“Hi, Princess!”

This has to be a once in a life time experience.  Getting on BART and going to San Fransisco City Hall with a girl dressed in the prettiest (and poofest) prom dress I’d ever seen! We got quite a few stairs.  However the highlight of the night had to be while we were waiting to cross the street to City Hall.  A little girl rolled down the window of her moms car and yelled “Hi, Princess!” to Morgan. It was the cutest thing ever!

Morgan looked absolutely stunning in this dress!  The details of the dress were also amazing.  Very delicate.   The dress is made up of so many layers.  Each gave the dress a different tint of color – green and yellow.  Morgan’s shoes were also to die for.  She had them imported from London!  So lucky and so FABULOUS!!!

Use of City Hall’s grand stair case was why we tracked all the way out to San Francisco.

I Want To Bulletproof Your Soul

Today and yesterday have been a whirlwind of ups and downs.  I but I have a really fun photo shoot to look forward too!  I have shot Morgan many times.  But this one is a little different.  We are going to San Francisco city hall and I’m shoot her in her fantastic prom dress!  I’m really looking forward to it.

Here are some past photos of Morgan from her senior shoot last year.  I re-edited them.  I think I’m just going through all my old pictures and re editing and re editing and seeing what I learn.  Sometime I like the changes, sometimes I don’t.  We will see how this shoot goes today.  I think I’m getting better with every shoot, so I’m really glad I have taken time this summer to really push myself into shooting all the time.

I think Morgan looks perfect in this purple shirt.  Such a great color on her!

BTW, the title of this post is a Goo Goo Dolls lyric.  Morgan gave me a GREAT ticket to the Goo Goo Dolls concert last night. It was AMAZING!

Phi Delta Theta at UCLA

I don’t know much about fraternities or sororities.  Pretty much the only things I do know are bits of info I get from my boss, who is greek, and from clips I’ve seen of Animal House.

I’ve been at college for a year now but I’m not one to spend time in frat houses.  So I was a bit surprised when a friend of mine asked me to shoot an event for his fraternity.  The Phi Delta Theta fraternity is new to UCLA and this ceremony was to welcome them to the campus.

I was a little worried that as a girl I was intruding on some sort male ritual.  Also those clips from Animal House were running through my mind… not good.  But when I got to the event I found out the Phi Delta Theta fraternity is not Animal House.

In fact Phi Delta Theta has a no alcohol in the house policy.  So this makes their parties a little different from the typical frat parties.  Phi Delta Theta had been at UCLA but the fraternity had to close and now in 2010 they are returning to the campus.  It is easy to brand these guys as the “no drinking frat” and that is a part of their culture but there is a lot more to this group.  Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was a Phi Delta Theta.  These guys have some big shoes to fill but they are so awesome.  They will do it.

Here are the images of the event!

Nothing says “welcome” like cake!

Here is the center table.  See the little blue pins.  Phi Delta Theta was the first fraternity in America to use pins.

More of the center table.

Here is their manual. I don’t know what is inside of it…

A group of the guys before the event starts.

 

Singing was a big part of the ceremony.  Here a few guys are looking over the lyrics before it all starts.

And the singing starts.

 

Here everyone is listening to the guest speaker.

You sign your name in a book to enter into the fraternity.

 

Senior Shoot 2011: Sarah Barrett

So at long last here is the posting for Sarah Barrett’s Senior Shoot.  Class of 2011.  Sarah came to Concord high school four years ago and at the last minuet joined marching band.  Pretty much as soon as she chose to join marching band she knew she had to change her insturment…so she went from violin to flute.  If you play any instrument you know this isn’t easy to do.  But in a few short weeks Sarah knew how to march and play the flute.

Sarah has this really cute smile and sometimes English accent.  Her mom is from England and Sarah lived there for a few years.  She desperately wants to go back.  That is her number one goal of things to do after graduation…Go back to England.  No small feat!

In case you haven’t all guessed, Sarah is my little sister…and sometimes she is a pain in the butt.  She shows off her stubborn modeling side here.

Sarah is very musically gifted.  She plays the flute, violin, baritone saxophone, trumpet, and symbols.   She mostly plays the flute though.

So that’s it so far.  I’ll probably post more soon.  But I wanted to get something of this shoot up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Edits…

The editing experiment continues… At some point I just have to stop and post Sarah’s pictures.  But for now I’m curious to hear what you all think of this latest edit.

So here are the three edits.  On my computer I like the third the most.  But here I think something is wrong with it again.  I run these images through paint to get them to stand next to each other.  So maybe that is damaging the image in some way.  I’ll post Sarah’s complete shoot soon!

On another side note: Hana’s home! Yippee!!! Now my boyfriend is only in southern California and not… Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. I can’t wait to see the photographs from his trip!

Summer Reading

1) The Death and Life of the Great American School System: I’m working on a campaign that deals with education policy.  This book is a must read for anyone interested in what’s new in the education policy world…yeah, I know tons of people are interested in that.  But you should be.  This book is also a cool beach read.

 

 

 

 

 

2) Here is a book my dad gave me to read.  Outliers is a great book on how certain people become successful and thus outliers in society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud is the book  the movie Charlie St. Cloud is based off of.  It’s a book my friends have been passing around.  It’s a really fun read!

On another side note: my room is almost done!  I actually move back in today.  Pictures and posters still need to be put up though.  I’m so excited!!!

 

Welcome to the Grand Oaks Inn

Here it is.  The location of the wedding September 18th.  The Grand Oaks Inn.  It is beautiful and fits the couple perfectly.  I have some idea on how I’m going to use the location for the wedding photographs.  But for right now, here is the inn.

There was an old time, Americana feel to the inn.  The American flag was really pretty in the light.

I think I’m going to use this ledge to take pictures of the bridesmaids.

There was a little puppy walking around the grounds.

 

Here are some of the little details of the inn.

There were even horses there!!!

Old School

“The hang” out place for Concord high school students is Nations on Clayton Rd.  After big games, performances or just random Friday nights we would all go to Nations.  They are cheap, let you stay there even if you just buy a coke, let you be nosy and were open until just after everyone’s midnight curfew.

Thinking about those memories is a lot like listening to old NSYNC songs in the car.  It’s fun and nostalgic but there is always that little twinge in the back of your mind thinking “what was I wearing back then?!?”

Here are a few pictures I took of us all in “the old days” when we were hanging out at good old nations.

Sara looks so happy to be there….lol.

We all loved Nation’s sodas!

 

I Run To You

I run from hate, I run from prejudice
I run from pessimists, but I run too late
I run my life or is it running me, run from my past
I run too fast or too slow it seems

When lies become the truth
That’s when I run to you

This world keeps spinning faster
Into a new disaster so I run to you, I run to you baby
When it all starts coming undone
Baby, you’re the only one I run to, I run to you
– Lady Antebellum

Wish List

I’m learning that photography is very expensive.  All the lens, photoshop and now a really cool camera bag!  This is the shootsac and it’s a very cute and functional camera bag.  Last year I bought a camera bag that was a backpack.  It’s a really safe place to keep my camera on hikes but it’s not conducive to quickly wiping out your camera to get the unexpected shot.  It’s not really easy to whip my camera out.  A side camera bag would be much simpler.

However the bag is $179…which is a little out of my price range now.  Next pay check I’m going to buy some type of photoshop program and maybe a new lens.  We will see.  Maybe I’ll get a bag for Christmas.