smiling at the sun

I've been trying to take some pictures of the spectacular sunrise/sunsets that we've been seeing in Seattle these past few days, but it has been challenging to be in the right place at the right time. Also every time I see one, I always opt to smile contently and breathe deeply rather than reach for my camera. And when I do take a picture, I'm always unsatisfied with them because they don't quite do justice to the beauty of these moments. Phew, that was a lot! You can see why there's been a delay in showing you these :)

I'm also beginning to believe that that whole "it rains all the time" thing people tell you about Seattle is a total lie and trick to keep people from overcrowding this gorgeous town. We've seen 95% sunshine and 5% clouds in the past months. I have been completely spoiled by all these sunny days!

Okay, well despite my not being 100% satisfied with these shots, I thought I'd share anyway so you could see a bit of what I see. Enjoy and happy December!

be not ashamed.

Honest moment, internet. Bear with me. I used to be embarrassed by my passion for photography. Embarrassed that all I wanted to do all day was walk around with a camera switching lenses, adjusting settings, finding delicious, perfect natural light and taking pictures. Photography didn't (and still doesn't) feel like work and I felt like I should be doing something that felt like work. (Please don't ask me where I got such a silly idea.)

I went to a private elementary school and High School, a private college, got a BA from a great university, I'm fairly book smart and I'm skilled at a lot of things. For a time I wanted to be an attorney, an FBI agent, a forensic anthropologist and even a meteorologist. Those weren't just the crazy dreams of a 7 year old girl whose parents always told her she could do everything and anything she wanted. Those were things I was interested in, passionate about and excited about. Except.... they weren't (aren't) photography. Sure - getting a Law Degree is prestigious and all kinds of awesome, but have you seen the new Nikon prime that just came out?? See - that's my point. Whenever my brain goes to one place, somehow it always finds its way back to photography.

I read once that you don't decide to do crazy things like quit a great job in New York City and move to the other side of the country because you want to. You do them because you have to. (Just like I had to go to NYC for college. My entire being was screaming that that was the place I needed to be!) You go because the creative spirits and guides in your head that were once just soft whispers are now asking, no, demanding that you stop delaying what is surely the inevitable and just start doing what you love already. How many of us are in jobs we don't love, in cities we don't love, surrounded by people who aren't supportive or maybe family that wants to dictate our futures for their own peace of mind? I think perhaps too many.

Eventually I got to a place where I had to make a decision. Ignore my passion to do other worthy things that I was good at but not in love with? Or just leap and hope that a net would appear? I decided to leap.

Sure I don't have any gigs right now, and I'm not a perfect photographer. I don't know if I'll ever be. And I'm okay with that. But I still leapt. I swan dived right into my goals and dreams hoping that they will be enough. And I made a decision to not be ashamed of my dreams.  I won't make fun of yours if you won't make fun of mine, okay?

and your photo treat for the day. I took another trip into downtown with my camera last week. This time a little before sunrise. The clouds were absolutely gorgeous! This is one of my favorites. :)

 

Roadtrip: Day 5

SEATTLE!!!!!

Can it be that we've finally arrived? These two little birds have landed and we are sooooooooo happy to not be in a moving vehicle for a change! Also you can all take a nice deep exhale and let go of all that worry you had for us! We've arrived, we're safe, we're tired and we're happy!

We're now officially in Pacific time, though my body is definitely still on EST. We were greeted by my very wonderful friend Kira who is letting us stay with her. Even though we're nice and comfy in Kira's cute apartment, Serena and I are both really pushing to find an apartment ASAP. I can't wait to be able to unpack the car, unpack my clothes, unpack my life!

About our day.... Missoula, MT (where we were last night) was a really cute and wonderful town. We drove briefly through "main street" and both agreed that we wish we had more time to explore the downtown area. I didn't think any town in Montana would appeal to me in any way, but this little place was really wonderful. If for some reason I find my way back to Montana, I would like to stay here for a few days. From MT, we went through a little blip of the northern part of Idaho and then before we knew it, Washington state! It was really bizarre to be in "traffic" again after miles and miles of nothing, but Spokane, WA gave us our first preview of city in a few days. It was both refreshing and a bit of a shock to our systems. We stopped for gas somewhere between the drive from Spokane to Seattle and found a store that had fresh fruits for sale. The peaches and pears looked amazing so we grabbed a little box of those. I had one in the car, delicious! I hope this is a nice preview of the kind of fresh food we have to look forward to in Washington.

And then about 2 hours later, we were in Seattle. It feels so amazing to be here after having thought about being here for months and months. It's quite bizarre but we're both grateful to be safe and sound.

Thank you all for following us through this journey and for taking this journey with us! I hope enjoyed getting a peek into what life has been like on the road for the past 5 days. I hope you all get a chance to see the country the way we did this week. It was at times monotonous and without any signs of life, but it was always peaceful, breathtaking and majestic and something worth seeing.

Here are the last pictures from our journey. In the future, I'll be posting pictures from my explorations around Seattle and from all my latest shoots!

Anytime Shoot: Mary R.

Oh, Mary!

Full disclosure: this pretty lady is one of my dearest friends in all the world. She has been a guiding voice of reason and strength since I've known her and continuously believes in me and my madness even from my wee days. We love brunching, discovering new restaurants and Shakespeare-ing in the park in the summertime. We also love a good beach adventure, who doesn’t? When she asked if I could take some portraits of her to use for various business/professional reasons I was beyond excited.

So in our usual fantastic way, we explored downtown soho where we had this shoot and of course had a few adventures along the way. Including getting rained on when it wasn’t raining (we hope it was rain...), changing in strange empty restaurants, changing on the streets (!), etc. So much fun. Mary was patient with my crazy direction giving and positioning and we chased that sun until there was no more light left in the day. All in all, a perfect way to spend a Monday night.