GLASS OF THE MICROSCOPE

 

Normally I'm not one to get all too excited about music videos but when I was scrolling through Facebook during my break in between classes, I saw that Yeasayer announced they had a new video out for Glass of the Microscope. As soon as I pressed play I was instantly drawn in and knew I just had to watch it full screen and, trust me, it's quite the experience when you watch this on a computer monitor that's nearly the size of a TV. This is such a brilliant song off their album Fragrant World and I was so pleased to see such captivating visuals paired with it. All the swirly stuff reminded me of what Lush bath bombs do to water! I also had the chance to see Yeasayer live over the summer, however, they did not play this song, but they played an amazing show. They make little tweaks to their songs for live shows and, in my opinion, sound better than the album versions a lot of the time. They also drank their water out of wine glass, which just added to all of the fun happening. I'm ordering you to go to their show if they ever come to your town and to watch this video, too. Enjoy!

LIGHT

This semester I'm taking a digital photography class and our first assignment was to photograph anything we wanted and observe how lighting interacts with the subjects. Basically, the only requirement for this assignment was to expose images properly. Got it! I wanted to wait to post what I shot until after I received my grade, which took much longer than I expected.

The feedback I got from my classmates and professor were all very positive. The suggestions my professor made were to adjust the levels on the photo of my cat to bring out the detail of my cat's fur and to try dodging the trees in the last photo so that they aren't nearly black. I was rather pleased with my work for this project and printed the lotus flower and fluorescent light strip to include in my final portfolio.

I'll keep posting my work from photo assignments throughout the semester. I have a critique on depth of field coming up, so I'll share those photos after they're graded. Stay tuned!

edit: I had more photos for the project but the blogger image uploader is being very uncooperative at the moment!

IT'S HERE!

Back around March of this year, Lomography announced that they'd be releasing a new film: lomochrome purple. This film is tinted purple and, from what I've seen, produces some crazy cool images! So thrilled over this and since this is the first batch lomography was releasing, I naturally had to snag some. I preorded five rolls which were expected to be delivered by July. As time went on, I forgot about the film but as July neared, I remembered these little gems should be arriving in my mailbox soon! Nope. Turns out Lomography didn't even receive the film from Europe until the last week or so of July and I received mine yesterday. But no worries! I'm just glad that it's here now. Of course I instantly loaded it into my Kodak Ektanar since I've still got a roll of black and white film in my Holga. I'm so giddy thinking about how my photos are going to turn out!

Here's some examples that Lomography released with the announcement of the new film:How gorgeous are the colors of these images?! I'd feel like a fool if I didn't purchase this film!

SEATTLE, PT. 1

As promised, I'm finally sharing some of my photos from my trip to Seattle! Now that I'm going through my library and sorting out which photos to post, I kind of wish that I would have taken more. I think that having a memory of an experience is more precious than stopping what you're doing to snap a photo, though, and I'm really grateful that I was able to travel to and spend a few days in such a wonderful city! This post is going to focus on architectures/exteriors; I wanted to organize the content I posted instead of just dumping a whole bunch.

If I looked out of the hotel room window, I faced a gorgeous view of the Space Needle and a bunch of sleek skyscrapers. The one on the right was my favorite.

 It was difficult to capture the extreme deconstructivistic style of the EMP museum. The place was huge and had so many different elements to it. The inside was just as interesting and chaotic; it contained warped holographic purple ceilings. This by far has been the most unique museum I've ever attended. The exhibits there were so interesting! While I was there, they had an exhibit on the black leather jacket, video games, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, and sci-fi and horror films. And I saw that they had posted on facebook a few days ago that they are currently holding the iron throne from Game of Thrones that is used on the set! I want to go back to sit on a chair!
The infamous gum wall in Post Alley next to Pike Place market. I don't chew gum so I couldn't make a contribution!
The photo on the left is the wall right across from the gum wall and, in my opinion, was much more interesting. I think part of the reason why I love seeing so many wheat pastes in one spot is because in St. Louis they're very uncommon to find and are removed as soon as possible. The photo on the right is the side of a hair salon named Vain. It was quite clear that Seattle is a place that thrives off of art and creative energy. 

Blue trees right outside of the shopping center downtown.

