K. {Oregon Portrait Photography}

in ,

this shoot is from may - i haven't had much inclination for personal photography outside of work because we're in the middle of senior season and i have been doing quite a bit of that during the day hours for the studio. it's hard to get excited about sitting in front of the computer at night too! but i'm feeling more motivated lately to do personal projects, so i thought i would share.

We went to this graveyard in Monmouth, and even though it turned out to be rather manicured and less spooky than I hoped, Kate is beautiful enough to make things interesting anyway. That hair! Gets me every time.

pretty good year |film|

in ,

i generally carry all three of my cameras - the 50d, point & shoot, and a twin-lens film camera (the seagull). unfortunately, the film photographs usually take several months to ever see the light of day, so i end up with batches of images that i barely remember taking. or maybe fortunately? sometimes that's more fun. [caption id="attachment_624" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="south corvallis, winter"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_625" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="batman-mama kitty // jamaica & miriam"][/caption]

i think differently when i photograph using the seagull. it feels more natural, more like an extension of my eyes than my digital camera. and i know that it isn't technically the best kind, so i let go of that need for a perfect image and just try to capture a bit of what i'm seeing. there's a loss of control, when you can't see what you've made and you end up with light leaks and dust spots, that i always love. my printmaking teacher says, "happy accidents".

[caption id="attachment_626" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="thrillville, winter"][/caption]

i've been thinking a lot about that - capturing a piece of life, a slice of beauty, a tiny smidge of reality. so many of those attempts are futile - it seems impossible to truly catch that flickering smile, or the look in someone's eyes as they gaze at their lover. even the way a flower looks! to really and truly capture that is so hard. and there's that sense i get of spending my energy trying to render life onto film instead of being in the moment myself and actually experiencing it in my body and my heart.

[caption id="attachment_627" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="bellingham, spring"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_628" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="my savta pressed the shutter for these // me and silly maddie & happy accident on the right"][/caption]

but there are times when there's a balance. and i live for those times. when i am experiencing deeply through my camera, when it is almost a tool for meditation. when it gets me closer to the forces in our world that we can't always see, but that are in all of us.

[caption id="attachment_629" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="corvallis, late spring"][/caption]

so i guess that's a little obscure, and i'm sure that you won't see that way when you look at these seemingly random images. but when i look at them i remember how i was feeling at that place, and what i was thinking about, and dreaming about, and that's all i need.

[caption id="attachment_631" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="seattle, summer"][/caption]

these may be some of the last pictures i have from this beloved camera, since it broke going through security at an airport in texas. hopefully it can be fixed! it wasn't very expensive but it's made well and i was totally shocked when i got it home and something was rattling around in it. to me it feels a little like if someone had lit one of my journals on fire.

[caption id="attachment_639" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="texas, summer"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_640" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="sister-girl. she belongs in a tree house"][/caption]

thank you for reading, if you are. i have a couple personal projects planned, a few trips, and a new lens to play with, so by extension i hope to blog more often. have a lovely week!

alphabet land with b (*)

in ,

a few weekends ago i went to portland to visit my friend brie - we had been planning a shoot based around my tattoos for quite some time. (to see a few of the resulting images, visit http://briemullin.com/blog/ ) i wanted to photograph as well, but i didn't really have a theme in mind and after prancing around half naked downtown for awhile (very cold, also embarrassing when cars would drive by) i was a little tired. but i did manage to capture a few of brie at this church near her house. <3

End of 2nd Haiti Auction <3

in ,

We raised $545 with our second Haiti Auction! I'll be contacting the winners by email by the end of the week. Congratulations to those who won (myself included, I can't wait to hang up my new painting)! The total raised for Haiti Relief with both auctions was $1545. Not bad! Though our auction is finally over, there is still work to be done. This is by no means the end of my efforts to do something for those less fortunate - Tyler and I have discussed plans for a fundraiser for a cure for Lupus, for later in the year. I plan to start volunteering at the local soup kitchen beginning in the next few weeks. And next year? Maybe teaching English in Thailand? Peace Corps?And photography, always.

I want to encourage everyone to do whatever they can to help anyone who needs it. When you find yourself getting sad or depressed, help someone else! It's the best way that I know to remember what life is really about and it is proven to get your mind off your own problems.

Internalizing how lucky I am has made me want to give back, and also made me appreciate every single aspect of my life. I think you miss out on the best parts of life if you don't truly grasp how fortunate you are being born in this time, in this place. Even with all the horrible things that the elected officials made us go through during the past 8 years, and the horrible things they did in our name to people in other countries, and all the crime and pain and pollution and hate that is still around everywhere, there are great things happening everywhere you look. Government aid made it possible for me to go to college. I have enough to eat, and even though I work full time, I have time to create art. Our president just made it possible for me to get health insurance again. And there are people out there trying their hardest to make this world something to be proud of. And that makes me proud.

Reading over that, I realize that I sound like an annoyingly self-righteous do-gooder and I promise, I don't think I'm a saint, and I am a human being, not a witlessly happy robot. Maybe it's the fact that it's the first sun after a week of straight rain, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of optimism, right? :)

Now that my blog is mine again (I kind of stopped posting personal stuff while the auction was going on, so that it wouldn't be so much about me) I am looking forward to sharing some of the recent photography that I've done, so if you want, come back and check it out... <3