Vintage Video Friday! - Audrey Hepburn singing Moon River.

As a homage to my favorite actress, favorite movie, and favorite song ever of all time. And my last year's halloween costume. Enjoy.

Ghouls Gone Wild.

Halloween is right around the corner! But I've practically been celebrating all month long. It is my favorite holiday.

So for some reason in OKC everyone decided to have the Halloween events the weekend before Halloween, which kind of defies logic to me. But I was also secretly happy about it because I feel like I get to celebrate Halloween longer. :)

The only problem was the costume. I hadn't made mine yet! So at the last minute I decided I was going to participate in our Halloween Parade that was started by The Flaming Lips 3 years ago. This was the third year that, as a finale of the Halloween parade, they round up 1000+ people to dress up as skeletons and march the parade with flaming torches (with real fire), called "March of a Thousand Flaming Skeletons". While Wayne Coyne follows behind in a giant hamster-ball-like spacebubble. It's quite a spectacle if you have never seen it. And me and my friend Christa decided to be a part of it this year.

I managed to bring my camera and snap a few pictures. It was extremely dark at the parade so it was kind of hard not to get blurry shots, but some of the longer shutter speed pics came out pretty fun.

Needless to say, even friends we have known for years didn't recognize us.

Doing the make-up was a challenge and well, pretty fun.

The line when we got there was so long. Inside Wayne was commanding the masses of skeletons.

Standing in line for our torches, I snapped a couple of pics of the insane lights and inflatable costumes that were to be surrounding Wayne and his Spacebubble.

The floats ranged from the creepy, to the whimsical.

So did the costumes. (yes, that is me on the left.)

My torch.

Christa looking sinister. Along with the rest of the skeletons behind us.

Then of course I had to start playing with my camera. Long shutter speeds are too much fun when there are torches around.

Halos. And lines.

We were starting to march. This was our first curve around a corner. I loved the movement in this shot.

You can very vaguely see the crowd to the side. The walk was nearly 2 miles and the sidewalks were packed the whole way down.

Before I knew it, the march was over, so I turned around and snapped that picture of the skeletons walking towards me, going back as far as the horizon.

The photographers all gathered around to try to get shots of Wayne.

Then Wayne emerged from his Spacebubble, and was sped away in a golf cart.

So we walked back to McNellies to have a drink and plan the rest of our evening.

Happy Halloween guys. Hope you have a good one. :)

-Angela

Gratitude Mondays - Artistic collaboration with friends

Kidnapped In Dreamy Llama Country. Click to see the photos. http://quickmechanism.com/kidnapping/

I am not good at this whole blogging thing due to my ADD inherited trait of getting my days mixed up. Oh well. I guess the whole point is to be grateful once a week right? :)

Anyway. I would like to say I am grateful for my friends affording me the opportunities to be part of their creative projects. For me, being creative all alone isn't nearly as much fun as having someone there to bounce ideas off of, have fun with, and occasionally i get to be the guinea pig, which is always fun. 

My friend Derek Doublin took this set of pictures of me back in July. He tells me more are on the way, which I can't wait to see. He drug me out to Jones, Oklahoma to take these pics and it was a blast. Some were taken at the local swap meet, some in the middle of nowhere. I have to say, since I've been taking pictures for a while it was nice to be in front of the camera for a while instead of behind it. Derek is truly a wonderful artist and very good at what he does. 

Derek also has a website and poetry blog:

http://www.quickmechanism.com/

http://www.upsidedownlawnmower.com/

Just another thing to be thankful for. 

Vintage Video Friday! - Edie Sedgwick Singing

She will forever be inspiration. 

Gratitude Mondays (er..tuesday haha) - First Maternity Shoot

Lovely Loni. This is a little preview shot of the maternity shoot I did on Saturday. 