This is the view from the top of the Space Needle. Looking out and seeing the skyline and mountains was absolutely breathtaking.

HI!

Hi, everyone! I think we all know what I'm about to say, but I apologize for the lack of posts over the weeks! So here's a picture of my face. I took two classes over the summer and it was extremely time consuming, but now that I'm finished I will be updating more. Hopefully... I still have a bunch of photos from Seattle that I have yet to share and a roll of film in my camera that I've been neglecting. I've been excitedly waiting to receive a few rolls of Lomography's brand new Lomochrome purple film, which is expected to be delivered sometime this month. Now that I'm done with school, I've been playing a lot of video games and have finally been able to get back into the gym. I'm going to read some of the books that are on my shelf waiting for me and am going to take a stab at paper sculpting. Yay! If you'd like to keep up with me on more of a regular basis, you can follow me on instagram or twitter. I promise to post again soon!

DESPAIR

  The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back with their fifth album Mosquito and just yesterday released a video for the single Despair. This is my favorite track off the album, so naturally I was pretty excited about the video. It first opens with Karen O singing a capella in a bar, which is absolutely beautiful. I was really happy to see this extended version of the song used for the video. She has such a strong voice, yet it's so vulnerable at the same time. Everything works so well together in this video. The images are simple and fitting to the song without taking away from it. The ending of this is the best though; I just can't help but smile whenever I see the band having such a fun time on top of the Empire State Building. And can we just talk about how great that yellow pantsuit is? 

NIRVANA: TAKING PUNK TO THE MASSES

The driving force behind my trip to Seattle back in March was the Taking Punk to the Masses exhibit at the EMP Museum. As soon as I read the news years ago that there was going to be an exhibition dedicated to Nirvana on display, I knew I had to see it. Nirvana is a band that I grew up listening to, so they hold a special place in my heart. Their music certainly helped me to feel like less of some sort of outcast during early adolescence and just embrace who I am and still does so to this day. 

I couldn't believe just how much stuff was there! I had seen some of these objects before in books, online, and in Kurt's Journals but to see it in person was mind blowing. By the time I got to the end I was moved to tears. Being able to see and experience so much tangible memorabilia was such an emotional experience for me. I felt that this was as close as I could have physically gotten to the band, which was a bit overwhelming. This was certainly one of those moving events that I'll forever cherish. That day, I left the museum feeling awe-struck and a ridiculous sense of joy. Needless to say, it was well worth the trip!

TODAY'S LOOK - 5.25.2013

top: American Apparel | leggings: Black Milk | boots: Underground London

Well, it has been quite some time since I've done an outfit post! The rain caused it to finally cool off a bit, which made it possible to wear more than just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, a rarity in the humid Midwest summers. My friend Emma took this photo of me on Saturday while we were visiting some of the contemporary art museums in St. Louis. The quality of this isn't so great since I robbed it from Instagram, but I really love the location. The architecture of both museums was crisp and minimalistic, which is right up my alley! I took a handful of photos while we were there but none of the art since that's prohibited. One museum is home to Richard Serra's Joe, a site specific spiral sculpture that twists and turns and is large enough that you're able to walk through it like a labyrinth. Joe is a permanent piece at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts so visitors are allowed to photograph it. Expect photos of that soon and also some architectural shots!

If you're at all curious about the art on display, which includes works from Donald Judd, Lari Pittman, Mika Taanila, and Kerry James Marshall, check out the exhibitions pages at camstl.org and pulitzerarts.org.

BLACK & WHITE FILM

I'm sure none of you get tired with me always prefacing my posts with something about how I'm sorry for not posting in a while, so I'll just skip that and say that I've had a crazy last few weeks. The semester is finally over, yay!! My summer class starts in two weeks, but in the mean time, I've been reading like crazy and enjoying my time off and will continue doing so.

I bought this C-41 process black and white film from Four Corner Store a few months ago but never really got around to using it until just recently. My friend wanted to take some candid photos of me for her photography class so we went to a nearby cemetery to do some shooting. I don't think there could have been a more perfect location to try out this film than a creepy old graveyard! I really love how my photos turned out. I used some old Kodak camera from Goodwill for this roll so I'll be excited to see how my Holga does with it. This film has such a gorgeous turn out, so this will probably be my new go-to film. I love black and white images but capturing them in color and then converting them to b&w always looks slightly off. I'm just so excited with how wonderful this stuff is! You'll definitely be seeing more greyscale images from me in the near future!

