silence and watch it. The wind was blowing so hard that day and it swayed gently as it held onto the wood below it. It nodded it's head at me as I watched it. Suddenly, I watched it reach over and grab a spider between it's strong legs and eat it in front of me. It was a wondrous sight to behold.

I've always been interested in the secret meanings of Animal totems and I felt this was a sign from the Universe. It had to be. I've always felt as though spider was a totem for me -- I was raised in a very open minded family, I have part cherokee in me and was influenced by a lot of Native American friends. When I was younger, spiders kept finding me- I would constantly find them everywhere, in and on everything I was working on. Mind you, I'm not exactly fond of spiders. Then these huge blue and red weird spider's started to make webs outside the window of my patio door at my old house. I started dreaming of spiders every night. My friends and family warned me to read up on what spider totem meant because I was just going to keep running into spiders unless I listened to the message they had to teach me. One day I was laying in bed with my sky window open and one lone huge red and blue spider fell straight down from the window on a single line of web and stopped inches from my face.

That day I took out the Animal Speak by Ted Andrews book and read what spider meant. Spider means so much I would highly recommend reading about them. I won't go to much into detail because I feel a lot of the message is personal for me to look at within myself. In general though, spider is about teaching you to maintain a balance in your life -- your past and your future. It's about "weaving your web" to create your future. The web also symbolizes creative energies circling around you (the center point of a web). Spider in myths is known as the guardian of Languages -- another message is about using your creative energies to inspire others.

The Pray mantis teaches you about calming (stilling) the mind and going into your soul, being patient and waiting for the right moment to strike.

The following day after the first Pray mantis, I sat down to have dinner, and sitting on a piece of mail my mother had brought it was a little tiny baby Pray Mantis. How it got there, I have no idea - We carefully took it back outside, but to me it was  another sign to look deep inside myself.                                                                        

Are you "weaving your own web" and creating the kind of life you want for yourself? Change is upon us, I see it everywhere in every aspect of everyone's lives right now. Everything seems to be turning upside down - for better and for worse! Let's focus more on the earlier - take a step back and think about everything going on in your life; contemplate it -- and you'll see no matter what is going on right now, the universe won't throw more at you than you can handle and you will come out of it a much stronger individual!

Being that today is 9/11 I just wanted to add in -  Always Remember! RIP all those who passed on this day, years ago.. Look to the past for reminder and keep your chin up to the future. Even one person can make a change in our world for the better! 

Candyland

Who doesn't love Candyland, seriously? I mean, the old board -- the one where the princess and queen were beautiful pieces of art vs these cutsy things on the board right now. I think it was made sometime in the 80s but I could be wrong. I've never been a board game sort of person -- I am way to competitive, but the board alone on this game inspired me to want to play it. I've always wanted to do something candyland/uno/twister inspired. I am very inspired by my childhood. I think people forget that part of themselves when they get older -- The problems of the world sort of take over -- I know even I can be guilty of it at times! Finding that little piece of immaturity inside myself motivates me! I love the colors and childhood gaming aspects -- the games you would play rhyming and clapping your hands at summer school -- or making chalk games in the pavement.... all of those silly things are things we forget.



I feel like this video is someplace straight out of my head. I absolutely love it!!!! Apparently there is also some talk about there being a Candyland Movie in the process of being made.... Super excited!

Inspiration inside me

I wanted to make a post about some of the things that inspire me. This whole social networking thing sort of appeared as I grew up -- in a lot of ways I feel like I was much more open about my life in younger years. Becoming a model and a photographer that people look up to made me afraid of showing parts of who I really am -- afraid people won't understand the artistic "me" inside. I made my personal pages private  and made posts only about those things related to my work. It's hard for me to show the vulnerable side of my core essence. Even now I feel shaken as my fingers touch my keyboard.

