You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are…

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable

Rosemarie Urquico

“You’ve got this life and while you’ve got it, you’d better kiss like you only have one moment, try to hold someone’s hand like you will never get another chance to, look into people’s eyes like they’re the last you’ll ever see, watch someone sleeping like there’s no time left, jump if you feel like jumping, run if you feel like running, play music in your head when there is none, and eat cake like it’s the only one left in the world!”
― C. JoyBell C.

5/52

4/52

Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone.
Thomas Moore

” I think best in a hot bath , with my head tilted back and my feet high “

- Elizabeth Jane Howard , Mr.Wrong

3/52 

“Ah! There is nothing like staying home, for real comfort”

- Jane Austen

i cannot tell a lie , this roll was shot a day late !   it was december first and i was knee deep in Christmas decorating when i realized that i hadn’t done my november roll of film. huge snowflakes were falling and the light was nearly gone so i grabbed a wreath and a star and headed outside. let’s just say that with my haste , howling wind and cold, new lighting conditions and very flighty  subjects this roll of film is nothing short of  a Christmas  miracle !

minolta maxxum 7000

50mm 1.8

fuji pro 400h

manual focus

” I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth”

 Henry Millar

2/52

a few years back I started and completed a 365 project . it began on little more the  a whim or the inkling of an idea .  had i thought it through more and realized just what a huge undertaking it was , i never would have started. i am so glad i jumped in, it was one of my biggest personal challenges and as i watched others who had begun their own projects slowly drop out, i realized what an accomplishment it was. i learned so much in that year . i learned how to make my camera work for me . i learned about lighting and composition  . I began to have a sense of my artistic style . it gave me an excuse to shoot ( sometimes i need one )

i realized over the holidays that with the end of wedding season and my film project that i had not touched my  digital camera in weeks , so once again  i am jumping in. the project is much more manageable this time , but the idea is the same .there is no parameters so far other than an image a week. 2013 …  52 weeks project  , this is the begining.

1/52

“I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing

lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is

another day, and… I believe in miracles.”

― Audrey Hepburn

Octobers Film Challenge

minolta Maxxum 7000

50mm 1.8

fujicolor pro 400h

a few of these images were on the bright side and I did a slight curves level in photoshop but over all I was very pleased with how they turned out. I love how film changes the way I shoot , or rather they way it feels to shoot . You would think there would be an anxiety about shooting only 36 images and hoping to get enough to  complete a blog post . The reality however, is completely the opposite . I find it so relaxing and peacful to not have the temptation to be constantly checking the back of the screen and instantly be judging and rethinking what I am doing. I am free to thoughtfully compose each shot and stay in the moment.

after the shoot , is the hard part . It generally takes two weeks to reach the lab , and then a further 7-10 days to receive my favorite e-mail that my scans are ready to download . If I am slow getting them in the post it may be a month of suspence before I see the results . I am sure the day is coming when I totally mess up and am devestated at the mess I see but so far it has been like Christmas morning as I watch my images slowly appear before my eyes.

 I have always had an uneasy relationship with digital photography .

It has never felt completely right to me , in fact in the beginning it felt completely wrong.

Partly because I don’t like change , partly because it meant reinvesting in equipment all over again , struggling to buy the gear I wanted.

In retrospect I owe digital a huge debt of gratitude . I needed the immediate feedback of that LCD screen to learn and take my photography to another level. It is not an exaggeration to say I have taken hundreds of thousands of images over the last several years and learned from my failures and successes , something I could not afford to do while getting film developed.

However , to me there is something about a film image that digital cannot replicate  and I long to return to. One of my goals / challenges for myself this winter is to do a film shoot every month. Slowing down  and telling a story with a single roll.

                            One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite  - 

                     that particular peach is but a detail.

Pablo Picasso

fuji 400h

minolta maxxum 7000

unedited