Just a quick post to be grateful for my first paid gig. A maternity shoot in Bethany, Oklahoma with Loni Conell. I worked at a family portrait studio long ago in college but this was my first time doing a shoot with my camera in someone's home. It was so much fun and I loved Loni. Later on her husband came back from traveling for his work and I got to take some pictures of them together as well. So adorable and so in love. I had a Blast. Keep your eyes peeled for a photo update soon. Cant wait! :)

Very grateful to Loni and her family for allowing me into their home to take one of my first photography shoots of them in such a special moment in their lives. Thank you!

-Angela

Vintage Video Friday!

The Beatles are always a classic. I love the beautiful footage from this video.

Not to mention all the inspiration from these fabulous Mid-Century decorated rooms! Gah. I want every single one of those pieces in my apartment. 

Gratitude Mondays - Approved!

The Duplex I am moving to in November!

Picture from the county assessor's website. 

My place is the porch on the far side, better pictures to come later.

It's been a week since my last post being thankful for having a home. I think it brought me luck because 7 days later, today,  I just found out I was approved for a much much nicer place. So this is just a short lil post to be thankful that I got approved for the place I wanted. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but for some reason the application to get it was unusually long and comprehensive. Not really sure why. I was kinda nervous about it all because the new landlord was being so probing. Well anyway I found out today I was approved. Yay! Gratitude abounds! :)

-Angela

Gratitude Mondays - Home.

Me at my current apartment. I love the layout of the place. It was built in the 1920s and has tons of charm, faux fireplace, beautiful hardwood floors, tons of 1920s touches. But the constant need for repairs, my upstairs neighbors, and a slew of other potentially disastrous things that have me currently staying at friend's houses much of the time. It has all finally caused me to turn in my 30 days notice. 

It has been a while since I actively did a post on being grateful. I've learned that Friday isn't the most convenient of a day for me to do this sort of post. Fridays are always crazy. So I am going to try Sundays or Mondays for a while. And since right now I am stressed out and frustrated about my apartment falling apart. I think now is the best time to take a step back and be grateful for some things. 

Can't wait to be doing this again. Ahh the joys of living alone. 

I've noticed that during stressful times, being grateful is one of the only things I can do to bring me back to sanity and rationality. I've been through a lot of crappy situations, and gratitude is always a fail proof way to remain Z e n during a storm. 

While looking through endless ads for duplexes and houses in the OKC area, preparing myself for another move. I put up my own ad in the housing wanted section, marketing myself as a good tenant (which was surprisingly successful)... But I learned while looking through the other housing wanted ads, that my situation could be so much worse. 

An essential of being a bachelorette. A proper floordrobe. And an unmade bed. (this isn't my room, just a funny pic)

I do have a place right now. I am inconvenienced but not completely homeless. I am not running away from an abusive spouse or made homeless by a hurricane. I have not gone through a fire and lost all of my belongings. I have money for a first months rent and deposit and am not having to negotiate my way into having more time or relying on the generosity of someone to let me pay it off. 

The favorite of my coffee table books. Best 50 cents I've ever spent. 

Just a book of photos and biographies of people that live alone in various cities. 

I have some control over my situation, although it is annoying. I do not have children that are relying on me to provide a safe place to go. I have a great job. And although getting a roommate would save me a ton of money, I can afford to live by myself modestly. And I don't mind handing over the extra cash in order to save me the headache. 

I am grateful for the potential places I have found that are adorable and surprisingly affordable. I am grateful to be moving into a better neighborhood. I am grateful for finding landlords who seem much more sane. Grateful for soon no longer having to share a porch with anyone. Not having to worry about noises outside of my house. Soon I will not have upstairs neighbors. 

Definitely will be making yet another trip here very soon. I go here every time I have to move.

Another essential for a cheapo bachelorette living alone. Or for cheapos in general.

There aren't a lot of situations that are much more frustrating than to have something go wrong at the place you call home. The place you are supposed to go to retreat from the stresses of the world. No one wants to have a stressful day at work only to come home to more stresses. But I am grateful for the fact that this situation is manageable and temporary. 

I am grateful that I have something to be excited about. and not just frustrated about. 

-Angela