I recently found a blog that really inspired me to want to show more about who I am and the people that I love and inspire my soul. I have seen Vicky and Jed of VGallery at Imaging USA, http://www.thevlog.net  but I never really went to their website or saw a lot of their work. I forget how I happened to stumble across their site in my surfing, but I am glad I did! The first thing that really stuck out to me was a video about social networking they posted, it is really amazing. If you have a business -- any kind of business, it is really motivational. The second thing was how real they were.

(double Click on the videos to bring up youtube if you can't view the right side.)

While mentioning people from Imaging USA that inspire the emotional part of my heart, I have to mention Jeff and Julia Woods. I saw them a couple years back now, I think, at Imaging USA. Their program rocked, but what inspired me the most was some of the things that Julia mentioned about making time for the people in your life that you love. It touched me.

During college, I pushed. I have this never ending drive to want to better myself as a person and an artist. The first thing that comes to my mind when I go into a photo shoot is, "Can I bring out and make this person shine as beautiful as they really are. Will I be able to bring out their soul?" As a solo business owner, there is always a never ending "To do" list. Often I wonder if it's because I am a young, female entrepreneur and feel I have to prove myself to the world, but after talking to other business owners I realized it's a feeling they all have. I always feel no matter how much I get done in a day, there is more that I should be doing -- that getting work done is more important than going out to dinner with your family -- or simply watching a movie and enjoying hot chocolate with your significant other.

 It's hard to make time for yourself. Those little things in your life mean more than you can ever know. To those photographers following my blog -- or anyone, really, Make sure you take time to let the people in your life know how much you love them. Don't just throw words at them before you go to bed at night. Really make sure you stand up and give them a big hug and let them know how much of a difference they have made in your life.

I photographed a wedding this weekend; It was a Fairy Tale, literally and figuratively. Sometimes it takes all I have to remind myself to keep my camera in hand and snap photos instead of joining in and clapping for the happy couple as they walk back down that aisle. At this wedding, I felt the tears swelling up in my eyes as the couple kissed. Without going into too much detail, this couple had so much against them and they pulled through everything to have the most beautiful happily ever after. 

Music is a big inspiration to me. In the past couple years a lot of the music videos haven't been very inspiring to me -- live videos of bands playing - violence. Things that never hit my core. I feel the same way about movies. Every day we see things - terrible things on the news.  I go to a movie to be entertained and laugh- feel that warm fuzzy feeling, or have a deep connection that really makes me think by the end. On the bright side, if you haven't seen Avatar, you have to go see it.  I feel those that gave it bad review just don't understand the spiritual aspect behind it. I grew up in a very spiritual, open minded home -- to me this movie is a masterpiece.

 Recently i've seen some amazing music videos that I haven't really seen since Madonna-- Videos that are visually enticing such as Lady Gaga's or Christina Aguilera. (Mind you I don't always agree with all of their fame tactics.) It is amazing to see Alternative fashions such as corsetry and latex in mainstream music. When I was a teenager, I was enticed by the creativity and sensual energy behind such wardrobe - and although I was ridiculed and harassed as being "weird" it inspired the style of work I do today. I look back on those days today and smile. 

Many don't know this about me, but I took Four years of acting in an Academy during High school. I actually had two diploma's coming out of High School. I took vocal classes, learned stage and wardrobe design -- makeup -- everything inspired my work. When I see some of the artistic music videos recently, they are so beautiful. I feel my heart almost quiver when I see such amazing art. My lips press together and I cease to breath for a moment before my lungs start to burn and a gasp for air. 

I had stopped watching music videos because of how uninspiring a lot of them have been. My brother showed me this a little while back and ever since i've been hungrily looking for more.

Sorry about how long and for posting so many videos into one blog, but I have all these words jumbled up that are screaming through my fingertips. I'm a big fan of Flyleaf's music. I love female singers to begin with, but I just love the way she moves in videos. 

And last but definitely not least, how can I end a post about inspiration without at least mentioning Alice in Wonderland. I read that book over and over growing up. I've quoted it during important times in my life. It's so out of this world - I could make a whole post on it. I will leave that for a later time though =)