time for a picnic

A couple weekends ago, some of my friends and I went for a picnic. It was the perfect sunny weekend day to make peanut butter sandwiches, listen to music, play frisbee, and sketch.







Hope you have a beautiful weekend.

a weekend with Matt

(my week in instagram)


airport in Alaska // flying over the mountains // in the darkroom making magic // favorite Oregon scene/on the way to pick up Matt // holding hands for the first time since January // copying Matt's instagram picture // coffee and breakfast with the most handsome guy

Surprise surprise! Matt came to visit me at college this weekend! He is considering transferring, so he came down during his spring break to check out the school and see me. On Wednesday his dad and brother came down for the day to tour the college with him, and we all got to walk around the campus, looking at art from the student art show as well as a lot of the buildings and dorms. Afterwards we all went for coffee and just hung out around town. I'm not really the most outgoing person in the world, so I'm really glad I feel comfortable around Matt's family and don't worry about what I'm going to say around them. They are pretty great people.

On Thursday Matt and I spent our time roaming around the trails, watching birds bathe in the river, talking for hours and hours, and just enjoying each other's company. It's great to be so comfortable, feel so completely yourself with another person. I guess that's what being in love feels like, companionship and laughter and wholeness. Friday we dressed up all fancy, he carrying an umbrella and me locking onto his arm, and we headed out for a night on the town. We went to a Mexican restaurant and talked for more hours and ate yummy food and told stories to each other and conspired about life and possibilities and the future. We talked about how we started dating, and the whole way we became a couple was completely by accident. It's really funny because when I first met Matt, I thought I would never be cool enough to date him, and when he first met me, he thought he could never see himself dating me. Oh how the tables turned, and I'm so so thankful I have him in my life. I know he would say the same thing. After dinner, we walked around town to various art galleries for the Art Walk, looking at beautiful art and pretending we had all the money in the world. After that we hunkered down and had a huge New Girl marathon. Finally I got to introduce him to a show instead of the other way around! The marathon was pretty extensive--over the course of the weekend we watched the entire first season. Yeah, it was intense.




Saturday we both woke up, walked to coffee in the rain, where we watched a customer flirt with the barista (so cute) and stood around looking for a seat before coming back to campus to sip on our hot chocolate and mocha. We ate a yummy breakfast, talked for more hours--I don't think I'll ever get tired of talking during meals with Matt--and then watched more New Girl until we accidentally fell asleep. It was a nice afternoon nap with the rain falling outside. Eventually people started returning home from weekend excursions (some of my friends had left for an overnight trip) and we got to hang out with them for a little bit, until Matt had to leave. The rain certainly added to the dismal mood of that walk we had to take to the car that was picking him up. I was being super melodramatic (But then again, I always am. I can't help myself.), but it's always really had to say goodbye to your best friend and be separated yet again. So now we are back to Age of Empire competitions and skype dates and texting and snapchats for the next two months. Is it too early to count down the days until the semester ends? I think not. At any rate, he is more than worth the stinkiness of a long distance relationship, and I was incredibly thankful we were able to be together for a little bit of time. I love you, Matt. I'll see you soon.



my partner in crime.

Sorry for making this post so sappy, but sometimes I just have to make a girly diary entry, especially since this weekend was so fantastic. I hope your weekend was really good as well!

a week of remixing // on a frozen lake

dress/leggings: forever 21 // cardigan/belt: thrifted // boots: target




I just got back from a pretty exciting adventure today! I'm doing an art project for a class, where we have to create some art based on an artist in the past, and I of course chose Ansel Adams, so today my parents and I drove around so I could take some black and white film photos (and of course some digital stuff as well).





We drove all the way to Portage Glacier, where I actually wanted to take some photos of Byron Glacier, but sadly the trail was blocked off by a seven foot tall pile of snow, so we opted not to make that trek. Instead we hiked out on to the Portage Lake to take some pictures, and then stopped at various places along the road to shoot as well.





As for my outfit, no, I didn't wear it on the photo adventure, though I did wear it earlier today to buy my new tripod! Now I am back to having no money. Why is it that everything breaks whenever I'm trying to save money? I think that's one of the unwritten laws of the universe that humans are forced to spend more money on things they need to have fixed the moment they are trying not to spend money. Oh well, at least I have a new tripod that should hold up longer than my old one.




I can't wait to be able to develop the film photos I shot today and show you guys! We had really perfect weather and the shadows made by the sun looked really awesome on the mountains, so I should get a couple of really good photos. Tomorrow I'm hopefully going on another photo adventure, so I'll be busy editing things again, which I love.




Have a great day!

the big mission

"Do you have what it takes to be a world class spy? If you wish to join the ranks of the greatest spies of all time, then come join us for a chance to test your skills. Your mission? Dodge the land mines, jump over the fence, hop on the rocks in the river, jump over the ravine, roll on the ground, go through the lasers, and diffuse the bomb! The fate of the world is in your hands!"

That was our anthem a couple weeks ago as my friends and I made and proceeded to spend the entire night completing an obstacle course. I snapped a few photos of the event in between dubstep Legend of Zelda music and timers and sweat flying everywhere. I am proud to say that I ended up with the fastest time, 15.1 seconds, and rightly so considering I did that course a billion times and was so exhausted by the end. But it was totally worth it.




