les temps froid

There are many reasons why winter sucks. The first hundred reasons? Snow. Snow makes driving (and walking) dangerous. It makes your daily commute at least double. It gets dirty and ugly quickly and covers everything that reminds you that there is still  or ever was an eco-system, a life form, on Earth. It's a bitch to shovel and scrape  sidewalks, driveways, cars, etc. Need I say more? No. Everyone else living in a wintry climate knows. And for the rest of humanity, why should I bring 'em down? The biggest reason I hate winter is because the cold means I cannot wear my "good" clothes. I love dresses and skirts more than any other clothing item. Some days, I even like crop tops. Especially those passed down by a friend. Or super vintage, passed down by a great aunt.  I guess I have been kinda lucky this year with the "lack" of snow but I went to wear this shirt one day and then realized that I would freeze as soon as I got to work. Because the doors don't always close. And/or the heat doesn't always feel warm. So, instead I took some pictures. To remind me of days to come.  In the summertime, I like to dress up in my creations and set-up self-modeled, self-shot photoshoots. It's fun to play dress up and work on sharing my creations with others. These, in the pictures, are not my creations. Some jeans from work, shoes from Macy's and super cute shirt from one of my best friends. I love the yoke and buttons on the back <3 And I am liking how the shirt , standing with arms down, just meets the jeans. Like they were made for each other.

Brother-face bought me a domain name last year. We are currently working on setting it up. It is mostly just him writing code and whatever you do to set up a web page. I'm more like the creative director. Which is always fun of course.  More to come. I'll share the link and stuff when it is more presentable : )

je n'oublierai jamais

In high school, I had planned on going to Arizona for spring break with my boyfriend and his family. We made plans to walk over and see Mexico. Since I had been to Arizona for a short while once before, I knew there would be a lot of scenic opportunities that I would want to catch on film (or, as our times would have it, catch digitally). And, since this would be my first time riding a plane and my first time leaving the country, I just knew I had to take pictures.
I researched digital cameras online and bought one of the most expensive cameras that were out at the time. Of course, I only picked the most expensive because it had the best reviews. One of the key factors in my decision making was that it had the fastest start-up of available cameras. I wanted to be able to whip out my camera at a moments notice and have a picture in less than a second, in case we were driving by or something was flying by.
I took hundreds of pictures on that vacation and I'm sure at least thousands that year. Soon, everything I did had to be caught on camera.
On the fourth of July, I was watching fireworks through my digital screen (not even through a view-finder because, again, I had a fancy digital camera). Hardly a picture turned out and before I knew it, the fireworks were over.
I had an epiphany soon after- that I had to stop living my life through a digital screen. I missed seeing the gun powder flaming in the sky in various hues right above my head. I started bringing my camera with me less and less.
My mother and I took a trip to Paris. I noticed her doing the same thing when we saw les feux d'artifice à la Tour Eiffel (fireworks at the Eiffel Tower). I kindly reminded her to just sit back and watch the show. It was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen. There was an entire light show backing up the fireworks, covering the entire face of the Eiffel Tower. A history of Paris was dancing around in bright lights as things went flailing from the many levels of the structure.
So this was a time for me when I had somewhat turned my cheek to cameras. I felt the experience was better off emblazoned in my mind than in digital storage somewhere. To be honest now though, I miss Paris and I wish I could look back at more of the unique things we saw. Those moments when I wanted to capture them all, completely in my memory. To just absorb the reality of the moment.
I wish I had some sort of photographic evidence of the homeless lady harassing the beer-bellied man asleep on a bench, trying to help him birth his twins. It feels like a soft image, fading more still, and I remember the story more and more but can picture it less and less.
Ah, to have those memories. To be able to pass those stories on with photographic evidence. Its a fine line I draw: to live life through a lens/screen or just through experiences and memories? That is the question.