Progressive Dinners

I've never heard of such a thing until last month. It seems like a yuppie thing, is it?

Anyway, we had about 8 different lofts we went around to eating appetizers and drinking alcohol along the way. It was a good way to meet the neighbors so to speak. There are some really kick ass lofts around here. I drank margaritas, pineapple schnapps mixed drink, Cabernet, more margaritas, strawberry and rum, SHOTS of blueberry schnapps. In two hours. Needless to say I was toasted to a golden brown. It was fun but so much work to prepare for. But in the end we played Guitar Hero and that made up for it.

I've been thinking a lot about my photography. A little over a year ago I was given my first real dslr. The minute I had that in my hand I knew that was it. My path made only for me. However, I had a long way to go. Lots to learn about the gear itself, techniques, and creating my own style. Then I jumped into taking pictures for people and until you really photograph people you don't know how scary something like that can be! It's on you to make them look amazing! There's been a lot of pressure on me to build myself up to the level I want to be at and I'd say I'm still not right there but when I look back at where I started and where I now stand, the difference is amazing. After a photo shoot I am constantly saying "This is my best work yet!" and that is a good feeling because I would have never peeped those words out before.

Now I'm focusing on things like making my style totally mine, a way to define my photographs so that when someone sees a picture of mine they can immediately put a name to it without a signature. It's slowly getting there. I'm also working on branding, I guess they go hand in hand but I'm talking my logo, motto, experience, etc. Luckily, I have a great network of photography friends who have great advice to help me along the way. That and I am best friends with Google. Regardless, I am so excited to see what this metamorphoses into.

The Tide Is Changing

I've not been getting much sleep as of late. When I lay down at a reasonable hour I find myself tossing and turning with thought til about 4 or 5am when I finally pass out from exhaustion. This is not so good for a ten hour a night girl. No kidding!

It's just, we have this hefty decision to make and though it's not what we were hoping for, it's for the best. I'm excited for the opportunity this will open later down the road but I'm also apprehensive. This means I have to go out and find something so hard to do right now, this also means notifying all those involved, a task that will not be easy by any means.

But The Lover and I have had long talks about it and I've spent many sleepless nights thinking about it. This is not a decision we came to lightly. I do believe this is the best and wisest one. I just hope all the pieces fall together just right and as my gut will tell me, it usually does, just right when you need it.

On to other things! Headshots today for the play Scrooge. I've already had two and they're already edited and ready to be shipped off! I have three more actually scheduled but I have a feeling this will get tossed up a bit.

My hair looks fabulous today! I need to find something that will hold the curl in a little longer. I've been leaving the curlers in 20 minutes and when I first take them out I look like Shirley freaking Temple but as the day progresses it falls more naturally. It almost seems like the curls leaves altogether!

The Lover's mother is in town and they are off on a photo trek because fall just isn't the same in Knoxville, or any further south than here. The colors are so seriously vibrant.

I am bummed about not being able to go to NC this weekend for a Halloween party with some old friends. Instead I have to market myself while The Lover goes to Knoxville to see family. I so hate these weekends!

We have a Progressive Dinner tomorrow with about 20 people. We are going loft hopping and nibbling on halloween themed appetizers and desserts. Tomorrow we have to get the desserts ready! Yikes!

Ok all for now kiddies.

Ah, Relief!

My workload is FREE! I just finished that ginormous 1600 editing picture project and now I'm free til Sunday! Woohoo! I wasn't really sure I would make this deadline and here is why;

1. 1600 pictures to go through and edit. 1600 pictures to individually run through, organize, fix up, and prettyize.

2. My birthday happened to fall last weekend and I accidentally celebrated for five straight days. Five straight days of not even thinking about the mass load of editing I had to do.

3. My birthday freedom started last Friday. My friend was coming into town so we cleaned up the place in the a.m. Afterward we drank. We went to this awesome pizza place and ordered too many double shot rum and cokes. We ate pizza.

We woke up at 10a.m. the next day, my actual birthday. We ate amazing iHop to recover and shopped for hair stuffs. We highlighted my hair with pink and she taught me how to curl my hair with curlers (I suck at being a girl). I painted my nails (now all chipped) and we drank while eating Taco Bell. Everyone passed out mid SNL.

Sunday we slept in then went SHOPPING. Something I haven't done in ages. Actual clothes shopping with an awesome chick and not the bf who would rather wait in the car! ha! even yet I didn't buy anything, oh but I have a list!

4. Monday it was just me and The Lover. He reserved a place in Gatlinburg so we left for a one night stay. We never stay just one night! We wandered around town, ate some Italian, bought a few items, and swam in the hotel's indoor pool. The next day we wandered around taking amazing pictures of the mountains in the fall. It was so gorgeous but it left us stuck in the woods and it was getting dark.

We stopped at Hot Springs, NC to check them out. Upon finding out it was THIRTY FREAKING DOLLARS for ONE hour in the hot tub supposedly filled with the water from the hot tub and FIFTY DOLLARS for this tiny cabin in the woods that didn't even have a toilet, I repeat, NO TOILET we were ready to just trek home. That is until we checked out this hotel in the "downtown" region. It turned out to be amazing! We got this old timey room WITH a bath room that included a jacuzzi! Seriously, this place was amazing and I'll post pictures soon! It also had a restaurant right below where we grabbed amazing dinner. It was well worth it!

We left Wednesday morning though I kept calling it Sunday, haah whoops. I actually opened up shop for a few hours and got some much needed work done. Today, I finished that massive project and feel great! Here's to 25, may it not be freaky. haha bye

Awwwww

Shenanigans

Last night The Lover and I decided to see Zombieland. I sort of love zombies. This is a new found love over the last few years. It comes with loving a man who loves horror films. I really don't like scary movies unless they have zombies in them because they're just so bad ass. I didn't know zombies weren't scary until I watched them with the last boyfriend who had a hankering for them.

Since this seemed like a past time that boys really liked and since I really like hanging out with the boy and doing what he enjoys I had to compromise. So zombies it is. Funny slow, moaning, stupid, hungry zombies. Shoot, I'll even take the freaky fast ones that can climb walls as long as they don't come from freaky messed up kids or ghosts or murderers.

Okay then. The Lover's brother likes zombies too, like I said it must be a guy thing, and had gone to a prescreening of Zombieland. He said it was the best zombie movie ever and funnier than Shaun of the Dead. I don't know if you've seen that movie but it's pretty funny, really funny! He set the bar.

So we went to see it with some friends except we went to a bar first and didn't leave until screening time so when we got there the only seats left were in the second row. It felt like an IMAX movie. Typically I'm not okay with sitting so close because I get dizzy really easily but it wasn't so bad this time. It was actually awesome.

As was the movie. Hilariously awesome amazement. The crowd clapped when the movie ended. I will go see that movie again before it leaves the theater for sure.

Afterward we all went to the local bar to hang for a minute. I freaked out because we had a wedding to shoot this afternoon so I left at midnight to get some sleep. The Lover stumbled in at 2:30am but I'm glad for it. He needs to get out and hang with the boys sometimes, you know?

So we shot a wedding today and it went so fabulously well. I love weddings. I love shooting weddings. I love editing photos for the first week, aha. It was great!

Now I'm sore and ready for bed! Tomorrow is a sleep in day! Whew!

Cool Photograph

Except it's really an oil painting done by Alyssa Monks. Click her name for more! This is amazing work!