Keep Calm and Go to the Beach

I have so many things I want to tell you. My list is a page long and growing. I'm siting here pondering which one to pick and feeling a bit overwhelmed.  So here we go (This is me closing my eyes, spinning the paper around and around and pointing to the list).  Tada...My love of the beach.

Seriously I crave the beach like people crave chocolate. Living where I live that is sometimes a really hard craving to ease. Yes, we have a lot of lakes with beaches, but that just doesn't cut it. It's not just warm tropical beaches that I love. Though don't get me wrong those are amazing. Sand does not even need to be involved. It is anywhere where the ocean meets the land.  It fills me with such a sense of peace to sit and listen to the waves crash upon the shore.

My favorite beach is covered in small rainbow colored pebbles. I have spent hours of my life sifting though those rocks looking for the perfect one. Letting them run through my fingers with the smell of salt and seaweed in the air. Contemplating life, love, and the world around me.

My kids experiencing the endless joy of that rocky beach 

Ella Grace { Ephrata WA }

I cleaned  my office/art room/total disaster today. I now have a designated art studio area and office area. The bonus is I had enough room left over for a mini photo studio. After sweet talking my daughter, she decided that being my muse might not be all that painful. The light makes my heart sing. 

Tell all Tuesday

 So this blog is boring. It really is. You don't need to try an make me feel better. It sucks. I know when something is lame and uninteresting. This blog has that written all over it. It gives you no insight to who I am. It won't tell you about the person (me) you might potentially invite to participate in a special moment of your life. I want to give you the chance get to know the real me. The person I am in front of my friends when my guard is down. The zany, silly, emotional me who dances in the rain and watches sunsets on my head. That's who I want you to see. Not just the photographer that occasionally posts pictures with no personality.

    To fix this, I give you "Tell all Tuesday". The place for you to get a glimpse into the real person behind the camera. To start this adventure off, let me introduce you to my new love.

     I love film. I'm not sure I can say that enough. I honestly and truly love it. It forces me to slow down and think about what is in the frame yet at the same time gives me freedom to find the creativity that has been buried deep inside my soul. I have been struggling the last year to even pick up a camera let alone photograph anything, including my own kids. I would have rather upchucked a thousand times than take a single picture.
   
     Really creativity of any kind has been strangely absent. No longer. I feel it bubbling up inside like a shaken up bottle of Pepsi. My hands are itching to pick up a camera. I want to photograph everything. I feel like a teenager with her first real crush. That is what film has done. It has shaken loose the creativity that was held captive by complacency. And I love it.

This was shot on a Mamiya RZ Pro II with Kodak Portra 400 film

Cowboys and Cattle at the Hull Ranch { Yakima, WA }

I used to wait for this day when I was younger. The letting loose of my inner cowgirl just for a day. The process has change a bit, but the feeling is still the same. Cattle branding day at my uncle's ranch is a day of family, friends, and good food. I feel it plays a significant roll in my family's heritage. It's part of where we have come from and maybe just a little bit of where we are going. A person is made up of all the parts of their past and I am grateful that this will be a part of my children past that hopefully shapes their future.