First Day= SUCCESS

Today was my first day of my internship with Jerry Garns. It was a longer day than I expected but still good. We already have a shoot tomorrow at UCLA, so I basically had to learn how to be an assistant in one day. No big deal, right? It's actually pretty cool, because he already has a full-time assistant, so I just get to work with both of them, and it's not too much pressure being the only one to get things set up and perfect right away. Jerry's really cool and he's already giving me advice as to how to find a job right out of the internship, which is hard to do. His assistant is really cool, too, and is very helpful and nice. It should be really fun and I hope to learn a lot. I just need to come up with ideas of what to shoot for my portfolio.

Oh yeah, and it is the assistant's birthday today so we went out to lunch at The Counter. You build your own burger. Soooo good! :) Oh, and I guess LA is "burger town", which I am perfectly okay with. 

My room and roommates are awesome too. I live on the top floor, so I kind of have a view of the city on a clear day (aka when the smog is somewhat gone :P ) I will supposedly be able to see the Hollywood sign. We'll see. I'll take pictures of it on a better day. My fellow assistant took me on an unofficial tour of the nearby city and I'm SO excited to go to the museums, esp the La Brea Tar Pits, where ancient animals were preserved in tar. So cool! The area is full of awesome museums, which I'm normally not a huge fan of, but they all sound so cool! Much better than paintings and art. Yeah I know I'm weird, I'm not really into art museums...

This post isn't nearly as exciting as future ones will be (I hope) because I didn't really do any shooting or traveling, so I don't have any exciting/fun pictures to show. Once I get more around the city I'll take more pictures, because after all, I AM a photographer. I'm so excited live here. So much different than Provo and Idaho :)

Changes

I am officially almost 2 weeks away from moving to LA. I am freaking out slightly. Every time someone tells me "I'm going to miss you sooo much!", I honestly feel the same way. The truth is, I'm really excited to go, but I wish I could take my closest friends with me. But it's going to be so much fun. Everyone who's been to LA tells me that I'm going to have a blast. I'm not worried about meeting new people, I enjoy that part. I'm just sad to leave all my friends behind. But, thank goodness for modern technology. Skype :)

Anyway, this past week has been REALLY stressful, despite finals being over by Monday. I thought I could just lounge around me be lazy and watch How I Met Your Mother all day, but no. Not even close. I've had work full-time (which isn't bad because I love my job), and I'm working part-time for my sister and brother-in-law's company on top of that (which I enjoy as well). Aaaaaand, to make things even MORE exciting, I have to move out and clean by 8 in the freakin morning on Friday. Yeah not too happy about that one. Needless to say, I have NEVER enjoyed chocolate as much before. I guess the stress never ends. That's life. Oh well, I'll be in LA in a couple of weeks, then most of my rants will be about ridiculous traffic. Yay!!... :P

On a note that doesn't make me sound like such a bitter person, I am sincerely excited to go to LA. I have been noticing how weird Provo is compared to everywhere else and I am ready to experience something new. I will miss my friends here, but I am ready for a change. This summer is going to be awesome :)

Rachel's Photoshoot

Here's a few shots from a portrait shoot I did yesterday. It was so nice outside -- makes me excited for summer! And, she's amazingly photogenic, so that made it fun, too :)

Unrealistic Expectations: My BFA Photography Project

Sooo, I did a really stupid thing... I forgot to show people the FINAL results of my BFA Photography project! I just realized that I showed some people, but not the general public. Probably because I've been preoccupied, but still. Here they are, in no particular order. I could have figured it out, but I didn't want too much time on that...

