now booking 2016 weddings

Hey guys! If you're not following me on other social media, I just wanted to extend to you the fact that I'm now booking weddings for 2016! This year was so fun getting into the door of documenting some really cool people love each other more than anything else in the world, and I would love to be able to continue to do that for you! You can check out my website here for faqs and general pricing, and feel free to ask me any questions you may have.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Weekend Roundup

Some articles and things I've found interesting.

First is just a plug for my latest post on my photoblog here. I got to photograph a For Today concert (which left me really wanting to become a band photographer again) and really loved the experience, especially because I haven't photographed anything this month. 

Photo copyright Alan Powdrill
I really enjoyed this photo series by Alan Powdrill about people with tattoos. The side-by-side comparisons are lovely and I love each person's little statements about their tattoos. I'm pretty sure I'm too scared of needles to ever get any substantial tattoos, but who knows. NSFW

Photo copyright J Henry Fair
As someone who is interested in the environment, this photo series on different methods of mining left me feeling a lot of different emotions. On the one hand, mining is extremely terrible for the environment (to include the humans that live near these areas) and it made me sad to see these images. But on the other hand, they are formally beautiful, which plays on the idea that there's beauty even in the horrible things of the world. It's a strange paradox of beauty versus/with destruction.

Photo copyright U.S. Geological Survey
In the same vein, this photo series that the U.S. Geological Survey is doing includes going to spaces where the effects of global warming is clearly seen. A lot of these places are in my Alaskan backyard, and I've seen it firsthand. For example, my beloved Byron Glacier that I love to sled on during the summers is pretty much nonexistent now. No one can really sled on it anymore or enjoy it, and that's just within the past three years. These images show the more extensive results and it's kind of hard to deny that the earth isn't getting warmer when you see these photos.

Enneagram Personality Test

For one of my classes I had to take this personality test, and it's one of the most accurate descriptions of myself I've ever found. I'm a Type 4, and I could have been written everything myself (except for maybe the part about parental figures). If you explore the website for a bit, there's also articles on how the different types interact with each other and common issues that arise, which is super interesting and helpful. You guys know me, I love personality tests. This one is one of the best.

Photo copyright Rebekah Campbell
I've been following Rebekah Campbell's work for several years, and she recently published a series + interview titled, "they woke up like this: 10 creative women in bed". It's a really fun article about some inspiring women's morning routines, which makes me want to make my own morning routine a little less haphazard (oh but how I love my sleep). Just a tender, witty look into the holy space of a person's bed. NSFW


Hope you guys have a lovely week!

let it breathe

You can usually see me in some variation of this outfit. These days I'm going for comfort, especially because it's gotten harder over my college career to wake up in time to make an informed decision about my outfit before groggily stumbling into class. So it's usually black pants, some shirt (when I wore this I figured lace would offset the army green jacket nicely--wow a coherent thought by Lauren before 9am!), and this jacket. A long time ago I heard or read someone say that the shoes make or break an outfit, or shoes pull the outfit together, so I try to wear fancy shoes to elevate the outfit. Plus, it probably wakes me up while I try to walk in heels for my ten minute walk to class. And also I am usually wearing last night's hair, as seen here. Yes, I am the height of fashion.

I guess I'm also in some variation of this outfit because it's not quite cold enough for tights yet but cold in the mornings but hot in the afternoon so I never know how to dress. Oregon is doing this weird thing where it's really cold one day and then really hot the next, and we haven't gotten much rain yet so I'm just perpetually confused. Okay sorry I always talk about the weather, I grew up doing that, haha.

Yesterday Matt and I went to see Elliot Moss in concert and it was magical. We got to see him in February for our anniversay and told ourselves if he ever came back to Portland we would have to see him again. And we did. And it was incredible. Seriously one of my favorite artists. As for today, I've been nursing my ringing ears and drawing cartoon cats and putting my face in online old people generators, for art of course.

explore your intersections

I just finished watching this TEDtalk that I'm sure a lot of you have seen already. Please definitely watch it even though it's twelve minutes long, because it's really good. And especially at this stage of my life (the one where I "have" to decide what I want to do forever), it was really comforting to hear.

I do a lot of internal dialogue with myself. A lot. Like so much I don't think normal people do it (or maybe everyone does it?), but I analyze everything and look for the connections between everything, and I would say I know myself pretty well. It's been really interesting this year to see how all the different interests and experiences in my life (and a few in other people's lives) are all connecting to who I am today, seemingly unconnected things like time theory and personality studies and buying a billion disposable cameras when I was a child and philosophy and why I loved to eat leaves when I was little (haha I was a strange kid) and making art with thread and string and a lot of weird things. And even the obvious things about me like photography and writing--everything is starting to come together, why I did certain things or enjoyed certain things for a time.

It's really nice to know that I can be an Art Major (who's doing photography and mixed media), an English Major (who continually fails at writing that novel but now is in love with poetry), and I can also take philosophy classes (that relate to art, agrarianism, religion, and reason); and that I can be a photographer, a writer, a blogger (since apparently I'm back into it, haha), a studio practicioner, a social media exec (my fancy title that I made up for my side job getting paid to go on someone else's facebook), and someone who is interested in a million different hobbies (tea, book making, fashion, psychology, travel, sewing, astronomy).

And it's nice to know that I don't have to have it all figured out. Emilie Wapnick wrote another blog post to follow up on her TEDtalk, about different approaches to careers that multipotenialites can take, which you should read here. I think for me, the Einstein work model is the one that makes the most sense for me right now, maybe doing photography as my "day job" to sustain a studio art practice and writing practice, or maybe getting a generic part time job to do all three. There's a lot of options and I just have to remind myself that there are a lot of right choices, instead of just a single one.

So what am I going to be when I grow up / what am I going to do after I graduate? Lots of really incredible, creative things and live a really beautiful, fulfilled life.