Glory on a bun.

                   HOT DOGS.

               WRAPPED IN

                       BACON.

All I eat are hot dogs anymore, so I thought it would be fabulous to put a special twist on them.

Boy was I right.

Glassy Green's Ice Cream.

      My dad was eating some Green's brand butter pecan ice cream. He began attempting to chew what he thought was a pecan shell when he suddenly made the weirdest ice cream eating face I've ever seen. Upon asking him the reason for the face, he picked something off of his tongue and said "There's a piece of glass in here."
      Calling the phone number on the carton proved to be unsuccessful, so he sent them a "strongly worded" email, receiving no response so far. I told him that he needs to call the company again and inform them of his dissatisfaction in his angry manly voice. He must demand a year of free ice cream or we sue. Simple as that.

Here's to hoping for tons of free ice cream, pass on the glass shards.

My new "job".

     I was traipsing about a local gallery at the mall with a friend, when the owner approached me and inquired if I was an artist. (I assume he was judging from my camera bag and less-than-common-looking hair.) Slightly taken aback, I responded with a hesitant "Yes, I am a photojournalist-in-training," and patted my camera bag resting on my hip.
     "Oh really? Where do you go to school? Around here?"
     I explained to him that I go to RIT. He seemed to become slightly more enthusiastic upon hearing this and insisted that I meet his wife. I was still slightly puzzled, but thought heck, this has to be a good thing, so may as well stick around. A few minutes later, I found myself introducing myself to Simona, an adorable woman with a thick Romanian accent. She asked me to bring in a portfolio so she could see my work and possibly display it in the gallery.

    I
   was
      so
      pumped.

"Sure, sure, I can bring in a portfolio!"
After I make one...
"Sunday? Two days from now? Sure!"
Crap.


     Thankfully the friend I was with works at Walgreens, so I was able to utilize her discount to make some less-than-awesome-but-still-okay-for-a-drugstore type prints and slap them in a presentation folder I already had from school. I typed up a pretty information sheet and hoped for the best.
     So on Sunday afternoon, I strolled into the Star Gallery with a skip in my step and a smile on my face. Simona was quite impressed with my work, and she told me to frame as many as I wanted and to bring them back in; I would have my own wall section in the gallery to sell my photos and make commission. All I have to do is provide a small "membership" payment and "work" at the gallery 6 hours a week, which is actually broken up into two 3-hour shifts. Easy as pie. But lonely at times. Oh well. I'm getting out there!

The owners kindly ask that photos are not taken of the artwork. 

When I get bored, I take pictures. 

I was surrounded by art 360 degrees.

This is my solution.

On a semi-related note, I got another job working for Vector Marketing.

That's my fabulous training manual.

My babies!

I made an exception, since they're mine and all.

Downtown.

Anonymity is a uniting factor throughout all of these images containing people.

Cliche flower picture.

Cliche couple picture.

I wasn't built for this... was I?

     {When regarding life, it is nearly impossible to tell how much}

 { is too much. } 

The following doesn't relate to the emotion behind the photograph, but it explains a lot about my lack of hair.

      I got my hair cut on Thursday, and it was the first time my mother wasn't the one holding the scissors. I asked her best friend Anne (she and my mom both have hair-cutting licenses) to have the honor of removing twenty-some inches of my hair and providing me with a super-chic pixie cut. Needless to say, she did a stand-up job. It was pretty emotional since my mom had always cut my hair since...well, forever. But I made it through, and now I have a rockin' hairstyle that is (according to multiple people) more "me".
      I'm sorry to be a tease by making it obvious that something is terribly wrong and then not talk about it... But photography is my outlet, and this picture represents how I'm feeling. My blog is where I post photos about my current emotional state. It's just how I cope. Hopefully things will get better soon.
   

Because they need us.

      This is the first post I'm publishing on my blog that isn't my own creation or doing. I came across this advertisement and went to the website, which prompted me to "take a pledge". I assumed that meant they wanted a monetary donation, but it turns out you can pledge to simply raise awareness of the issue and rally fellow big-hearted people to help support the cause. I decided it was worth a blog post. (I also added a "No kid hungry" frame to my Facebook profile picture.) People in less-than-ideal situations have always had a special place in my heart for many reasons. I extend a hand and a warm heart to those that I can, in hopes to improve their lives in small to substantial ways of which even I may not be aware. So I can only hope that my effort to bring awareness to the fact that there are 17 million hungry children in our country is not in vain.

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.

"I don't see why everyone is so afraid of this" Part II.

      My friend Rob (seen in Bored with a camera) called me up the other day. He explained to me that he had seen my post "I don't see why everyone is so afraid of this" and told me about how he and half of the people from his dorm went outside in a rainstorm down in PA, and he thought of me. I was delighted. Little did I know, however, that I would have my own experience similar to his, only magnified by a MILLION.

      Rochester had yet another torrential downpour, and since it was so much warmer than the last time, I ended up frolicking in the buckets of rain pouring from the sky with half of my dorm building. I thought of Rob (I plan on calling him later today to tell him). When most of my friends decided to go back inside, I wanted to stay out and play some more. There was a hill next to the dorms which proved to be an amazing mud-style slip-n-slide. Eventually I and the group of strangers around me were covered head-to-toe in mud. When a public safety officer told us to cut it out, we simply migrated to another mud source: a knee-deep "puddle" next to the dining hall (I can't say I've ever been swimming in a mud puddle before this, and I will gladly do it again). After the puddle, we walked across campus to another rumored source under a bridge. We attracted a few spectators, but soon we realized that we preferred to slide down muddy hills. We went back to the slip-n-slide despite our warning and had an amazing time. After that, we decided it would be a fantastic idea to walk around campus asking people for "free hugs" since it made so much sense to spread the muddy love (and the shirt I wore that day said "FREE HUGS", how perfect!). Needless to say, people were rather apprehensive about a couple of muddy people racing to embrace them, but I did get about four willing and two unwilling participants.

     At the end of the day, we were absolutely coated in delicious dirt, sticks, grass, and who knows what else. We parted out ways at sunset to shower and continue our lives, now forever connected by a puddle.

I love college. I love life. I love mud.

Little Squishy Snail.

The littlest things are what really make me happy... like... playing with a snail. Everyone else was grossed out by your icky little trail of slime, but not me. I poked your face and you squirmed until you looked decapitated. I talked to you like I talk to my sea monkeys, with delight and weird noises. I let you leave your goo all over my hand and arm, and then I took pictures with you because you make me happy, little squishy snail. I love you for who you are, and you loved me too.

Dirty & Clean.

      I had an assignment in my photo arts class to create two portraits: one "dirty" and one "clean". While a few of my classmates took it to a more sexual and moral level, I decided to keep my subject matter literal. It took me a lot of time and thinking to decide what I wanted to do to portray my models as "dirty" and "clean". While traipsing about the grocery store in my hometown, I decided that using food would make for interesting portraits. But what food to use...?
     Before I had decided on the props to use, I already had a friend volunteer to model. I used him for the "dirty" portrait. I was surprised that he was willing to model for me before he even knew what I was going to do to him... and that's probably a good thing.

Uhm. Yeah. I'd say this is pretty dirty.

   Well, I guess I'll just let the photos speak for themselves. I hope you like them as much as I do! I'm actually thinking about submitting my "clean" portrait into RIT's honors show. Let me know what you think.

Refreshing, right?!