photoblography.

2010-04-01T10:48:00.001-07:00

blogger sucks.
so i moved here:
http://photoblography.tumblr.com

2010-03-28T23:39:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I think I own much too much American Apparel, so I try to thrift some things here and there to show a little diversity in my style. But it never really works. I mean, I don't know a damn thing about designers, but I can name an American Apparel article from a mile away. Colors, materials, styles... almost anything.

2010-03-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

the world in-between reality and dreaming.

2010-03-27T14:14:00.000-07:00

Like love in the palm of your hand.
I'm collaging this afternoon. It's been a while.

2010-03-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

The desire of Joshua Tizon.
International Women Bringing Men Sandwich Day is just around the corner.

2010-03-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

I think I'm always happiest in the springtime. Also, I'd like to start food blogging more often. And destination blogging.

2010-03-25T13:44:00.001-07:00

photographed in wilanow, warsaw, poland.

2010-03-11T02:36:00.000-08:00

bedtime stories

2010-03-09T20:47:00.001-08:00

There are some things I can do without. Some things I just don't need. Too much in life gets cluttered. I like the feel and simplicity of sweet, sweet love.

Love Paradox

2010-03-03T16:07:00.001-08:00

i'm not a fool for love. this is a love paradox.

"Sputnik"

2010-02-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

Небо облаков не замечает время земных нет границ
Подняться вверх посмею и душа немеет небо для птиц
Невозможно знать сколько дней их жизни облакам с нами плыть
Жить без мыслей мы привыкли открой глаза проснись

Save your boobies!

2010-02-27T21:06:00.001-08:00

BBNR (Beebop & Rocksteady) performing at El Corazon downtown Seattle. This show was hosted by a girl for a high school project, and all proceeds went to breast cancer research.

Seattle Afterdark

2010-02-25T17:56:00.000-08:00

kick. snare. it's unbelievable.

These were some of the photographs in the pool from what I shot for a photojournalism project. I highly doubt these will relate at all to my group mates' contributions, so I am going to be thumbing through my frames pretty soon..

Hello, my love

2010-02-24T01:12:00.000-08:00

The truth is, we were much too young. Now I'm looking for you, or anyone like you.

Wholeness and separation

2010-02-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

I'll make a fuss if I want - this is my disaster.

model: melanie mundy

Squeaking shoeless

2010-02-16T22:34:00.000-08:00

Shooting Josh barefoot in the forest. Spring couldn't come soon enough.

You make me smile with all my heart

2010-02-15T20:04:00.000-08:00

I have no lover.
Often I wish it were otherwise, as I see the world around me falling in or simply being in love. I have never been in love - at least not for the right reasons, but that fathomless feeling of a new companion is quite possibly one of the warmest experiences. On the other hand, I consider boyfriends, as well as my much needed independence, and wonder whether or not I would be able to commit full-time. My closest friends are my family, and I need the great divide between the two worlds.

I have no lover, but I spent "single awareness" day with the ones I love the most. And I couldn't ask for more.

My Funny Valentine

2010-02-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

I have no pictures to post, or silly song lyrics that apply to my life for today or the day before, or even the day before that. But I found this on my Facebook wall just now and it made me smile.

I love you, Tony and Pistol.

Medusa

2010-02-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

I must say.. shooting band promos in a tattoo parlor with an immobile subject and Medusa the huge python isn't my cup of tea. Good music-related ideas are difficult as hell to come up with.

To be young and wild and free

2010-02-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

I can't say I'm a huge fan of self-portraits, but today, I'm having a good hair day. Time to go play in the sun.

life is beautiful

2010-02-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

tous les jours, je vis la belle vie.

Don't need no valentine

2010-02-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

the crazy chains, the quick-fixed highs, running on empty heart's desire. life's too short, we're getting too long, so why be doing anymore with love.

Et c'est parti

2010-02-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

And we have no idea if this party is going to be any good in the first place.

Old houses covered in vines

2010-02-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

I am going to live in this building someday.

deep down

2010-02-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

and i was thinking on the long way down here. no life, no light, no sight. no sound down here. i am nothing and no one and nowhere at all. i am thoughtless, and i thought this on my own.

Who needs forever?

2010-01-31T13:47:00.000-08:00

Time goes so fast; let's live this moment like it's the last.
I used to take my camera with me wherever I went so as not to miss a moment. I keep memories of parties and the beautiful faces I photograph, but never everyday life. I really would like to start keeping artistic-looking pictures from adventures and journeys I embark on with loved ones.

Camera hax

2010-01-06T19:13:00.001-08:00

Learned how to shoot and edit in RAW in class today. Never shooting JPEG again. Oh my god. RAW is like camera hax.

IT'S ABOUT TO GO DOWN.

The Wintry Spells

2009-12-07T19:19:00.000-08:00

Leta and I decided to do a shoot completely on a whim. I had no expectations for it whatsoever, and I was beginning to get discouraged by the extreme sunlight and my lack of technological skill shooting in it.

Let me just say that I am actually shocked and impressed with myself. I have come so stinkin' far with my photography since I started school, and all I've done was take a design class I had no idea I was actually benefiting from and a basic photography class I never attended. Lately, I've been trying to include a little bit of design in my work by pairing up multiple photos into art pieces. It's just so unique and different from a lonely photo to me. It's like a whole new form of art within photography.

These are The Wintry Spells:

I received an email last night from some one who wanted to feature my work in an art walk yesterday, and assuming everything goes as planned, I'm definitely going to include a bunch of these.

My pride and joy

2009-12-01T11:45:00.000-08:00

I don't take enough photographs of Jack, which is odd because he has one of the strongest personalities I've ever seen in a cat. Sometimes I feel like he understands when I speak to him. If I express to him that I don't want him doing something, he won't do it. If I want him to sit still for the camera, he will.

He is my pride and joy. I feel horrible that I'm not home and around him often, but he is still young and hopefully will be with me for the rest of my twenties. I don't really know what I'll do when he leaves me. It's going to be impossible to find another cat like him.

I took this photo last January, I believe. I've been going through my old folders on my external in search of pictures for the frames hanging over my bed. I found this, rotated it vertically and threw some filters on it. This one is going to be the 8x10 in the very center.

Les yeux

2009-11-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

Did a couple of polas and some pretty eye shots with Teela last night. Just got finished editing them a few minutes ago and they've already been sent off to the agency. She's got four options, including one for British Vogue, so we had to do these quickquickquick.

I have so much faith in this photograph to nail her a cosmetic campaign.

$5 scarves and hot chicks

2009-11-17T02:27:00.000-08:00

Thank you, baby Jesus, for $5 scarves at Forever 21. And hot chicks.

