I hate lens distortion.

But I love sunsets.

Knock on wood.

      My friend Caitlin and I were driving down my street in the middle of the woods. She commented on how paranoid she was about a deer jumping from the thicket and into the middle of the road.
      "No worries!" I assured her. "I have yet to hit any animals in my years of driving, knock on wood."
      I look around for something wooden to knock on, to no avail. I frantically search for a full twenty seconds until I pull up to my wooden mailbox post and rap it a few times. -Whew-
      I run inside my house for my Visa so we can head to the mall and scavenge for a good sale. Not five minutes later, we are back on the road, feeling the breeze in our hair, without a care in the world.
-Thud-
"Uh...uh oh."
OH, THE IRONY.

Rest in pieces, little chipmunk.

Pretty kitties.

I'm not really a cat person, but these felines were too beautiful to resist.

Baby and mommy.

Doting siblings.

Forever intertwined.

It's summer break! What to do...?

ROAD TRIP

Oh hey, Niagara Falls!

Plus, there was a bunny. I love bunnies.

Well, I finished my first year of college. I head home tomorrow,  so that means every post for the next three months will be done in Scranton, PA (or its whereabouts... You all know how spontaneous I can be).

"DO NOT EAT".

I got this in the mail from my mom's best friend the other day (glasses included).

Sizing things up.

Reflected light & Cookie Monster.

      The huge windows on the building behind me when I took this shot reflected onto the people, making them glow even though the sun was behind them; plus the shadows look stunning. I love light phenomena.

Happy birthday mommy.

I got you balloons...

...I hope they made it to you.

I also made you brownies. I couldn't find any with peanut butter chips; I know those were your favorite. I also didn't have the right size pan, so it turned out more like a brownie pancake-cookie-thing... I bet you're laughing at me right now. 

(A big THANK YOU to my friend Iman {the star of my stop motion below}

for helping me with the self-portrait.)

My first stop motion creation.

      For my photo arts class, we were required to come up with an idea for a stop motion video. This was done by using the continuous shot mode on my camera and stringing all 1,100+ of the photos together to make a video at 12 frames per second. I don't really have much to say about this other than that I am proud of it and it was a pain in the butt. I hope you like it!

      I'm sorry about the quality. The original was 10x too large for this website, so I had to "resize it for the web". I also don't know what's up with the green line on the right side. Oh well. It has character now.

"Me time" in the studios.

      Since my mom passed, I learned to cope with a lot of my emotions through self-portraits. I feel so complete and so comfortable with my camera, and I like looking back on how I was feeling at certain times in my mourning. Today I was working on an assignment in the studios, and just as I was packing up, I decided to jump in front of the camera myself. I really like how I was able to edit this photo with my hand blurring away from me; it truly symbolizes what I was thinking when I posed for the photo. I honestly feel like I am stuck in one spot while another part of me just wants to float up up and away, far from here, far from reality, far from my thoughts and fears and anxieties. I'm hoping this feeling will pass with time, but God only knows. 

God only knows.

      Here's another photo I took after I had put back all of the fancy lights and equipment. My friend Caity (here's her amazing blog) gave me a beautiful flower, and being a few days old, it had started to wilt. I dropped it on the floor and forgot about it until I turned around and saw how breathtaking it appeared on the white floor, all alone amongst the bulky equipment. Here it is, in all its glory.

More impromptu self-portraits:

It's not every day you get to help break a world record.

      RIT students officially hold the record for the world's largest game of dodgeball with over 2,000 participants. The entire experience was so much fun! The event coordinators gave us free T-shirts, hardxcore sweatbands, a hearty meal, and a few of us lucky ones even got to keep the dodgeballs (mine is on my bed next to me... I have no idea where to put it).
     It feels good making history.