I slacked again.

Once again I haven't posted in a while. Go me... 

I am SUCH a slacker sometimes. 

In my defence though, I just finished my finals sooo.... maybe I'm in a the clear? No? Nobody? 

Yeah... I didn't think so either. 

So, its the holiday season, and I want you to know I'm very much so avoiding the urge to quote one of the many christmas songs stuck in my head. Be glad!

Soooo, as I said I just finished up with my exams and did well. 3 semesters left until I graduate from college!! One semester and a summer until I get married! And one semester left for my guy. I know he's going to be glad to be done with school, this last year has been a rough one for him. That means he's going to be quitting starbucks, which I know is a sad thing, but at least we're one step closer to getting married and having our own place!

I'm glad to get to rest over break and focus more on photography than I have been. Lately its been like "oh i need a picture for class." snap. "there's we go." kiiinda lame. So I'm super excited about that. And I only have to work two days this week because technically I'm not supposed to be working this week anyway. Yay for working at school!!

Also I'm going to "Christmas town" this week, which I'm super excited about. I wanted to go last year and I didn't so.... yeah way excited. Carolers, christmas lights, penguines, santa?? How much better can it get?? Not much, that's for sure. 

So I guess on with the photo! 

It snowed the other day (it hardly ever snows here) so Jess and I took a break from work and went out to play in it!!

Does it snow where you live? Do you like snow?

xoxoxooxoxo 

Ash

Well goodness me...

"Well goodness me, they seem to be letting all kinds of trash into decent people's houses these days..."

So.... sorry about that. That particular quote is completely stuck in my head right now since its from the play we've been working on for the past couple of weeks and... since tonight is the last night I thought it would be appropriate to get it all out of my system. 

So, moving on! 

Today for class our prompt was "the view from here", so...I posted two pictures. One of some pretty berries I saw, and another of Daniel looking at the first snow of the year!

Next on the list, I'm taking part in the reverb10 "movement" and today's prompt was "letting go". It asked what things we let go of this year. 

That was kind of a tough one for me. 

I let go of a lot of things this year. Emotionally I let go of a couple of things. I let go of a lot of "I can't"s and a lot of "I'm not _______ enough"s. 

I'm definitely still struggling with that last one. On a daily basis I run though plenty of "not ____ enoughs." Not skinny enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not whatever enough. I'm starting to get over some of them and realize that with others that maybe I need to change the way I'm doing things if its that big of an issue to me. 

Another thing I let go of this year wasn't something I wanted to let go of... my grandpa. He was an amazing man and he really was so inspirational to everyone he met. I can't even being to describe how great he was. I miss him terribly, but I see things every day that remind me of him, so it makes things better. 

What have you let go of this year?

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

So, day 4 of "Picture the Holidays" is upon us. I'm going to be sad when this class is over. (Which is why I'll be taking Picture Winter right after.) 

Today's prompt was "key". It asked when our "soul-cure" was for when we are getting down in the dumps to too busy to notice anything. The thing I chose as my soul cure was trying to find the beauty in the most unexpected places. 

This is one of my favorite pictures I've taken all year. It was actually a photo from Japan which kinda makes me feel like I cheated, but at the same time I did in fact take photos today, and Japan definitely has the key to my heart, so maybe its okay. 

Speaking of Japan, I can't even begin to tell you just how much I miss it. I most definitely left my heart there. And no, its not just the shopping or the food, its just such a beautiful country full of beautiful people. Japan, I love you and miss you. 

xoxoxo

Ash

What has the key to your heart?

All you need is love.

So, I'm taking part in the "Picture the Holidays" class over at Big Picture Classes (see the pretty new icon in my side-bar?), and today's prompt was love. 

So, in the spirit of love I donned my favorite (and recently neglected) pair of heart-shaped glasses and went to town. 

I've been really liking out of focus desaturated photos lately. Nooot really sure why. Oh well. 

I'm going to try to keep up with the prompts for December over at reverb10.com , we'll see how that goes... so... today's prompt was to pick the moment I felt most alive this year and fully describe it. So, here goes...

My moment was definitely when Aric and I went to Williamsburg a few weeks ago. We love Williamsburg, but we never get to go so its always such a treat. We spent the whole day there (after furniture browsing at World Market that morning.) and had a nice dinner, but that night was just glorious. It was a dark, dark night. I wish I could say it was dark and stormy just because its more dramatic that way, but it was just a nice clear dark night. Regardless, we went to the candy store and bought candy apples (my first one ever) and we walked around the colonial area in the pitch black, listening to ghost tours and the rustling leaves. We sat outside the huge church and listened to a concert that was going on inside, eating our candy apples until we were sick of them. The air was crisp and cool and it smelled like autumn, it was by far the perfect moment. Then again, I feel like most moments with him are the "perfect moment" when I look back on them. 

Do you guys have any favorite moments from this past year?

xoxoxoxo Ash 

Responsibility as an artist?

Okay, so just kidding I guess I'm not done posting for the day like I thought I was. 

So I wanted to get this all out and down before I forgot it again...

Today in my improv class my teacher was quoting our papers on how our faith and improv interscect and one of the papers said (and I'm paraphrasing this because I forgot the exact wording):

"As an artist you have the responsibility to bless others with your creativity." 

Now there's a thought, huh? 

Personally I had never even once thought of it that way, but it was absolute brilliance. I'm like... tempted to get this tattooed on my body so I never forget that sentence.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. 

(And here's where I get kinda preachy...)

Some Christians are charged to go out and preach the Gospel, some want to help their churches by being super involved, some want to go to foreign countries and help build cities, and while all of these are important to me, none of them seemed like my passion and I've struggled with that for a while wondering if there was something wrong with me, but today I realized there isn't. God gave me creativity because I am to bless others with it, not simply for my own amusement. 

And honestly even if you're reading this and not a Christian this totally applies to you too. You were given creativity for a reason, so share it!!

Another thing interesting in that lecture was that he said that being creative, regardless of your field, is the human parallel to my all time favorite words in the Bible:

"In the beginning, God created..."

My professor went on to say that creating is the closest we'll ever get to see to that "light, be." moment. 

How do you guys feel about that, have you ever thought about it that way?

"light, be."

xoxoxo

Ash

Reframing the holidays.

Okay, so today was day 2 of my photo class and the prompt was "reframing the holidays". It was to make us look at things differently than normal so... being that I'm back on the horse working the show at school, two of three of my unusually framed images are from the stage. 

Christmas tree from backstage behind the window.

On stage.

Christmas tree. 

How are your holidays going so far?

xoxoxoxo

Ash. 

p.s. Sorry I'm boring tonight! I'm super tired. 

Christmas bells are ringing...

Hey guys! 

Happy December 1! You know what that means, Christmas is only a few weeks away. I've definitely tried to stay ahead of the present-buying game this year, I think I have about 2/3 of what I'm buying bought. Yay! How are you guys doing on that front?

I started a holiday-themed photography class today run by Tracey Clark of the Shutter Sisters blog she's definitely in the hero category for me, so I'm excited. 

Today was day 1 of the class and the theme was "Gratitude" so I decided I was grateful for sleepy kitties in winter!

I love my kitties :)

Also, I've become obsessed with bokeh lately. Like. OB-SESSED.

In other news, the weather is super weird here right now. Its cold one day and then rainy and humid and warm the next and then freezing the next day. Oh gosh. So today is the rainy humid day. I'm not a fan personally... how is the weather where you live?

xoxoxoxo 

Ash