Happy October!!! :D

Hello all of you beautiful, wonderful, fabulous followers of my work!!!

I hope this post finds you all doing absolutely wonderfully! I know my week has been... relaxing so far. First let me apologize for the lack of posting that has occurred of late. I promise that I have not forgotten all of you lovely people, nor have I stopped taking photos. I am, as many of you are aware, a college student, and unfortunately my classes have been absolutely crazy lately.

Hopefully I will be posting more soon. :) Starting with today's post of new photos of the lovely Brianna!! These are not from a recent shoot, but I think they are fabulous anyways! With the fall colors fading away into the dull browns of winter I find myself thinking of summer more and more (and of Christmas oddly enough). I love the feeling of freedom and love that summer always leaves me with, that feeling that everything is going to turn out better than I could ever have hoped.  In honor of this desire for the hot summer sun, I am sharing some these lovely photos :) Enjoy everyone!!! Sorry, no revelatory thoughts today!! Just lovely images :D

Have great weeks everyone!!

-AK

Fall Back

Hello lovely readers,

As some of you may know, I love fall. I love the smell and the leaves and the warm days with cooler nights. I also love the changing of the seasons, and this love prompted me to do a shoot almost two years ago dealing with the struggle between nature and the city within mankind.  The image below is one of the resulting pictures.

Well pleased with this shoots success, the idea struck me to do a sister shoot, one that involved the opposite theme, with the back being a tree with all four seasons and the background being a mix of the woods and the city. For almost two years I searched for a model willing to work with the concept and an artist talented enough to produce my brain-child, and then along came Victoria and Shandi, two talented young ladies who were open the idea and excited beyond belief to make it happen.  Below are a few of the images from this shoot.

I can't even begin to tell you how pleased I am with Shandi's work and Victoria's dedication. I would never have been able to fulfill this dream of mine without you two. <3 If you two are reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Happy Friday dear Reader,

AK

Cherry Blossoms

Hey everyone!!! I'm sharing a new photo from the editorial I just shot yesterday featuring Shandi's beautiful body-art!! Victoria is an amazing model, she is one of the most dedicated model's I've ever had the pleasure of working with! I am planning on posting more of these in a longer update, however, I really couldn't resist sharing this gem with you!!!

 

I love you all!! Have a great rest of your week!!

-AK

Only Life

Dear Readers,

I apologize for my lack of updating and blogging as of late. I have been rather busy with school, editorial and product shoots, and planing my wedding (!!!!!!), but please believe me when I tell you that I have missed you all very very much!! I depend so much upon your support and your love for my work, and I don't want any of you to believe for a second that I don't appreciate you.

Today I am very still. To be honest, I'm exhausted from another night of being unable to fall asleep. However, I have many shots from my shoot with Victoria still to edit and share, as well as the new editorial with Brianna, the second half of our last editorial, annnnnnd a product shot that I will reveal here hopefully by the end of the month!!! So you can all smile and hope, as I do, that I will soon me sharing lovely lovely images with you.

Besides the editorials, I also have images from my trip to Virginia to edit and share, as well as more images from Europe (I know, 6 months ago, but I STILL haven't had time to go through them all and edit them... If that doesn't say something about how hectic my life has been recently, nothing will haha)!!! I REALLY REALLY REALLY can't wait to share more images with you all!!! Your feedback is appreciated so so very much by me.

Also, just a quick update, I sell my photos on ETSY now!!! I currently have 10 prints listed, however I DO TAKE CUSTOM orders!!! So please please please go check my listings out and email me if you want me to make you a custom listing!!! Nothing would give me greater joy!!! :) Remember that prints make great gifts for all occasions and that my prints are guaranteed to last for at least 100 years!!

Unfortunately I have to leave you all now, I have to go to class, but I will leave you with a positive thought and a new image! :)

Thank you all again for your continued support!! And don't forget to check out my etsy ;)

Have a great rest of your day and remember to smile, for it is only life.

With my love,

AK

Whispers

July 31, 2011

Fact: No one can ruin your day without your permission.

I let someone ruin my day today. I was having a great day. I was happy, talking to the man I'm madly in love with, getting ready to leave tomorrow, and enjoying a rather successful outing with a family member.

Then I let someone, a friend, ruin it. They lashed out in a moment of personal frustration, and I let the barbed words to wrap their hooks deep within my heart and squeeze until all the happiness, the joy, had oozed from my heart. I gave the words the power to hurt, the power to destroy, so they did.

Words are an amazing and terrifying thing. They describe emotions and objects, yet without the power we give them, words would be meaningless, useless. The word "love" does not dictate the heart's fluttering, rather it represents the connection we associate with the emotion.

Be careful how much power you allow words to have over you.

I have been told that my blogs are too impersonal, so today I am letting you all see what I think. What I have felt. Please be kind. 

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” -Henry James

I hope you are all enjoying rather lovely weekends. I wish you all the best of luck as you re-enter the work week. Thank you.

-AK

Editorial: Skinny Love

Hello dear reader,

I hope my post today finds you in good health and happiness! Tomorrow is Friday and I'm sure we are all jazzed about the coming weekend! I leave town on Monday until the 10th!!! Don't fear, I will still be checking my emails and facebook messages regularly, and I might even be posting some more images! ;)

As many of you know, this past week I did a fabulous shoot with S, which I have decided to call "Skinny Love" in honor of the song by Bon Iver (if you haven't heard it, you should look it up, it is an amazing song!). This girl was an amazing person to work with. She was shy when a camera wasn't pointed at her, but the moment the lens focused on her she was fierce and displayed a large array of emotions. Her eyes are amazing, and I am so happy that I was able to capture her beauty!!

 <3

 I think the one above is my favorite from the shoot!!

(Though I am in love with this one too)


Well everyone, I hope to be posting again soon, but until then, have fabulous weeks and weekends and thank you a bajillion times for your continued love and support!!

-AK

Serious thoughts with some more cheerful updates later

Today Amy Winehouse died. I'm sure this is no surprise to most of you, as her death has been announced across the facebook world numerous times. Today Ms. Winehouse died, and a lot of people made rehab jokes, and a lot of people gave sad sighs over her tortured soul. Today a lot of people died. This past week tragedy struck Norway, yet few noticed the deaths enough to mention them on facebook. I know that I would never have found out about the tragedy had one of my models not been an avid fan of Norway and mentioned it.

It is thoughts such as these that has led me to wonder about what exactly makes people notice ones death. What does it say about us as people that we laugh at one singer's unfortunate end as if her death is yet another chapter in her paparazzi ridden life? I laughed when I read the first joke, I'll admit it, and I feel awful for doing so now. What does it say about us that on the day of her death hundreds of people notify their friends, while one day of Norway's tragedy I saw few status changes. Does being famous mean that your death is more important than that of a man or woman killed in a bombing?

Recently I have been trying to work on being kind. On rebuilding my confidence and growing to become a kinder, better human being. It makes me sad that so many have died in this past week. Not just Amy or the 92 confirmed deaths in Norway, but the unknown deaths. The deaths of the children who were hit by a car, of babies who were born with a horrid birth defect, of a soldier who died doing his job. The everyday deaths that we don't even think about. I know that everyone dies, and I suppose that it isn't the deaths themselves that make me sad... I think it is more the attitude we have towards them. When did 92 people just become another number? When did they stop becoming mothers, sons, and daughters? When did I stop thinking of them as people and start considering them a statistic?

I'm not saying we have to weep over every death that occurs... if we did we would never stop crying, but perhaps... I don't know. I suppose I am going to work on remembering that the numbers reported aren't just numbers, but human beings. Living breathing creatures that now don't exist.

I apologize for the sad turn my recent posts have taken. I really don't know why all these sad words keep spilling out of me. However, I do have happy news! I have new cameras, the two that I mentioned in my past post that I bought at an antique store, and one that was given to me by a friend of the family!! I'm super excited to use them!! :D

The cameras in this image are: 1 Kodak Bantam RF camera with original leather case, 1 Mercury Satellite 127, 1 Kodak Folding Brownie Six-20, and 1 Polaroid SX-70 

Also, I had a fabulous shoot with Serianna yesterday! We made a makeshift outdoor studio in my backyard and played with crazy makeup, sprinkles, honey, and food coloring! I can't wait to share more of the images with you!!

Isn't she stunning? This was the third shot we took yesterday!!

Also, I have a shoot on Sunday with a model from Fargo that I am beyond jazzed about!!! ANNNNNDDDDDD I will be leaving for Virginia in a week and two days!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D If anyone wants to set up a shoot in this next week or for when I return from my vacation, please feel free to send me an email or a facebook message!!


I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your weekend!! Thank you for reading!

-AK