A piece of every painting

2009-11-08T18:35:00.000-08:00

I'm kind of squeezing in my design project for school and shooting random things. I still haven't figured out what the hell I'm doing for leading line, but I'm sure I'll slam through it one way or another tonight. Maybe somehow over brownies with Teela and friends.

Anyway, I took this photograph of my palette for the texture part of the proj. I painted all my first paintings ever using this thing to mix paints, so I suppose you could say I have a piece of every single painting I've ever worked on painted onto this palette. I will never replace it. You could even call it somewhat sentimental. I never really thought about that until I stared at it in CS4 for 20 minutes.

Playing in the "studio"

2009-11-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

Mel's trying to get into a modeling agency. Shouldn't be too hard, since she is total hottage.

I love my studio lights now. I've always just hated them because I had no idea how to position them. And my old camera sucked. Thank you Portolese family for making this investment. Oh my god.

I've only been in photography school for a little over a month. We haven't even touched the studio, and probably won't until next year. I'm already seeing epicore improvements. I'm so damn excited to learn more.

The Mad Hatter

2009-10-27T17:58:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to design a hat for a few months. I suppose I always say I am going to create a work of art, and then I just sort of put it off until, well, never. The whole black vintage headwear with lace, feathers and flowers could quite possibly be my favorite form of fashion, and considering I have a total boner for Alice in Wonderland, designing a top hat always just sounded like a good idea. The only problem was finding one that I could afford.

I ended up finding a very crude one for $9.99 at the Halloween superstore, some flower-printed translucent black fabric at JoAnn's, and a hair piece I've never really used on my shelf. I also purchased a weird black lace thing a few months ago at an antique mall. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it, but I guess I finally found a use. All that, some thread and some hot glue made this:

My new favorite masterpiece

2009-10-20T16:24:00.001-07:00

I spent the last hour and a half in Photoshop CS4 completely transforming this picture using only curves, a paint brush, and saturation layers. No sharpening, no dodge/burn, no nothin'. Definitely my new favorite masterpiece. I'm so stinkin' proud of this. I'm even proud of my signature. Just check out the before/after.. Gross.

Parallel Promos

2009-10-19T01:03:00.000-07:00

Well this was fun. Skylar wanted some new promos for his new mix he's releasing soon, and just some overall promotional material, yanno. Posters and that sort of mumbojumbo. Anyway, this was nice because Kathleen got to be my lighting tech, and we did some dorky crap with a rubber duck and hot legs. Can't really go wrong with that.

I might be an idiot...

2009-10-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

Okay look, I might be an idiot. I received this email this morning from god knows who saying I was referred by some nameless user of a website called "Whohub" for an interview. It's a so-called "professional" artist database, and they give you all these ridiculous, in-depth questions about your field. I spent a good half an hour+ trying to fill this thing out, and hours later I think, "Oh hey, maybe I should google it."

So yeah. It's definitely a scam. Or so people think. But I still don't know what they're scamming me for. Maybe that's part of the surprise.

Anyway, try to say "whohub" ten times fast.

Shallow depth of field

2009-10-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ohhh, the things you learn about Photoshop in basic photography class. It's a bummer following the teacher's rules and staying away from selective color and the dodge/burn tools, but her way of defeating white imbalances has definitely proven itself to be more than effective. This is the shoot I did with Melanie and her pretty new hair and some smudged makeup for my shallow depth of field project to make up for the atrocity that was my camera orientation.

"British Vogue"

2009-10-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

My master plan to do a fall fashion photo shoot in a paper tree farm for my depth-of-field project was totally shattered when we arrived at a field of dirt. Apparently it's harvest season.. So we drove down the road for a little bit and decided to park in some random gravel road and cross acres of tall, wet grass to another cluster of trees, which just so happened to be completely overgrown and disgusting.
So we ended up just playing in the grass for an hour instead. It looked like British Vogue. I don't know what this is, but it isn't shallow OR total depth-of-field. Scratch that..

Crime Scene

2009-10-01T16:20:00.001-07:00

I love when I find old photographs on my external from when I sucked at photography and didn't know a potentially pretty picture when I saw one. Here's from an old high school crime scene photo project.

Last Night Blue on Facebook

2009-10-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how to add the badge widget to my blogger, so I'll just say right now... Become a fan of my nightlife hoobajabba on Facebook. Add Last Night Blue.

Here, I'll help you: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Last-Night-Blue/139907977710

Without artistic intent

2009-09-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

You don't have to have artistic intentions to make art. Just interesting eye candy.

Spontaneous experimentation trains the photographic eye.

These three are my best friends in the whole world.

McWasted

2009-09-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

We hopped from "Gaytor Golf" to our friends' moving out party, which happened to be a huge Jamaican storm and was awesome. The first person I met was some chick with red corn rows named Sparkle. Epic win. It seemed kind of quiet upstairs, and low and behold the huge dance party complete with MC and microphone downstairs in the basement. This one made for some pretty interesting pictures.

The whole "McWasted" title comes from our pilgrimage to McDonald's up the street and around the corner. Hanna essentially use her woman parts and her blunt charm to get us some "McFree shit" at the drive-thru. I'm bringing her with me every time I go somewhere that involves money and fast food.

Gaytor Golf

2009-09-27T15:35:00.001-07:00

Went to this party called "Gaying up Edmonds" that I expected to be a party full of gays like the last one I had gone to. But without the nudist hot tub and the drag queens, Edmonds wasn't as easy to gay up as I thought it would be. It was an awesome dance party regardless.

Bham-a-ram-a-ding-ding

2009-09-26T15:46:00.001-07:00

Tony, Isaiah, David and I ventured up to Bellingham last night to this "Around The World" party where there were like seven houses named after different countries. Basically, you pay ten bucks and the party cleans it out house-by-house until there's nowhere to go, and then you just travel back and forth amongst them.

We made teams (Tony & I were Furious George, Isaiah and David were Japanda Bear) and met up with Dustin and Shaun (Team Yoshi) and created this point system based off getting numbers, bumming cigarettes, and pretty much doing anything badass. Pretty much anything would subtract points (i.e. dying, passing out, or blowing chunks all over your teammate's shoes).

I won't say who won or lost.. Not that my team lost or anything...... It doesn't matter. It's all fun and games. It was a mad blast meeting people through photographing them and fooling around with the new fisheye. At one point, this guy says to me, "Awesome camera, but wrong place to bring it!" Are you kidding me? I couldn't think of a better place.

Fisheye stork came!

2009-09-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Aaaah, I couldn't be happier! My Bower fisheye attachment that I purchased on Ebay last week came in the mail today. I haven't gotten the chance to shoot with it much yet, but I snapped a few pictures and I'm absolutely in love. I also now have a few amazing polaroid-like filter actions in Photoshop CS4 so I can keep a consistent editing style. I think this is the exact kind of artistic motivation I needed.