Basically, our floor is the coolest ever. How can you argue with a spy training center?

365 Gallery Show

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't posted much this week, but I'm actually not that sorry because I've been busy with something really awesome. A couple weeks ago I was talking with my friend Ben, who encouraged me to show all of my 365 photos in a gallery on campus. Then fast forward to Tuesday when I casually went in to the Art Department (where Ben was conveniently the secretary at the time), and then three minutes later casually walked out with a two week show time starting this Saturday (yes, today). So my entire week has been consumed with putting this show together, skipping going to meals to eat in my room and work, staying up extra late to file photos and label and cut out things, and finally putting them all up one by one on display. Yesterday was the day to set up, and my friends and I spent about five hours in the gallery, but it was well worth it!



Before, with sad bare walls, taylor resting her legs before we even start, and Ivy modeling the gopro that was so elegantly taped to my tripod to film our endeavour.



Wall one, two, and three. It was completely surreal to see a year's worth of work all up on the wall. If I had known that all these photos would have eventually been shown in a gallery, I might have tried harder on the project, but I still am really proud of all of them as a whole. I love how you can see my progress from day one to day three hundred and sixty five, and how my style developed and changed, and I love how each photo has a unique story about it. Today I'll be hanging out at the gallery and hopefully people ask a lot of questions, because this is one thing that I am incredibly passionate about and I love being able to share it with other people.



And finally, here is a timelaps video of my day yesterday! Thank you to everyone who helped me in any way with this project, from finding materials for me to putting all the photos together, from lending supplies and bringing me food while I was working to coming and hanging out during set up, and thank you to all the people who have and will show up for the show. Photography is meant to be shared so I am incredibly thankful for everyone who allows me to share this little piece of me with them.

365 Art Gallery Show 2013 from Lauren Parker on Vimeo.

photo adventure with Grace and Sarah

A few days before I went back to Oregon, I had the honor of hanging out with two insanely talented photographers Grace and Sarah! We were all in town at the same time and decided it was finally time to meet in person, so we all went to a coffee shop to talk and figure out where we were going to shoot. Grace took us to a really cool greenhouse, which was perfect as it was freezing outside and no one particularly wanted to spend a couple hours in the dry Alaska snow, so with the birds chirping in their giant cage and the green plants growing all around, we spent our time taking pictures of each other and playing with each other's cameras and props.






When we first arrived, a moose decided to show up, so of course we had to instagram it. Only in Alaska.




One of my new years resolutions (more of a dream, since it was something I couldn't really work toward) was going to a photo gathering, so being able to meet photographers that I had admired on the internet was a dream in of itself. The fact that it was Grace and Sarah made it even more awesome, because they are two beautiful individuals inside and out and are incredibly talented. It's awesome to be around people who are passionate about the same thing I am passionate about, and we can play off of each other's ideas and learn things about what we love. Even in just the few hours hanging out with them, I learned so many new techniques I've been able to use in my own photography. If I can learn that much in just a few hours, I can't imagine what I would learn over a week, or an entire semester. (They also made me want to update all my equipment too, haha. Why do my hobbies have to be so expensive?)


Sarah

Grace


I'm so so glad I was able to meet Sarah and Grace, and I hope, not only that we'll be able to shoot together in the future, but also that getting to meet up with photographers so early in the year is a good indication of how the rest of my year will go!

p.s. I still have photos to edit from this day.

p.s.s. You should check out the post that Sarah did!

birthday celebration

+ chocolate festival


sweater/dress: borrowed // shirt: garage sale // tights: thrifted // shoes: target





Yesterday was my nineteenth birthday! On top of a million facebook messages, dorm decorations, and hugs, Ivy and Amy took me to the chocolate festival in Portland! It was super fun to be able to hang out with them in such a beautiful city, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. It was sunny and not too cold, which made walking around downtown that much more enjoyable, especially when we wanted to burn off all the chocolate we ate.



Ivy; she took the pictures of me.




Amy!



I don't think I've ever tasted such delicious chocolate. My favorites were the dark chocolate with bacon, actually. It was such an interesting and awesome flavor--just enough crispiness and bitter chocolatyness to make me want to eat it all! The salted chocolates were also fantastic, as well as the fudge and chocolate covered almonds. Mmm! So many of the companies were organic and fair trade and advertised healthier chocolates, which was also fantastic. I love learning about companies that are passionate about things like that, especially when those companies hand out free samples!







By the end of the day, we were all so stuffed from free samples that we could hardly move. I never knew there could be so many different flavors and combinations of chocolates. On top of the bacon filled ones, there were also jalapenos, dried blueberries and other fruits, alcohol (too bad we couldn't taste those, haha), and so many other things. By the end of the festival we all had chocolate hangovers, but it was totally worth it. Towards the end, vendors were trying to get rid of their last bit of goods, so we even got a couple free chocolate bars! I know what I'll be eating tomorrow.






All in all, my birthday was definitely a blast. It's crazy to think that I'm now in my last year of being a teenager and basically a fourth of my life is over with. I'm old! ;) I can't wait to see what this year holds and what memories are about to be made.






Hope you all have a super awesome day.