My project is calle "Unrealistic Expectations". It reflects my views on self-image, specifically in girls. I come from a large family, 90% of which are girls. I've associated with many types of girls (divas, tomboys, adventurers, models, nerds) some confident and some not confident. I've seen many girls (myself included) suffer from low self-esteem. It's unavoidable. Why do we have low self-esteem? The main reason, I believe, is because we see models everywhere in the media. They are beautiful and sexy and get all the attention. But the sad thing is that we FORGET (most of us already know) that these women that we see all over the place in the media are PHOTSHOPPED!! Photoshop is an amazing tool. You can create virtually anything with it. I LOVE Photoshop, and sadly, I've seen what it can manipulate your average woman and turn her into a totally different person--sometimes unrecognizable!! I've done this many times with many different people and the results are amazing.

The irony of my project is that I used Photoshop to put a twist on this concept. I don't manipulate their portraits; the girls in the photos manipulate themselves with different tools (erasers, pencils, scissors, etc). The photographs are done in the girls' private settings because this manipulation goes on behind-the-scenes, much like the manipulation of celebrity/model photographs.

That is why I call it "Unrealistic Expectations"--no one can achieve that "perfect" look in real life. It's virtually impossible.

Anyway, that's basically what this is about. Hopefully you understand it so I can stop blabbing :)

Oh yeah, just a disclaimer: some of these images might be a bit graphic for some people. I had to get my points across as much as possible, so it was sometimes necessary. I hope I don't offend anyone...

Unrealistic Expectations

Blue Eyes

Kissable Lips

Perfect Skin

 Full Breasts

 Glowing Tan

Luscious Locks 

Slim Figure 

Sparkling Smile

Pretty Idaho landscapes? Camera Phone? Who knew?

So, this isn't an official shoot, but this weekend I went home to Idaho, and this time the drive was really pretty. Thanks to the drought we've been having this year, there wasn't a lot of snow, so the ground was either brown and dead (welcome to Idaho...) or lightly frosted with snow, which was reeeaaally pretty. So, on the 5-hour drive, I got really bored cause my sister, who drives with me, was sleeping. Being a photographer, I naturally had to pull out my camera...on my phone. Yes, I forgot to bring my nice camera for once in my life. Kinda disappointing... but I couldn't pass up the beautiful landscapes. So, I carefully pulled up the camera on my phone and pointed it to the window. Though there was no one around me, I still did not want to kill us both, so I just pointed it out the window and hoped for a good picture :P which explains the vertical, very askew one. The rest were taken when my sister woke up 5 seconds later, or when I wasn't driving. When I uploaded the images to my computer, I was surprised at the quality of the pictures. Amazing for a phone. And, for the lack of huge mountains, trees, beaches, or anything redeeming, the landscape was pretty. Only covered/frosted in snow, of course :)

2.5 Months

Just took my first midterm and did relatively well. Then it dawned on me that I have 2.5 more months...

2.5 months. Wow.

(Sorry I stole this, Sadie...Thanks!!)

I was talking to someone who I just met, and we were talking about the usual stuff that people at BYU talk about (where we're from, what we were studying, what we wanted to do with our lives, etc) and when I told her that I was about to graduate from the photography program with a business minor and then head to LA for an internship, she said that she was so jealous and that I'm so lucky. It's funny, because I guess I've just been taking this opportunity for granted, and what I'm studying for granted. 

I LOVE what I do, and am so excited to go somewhere with it, especially because it's in the arts. And let's be honest: they don't call em starving artist for nothing. And, after reading this post on my friend Sadie's blog, I have a new outlook on this life-changing event. I'll be in a new place, but I will meet new people and have new experiences. Better than Provo or Idaho can offer.

Covergirl Mascara Shoot

I FINALLY got back in the studio...and am glad that I actually remembered how to use the equipment :P It was fun though. So, I made some mock-up ads for Covergirl Eyelights mascara, so don't pay attention to the design, because that's not exactly my forte...and ignore the makeshift brush strokes... haha. I just like to make mock-up layouts so I can see how my photographs would look if they were to go in an ad. But photographing it was sooo much fun and just makes me that much more excited for my internship :)

Anyway, as you can see, one ad is for regular mascara and the other is for waterproof. The waterproof one didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped, but it's good for now. I'll learn how to do it better one of these days... :P