Urban Engagement

A couple weekends ago I had the pleasure of photographing Corbin and Danielle's engagement. Corbin is my best friend's older brother, so I've known him for awhile, and the two of them are SUCH a cute couple.

I seriously had so much fun with this (and got a ton of great candids).

We shot the first half of these at the Myriad Botanical gardens on what was a beautiful day, then went over to Bricktown to shoot the rest.

I'm really happy with how these turned out, hope you enjoy!:)

Shiloh and Stormy's Announcement

This weekend I got to have an adorable mini-shoot with one of my old high school friends and her daughter.  She's expecting a new baby in October and I'm so excited for her!

Stormy's such a little cutie and I finally got to post them today!

Here's a few of my favorites:

Such a cute little family, can't wait to meet the new little one this fall!

I'm Going to Europe!

My best friend Chandler and I were sitting around one day talking about how cool it would be to go to Europe together someday.

About a week later, we were in front of my laptop booking round-trip flights to Paris. Yeah. What.

We're going to Europe for two weeks in May, right after finals week.  We're flying into Paris and staying for four nights, then flying to Rome for three, taking a train to Venice for three, and finally flying to Geneva for the last three nights.
Now, we've booked every flight, train, and hotel for the two weeks, and I could not be more excited that this is a reality now. 

My hands are itching to take photos already, and I can't wait to come back and share everything I capture. I might also be blogging about some pre-trip things, like packing tips, organizing an itinerary, etc.

This is my first time traveling out of the country by myself, so I'm a little nervous but also so freakin stoked.

If you've been to any of these places, let me know your favorite spots/advice!

Wooooo.

Breaking in the Springs

Over Spring Break, I went on a little road trip up to Eureka Springs with my family. (Get it breaking in the springs haha get it) (*boos ensue from back of the room*)
This is a long time family favorite vacation spot that we've gone to since I was about three or four. If you've never been, Eureka Springs is in Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains, and is a nice, naturesque getaway with a great downtown area with lots of cool little shops and cafes.

On the way, we stopped in Fayetteville to hit up Dickson Street Book Shop. (Which may have actually been my favorite stop on the whole trip.) 

This is another family favorite we have frequented over the years, particularly my dad (pictured below). The place is just PACKED full of used and discontinued books. Every nook and cranny of the building is filled with books, which is a book-lover like me's dream. I stumbled on Annie Leibovitz's photojournal Pilgrimage (score) and a set of old prints from the mid-1900's, including an old photo of Cary Grant from '32, and my favorite, an old shot of Ansel Adams from the '50s. I think collectively we left with three huge paper bags from here,

 After leaving Fayetteville and grabbing some concretes from Shakes (double score), we were back on the road to Eureka. Since we got there on a Sunday, much of the downtown area was closed down by the time we got there, but we managed to find a small Mexican restaurant open for dinner.

The next day we started exploring the town more. We started at Onyx Cave, which is a cool little cave a little ways outside of town that has guided tours. Ignore the crappy flash photos, it was really dark down there. As one would expect from a cave. I picked up a cool little amethyst wind chime while I was here.

After the cave we went to Promised Land zoo, which is a cool little petting/drive-thru zoo a couple miles outside of town. We discovered this last spring break, and it was so fun we couldn't miss it again. I think I had more fun than all of the children there combined. I mean, look at this freakin alpaca.

                                                                         IT'S FACE.

We spent the next couple of days perusing main street, exploring it's many local shops, and eating ungodly amounts of sushi. Like, three meals in two days ungodly. 
It was nice to have a little break from everything and just have a week to relax, take photos for myself, and read.

A couple more because the sky was SO BLUE. Okay bye.

A Love for Low Lighting

Hello all! I have more photos to share today:)
My most recent assignment in photo lighting class was High Key and Low Key photos in the studio.
High key are well lit, bright images with minimal shadows, while low key are low lit, darker with more shadows. The assignment was supposed to be about half of each, but I ended up loving the low key so much more that they're nearly all low key...woops.
Anyway, here are some of my fave low key shots from the shoot!
(If anyone's interested I'll include some details of how these were shot below.)

Models: Kailye Anderson and Jessi Chapman

For any other photographers or techies that are interested, I'll share a little about my lighting setup on these. This dramatic, low-lit effect is pretty easy to achieve in the studio because, as you can guess, you don't need a lot of light. Our set up was one 800 watt light on a stand with an aluminum cone to direct the light at the subject. We placed it at about a 45 degree angle in front of the subjects to create some cool shadows. On some we also used a full body softbox on the very lowest light setting on the opposite side of the subject if the shadows were too harsh.
Enjoy!

Snow Day Thoughts

You know your school schedule rocks when campus doesn't decide to close until 3:00, and that actually cancels all of your classes. Yeah, I definitely schedule school around my ability to sleep roughly 12 hours a night. (2:00 pm classes what up)

So when UCO ended up closing for the day, I was stoked. I had three or four papers I needed to start on, French homework to do, and plenty of laundry and dishes. Heck yeah, I had a whole free day to get caught up on work.

