russian river creatives

As promised, here are some more "creative" photos from my first camping trip of the summer.








Hope you have a great day!

coca cola girl

shirt: old navy // shorts: thrifted // shoes: target

Just a quick little post featuring my outfit from day two of our latest camping trip. My little sister snapped these photos of me during lunch. It was seriously the nicest weekend in the world to go camping. Last year it was cold and rainy, but this year the sun was shining, there were hardly any mosquitos, there was a freezing lake to cool off in (in five second intervals, but still) ... I even got sunburned! I can't wait to share with you guys more photos from this trip, because I am pretty sure this is now officially my favorite camping spot.

p.s. don't forget to enter my firmoo giveaway!

camping at the russian river

You can follow all of my camping adventures on instagram by following the tag #hardcoreparkours2013




"The Russian River is a 13-mile-long (21 km) river on the Kenai Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska. It flows northward from Upper Russian Lake in the Kenai Mountains through Lower Russian Lake, draining into the Kenai River at the town of Cooper Landing. The native Denaina people called this river Chunuk'tnu.

Like the Kenai, the Russian River is famous for its fishing, especially for salmon. There are two runs of sockeye salmon each year, in mid-June and mid-July, and a run of silver salmon in August." (from Wikipedia)




Last weekend my family went camping at the Russian River. Regardless of potential creepers, I want to share the specific places we go camping this year for you all who are curious about Alaska. The Russian River is definitely one of the prettiest campgrounds we've been to (but then again, they're all really pretty). Surprisingly there weren't many people on this memorial day weekend, which was just fine for us. When the salmon come in though, the area is swarming with people and animals looking to catch a fish. Salmon is a major market here in Alaska, so there are always commercial and noncommercial fishermen around. My parents love to fish, and always after their excursions the house smells of smoking salmon about to be canned or cooked. Mmm, love me some Salmon! The Russian river is one of the major rivers where people fish.

One of my most favorite things about camping in general has got to be the food. There's just something about cooking eggs, bacon, and bread over a fire and turning it into a sandwich that makes the taste unlike any other. And of course camping isn't complete without hamburgers, hotdogs, and smores.

This weekend in particular, the weather was so nice and warm. Of course the temperatures dropped down to about 30 degrees at night, and it's in moments like that that I'm glad I have my dad's military sleeping bag. That thing keeps me toasty. The Russian River is pretty inland, so the temperatures are more mild than campgrounds near the ocean. There are mountains on both sides so there's minimal wind, which is always nice. All around Alaska there are tons of hiking spots, so on the full day that we were there, we hiked to the falls, which I will share a photo of tomorrow in the "creative pictures" part of this camping weekend.




My dad, my mom, myself, William, Nicholas, Moriah.





Speaking of camping, that's where I am right now! (Thank goodness for scheduled posts, haha). I'm guessing every weekend will end up being a camping weekend on the blog, so hopefully you guys enjoyed it!

Have a fantastic day. :)

summer dreaming

dress/belt: thrifted // scarf: from Matt // leggings: forever 21 // boots: gift




It was just beginning to feel like summer when I spent all night frolfing, driving around, and hanging out with people, but now it doesn't even feel remotely like that. Especially since we got another snowstorm. Well, we officially broke the record for longest winter ever recorded, so Alaska has no more excuses. The weather report says it's supposed to be up to 65 degrees by Friday, so I can only hope.

What I'm really hoping for is it to be warm when Matt gets home (only one week left!), because with him here I really think it will actually feel like summer. Our whole group of friends will finally be complete, so I'm hoping for much frolfing, video game playing, and general schenanigans. And with Matt, laying out in the grass, taking fun day trips to places while singing at the top of our lungs, going to the arcade and hitting the jackpot on the thunder game, or even just having dinner and family game night at my house ... man, summer please come soon!




But for now, it's back to work. I'm officially selling my photos via arcangel images, which I'm very excited about. I signed a three year contract a couple weeks ago and had my first batch of images accepted. I'm still working on keywording everything (which is a lot more time consuming than it seems) and verifying my model releases, but hopefully that will be done in the next few weeks. Until then, if you happen to be a book publisher or magazine editor, you should buy one of my photos!





Have a great Monday everyone!

Alaskan Summertime

Welcome to a beautiful summer day in Alaska, where locals are coming out of their caves to bask in the great weather. Shorts are coming out, sunscreen is being slathered on, and everyone is excited to get their tan on. This summer we are breaking records in Anchorage, with the longest winter ever recorded. If that doesn't sing Alaskan summer like tunes on the beach, then I don't know what will. So grab a Coca-cola, roll up your beach towel, and head on up to Alaska, land of the midnight sun!

(Just a fun little photo. Yes, my toes were cold. But I figured since we are literally breaking records over here, I should take advantage of it. But now Alaska has no more excuses to dump snow on us. Cease the nonsense!)

no small feat

navy dress/shoes: thrifted // daisy dress: asos (similar) // tights: mom's closet




As an "I survived my first year of college" gift, I treated myself to some bright red lipstick from the boutique walle marte. I actually have a fairly decent lipstick collection (well, I have about five different bottles) but I usually don't wear them as they fade pretty quickly. I'm trying to wear them more often in an effort to not bite my lips anymore, and thankfully this fun red shade is a balm stain and stays on for a long time.



Man, can I just be really honest here? Sometimes I really question if I want to do photography as a full time profession. Now don't go freaking out on me, ya silly gooses. I've been reading so many articles on optimizing your website and self advertising and social media and quotes and invoices and SEO and HTML and let me just say that owning your own business is certainly not for the faint of heart. One moment I'm so excited for what the future holds and all the opportunities and things I'm going to do, and the next moment I just want to give up and not have to stress about marketing myself and my services and talents. But I am really glad that my passions are all connected to each other--writing, photography, blogging--and I can use each thing to build up an online presence to get my work out there. Unlike a real job, I have to be my own boss, my own market researcher, my own advertising company, you get the picture. It's really hard, stressful work. But I love it. There's nothing else I would rather be doing. Plus, I don't think I would do well at having a "real" job. I could never ever be a waitress or a cashier or a barista, no thank you. You guys who do that are really brave, and I could never do what you do!




It's so cool that everyone has different passions and talents. I'm reminded of my blogging friends Annika and Hannah, who are super gifted when it comes to science and are totally going to change the world. My friend Lauren got a job at Aeropostale and that is just the coolest thing to me. Sara is a creative writing grad student and she'll probably end up on the New York Times bestsellers list. My fellow Alaskan blogger Katie works with horses on a daily basis. My little sister went through a horse phase so I kind of know what caring for a horse entails, and that is certainly no small feat. My real life friend Brady just started his own clothing line, which is already gaining a good following and will continue to do so. My boyfriend Matt is even pursuing his passion for film and he's really talented with anything he sets his mind to. My friend Jacob is the single most talented person I know. He's currently building an app for a coffee company and knows literally everything about computers and cars. (I keep going back and adding more and more people to this list, haha.) And there are so many of my other blogger and photographer and IRL friends that I could mention, because we all have something unique about us. We all have unique gifts that we are pursuing and it's such a beautiful thing. What's something that you're super passionate about? I would love to hear it!

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!