Happy 4th!! (and other ramblings)

First of all...HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! I love this holiday because it reminds me of how great America really is. Sure, politics suck and we have our disagreements, but we can't deny this this is a great country. We have freedom. What more can we ask for?? I don't get into political debates very often, or at all really, but I had a debate with someone about how great America is compared to other less-fortunate countries. We fought and still fight for our freedom and are really a powerful nation. Sure, no country is perfect, but I would rather be here than anywhere else :)

Can't wait to see some fireworks!! My favorite part of this holiday!

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See? I'm terrible at blogging! I guess I just don't like the idea of putting parts of my boring life on the internet for everyone to see, but people told me to keep it up, so here I am! I took the end of my internship as a break from it :P But I've gotta keep it up, I'll do my best!

My internship is officially over (and has been for a week) and now I have to start looking for a real job. Fun, huh?? Not so much... I've been looking/applying all over the place, from Los Angeles, San Diego,  the Bay Area, Seattle, and even Salt Lake City. But no luck. I am currently living in San Diego in hopes of finding a job, but we'll see how long this lasts. Thought it'd be easer to find a job than it's been. Stupid economy. I might have to move back to cheaper Provo. An my mom is trying to get me to move back home. Ha, no... but nothing is set in stone; in fact, it's more like water right now. We'll see!

But, on a different note, my little sister Christina got married last week and she looked beautiful! (p.s. I did her hair :) ) My whole family came down to San Diego for the event and we went to Disneyland and the Safari Park that week. It was a long week, but so much fun! I love hanging with my family and all its craziness :)

Since I was the photographer at my sister's wedding, here are some pictures of the lovely bride and groom (the pictures took forever to upload, so this is all I currently have time/patience to show haha)

First Week: Done

I promised you more pictures, so that's exactly what I delivered.

You may get sick of them, but, oh well. At least I kept my promise :)

The rest of this week was better because of 3 things (not necessarily in this order): (1) I got to help photograph products (my favorite subject matter), and (2) I GOT a decent amount SLEEP!! Ok, I may have overslept. But I'm technically still a college student, so I deserve it :) (3) I explored Los Angeles a little bit with some of my family. Granted, it took us about 1/2 hour to go 5 miles, but we still got out.

For the shoot, we photographed a brand of stage makeup made by Ben Nye. I guess the musical "Cats" used his cosmetics line and he was the makeup director for 20th Century Fox. Pretty cool, huh? The founder's son, Dana Nye, currently owns the company and he came by with some of his most recent product to photograph. It was pretty cool stuff (I thought it looked a little weird for a cosmetics line, but after I knew what it was for it made sense) and I got to learn what to use and what not to use for lighting products. And I learned a lot about post-production. It was a great 2 days :)  Oh, I got a tour of his factory (a fringe benefit of being the photographer) and it's so cool! They hand-make all of their product in the building. Looks like a LOT of work, though. And I got some free "Zombie" makeup that could be fun for Halloween... haha.

Here's some shots of our photoshoot:

 Some of the makeup. Pretty weird colors, huh?

The setup for the shoot

Another angle

The main assistant Taylor joking around while adjusting the lights. Yeah, we have fun here, sometimes :)

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Then, I got to spend some quality time with Gucci (the dog), AKA take her on a walk and play with her while we waited for the roomies to come home...

So I thought we should take at least one pic together :P

And the sky was really beautiful from being cloudy all day... I have a much better pic on my DSLR, but I'm too lazy to get that one right now. I'll post it soon, though.

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Then, my eldest sister and her family (who lives in Riverside) came to visit me, so we went to lunch and then went to The Grove L.A., which was really cool. It was like it's own little city tucked into Los Angeles. 

All of us (minus Jeff) on the roof

Overlooking the city

There was a live concert, which was really nice and relaxing

A pretty fountain. Kinda reminded me of the one in Vegas, because it did some cool things and lit up at night.

It was a pretty good first week. It started out slow and stressful, but ended quickly and fun :) I learned a lot about what being a photographer is really like. Work long hours to make and keep a living, but also keep it balanced with your life outside of work. Jerry, the photographer I'm interning with, takes weekend off of work, and that's the way it should be. He's not lazy by any means; he just has a family and a life. Working with him has taught me that you should work hard, but also take the time to enjoy life and take one day at a time. I'm really happy to be here. And though it's stressful for me at times to have moved out here with basically no friends less than an hour away, it's a good time for me to be independent and discover what I want in my life.