film friday (on saturday): the great pacific

The Great Pacific from Lauren Parker on Vimeo.

Here's a new video I made for this installment of film friday (on saturday)! A couple weekends ago I went backpacking, and this is the motion result of it. I have yet to edit and process the photos I took on this trip, but they are at the bottom of my to-do list as I actually have a bit of client work to do first (finally!). But for now, enjoy this little video. (Also, I must apologize for the dust spots ... they're really annoying me too. I need to get my sensor cleaned, but I'll have to wait until I get back to Oregon (and have money to spare) so that I can do it.

This is what I wrote when I first got back from the trip:

"I wish I could just be back on that perfect beach, away from the internet and competition and comparison and complicated life, away from all the people who live perfect lives, doing things I wish I could do and having things I wish I could have and being people I wish I could be, because on that beach, it was just me, my camera bag covered with sea spray, my wet, wind tangled hair in my face, and the entire Pacific ocean on my doorstep. I didn't have to worry about being the best or being the most outgoing or competitive, or having the most exciting life, all I had to worry about was shooting my film at correct exposure and finding the perfect seashell or the perfect swell of wave to capture on camera.

Sometimes I hate Alaska because of its seclusion from the world. I can't always go to cool photo or blogger meetups or see fireworks on the fourth of July or have perfect cell phone reception. There's always the option of running into bears while I take pictures, shipping costs just as much as products do, and some people do not understand how I can love eating fish so much (people actually don't like to eat fish? That's very odd to me).

But they say that Northwest is best, and Alaska is the most Northwest of them all. Despite what anyone else says, Alaska is literally the. most. beautiful. place. on. this. planet. Hands down. I don't care who you are. Alaska is as close to perfection as you will ever get. I can spend my entire life here and I won't even begin to make substantial thumb tack marks on the map. All I want in life is to explore this world, to explore every nook and cranny and meet all the people that walk upon it and suffer through the weather and hardships ... and then I want a beautiful home nestled in the mountains to return to, where I can lay down in a warm bed next to a man who loves me and will hoist the masts with me. But I think I'll start with my beautiful backyard of the most northwest of them all, because even in my hometown (as in, the place I'm currently living, since I never lived in my actual hometown for more than a few months) there are still places to be explored.

But man, take me back to that beach."

This is just one of many adventures.

I hope you have a marvelous weekend.

pajama day

pants/belt: target // shirt/boots: forever 21





Remember that one special week every year in elementary school, where kids could dress up for themed days and have contests for the best costumes? Oh yes, spirit week was probably my favorite week of the entire year, and you could guarantee I went all out. I think my favorite day of all was senior citizen day (that particular photo was taken in 2011. And yes, I have been a senior citizen many times. I've got this old person stuff down).





One of my other favorite days was pajama day, these pants are so comfortable that they doubled as my pajama pants. Hehe. I normally would never in a million years wear pants like this because I'm not comfortable wearing a loose cut, but they were only $10 (which was part of my 'back to school' clothing fund) and they also came with this belt (I always feel like I'm cheating the system when that happens), so I thought, "What the heck?" and got them. For this outfit, I paired them with something easy, my grey sweater. Two pajama-esque items? You can guarantee I was all for that. Of course, no one in my family liked my outfit, but I felt pretty awesome wearing it so that's all that matters. It will be fun coming up with other things to wear with this. I'm thinking maybe a white lace shirt, or even and orange or yellow shirt.



I hope you have a wonderful and safe Friday! What would you pair these pants with?

come out to sea

shoes: payless // everything else: forever 21 // photos taken by Matt




Ho hum. I hate wearing clothes that come from the same store (for no good reason either), but it couldn't be helped. I allotted some spending money for some back-to-school outfits, so the shirt, belt, and hat were part of that purchase. I got them all for $14 though, so I'm happy! I wanted to recreate this outfit that I pinned onto my outfit inspiration board, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! This shirt is now the closest thing I have to a striped shirt, so I'm already thinking up a ton of ways to style it. The hat I bought because I wanted one that I didn't have to bobby pin to my head so as not to fall off, like I had to do for my other hat. Random fact, I used to think that I looked awful in hats, and I was always so sad because I thought hats were the cutest thing. But then around my sophomore year of high school I thought, "Who cares if it doesn't look good? I want to wear hats!" And so I did. And now I love wearing hats.





Speaking of high school, you're looking at my au naturel hair. When I was a little kid, I used to have this super long, blond hair that curled into ringlets. Over the years it's darkened (obviously), but in an effort to reinvent myself for junior high (oh how I do not miss those years) I chopped off a lot of my hair and my ringlets have never grown back. From then on I straightened my hair because it was always short and did crazy things and that was the only way I knew to tame it, and more recently I braided my hair to get my natural waves managed. Well, my hair is finally starting to get long enough that it doesn't do (too many) weird things when it dries naturally. Now my already easy hair routine will become even easier, with me having to do literally nothing to my hair.




Wait, it's already Thursday? Where has the week gone? Hope you have a great rest of the week!

eye of the camera // 2

A long time ago I uploaded a post of various photos of me behind the camera. That was over a year ago, and more people have caught me in this state. I thought it would be fun to continue the series and post some more interesting (if not embarrassing) photos of myself being ridiculous behind the camera.



These two are probably the most ridiculous of them all. My friend Aly and I like to do this thing where we go to random stores and act like idiots and take pictures of everything. We haven't been able to do it this summer because we've both been working, so it was fun to look back on some of our shenanigans. I think me posing with an iron man mask, while holding a pair of shoes with a fan in the background describes my life perfectly, haha. The second photo my friend Megan took when she visited me here in Alaska. I took her to the zoo and was pretending to be part of the wildlife for this photo. I succeeded.



This photo my friend Jenna took, way back in September of last year. It was the beginning of school and none of my friends really knew each other that well, so going to the beach was the perfect way to get to know each other. As you can see, we were all very sleepy.



Also in September, I got the chance to hang out with some really awesome photographers at Cannon beach. Shane Black took this one of me toting all my props across the water and being generally starstruck.



Both of these my friend Jenna took, once when we went exploring in an abandoned train station, and another time when we visited a cemetery for a photoshoot. Love exploring Oregon with her! We certainly found ourselves in a lot of adventures.



This photo doesn't show my camera specifically, but I was holding it and this was a good day. I got to meet two photographers, Sarah and Grace (Grace took this photo), and it was so much fun learning from them!



These two photos my mom took of me. This was over spring break, when I drove about two hours out from my area to shoot some film landscape photos for a big art project for school (which I just realized I never actually posted the results from ... whoops! here is a digital photo I shot though.) It was so cold this day and my fingers were completely numb by the end from having to change to different colored filters while shooting, but it was more than worth it (random fact, I got an 85% on the project ... because he thought I could do better and have more extreme horizons ... big major sigh).



My boyfriend Matt took this photo about a month ago, while I was shooting a panorama of the clouds. It was one of the coolest sites I've ever seen.



This last photo my mom took while we were on our fishing trip. I think the waterfall photo was the one I was shooting at that moment. I love just being able to shoot photos of my beautiful state. It's a pretty fantastic place.

I hope you all have a great day! What's one of the craziest places/situations you've shot in?