Grain of film, blur of fisheye, discoloration of polaroid

2009-09-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wish I had a more personalized, artsy photographic style. I've grown completely weary of the "professional" look. I adore photos that look like paintings, like beautiful art you could hang on the wall rather than something found in a Vogue magazine. It may be an odd thing to say, but I'm actually quite fond of the dirty look, as I like to call it. I love the grain on high-speed film, the slight blur of a cheap fisheye attachment, and the discoloration of a polaroid.
I find photos like this one, a polaroid by Elif Sanem Karakoç, absolutely beautiful.
Perhaps I need to start shooting flashless with film, or even just start bringing my camera everywhere I go again. Fortunately, today was the first day of my "photo school" so I have no choice but to start shooting more often.

Cowboy Caturday

2009-09-18T01:49:00.000-07:00

I usually only blog about super serial photography stuff that I do, like artistic and event palookie, but I really think I just need to start writing about photos I take on a daily basis -- little memories I make that I don't think much of now but may like to reminisce about later.Melanie and I went to Petsmart to buy a bunch of kitten stuff for her newly adopted kitten, Alice. They actually have a little section for kitty Halloween costumes, which I think is just cruel because most cats just seem like they hate life already when it comes to novelties like collars and little kitty bells. Knowing Jack, however, I didn't think he'd mind, so I went ahead and bought this dorky cowboy costume. Surprisingly enough, he wore it willingly. Sometimes I think he should be in pet show business.

My life is basically over

2009-09-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

I honestly don't even know what to do with myself at this point. Whenever I charge my batteries and pop 'em into my flash, the red light that shows whether its on or not just starts strobing like a bad dance party that I can't photograph anyway BECAUSE MY FLASH IS BROKEN. It just flickers. If you push the flash in and hold the shutter button down for a while, sometimes it'll work. Sometimes. It's almost as though the flash doesn't understand that, hey, I just charged the batteries and you're supposed to work.

So I had to turn down a shoot with some band because of it. I don't know if things like this can get fixed or if warrantees even exist. I got it for Christmas, so who knows.. but I will probably die if I don't get it working again. It turns on, the flash still works.. Just only sometimes. I'm afraid I dropped it or something. FML

Have Fun, Die Young

2009-09-06T17:41:00.001-07:00

The quote comes from some guy on the back patio talking about how we're young and to just chain smoke cigarettes all you want because it's fun. Yada yada yada.

This one was held at Josh and Gino's house. They seriously brought in the bar from Holly's just for this party, so you know it was intense. There were a ton of unfamiliar faces to me, and then some surprise familiar ones I didn't expect to show up. My "crew" completely dipped without word, so I just sort of stuck to two or three people the entire night.

I don't know where it came from, but everyone eventually started rolling around in the grass. Not sure what happened there. It was pouring down rain and muddy, and everyone was just stoked on it.

Eventually, we all ran out of cigarettes, so Holly, Gino, Rico and I walked all the way to 7-11 in the downpour, which was so bad to the point we started running through sprinklers because it didn't even matter anymore. The chick at the register thought I'd gone mad. We jacked a few "New Homes!" signs and shoved them into some random yard on the way back. Then we all crashed on the floor and froze to death. It was rad.

Other than the hypothermia part, it was an absolute blast.

Booga-Booga! Tribal Party

2009-09-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

I spent the majority of this party freaking the hell out. My house was overrun with people in warpaint and grass skirts and I was too busy worrying about something getting broken or something being spilt on my freshly steam-cleaned white carpet that I barely took a second to breath and enjoy myself. It was real unfortunate and I really had no reason to panic at all, as no cops came and the noise was not too loud from outside.

A lot of people were extremely disrespectful, cutting the zip-ties on my fridge, and someone dropped and smashed green warpaint into my carpet (which was washable, thank god). One girl caused such a ruckus I didn't even know what to do with myself. A lot of the costumes were just amazing and almost everyone took advantage of my acrylics and gave the camera some amazing warpaint bologna to photograph.

A lot of the pictures from the evening were taken by Josh Mueting and Melanie Mundy.

The Best Summer Nightlife Ever

2009-09-03T10:03:00.001-07:00

Totally copying Holly Fabs on this one. She posted this entry in her blog about the best of the best summer photos she's taken over the last few months. All my summer photos are pretty janky since I didn't do a lot of outdoor everyday shooting, but I'll definitely post my favorite photos from my summer nightlife. :)

The "Rightside Up" House Party

2009-08-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

I got this Facebook event invitation for this so-called "Upside down" house BONANZA earlier this week, and of course the picture on the event is a bunch of drunks crowded around an upside down house in some gravel quarry somewhere. Sick. I also see that Parallel is there, which means the entire Parallel entourage is invited along as well. Sicker.I had previous plans to go to a kegger thing cancelled that night, so I totally needed this. However, of course the house is totally right side up and chillin'. I had my entourage I came with pretend to flip it upside down. The photo came out horrible so I'm not even going to post it on my blog, but needless to say, they failed hard. They needed my strong guns in there I think. Too bad I had to control the camera.The basement was where all the music was at. The lighting was pretty sick in there and we had an extremely decent amount of people on the dance floor. I saw countless familiar faces and met a couple of cool people with profane t-shirts like the one I was wearing that night. Eventually, I walked outside and saw there were at least 100 people scattered around the backyard, which just so happened to be some one's FRONT yard as well, about 20-30 people in the front yard, and at least 40-50 people sweaty, dancing bodies losing their shit to hard electro downstairs. I guess like 5 cruisers pulled up and threatened to make everyone pay a $280 fine if they didn't leave in 7 minutes, which we all know is a bullshit excuse to see which of the five can tag the most DUIs on a Saturday night. I stayed. Nothing happened.

Seven purses got stolen as well. That was also stupid.

Loko Four BBNR!

2009-08-09T15:36:00.001-07:00

Im just Loko Four BBNR. I haven't photographed ANY of their shows, except for the first one before I was even really that well-acquainted with them. I offered to shoot their show at the Whammy Bar this Friday. However, I'm 20 years-old so there were definitely strings to be pulled.
Some brohan that runs the place named Adam got me right in by drawing this dorky X on my hand with a sharpie, which is still there and not trying to come off anytime soon. I basically kicked it outside and made sad faces at all my 21+ buddies inside through the window, making it fog up with my breath and writing love notes to them all.
Eventually, Teela showed up with the Four Loko and a few of our other buddies and we all hung out in the alley behind the bar and took stupid pictures all night long. For being 20 years-old at a bar in Everett of all places, I had a damn good time, and the show was sick. I definitely need to listen to BBNR more.

What happens when you wear a werewolf mask to Jack in the Box

2009-08-05T18:31:00.001-07:00

Alright folks, let's talk parties. Or not really parties, but get-togethers.

I swear to god, the best way to finish a bad day is to grab Teela, down some red wine, and go to Jack in the Box with a werewolf hat on. I was hanging out at Kris Pacheco's (of BBNR) place and that Walker fellow from Boomzzilla was there complete with his werewolf mask and everything. Needless to say, I don't sport it nearly as well as he does, but I threw it on and had completely forgotten about it when I hopped into the car with everyone to go to jack. I had to pay separate because I only had plastic, and I swore my card was about to overdraw so I couldn't swipe for everyone. Walked on inside, immediately met two dudes in gangster clothes. They were asking me about my hat, and telling me to put it on all the way like a mask. "Why are you wearing a werewolf mask?"

"Why not?"

Afterward, I made a quick exit with my two cheeseburgers and tried to walk around to where the drive-thru spat out and hop back in the car. The car was out of sight and around the corner at the pick-up window, so I stood there awkwardly eating a cheeseburger in the most random place possible, wearing a werewolf on my head and hoping that no one tried to talk to me because I sure as hell didn't have answers.

Some scrawny, old dude smoking a cigarette from St. Vincent de Paul, or so he claimed, came up and asks, "How are you?" I tell him I am fine and ask how he is. Awkward silence. I ask if he works around here, and he tells me he does. I forgot what we were talking about, but I remember saying, "Ohhh, you're on top of things!" And he responded with, "..I wish I was on top of things."

Anyway, this guy starts talking about St. Vincent de Paul and how the vests used to be blue, and that Value Village was their rival. He says St. Vincent changed their vests to red like Value Village because it used to be like Bloods vs. Crips. So I supposed it would be logical to assume both thrift stores are just Bloods now. Excellent

"Last Night Blue"

2009-08-03T02:36:00.000-07:00

My Sunday went by before I even busted out my Bible and bottle of red wine. It's 2:37 in the morning on MONDAY, technically, and I've been sitting here for the last few hours completely re-mastering my party website.

All the cool kid photographers in LA have these superhero names, like "Kid Paparazzi" and "Shadowscene" for instance. Most of the witty names are taken, such as "Seven Days A Weekend" so I've been just sticking to Portolese Photography this entire time. I wanted a name that had to do with my blue tones, so I was considering "Deep Blue" or something of the sort. I posted one of my album covers on Facebook and asked for name suggestions, and my friend Dustin Koontz said, "Last Night Blue".

At first, I didn't get it. It's stupid. Last Night Blue? And then I said it aloud.. Last night blue.. Last night BLEW! Ohhhh sososososo witty Dustin. And depending on how much alcohol you managed to down the night before, the name isn't too off-topic. I love it. Not to mention my signature looks absolutely rowdy.
(Photo by: Melanie Mundy)
So hey, check out my new party section at http://www.portolesephotography.net. The first link on the page "last night blue" will direct you to the album page in the frame below with each event in chronological date. Not all albums have photos in them yet. It's tough work, so only the most recent ones do.

Jaki's Top 5 Party Countdown

2009-07-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

I only ever blog about shoots and parties themselves, so I decided to write about something else for once. It's still technically blogging about parties, but whatever. I always ask myself what the best party I've ever been to was, and I can never really decide. They just keep getting better and better!

5. Ola's 20th Birthday at the Gravel Quarry

Everything about this party owned. The epically long drive up, the 10 mile drive on a dirty gravel road in a convertible breathing dust for about 30 minutes straight, the mosquitos, the glowsticks, the live DJ in the wilderness, the 20 foot bonfire, the overflow of the Polish community, and waking up in my car to the sound of huge fireworks all being thrown into a fire pit and rednecks yelling BLACK METALLLLLLL!

4. Jen's Animal Party at Standard Hollywood Purple Lounge

Hardly anyone dressed up for this party to be honest, but Teela and I were rocking kitty ears all night long. This one gets in the top 5 soley for having like 2938429 DJs in one night, having it's own makeup artist that made Matt look like a panda, and just because it was in LA. I mean, come on. It was an absolute blast. I got free shots, bought my first ever drink from a bar, and the photos were amazing.

3. Holly's Pirates vs. Ninjas Party

I think any theme having to do with pirates is automatically set up for win. I decided to go to this party totally last minute and ended up devoting the entire day to putting together a sick costume. I didn't actually photograph at this event, but Holly's fisheye did more than I could've ever done. I met a truckload of people, ran into a ton of familiar faces, was reunited with a few old, old friends from elementary and middle school, and basically sat in the grass all night chain smoking and drinking beer.

2. Get your GEEK on, let's get NERDY!

Most likely one of the sicker themed parties I've held. This ranks number 2 solely because everyone seemed to be a natural geek. This party had the best costumes I've ever seen at any party. People did a daaaamn good job with this theme. This was a toss up with the Pirate party because this party essentially had zero cleanup. I had more people at this party that I didn't know than any other party, but people were totally respectful. By the time the cops came, there were no incriminating items anywhere in the house so they really had no reason to think we were drunk at all. Pretty sneaky.

1. Scissor Me Timbers! The Pirate Party

The Pirate party I had on Valentine's day this year tops all the rest and always has. It was the first actual huge party I've ever had, completely BYOB, no complaints from the neighbors, no cops, nothin'. Almost everyone followed the theme and dressed as a pirate. I made my first killer party video, took some absolutely amazing photographs of people being shwasted, and some of us ended up watching Pirates porn later in the evening. Also, I can't forget breaking up a fight over a bag of cocaine between two strangers in my underwear in my own front yard, as well as Gino eating popcorn off the floor and taking about Mexicans all night long. Epic night.

Check out the video!

Finally, a shoot with Teela.. and a bit of Leta too!

2009-07-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

We spontaneously decided to do a shoot in Leta's shire of a backyard. The weather was just total crappness and we were wearing jackets and scarves in the middle of summertime. Not too inspiring. After wearing our thinking caps a bit, Leta had this magnificent idea to have Teela jump in the pond. "No, no.. I've swam in here millions of times. There are no monsters and the sand won't suck you in."

Freezing. Cold. We did a few pictures, and then Teela jokingly asked her to jump in.. Only Leta actually thought it was a good idea and got in with her, so I got to work with both of them a little bit. It was kind of a neato feel with the whole water-nymph deal, although I probably could've done better.

"By the way, I haven't actually ever been in this pond. I was just saying that so you'd get in.." - Leta

Musique II

2009-07-16T11:55:00.001-07:00

This is a self-portrait. I took a photograph just like this a little over exactly a year ago. You can see it here: http://pianobleeder.deviantart.com/art/Musique-88993090

I retook it because it's a photo I really love. It looks like something right out of Urban Outfitters. Last year, it was taken on my Digital Rebel I'd had since I was sixteen years-old, on my bedding and room set-up I've had since I was 12, and all in all, I really just think I looked and acted younger altogether.

Over the last year, I've made so many changes in my life. I've really grown up and come out of my shell. I've traveled places, developed a broad understanding for foreign culture and language, met hundreds upon hundreds of amazing people that have influenced my life and my creativity, and discovered who my best friends really were. Not to mention I've stripped my room of it's childhood look and made it look a bit more fashionable with the black and white look. :)

Michael Jackson Tribute Day at H-Wood

2009-07-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

Ohhh god, the day Michael Jackson died was quite possibly the most crazy adventurous day of my life. We spent the afternoon in Malibu messing up the sand in front of Jennifer Anniston's beach house (she actually rakes her sand so it's smooth, retarded) and driving around west Hollywood blasting Michael Jackson's top hits out the Jeep Wrangler. We actually pulled over into some random burger joint, put on our leather jackets, and danced for a good half an hour. We were hoping we'd get a bunch of other people to hop on the bandwagon, but no dice.

At night, we ventured out onto Hollywood blvd. to H-Wood, some night club, whatever, and had some time to kill before our little "escort" got there so we started star-searching for MJ. APPARENTLY the BET awards was taking place the next day, so Bruno-sponsored crap was all over and blocked the Michael Jackson star. Howeverrrr, they had a memorial across the street where people had lit candles and all that cutesie dead person stuff. There was a huge group of people blasting MJ music and parading up and down the street dancing.

H-Wood was alright. I guess it was schoolgirl night and I met a couple of people who wanted their picture taken thinking I was the club photographer. I wasn't. There was a rigged schoolgirl contest that sucked, but they started playing a line-up of Michael Jackson so we stayed and danced for a while. Jen jumped on stage with the go-go dancer chicks and rocked the MJ moves. Great night.

THE STANDARD HOLLYWOOD: Animal Party

2009-07-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

Teela and I went down to LA for like a week and spent the whole time running around Hollywood and club hopping. We would somehow end up at a new house or apartment every night because we suck at planning ahead. I think we decided to go on this little adventure a good week or so before we even went. We drove down with Matt, who is moved down there to do his photography mumbojumbo in the land of stars. It was the most painful freaking drive of my life, and I don't even remember it.

Anywho, our buddy Jen is a DJ down there and essentially hooked us up with the high life. She DJs at La Violette at The Standard Hollywood. She did an Animal Party event on the Wednesday night we were down there so I brought my camera and went nuts with the photo-taking. They're some of the best party pictures I've taken. Probably because I figured out the whole back curtain flash palookie.. I don't even know what it's called. Some photographer I am..

Equinox Studios

2009-06-14T14:28:00.001-07:00

Melanie and I went down to support Parallel's little show at Equinox Studios in South Seattle. There was a gallery event with a bunch of crazy, insane art that smelt terrible. It was a bit quiet, I will admit, but after some wandering, we found a lot of places to take photos. Completely unexpected.

Summer Shindiggery

2009-06-14T14:21:00.001-07:00

Elliotte has a rager about once a month at his townhouse. Last time was Cinco de Mayo, this time was the official first "summer shindiggery" and it was straight epic.

We arrived around 11, and it was actually relatively dead, but within the next 10-20 minutes, about fifty + more people poured in through the front door and it was wall-to-wall with people.

I love Elliotte's parties because there is such a diverse group of people. Literally. A huge chunk of the people are foreign, and everyone has so much energy. Also, for the most part, everyone is 100% respectful of each other and Elliotte's pad. Rare.

Old photo dig-up

2009-05-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

I took this photo over a year ago on my old Canon. I never paid much attention to this folder of images at all because I was really just playing around at the beach and didn't try to produce anything artistic. I typically go through and edit old junk from my portraits or Poland folder because what doesn't seem like art to me one day may be a masterpiece in the making the next.

Folklife

2009-05-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

I think there are parallel universes at Folklife. There are the visitors who just hang out and eat funnel cake, and then there are all the crazy locals who dress weird, give out free hugs, and set up hippie drum circles. I was at this festival three times this weekend, and nothing miraculous happened until Monday night when I met up with a couple of girl friends from high school I hadn't seen in a while. We started wandering around and eventually came across a few hippies banging on buckets and water jugs. We joined them and stayed for a good 45 minutes chit-chatting and coaxing by-passers for beer funds

Neon Party

2009-05-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

The parentals went out of town to Vegas for the three-day weekend, so we decided it was about time for another Parallel party. This week's theme was neon, and oddly enough, half the people who came didn't know what the hell "neon" meant so they just didn't bother, leaving those of us who did to look like total idiots, but that's the point of my parties anyway.. Look like a total idiot, get drunk, and be photographed.

Seattle Skyline

2009-05-10T12:02:00.001-07:00

I went on a photo safari with my friend John yesterday to do some infrared work, which I completely don't understand how to do yet, and we ended up grabbing our friend Melanie and driving down to Queen Anne in Seattle. We were looking for some stupid park for a good couple of minutes until we saw this housing development lot with relatively easy access to get in. There weren't really many stairs to get onto the balconies but the silly construction noobs left their ladders laying around so we were able to get up way higher. I envy the dude who ends up buying this house once it's finished...

idle cigarettes

2009-05-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

Why not go through the ol' Poland folders another time and find some "new art" hiding amongst the old? I've put together a portfolio on my website called "Pretty Things" with a bunch of pictures that have this sort of relaxing feel to them. Most of them are black and white. Really, it was an excuse to put some of my favorite photos in that don't fall into a portraiture, landscape, or party category.

Cinco de Mayo!

2009-05-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

I'm all about the Cinco de Mayo party Elliotte Bagg had at his townhouse in Kirkland last night. My birthday is actually this Tuesday, which is the real Cinco de Mayo, so I just sort of used this powwow as an excuse to celebrate my last few days as a teenager with a few close friends. Between the conga lines, the abundance of alcohol, the wall-to-wall cluster of party people, the loud music and all the amazing people I met, I had an absolute blast.

Rusted Wheels

2009-05-03T19:09:00.001-07:00

Melanie, Audrey and I originally set off in hopes of finding some cool crap at the swap meet, but we ended up going on about six million nature walks throughout the afternoon in the middle of nowhere, Snohomish. We hit up a couple of abandoned houses and burnt shacked, as well as finding a real, live "cloverfield" and a garage filled with a bunch of beautiful beat up cars and vans from the 60s and 70s. I feel like an idiot for not bringing my camera out today, but I was able to cop Melanie's for a few to take some shots. Surprisingly enough, a few of them turned out alright.After everything, we drove down the country road and found an entry way into one of those gorgeous forests where all the trees are planted in perfect lines. I think they're put there specifically for paper harvesting. They're quite beautiful, though. The entire wood is green from top to bottom and they go on for miles. We started catching frogs and we even saw a silly brown ferret thing in a tree who was watching us contently.

