Thankful.

Thanksgiving is coming up next week and I am already feeling thankful.

I took this picture last thanksgiving of my Grandfather who is now in his mid-eighties and I just feel so lucky that I am getting to spend another holiday with him. Because I credit him a lot in the formation of who I am today.

It is getting to be that time when one feels more and more pressure to tell the people you love how you truly feel about them, because who knows if you will have another chance. Not only because of maturing age, but just realizing that at any moment there are a whole myriad of things that can happen. Not even a millisecond of life is really guaranteed.

Nothing in life is really ever guaranteed.

I guess that is why sometimes I feel as though faith in an afterlife is really a cop out for not living your current life to the fullest, saying the things you need to say, being the person you need to be.

Perhaps that is a rather judgmental way to view it....

So let me back up to say that honestly, even if someone proved to me today that I would see everyone I love again, I would still want to go on living my life as though I might not.

We humanoids take things in life for granted far too much, especially people.

----

"And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know

You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning 'round"

-The Flaming Lips

-Angela

New Year - Part 2 - Dark Side of the Moon

Part 2 of the show. After Midnight. They played Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in it's entirety. It was fantastic. There are so many more pictures on my flickr if you want to check them out. Just click on any of the photos to be redirected. 

Some of my resolutions:

Invest in more camera equipment.

Journal everyday.

Blog more often. ;)

Take pictures everyday. 

Get faster at editing photos. 

Don't settle for less than I deserve. In all matters of life. 

Explore doing freelance photography and design work more often. 

Travel somewhere entirely new. 

I don't normally believe in resolutions. Because I've always felt they were meant to be broken. But this year I thought I would give it a go. So I am starting out with just a few simple, realistic ones. 

Happy late New Year. 

-Angela

The New Year. - Part 1

  

  

  

Just wanted to share some photos from my New Years experience. 

For 2010, me and my bestie, Chenoa, decided to go to the show The Flaming Lips put on every year here in OKC for New Years. But this year was a very special year... a new decade! 

So they decided that, after midnight, they would play The Dark Side of the Moon in it's entirety. It was sooooo awesome and I took a TON of pics. So many that it took forever to go through them all. But here are a few favorites from the first half. Click to go to my flickr and see more. 

Happy (late) New Year! Hope you guys are having a good one so far. I can't believe we are almost done with the first month!

-Angela

Haiti.

Hey guys, I've been neglecting the blog a little as of late, been rounding up some wedding photo clients and was sick for a while. Which you think would make me want to blog, but all I wanted to do was sleeeeeep.

Anyway, this business with Haiti has finally broken my silence. The news coming from over there is so frightening and heartbreaking. 

I can't imagine what those people are going through.

My favorite Arcaide Fire song, "Haiti". Video Shot entiredly on location there. It's beautiful.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you guys that, If you have the money, text 'HAITI' to 90999, and a donation of $10 will automatically be given to the red cross for relief efforts, charged to your cell bill.

Thanks guys, I am editing photos like crazy so there should be a big explosion of a photoblog post coming soon. 

Please keep Haiti in your thoughts.

-Angela

Vintage Video Friday! Happy Christmas.

Two posts in one day? Fancy That.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Vintage Video Friday! - Joni Mitchell sings California.

Last night I took a bubble bath in my new place and listened to the entire album "Blue".

Hello all! I am backk! So happy to be in my new place and starting to get it all set up. Such a relief. Can't even tell you. No more lousy upstairs neighbors. No repairs to worry about. No flakey landlord. Sigh. of. relief. 

So the moving process was such a whirlwind I didnt get to take any pics of my new place all empty. But as I get decorating going I will be taking photos and it would be lovely to get some opinions on what I should do. I have already unpacked the kitchen and the bathroom and gotten the living room started on being arranged. But my living room is kind of an awkward shape so i need help with how i should arrange it. But one thing is obvious already. The dreaded realization....

I must get rid of some stuff... (noooo!)

Next week at work we were given wed-friday off and i decided that monday and tuesday I am taking a couple of vacation days in order to unpack and get some mores stuff set up. It will be lovveellyyyy. And this weekend may be dedicated to going estate sale shopping for smaller versions of the things I must get rid of. :( Like my vanity. Small desk in exchange for full on vanity? Smaller Dining room table? Maybe. MAYBE.

Well I must go now. Have a very happy pre-Thanksgiving Friday! 

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

Vintage Video Friday! - Edie Sedgwick Singing

She will forever be inspiration. 

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. 

Chouse.

Hey guys. Just wanted to do a quick update of some pics that I've had for quite a while but realized I never actually blogged about. 

I was asked to take these pics by my friend Josh Jones of the Evangelicals. His long time hero, Tyson Meade of The Chainsaw Kittens, was visiting Oklahoma from China. Josh has loved The Chainsaw kittens since his childhood and is heavily influenced by Tyson's style. So when he asked me to do some photos of Tyson and Josh as a promo for an acoustic live show they were doing together, I was flattered. 

The show was at a Church in Norman, Ok that was turned into a house (affectionately called "Chouse"). So Josh's idea was for him and Tyson to put on their Sunday best, and for us to shoot at a church somewhere in OKC. So after a little bit of thought, I thought the Old Trinity of Paseo in Oklahoma City's Arts District would be perfect. 

One of my favorites from the day. I loved the colors Tyson chose to wear. 

Flower picked by me. :)

his reaction to "ok now act like you're in high school and you just found out your girlfriend is pregnant". haha.

     

I loved his faces. 

     

A couple of good individual ones of them.

If you knew how much Josh looks up to Tyson, you would know why its hilarious that this photo looks so much like a wedding shot. haha. 

Poster done by Josh Jones. Photo done by me. :)

-Angela

PS. Yes I took pics at the actual show. Those are yet to be uploaded to my flickr. Post soon on those pics.