california, you make my heart happy.

my bags are packed and i am ready to move back.

(school first, of course)

brandy + baby

drove up to richmond to photograph brandy before she welcomes the newest addition to her family...

 with a smile on her face the entire afternoon, the soon-to-be mom did a great job of hiding the fact that it was about 45 degrees out that day. 

big thanks to my lovely assistant (maggie) with hair and makeup...and laying on the floor to hold lights

both ladies were a joy to work with.

congrats, brandy!!

layout: behind the scenes...

for my design class, we had an assignment to create a layout:
2 pages, 5-8 images, one unifying theme.

i chose to create a hypothetical magazine editorial on a movie, which i based on a story i wrote last semester. the images for the layout would be stills from the movie.

my models were ashton and jason = i couldn't have asked for better people to work with! they were patient, up for anything and had smiles on their faces during the entire 11 hour shoot.

also, big thanks to anna and michael for their assistance - having extra sets of hands on set, extra knowledge of photography and our own in house dj to keep the mood calm was great.  i owe you guys BIG time!

i'll write more about the story once i post the final layout, but here are some behind the scenes to see a sneak peek... 

getting ashton into character

all ready to go!

anna, the "wall"

main scene setup

quick nap during setup

don't forget to meter!

jason shows ashton how to play dead         

8 or 9 hours in and still loving every minute

ashton was perfect model!

just for fun...

after two weeks of nonstop work on assignments for school, i was in the mood to shoot something on my own where i didn't have any set rules or any instructors to impress...my friend stacy offered to model for me, so we spent the morning at the guilford courthouse national military park, just messing around with the camera and enjoying the 65 degree weather. here's one of the shots from today...

french quarter blues...

the colder it gets, the more i miss los angeles...

asheboro completely shut down when it snowed earlier this week. 

what. a. pain.

thanks to my friend and his four-wheel drive, we were able to break out of the house and explore some more abandoned properties...

 

abandonment issues...

billionaire island...

and so it begins...

I'm finally going to catch up with the rest of the world and learn how to use the internet!

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Just got back from a week in Florida where I visited family for Christmas. Have about 1100 pictures to go through from the trip. Manatees are boring. I have a new found love for Salvador Dalí. I will never understand LARP. And I have a great appreciation for being able to drink with my family. 

Returned to find my car buried in snow at RDU. Bought an ice scraper two weeks ago - forgot to put it in the glove box. Turned the heat up to 90 the moment I walked in the door. Thinking about staying in bed until spring arrives.

outside The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida