the skies will know

There comes a time in one's life where you can't see past what's in front of you. Planning my future has always given me anxiety. I can't think too far ahead or I start to panic. looking up to the sky has been helping me lately. What am I doing lately? I'm working, I'm hula hooping. I'm not going to make this all about how hula hooping isn't just a child's toy (it's not), but I just wanted to share that it's an activity I do, along with yoga, that helps to calm my racing mind. I'm more focused on my movements and my body than I am the irrational thoughts plaguing me. I've been hooping less than a year, but I was asked to be featured at Duara Blog, a space for hoopers of color. It's something I was looking for when I initially started and didn't really find until DUARA. The feature is right here. This week, I'll be helping a fellow hooper create her promotional video. Sarahjo is an incredible flow artist and performer. Check out her page here! She's also the sweetest lady.

Life has definitely been throwing some curveballs to me and hooping and yoga have helped me to deal with those curveballs. So has looking up at the sky. It's so large and vast that my problems are so small.

focus on the self

Lately, I haven't been picking my camera up too much. I am focused on other things, like yoga, hula hooping, working, and just trying to keep my sanity. I don't really have much time for anything else. It makes me sad because I love photography and taking pictures so I've declared 2016 the year that I will focus again on the camera, focus on me. So in that, I will be working on self-portraits more this year. I've been having fun experimenting with setting, lighting. I can't wait to see where this takes me.

photo an hour and spontaneous adventure

I recently did a photograph an hour, which is something I try to do when I'm in a creative rut. I take pictures of things throughout the day, see what I have for each hour that I enjoy, edit, and post. I have been trying to be more active in my photography since I've become more physically active. Active in the sense that I'm doing more exercises to encourage my creativity a little bit more. I feel like it's been in hiding and needs a little bit of prodding.

I have some time to post finally. I ended up on a little adventure this evening that I wasn't expecting. It involved lost keys and my old college campus. I can't tell you how obsessive I have become about keeping track of my keys for this reason as I have a second set of keys for this reason. One year, after the snow melted, my keys turned up. I wish that was a joke. It's something that happens and I was just helping out a friend. I got to watch the rain turn to snow :) Speaking of friends, one of my co-workers, Lauren, just updated her blog a bit. Her most recent post has tips on teaching English abroad. I try to give her advice on blogging in between the prepping and working and whatnot. I love the difference in our writing styles and purpose with our blogs. I'm just always happy to help.

phone and film fun

I didn't want to update for the sake of just updating, yet here I am. I've actually had a few of these photos queued up for posting, but I didn't really have anything to say. I still don't have anything to say. Things are good. My cat is snoring right by me, Matt is reading next to me. I figured out how to waist hoop and did so for a while. I'm a little bit sore, but now that I've got that down, I can alternate hooping with yoga. Hooray fitness! I guess that's all that's new with me.

The rest is film dating back to August

photo an hour: where does time go?

3PM

I knew I had an early day today. I decided I was going to try to do a photo an hour throughout the day. Suddenly, it was 3 o'clock and I hadn't snapped a single photo. Oops. I managed a some for the past few hours that I like. I haven't been picking up my camera much lately. I've been going ~yoga every damn day~ and also battling a case of seasonal blues. Lack of sunlight does me no good. On the bright side, my birthday is Monday and I gifted myself a new printer. My fall zine could be a physical copy, guys! (purchase the first volume here to receive the second free) I find that super exciting, albeit a little daunting. Okay, enough rambling. Here are the photographs:

4PM

5PM

6PM

7PM

8PM

light trespass pt. 3

one hundred seventeen through one hundred twenty-two

This is the last bit of photos from that outing a couple of weeks ago with Erin. I'll need to carve out some more time in order to do photowalks now that I'm working a lot. I'm loving my work a lot. I still have a lot of time to read and write. I need to make more time to photograph, as well as send out four rolls of film. Yeah, I have shot four rolls of film in a one month span. That's what I'm talking about. I'm working pretty hard in a lot of things. I can't wait to share more of my film work in my second e-zine (buy vol 1 here before vol. 2 is released in the fall and receive the second volume free). I also updated my ongoing MKE By Car project on my website. I've been lucky enough to be the passenger while driving and can take more long exposure shots.

light trespass pt. 2

one hundred seven through one hundred sixteen

This is the second part in the series of photographs. It's actually better that it's broken up- there are a lot of photos. That means that there of course will be one more installment! I usually try to do things in threes. I'll wait until after the holiday to update again with the last installment. Everyone have a safe fourth!