It’s been a roller coaster of emotions and energy levels this week.  I’m just glad I was able to fit some couch time in during the weekend. Things are settling in a bit at work. And I think I had a wonderful breakthrough with one student in particular today, which really made me love my job for the first time in a while. I’ve always been the reserved type in college, but I was never short of ideas. Today during one of the class critiques, I found myself voicing my opinions in such a passionate manner that I had to pause for a minute to realize it and take it all in. It was a good way to end the week.

scenes from above…

…watching the Grammys with Maggie and Chloe and pile of laundry

…custom Totinos all week long. I’m really going to try to cook lunch next week.

…my favorite Instagram shot this week. There’s always a few of these white egrets or cranes hanging about in the fields near campus on my drive home

…Saturday was spent driving all day to the Freeport and back… This lonely pier was awesome even the wind almost blew me off. The weather’s been cold and hot and cold and rainy all week.

…a mini-reunion at Royal Oaks with the guys and Alia, who always makes me laugh

A few shots from a recent scouting trip I made for PATT Creations to the 1940′s airplane museum last weekend. This vintage airplane had cacti growing inside! I heart quirky things.

If there’s one thing that I hoard, it’s my work. I’ve been sorting through my old external hard drive with all my old college files and found this gem. One of my very first productions with Adobe Flash. I still think its a masterpiece.

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Happy Lover’s day…hope everyone is enjoying it with their favorite person today!

Currently blaring on the speakers for car rides this week: The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows – Brand new

This album has definitely grown on me, especially on those 6Am drives to work this past week. This video conjures up memories of 2005 when we were young and we danced at #’s with our mini skirts and got our feet dirty, and we’d hang out at Katz after hours….

…the much anticipated Hello Kitty iPhone case has finally arrived. I love it so much.

…my celebratory balloons floated away as I came home that evening. It was awesome to see it smiling down on me the next morning before it ascended into the atmosphere

…Mom’s vegetarian fare for New Years, rice noodles with salted roasted peanuts and a variety of fried, and soft tofu for excellent texture and taste.  She gets better every year!

…I’ve been so busy trying to transition into this new work schedule that I’ve neglected my poor Maggie and Joey, who have both been kicking the empty food bowl every time it runs out.cats are smart…and spoiled.

…always feeling a bit girly everyday

…rainy drives home. A hint of auburn foliage is a relief from all the dreary grays.

The subject of these pictures is, in this sense, not tract homes or freeways but the source of all form, light. The Front Range is astonishing because it is overspread with light of such richness that banality is impossible. Even subdivision, which we hate for the obscenity of the speculator’s greed, are at certain times of day transformed to a dry, cold brilliance.

Towns, many now suggest, are intrusions of sacred landscapes, and who can deny it, looking at the squalor we have laid across America? But even as we see the harm of our work and determine to correct it, we also see that nothing can, in the last analysis, intrude. Nothing permanently diminishes the affirmation of the sun.

~Robert Adams

I always like to rewrite this quote for every new journal. It’s kind of a source of inspiration for me. Things are kinda busy round here, what with me trying to dapple in commercial photography and trying to balance a career that can satiate my own artistic needs. In between all this, I’m trying to figure out where I belong, or how my art is defined in the context of my life. I know that there is a standard of photo expertise that is expected in the field of commercial photography these days that I find difficult to get my hands around. With all the technological advances in the digital world, technicality and precision is often the wanted result. I find, however, that the most important, the most memorable photographs are the ones that captures the little nuances and details that are rarely caught or realized  during the experience. If my personal work can achieve this on some level, than I am satisfied.

…still trying to find my “photographic eye”

This temporary teaching gig has given me a sweet opportunity to get back into the dark room. I’ve been sneaking away the hours after school for some quality time in the darkroom to develop some of my own work. It’s damn good to use that camera again. The smell of darkroom chemicals still lingers slightly on my hands….I’ll be a bit busy in the next few weeks, but I’ll try my best not to neglect this dear blog of mine.

P.S. on a much lighter note. I’m going to the beach this weekend ya’ll!

Cheers to a prosperous new year! Look at my mini dragon! Kawaii!