But hahaha no. What did I do instead? Took my questionably stupid self outside, into the 19 degree weather and snow, to meet my best friend at the mall. This ended up being an even worse plan when we realized that nearly every store in the mall was closed, along with most restaurants. Because most people were sane enough to stay inside.

Following that cue, we instead took the party to Target where we picked up supplies to cook dinner. (Whole grain pasta with grilled chicken, sauteed veggies, and arrabiatta sauce, grilled asparagus on the side oh lawdddd.) We ended up cooking dinner and binge-watching the Ellen Show, which lets be real, is a lot more fun than shopping anyway. Team Ellen 4ever.

Side note, I really wanted to get some pictures outside while before it got slushy and gross, but I couldn't bear the cold or the thought of getting my baby Canon wet. Maybe tomorrow!

BUT, I have a couple fun shoots planned for the next week or two that I can't wait to share here! Hopefully you'll be seeing another studio shoot and (fingers crossed) a Save The Date engagement shoot. So stoked! Check back soon for more!

Coffee Talks

Wednesday afternoon I had the pleasure of sitting down for coffee with Rachel Waters of Rachel Photographs for an interview/chat.

Rachel is an immensely talented wedding photographer located in OKC. I stumbled upon her website a few months ago and have been dying over her photos ever since. I mean, if you haven't already, check her out at http://rachelphotographs.com/. The girl got skill and she's only 23.

I emailed her to ask if she'd be willing to talk photography with me, and she suggested we just meet for coffee and chat instead. Which is totally fine with me, being the coffee junky I am. (We went to Cuppies and Joe, btw. Super cool.)



I asked her quite a few questions and wanted to share with you some of what she said, because it was really helpful to me.

E: "When did you first start taking photos?"
R: "When I was twelve, my grandma gave me a digital camera and I started taking photos with it. Really bad photos. And eventually I realized that it was something I wanted to do and I just stuck with it."

E: "What inspires you most?"
R: "Light and shadow. Symmetry. Travel. Real emotion. Lately, mountains, trees, and the Pacific Northwest in general. Sometimes music or poetry. And other photographers."

E: "What would you say is your style?"
R: "I'd say its whimsical and nontraditional. I think I'm photojournalistic, with paid attention to details, wrapped up in whimsy. But I don't say that because its kind of long" (I wrote it anyway because I liked it.)

E: Who are some of the photographers you find inspiration from?
R: "Ben Sasso, Dylan & Sara especially in wedding photography, and Logan Cole. He's so good and he's really young. I mean, he's shot Beyoncé." (goals)

E: "What kind of equipment do you use?"
R: "I use Canon and Sigma gear-the body is a 5D Mark. I shoot film too for more personal images."

Finally, I asked for her advice and anything else she had to add, and this is what she gave me:
"Stick with it. There were so many times I wanted to quit. There still are times I want to quit. Always keep trying to get better, keep learning. Study others work and see what you like and dislike, then use it as inspiration. Make sure you're doing personal work-shooting for yourself is so important. And don't compare yourself to others. Just don't."

Rachel is definitely making a name for herself with her emotion-evoking images. If you didn't already think she was cool by now, she's also totally self-taught. Boom. Mic drop. Big thanks to her for taking the time to meet with me!

In the Studio

Last week I had my first studio session, and holy heck I loved it.
The assignment was for Photographic Lighting, and it was simply to 'create a portraiture.' Pretty open assignment, so it was easy to have fun with.

Here are a few of my favorites!

Models: Jessi Chapman and Kailye Anderson.

Make up artist: Trent Duckworth (@tweeeent on Instagram-check out his awesome work!)

Wanderlust

The last few months I've had a terrible case of wanderlust.  I spent most summers growing up travelling to different European countries (and 48 states) with my family, so travelling is a pretty huge part of my life.



Cue terrible quality photo by 13-year old me.

I haven't been able to travel as often since I started college, which makes me insanely sad. I know every one my age says this, but I really want to spend my life travelling.  I feel everyday like I was born in the wrong state, country, continent, etc. Don't get me wrong, Oklahoma is a beautiful state and it's a great place to grow up as a kid, but I definitely want more.  The goal is to never permanently live in OK again once I leave.

My bucket list travel spots right now are Greece, Australia, and Central/South America. I've been lucky enough to see a lot of Europe, but I'm seriously lacking in my southern and eastern borders.
Unfortunately and obviously, travel is expensive, and my minimum wage job and photography projects don't include the budget for a continental jump right now.  So in the mean time I'll leave you with some photos from my most recent trip from last summer.

Paris is one of my all-time favorites I keep going back to. I live for boulangeries. LIVE.

The view from the London Eye is phenomenal (and terrifying if you're scared of heights like me), but I don't think anything will top the feeling of walking across Abbey Road and taking a cliché tourist/Beatles fan picture.

This was my first time in Madrid, and I am obsessed.  The bright buildings and streets lend themselves to some awesome color photos, while the sangria lends itself to an awesome drunk me.

Brussels was the final stop on this trip, and while we didn't see much of the city itself, we did visit a super cool zoo that recreated the cultural environments of each animal, creating a miniature world with different countries represented in different areas.  (Also, aww red panda).