"NOMNOM"

2009-04-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Matt let me snag his lights for this shoot. I'm absolutely lovin' the sharpness of this photograph.

You're looking at about 15 minutes of shooting and maybe 45 minutes to an hour of editing to get this outcome. It was a complete transformation. In all honesty, this shoot sucked. I came into it not feeling at all artistic and completely uninspired. They didn't come out at all how I was hoping they would, but I decided to sit down and play with this one until I turned it into something good. Apparently, with art, patience pays off. Who would've known?

Tulips & Daffodils

2009-04-19T14:10:00.001-07:00

I've always wanted to go to that stupid Tulip festival they have in Skagit Valley every year just to see what all the fuss was about. I figured at this point that I'm the only person who hasn't gone yet and that it needed to be done. Keith, Melanie, Audrey and I drove up north yesterday to go check it out, sat in traffic for too long, got lost for longer, and by the time we actually had found the actual fields of tulips, it was about the size of my backyard and they wanted 4 bucks for us to park. 4 bucks? Yeah no.So as we were leaving to go find something else cool, we found this field of daffodils with a no trespassing sign, so we trespassed and sat in the dirt for a good hour.

Oh my god, Green Lantern!

2009-04-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

We haven't had one of our big Parallel promo parties in ages. Originally, last night was supposed to be a Superhero-themed party that we had planned for quite some time, but our venue deal got screwed up and we were unable to use it. I'm trying hard to get it postponed but so far, I haven't heard from the guy. Instead, Skylar threw a "chill progressive" party at his place last night. It wasn't too big at all, as we didn't invite many people, but it was definitely a relaxed, chill night. A few friends of mine I met on WoW one or two years ago are in town at the moment and I invited them to come out. They had been at Comic Con all day and dressed up like super heroes, which is originally where we got the whole "Super Hero" idea for the party, and Jade just decided to come in her Green Lantern costume out of laziness. I wouldn't want to wash green paint off my face and spoil and opportunity for crazy photos either.

Fridays in Seattle

2009-04-03T23:49:00.000-07:00

Melanie, Keith, Audrey and I went downtown to Fremont and Capitol Hill this afternoon. I wasn't really planning on getting any good photos, but we stumbled across a decrepit house with boarded windows and a bunch of garbage mumbojumbo, including a very pretty, yellow couch. I was surprised to see that a few of them actually turned out quite nicely.

I absolutely love the colors in the first one.

The Engagement

2009-03-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

I had an engagement photo date with Niy and her fiancé Justin this afternoon at the Space Needle. The Needle is kind of a cliché place to do an engagement shoot, but they had some really cute ideas and it ended up being a complete success. I've never done anything for engagements or weddings, so these two are my first experience. I am shooting their wedding in June as well. Apparently it's in a 1920s-esque ballroom and I couldn't be more excited.

This was my favorite from the shoot, although I haven't even looked through them all yet! And oh, I have a signature now. It's about time.

Ola's Room

2009-03-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Ola's room at her Bellingham house is probably one of the cutest, most relaxing rooms I have ever seen. Melanie, Isaiah and I spent the weekend up there in the "pink house", and Mel and I decided to do a spontaneous shoot in Ola's room.. and in one of her shirts too. Shhh.

Mirkwood: The Video

2009-03-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

I finally went over to Ian's last night to get this video put together. It took me forever and a half because we had over 150 clips total that I had to search through and make 6 minutes of film to go along with the track we decided to use.

I messed up pretty bad right before I exported it, apparently, because I checked through it twice to make sure I had no mistakes and now that it's all uploaded, I've realized it no longer synchs properly with the music. I think I accidently bumped the track back a couple of frames because now it's a little off. I'll fix it someday but I've spent more than enough time on it to make me go crazy.

I don't know if I love it more than the Pirate party video, but I definitely think it's awesome.

Parallel at Mirkwood

2009-03-08T12:28:00.001-07:00

I've been slacking off on the blog-updating.. I update so many photo websites that I just get lazy nowadays.

Parallel had their first show and album release last night at a little venue/tattoo parlor/hair salon/etc. in Arlington last night. It was a total blast, even though the owner forbade me to go anywhere off stage or without a camera in fear of losing his liquor license. Understandable. I did some videography as well, but I won't have the video put together until Monday or Tuesday night.

They were selling a poster as well which was a photo collage of the best party photographs that I've taken at our club events and parties over the last few months. Needless to say, Melanie took a few of them as well because I'm definitely in a good amount of them.

Parallel is such a fun show. They did a lot of visual things I was not expecting that I wish I would have gotten on camera. They involve the crowd so much by going down and dancing with them, having people come up on stage, getting people to dance on the speakers, etc.

Scissor Me Timbers!

2009-02-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

This is the video from the party I had on Valentine's day this year. I wanted to have a lingerie party, and then later changed my mind when I realized I didn't want to spend money on expensive lace and made it into a pirate party... That didn't quite fly with the man friends, however. Ever heard of Pirates XXX, the highest budget porno in the world? That's this in real life, minus the high budget.

This is a promotional video for the DJ duo "Parallel". The video was produced and edited by me (with a few clips done by Ian Linden). The reason it is all tinted blue is because I have a party photography series called "Where Were You Last Night" with this sort of tint. It can be found at http://www.portolesephotography.net

This is my first video I have ever put together, so forgive me if the music isn't synched properly or whatever else is wrong with it.

Ian Linden DJ promotionals

2009-02-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to photograph Ian for a while now, and we really just haven't gotten around to it. He's one of the dudes in Parallel, the guys always putting the "-arty" in all my parties you frequently see photographs from. I still have to snag Skylar and do some for him, and get them free on the same day for some joint photographs.

I had a lot of fun with this today. I thought the blue and red records were just awesome and asked him to hold them up to his face for a sort of "Ian-in-3-D" kind of feel. My flash died halfway through because charging my batteries completely slipped my mind before I left and they were still a bit burned out from yesterday's shoot with Britt.

Qu'est-ce que voudrais faire avec moi?

2009-02-11T15:47:00.000-08:00

My friend Britt from good ol' high school needed some head shots to throw into her application for graduate school. She's currently in Theater in UW and we were able to score a room for about two hours. I brought my lights, my flash, etc.. Pretty much my entire photographic life came with me today. The room sucked. We both agreed, and we got kicked out before we could finish, but I got a couple of neat shots either way.

Matt and I have made plans to go shoot some long exposure on capitol hill later on this evening, which'll be cool, so I'll have to post a blog when I edit those as well.