Seeing Trust for the second time! They were even better this time around; they played a new song, which sounded great, and the crowd was much more into it. And for some reason there was a weird line through all of my photos on this strip of negatives :(

This was the end of the roll but I thought it looked interesting.

21 BEFORE 21

Last summer I decided that I should compile a list of goals in order for me to achieve. I didn't finish this list until fairly recently but now that I have it made, I feel I will be more compelled to finish everything now that I have it written in my journal and now that I have it posted on my blog. So why 21? I thought that achieving 21 goals before I turn 21 is very doable. I just turned twenty this week, which leaves me with less than a year, but there's a good deal that I've already accomplished! I won't tell you which ones I have or haven't finished yet; instead I'll do a post in a few months updating you on my progess. Here's the list!

1. Get a job. 
2. Lift 100lbs in the free weight room.
3. Visible stomach muscles.
4. Read 21 books.
5. Comfortably walk in tall heels.
6. Find a boyfriend (one that I really like).
7. Create a work of art that I'm proud of.
8. Go to Seattle.
9. Participate in an athletic competition (CrossFit or Powerlifting).
10. Deadlift 150lbs.
11. Create an art installation. 
12. Completely fill a journal.
13. Go on an art tour of the area.
14. Lower my body fat percentage to 20%.
15. Run a continuous mile.
16. Go to 21 concerts.
17. Avoid getting pulled over by the cops.
18. Donate blood.
19. Get another tattoo.
20. Start a photo series.
21. Do one pull-up on my own. No boxes or bands.

Did I forget to mention that I'm a weightlifter? Well, now you know! Now you all can hold this against me and make sure I complete as much as I can! What are some of your goals? xx

SEATTLE AQUARIUM

Here are some photos from the Seattle Aquarium! Sorry I'm getting around to posting these kind of late, but when I have a busy week at school I notice myself not wanting to pick up my laptop to use it for free time at all. Any-who.. I went to the aquarium on my last day in Washington. I didn't have much time to spend there because I had to check out of the hotel and get to the airport. I would have liked to spend more time looking at all the animals and such, but I'm glad I went. I was not expecting the aquarium to have so much stuff! There was an octopus feeding, a scuba diver swimming around in a tank, an area to touch starfish and sea anemones, and a giant archway that lit up with jellyfish inside. I hope that sometime I'll be able to go back and spend as much time as I want there. I was unable to scope out everything and had to rush through. Aquatic life is just so fascinating to me. I'll get around to posting more from my trip; maybe not this week since it's a busy one, but sometime soon!

MANEKI-NEKO

I've been getting a little impatient about trying not to reveal my tattoo until it's completely healed, but I just couldn't contain myself any longer. Here's my new thigh piece! I think it''l be healed in another week; it's just a still a little bit ashy right now!

That's my cat, Bones, in the form of a Japanese lucky cat done by the wonderful Rick Ilcken. The folktale behind the maneki-neko is that a woman invited her sword-hunter friend to her house, who scared her cat causing it to start clawing at the woman. Thinking that the cat was trying to attack her, the hunter cuts the cat's head off. Obviously this lady is really upset that someone killed her cat; the hunter feels so guilty that he goes to a wood carver and has him make a statue of the cat. After giving the woman the statue, she's overjoyed and goes happily goes about her life again. The end. So I thought, what better way to have a maneki-neko made of Bones than one that will permanently be on my person? She truly is one of my best friends and I couldn't have asked for a cooler cat in need of a home to follow me inside my house one day.

I gave Rick a lot of artistic freedom with this piece. His specialty is Japanese and traditional styled work, so this was right up his alley. Whenever I went to my consultation all I knew was that I wanted cherry blossoms and the coin to say best friend in Japanese. Basically everything else was his idea. I love the pink and green bits of color on the cat; I think the black would have been a bit much without it. And I can't forget to mention that Rick made this painful time as pleasant as possible with his wonderful personality and great sense of humor. I would love to be tattooed by him again in the future!

And here's a picture of the real Bones!