I woke up this morning and immediately felt like shooting …
So I rolled out of bed, picked up my camera, and started shooting (using my suitcase as a tripod, with a shoe holding the lens in place… really DIY here since I didn’t have room/enough weight to pack my unreasonably heavy tripod in my suitcase)
A photo I shot two years ago has been on my mind so I decided to shoot an updated version. (Also there’s something about slept in beds that is so special to me and I always find myself coming back to them…)

(Prepare for dramatic stream of consciousness … but that’s also nothing new, so what did you really come here for)

Two years ago I was having a small identity crisis – not knowing where my work (or life) was headed, I didn’t feel like I had a grasp of what my style/aesthetic was, and I didn’t feel like I was shooting enough. I made a promise to myself to “find my imagination again, see the world through a photographers eye, and stop being lazy”
After that day, I actually did shift my mentality (whether I felt it or not at the time). It took some time to truly change, and even though I don’t think it will ever stop changing completely, I did what I said I was going to do. 
(I also told myself I would take step back from the constant judgement and just appreciate making art again, to stop making excuses, bring my camera with me everywhere I go, shoot when I feel like it, and edit at my leisure, which ended up happening more within this last year, but I’m got there.)

This last year has been such a growing period both in my personal life and for my work.
I can’t even comprehend the amount of changes I’ve gone through in the last 365 days, and I don’t know if I could have imagined I’d be sitting where I am right now.
I find myself realizing that I accomplished what I set out to do two years ago (despite telling myself that I never would) and the most exciting thing is that I’m not satisfied.
I’m living in New York City, with a job, a place to live, and people I love, but I still have more to accomplish. It makes me so happy to know that there is more to work for and challenges to overcome, and life to live.

I truly have been waiting to graduate college and get out into the “real world” since high school, and everyone always told me that high school and college were the “best times of your life” … (I call BS)
School is great and I am so thankful for the things I learned (both in classes and just in life). I couldn’t have more gratitude for the opportunity to go to college, and to have parents that support me in all of my crazy endeavors (even if they asked me seven hundred times if I was sure I wanted to be a photographer). 
There was just so much more that I wanted to do and get started on – I felt like so many things were temporary, I was waiting for one thing to end so the next thing could start. Life was so cyclical and I felt like I was constantly waiting for something, even if I didn’t know what it was.

Now I finally feel like I can do the things I’ve been waiting to do. There’s a whole life out there ahead of me and I have no idea what it looks like, and where I’ll be in a year from now, and what adventures I’ll go on, but I’m so excited (yeah, I know its cliché… whatever).
I’m ready to learn everything I can outside of a classroom and make memories and photos that document both the mental and physical changes in my life.

So here we are… growin, learnin, livin, and still shooting photos in bed.

I’m making new dreams, plans, and goals… I have new promises to make to myself to keep improving and growing.
I’m never going to stop shooting. Even if my job doesn’t directly allow me to shoot, I will shoot for myself as often as possible. Because what kind of passion is it if you don’t do it for yourself, for no reason at all, for no reward, but just for the sake of doing it.

Alright y’all … she’s back.

It’s been a minute since I’ve actually written an update on this here “blog”. Especially since the last time I posted an update I was harassed about my writing style… but I’m not about to give up that easily ! 
So here I go, writing poorly-edited paragraphs about the ongoings on my life, and posting them into the abyss of the internet, where no one will read them, besides maybe my mom !

I graduated from college (SCAD) at the beginning of June, packed up all my belongings, and after a few days on Tybee with my family, drove back to Geneva, IL with my parents. Going home was a nice break from the chaos of finals, last minute shoots, college drama, graduation stress, etc., but I was determined to not make it permanent. I spent a week applying for jobs, reaching out to any and all possible job leads and photographers that I’d spoken to in the past, and attempting to reset my jacked-up sleep schedule (still working on that one). After the first week, I contracted a sickness from my parents, and things kind of settled down as I spent most of the day sleeping, coughing, or blowing my nose.

Somehow, my lack of activity led to an actual job opportunity !!
I heard back from a company in NYC offering to set up an interview, unfortunately they wouldn’t take skype/phone interviews and required that I be there in person. So I decided that after a trip to upstate New York for my cousin’s graduation, I would extend the trip and head to the city for this interview.

Which brings up to today: four days into this trip, two interviews in, a couple meetings down, and waiting to hear back to see if I need to book that plane ticket home yet or not…
It’s wild not knowing if I’ll need to start looking for places to live or if I’ll be headed home to continue looking for jobs, but I’m surprisingly okay with the uncertainty.

I received some really great advice a few months ago:
People who are most successful are those who can deal with uncertainty with grace, those who find comfort in discomfort, and “allow discomfort to be the air they breathe”.
I found that so comforting. It speaks to the idea that no one ever has everything figured out. There is always something that is unknown or unsettling or confusing, and if you can process those things and avoiding letting them take control of your mentality/life, you will be better off. 
That’s how I feel about my current situation… I’m here in New York, not sure what my next steps will be, with no idea what the next few months of my life will look like, or even the next few days (!!) but I’m calm. I’m happy. I’m willing to work through the uncertainty and find peace in the unknowns.
It’s exciting to not know, and I have this strange blind-faith that things will work out. As my wise older sister once said to me: “something will happen and it will be fine” 

Now if you made it this far, I hope you’ll enjoy some photos from the last roll of 35mm that I shot in sav…

Stay tuned for whatever happens in the next few weeks …!

I had the pleasure of teaming up with Nikita Jansen again to shoot a mock ad for Milk Makeup.

We had a black shooting some beauty looks and Nikita even directed the shoot from behind and in front of the camera:

Models: Nikita Janse, Nikki Kurtz, & Nikki Wu

In my promise to myself at the beginning of my final quarter of school, I said I would try to collaborate as much as possible.

So when it came time for crunch week for fashion designers, I worked alongside some seriously talented people to photograph their fashion senior collections.

First up was the bad ass designs of Catalina Robles for San Martin:

Models:  Nicole Agner, Bella Guinness, Celeste Miller

Art Director: Andrea Di Lello

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Next up was a feminine body of work designed by Megan Flynn:

Model: Gabrielle Malate

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Followed by the much less saturated and futuristic fashion designs of Alexandra Diaz (and accessories by Sarah Swanson):

Models: Madeline Brister & Haley Nottage

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And finally the exquisite and extremely detailed work of Vashti Bester:

Models: Kallie McShane, Nathalie Gratas, Alexandria Jones, & Carla Gonzalez 

With other projects going on on the side, and the quick turn around time that was needed for almost all of these shoots, it was a crazy few weeks, but so so rewarding.

It was a pleasure working with these designers and seeing that amazing work that is created by some of the other artists here at SCAD.

Had the opportunity to collaborate with a bunch of creatives recently on an amazing fashion project – I’m super excited about the images we created and to see this project progress!

Art Director: Alice Aguiar 

Models: Amy Bushman & Nikita Jansen

DP: Daniella Fernandez

Stylist: Austin Avery Blunt

Makeup: Cassidy Clark

With Help from: Saba Younis and Lei White

In collaboration with: Luisa Aguiar