Jack in 50D

2009-02-10T16:24:00.001-08:00

Was playing around with my new camera a little bit this afternoon and tried to snap a few photos of Jack. He is so squirmy that it's hard to capture him. I really want to set him up with a studio background and try to get a good shot of him pawing at something airborne so you can see his markings, but I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to get him to cooperate.

One of the first photographs with my 50d

2009-02-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

My Canon 50D came in the mail today. I haven't really gotten to shoot with it much, but my buddy John and I went to the beach around dusk to play around with long exposure. We've been getting together every so often and messing with that kind of photography so I was real eager to try it out with my new camera.

It was freezing cold so we didn't stick around much. I've edited a few pictures from this evening, but this is the only one I really like:

Canon 50D

2009-02-07T16:29:00.001-08:00

My dad says to me, "I have a proposition for you. If you trade me your Canon Rebel body and the rest of your savings bonds, I will trade you a brand new Canon 50D body."

Apparently, when he went to Ken's camera with my broken camera body last night, the fix was a no-go. I guess it would have taken about ten days to get an estimate on the fix of the camera, and he said he was sick of me moping around the house and not taking pictures. I've really gotten into the habit of photographing things almost every day, whether it be for work or pleasure.

The trade-off is a total rip for him, but an excellent win for me. I can hardly believe he's actually supporting my photography "career" so much that he is actually buying me a brand spankin' new camera for no special occasion at all, other than as a feel-better present for my other one breaking.

It's 15.1 megapixels, which is always nice, but doesn't exactly mean much.. It also has a good sensor and 9 focus points, whereas my other only has 7. I'm kind of skeptical because I really wanted the 5D, but apparently the guys at Ken's camera said most photographers buy two 50ds for primary and backup camera rather than purchasing a 5D. The quality of a 5D is superb, but most likely not that noticeable to the human eye in the long-run. I'm worried, but whatever this camera turns out to be, it's going to be about four steps up from my current one.

R.I.P... But the Puget Sound looks quite nice

2009-02-05T23:14:00.001-08:00

Melanie and I went to the beach in hopes of fooling around in the sand all ratty like and doing a grungey, urban shoot like the guy from Last Night's Party, except he had about six hot chicks in bikinis doing cartwheels. We just had a leather jacket and a Hooray Lynnwood Sucks tee by Steven&Taylor.

The most depressing thing in the world happened near the end of our shoot.. My shutter just wouldn't re-open. I took off the lens and saw my mirror was just hanging out at the bottom of my camera. Straight up, it came unglued. The mirror. I placed it back into the little thing it sits in, but only after dropping it on the ground and scratching the crap out of it even more. The camera works alright and we were able to finish the shoot, but I'm sure the open and closing of the shudder with a completely loose mirror is NOT good at all for my camera... I risk the mirror snapping something. I'm going to need to replace the camera. I haven't got the money for it at all. I don't know what the hell I am going to do...

Beforehand, I shot some long exposure photographs at about 8 or 10 seconds. With the dusk nearly turned into night, I had just enough light to give the sky a nice blue effect. It really reminded me a lot of the photographs I took at dusk in Gdansk of the river. I need to get off my bum and do some more long exposure.

Culinary Arts

2009-02-05T16:42:00.000-08:00

I think Matt is right.. I need an epic diffuser. I photographed the students in the culinary program at Edmonds Community College today, as well as some of their cakes that they made and the ceiling was a bit too high for light to bounce efficiently. Most of the pictures just turned out too dark. Either it is the diffuser I need or I need some serious Promaster external flash tutorials because I'm starting to think the only time my flash works is when I'm at a party and photographing for fun. It never goes in my favor when it's something I NEED to shoot for a deadline.

Denny's Wednesdays

2009-02-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

My two girl friends, Leta and Melanie, and I have started this "Denny's Wednesdays" tradition. Leta always seems to be working, so we try to make it a point to see and hang out with her at least once a week on a designated day. We invited our friends Keith and Audrey to come along last night, and I just so happened to have my camera in my car. I love to photograph my friends doing everyday things like partying or drinking coffee and such, so I started shooting a couple of pictures. It's one of my favorite things to do, photographing my friends artistically and spontaneously.

Time to get out of here..

2009-02-03T16:57:00.000-08:00

I am going to be one of those people who will never understand math no matter what she does. It doesn't matter if I study for my test, if I do my homework, or if I just take a week off and not do anything at all.. It absolutely will not ever, ever, ever click.

I applied for Everett CC and Seattle Central CC, which is well-respected for having the third best photography program in the nation. If Seattle Central CC doesn't work out, which I can see already because the commute is ridiculous, it will take up my entire weekday life, and I will need to take out a student loan, I will go to Everett. Unfortunately, Everett has a math requirement. I will do anything and everything to avoid taking another math class for the rest of my life.

I got acceptance letters from both, but now I need to go speak with counselors and see which of my classes will transfer over from Edmonds. I've been sitting in this college doing academic palookie for the last year and a half, and all because I want to make my parents proud. They've stressed the importance of education on me since I was back in private school, and it must be such a let-down to have spent all this money on schools and classes my whole life and here I am on the bring of failing math 90 and wanting to devote my life to creativity.

I want this so bad.

Grog, Bikes, Mexican'ts and Black History Month

2009-02-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

I spent my Saturday night in Bellingham this weekend. I had all my photography equipment up there this time because I had a shoot with Kamila. There is nothing I love more than using all my "professional" stuff to photograph drunk people being silly at events and parties, so I busted it out and took a few shots of my friends just hanging out around the house while we were there. I wish I would have had it for all the other little adventures I went on throughout the night, but I wasn't anywhere where carrying my good stuff was a good idea. It would have been broken right away.

Kamila

2009-01-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

I did a shoot with my darling friend Kamila who I frequently party with up in Bellingham every few weeks or so. Some of the best nights I've had have been with this girl and her two roommates (also good friends of mine) and I really wish I had the opportunity to see them more often. I think I'm going to start sucking it up and making the hour trip up north every other week for at least one night, even if it's just by myself, because I just have the absolute time of my life running around the hippie town and going on spontaneous adventures. It's therapeutic in a sense because having little vacations from home over the weekends really take my mind off school and how much I suck at math.

This is really the first time I've used my flash when photographing some one indoors as an artistic shoot and not a nightlife party event. They turned out alright, but I definitely need some practice with it.

I just love the messy covers in the first shot.

Ma Cousine

2009-01-30T17:36:00.000-08:00

I photographed my cousin a little over a year ago during autumn for her senior portraits. She has quite exotic and soft features and photographed beautifully so I decided it was time to shoot with her again. The shoot went relatively well and I got a couple of nice shots out of the 100 pictures I took. I'll probably go through later and edit some more and find something really pretty like I normally do once I don't look at a set of photographs for a while or once I come back months later after I've learned something new about editing.

Roomy room is roomy

2009-01-26T14:03:00.000-08:00

I've been re-decorating the crap out of my room lately because I'm sick of the same old childish sunset colors that I've had since middle school. I'm trying to get out of the habit of being such a pack rat so I'm finally trying to let go of some of my stuffed animals given to me by friends over the years, as well as a bunch of other junk. My favorite part of my room has got to be my so-called "vintage shelf" above my closet. I've been putting 30s/40s/50s themed stuff up there I've accumulated over the years. It started as a shelf to put all my bouquets (I'm a pack rat when it comes to bouquets, hanging every single one upside down to dry out and saving them) but I've put some other stuff up there like hats, old cameras, a frame with Audrey Hepburn signature in it, etc.

I also recently added in a kind-of art piece recently with intent of hiding my ugly ceiling lights. I have a light blue ceiling and am too lazy to paint it, so I threw up 2 yards of white fabric I bought at JoAnn's and some clouds made of cotton batting and fishing line. It makes a great wall art "chandelier" and diffuses my ceiling lights, giving my room a softer white glow rather than an ugly yellow one.

EN VOGUE

2009-01-22T16:34:00.000-08:00

Here is the final image I am going to use in my hair portfolio, except maybe without the "VOGUE" across the top.. That's just for good looks.

Photo by: Matt Verzola
_{http://www.VerzolaPhotography.com}
Hair & Post-processing by: Me

Me? A model??

2009-01-21T17:41:00.000-08:00

I got to do some modeling of my own today for Matt Verzola's third and final shoot needed for his college submissions. He wrapped my wrists in a ton of different watches to symbolize how he overlooks time and such. This gave me an awesome opportunity to practice with hair design on myself and have the rare opportunity to have an actual good, edgy photograph taken of myself that I will have with me to show my kids how cool I looked in my early days.

Copyright 2009 Matt Verzola
http://www.VerzolaPhotography.com

But the hair is by me. :)

Second looks

2009-01-20T15:04:00.001-08:00

I love going through all my Poland folders and finding new photographs every time. I think I stared at them all so long that they lost their artistic value to me, but every once in a while I'll go take a second look and find new somethings within the pile, like these two:

Wall Art

2009-01-20T14:02:00.001-08:00

I dragged Melanie to a few different craft stores yesterday, including JoAnn Frabics and Michael's. It was a total walk down memory lane because my Nana used to take me to craft stores multiple times a week when I was young for paints, knitting supplies, etc. in order to encourage me to be artistic. I remember wanting to buy everything in the store and having all these ideas of what I would do if I could have this and this and that. Needless to say, I felt the exact same way yesterday.

My original plan was to find a vintage-looking dome bird cage for an art piece I'm wanting to work on, but I ended picking up few record frames for 4 bucks a pop and decided to grab those for some wall art over my bed. I was thinking about printing some one else's photographs of the Eiffel Tower and little french coffee shops, but I decided I would rather have my own work framed. It took me forever to come with a good set of three photographs of different people and items that all fit together by theme and color, but these were the ones I picked out:

_{(Click image for full view)}

On the set with Matt Verzola

2009-01-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

I offered to style a model's hair for one of Matt Verzola's shoots for his college submissions. The girl, Audrey, had significantly shorter hair than anything I had really worked with before. In all honesty, I wasn't quite sure where to start. I backcombed and spritzed a couple of strips and fastened them with a bobby in order to keep them elevated. With every strip, I would just slide it under the same pin until, oops, now it's starting to look like some kind of flower.. Heyy, this is pretty cool..

So I left it at that.. Her fringe was now reminiscent of a flower, and now all I had to do is foof up the rest of her hair to make things a tad more dramatic. I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I just backcombed the rest of her head into a bunch of frizzy spikes.

I came along on the shoot, which was in some alley on The Hill in Seattle, for damage control purposes.. you know, in case some strands needed spritzing. I had the opportunity to help with creative directing. Other than stepping in bum shit on accident, I actually enjoyed myself but boy, I was really itchin' to shoot...

Photos by Matt Verzola

Ian's 23rd Birthday Party

2009-01-11T15:22:00.001-08:00

Last night was my best friend Ian's 23rd Birthday Party. We were a tad skeptical because of the cop situation at the New Years party, but Skylar went around and talked to all his neighbors and got the okay. I had to have taken 300 something pictures between the Rebel and my little point-and-shoot.

I had a total blast photographing the party and got some pretty great captures. My flash started doing some weird overdrive thing when the batteries got lower that pretty much blinded everyone in the room whenever I took a picture. I have no idea what was up with that, but I guess more flash is better than no flash at all.

I'm so glad I'm finally getting out and using my camera more. There was a completely dead period where I did nothing, but all I can say is thank god for my flash. It completely revolutionized my camera.

Tripping the light fantastic

2009-01-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

I've been itching to shoot some high fashion photographs so I drug Melanie out into the cold of downtown Edmonds to this alleyway across the street from Sandy B's little diner. I was trying to go for an exaggerated look with lots of different patterns and textures. I dressed her in a punk rocker-esque outfit with the zebra stripes, skinny jeans, a chained belt and the gray vest, but evened it out and added to the pretty high fashion side by having her wear a ridiculous amount of different pearl necklaces, rings and a pair of six inch heels.

I designed her hair by backcombing the crap out of it. I essentially did everything you would never do to your hair by tangling it and making it as big as possible, then spraying and fastening with pins. I also added some messy pincurls into the style but they're difficult to see with her black hair. Over all, I was pretty proud of the final up-do.

Petbook

2009-01-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

With the recent loss of our dog, Pepper, I have come to further prove to myself that one of my biggest regrets in life is not taking enough pictures of important things like events, family members, and your dog that has been by your side for over half your life. Matt was over smashing peanut butter and jelly into his face while I decided to take a couple of photographs of my cat, Jack, looking out the window. The cat's got about as much personality as a dog and can barely stand still but it got kind of fun after a few accidental shots turned out real well. Matt says, "Aaww, Luna's jealous," and I look up on the rec. room windowsill and just see my poor, fat other cat looking all depressed by an empty food dish as usual so I decided to shoot a few of her as well.

So now I have two fairly decent portraits of my cats but Pepper isn't around anymore. I never took many pictures of Pepper at all, but I took a photograph of her last year when it was snowing that was purely spontaneous that I think is one of the most adorable photographs of a dog her age I have ever seen. I'll be forever proud of it.

Anyway, I think I'll get one of those three-print frames and shove this series in there because I really do love my furry companions to death and never want to forget their faces.

This is my favorite, but didn't make sense with the rest:

Here is the Petbook series: