Monday, December 3, 2012

Wendy and John


The park bench was a bit cold considering the weather that day.  Mistakenly I had worn a wool sweater due to not looking at the forecast of a beautiful day.  In the distance I see this striking couple with their cute dogs, instantly I want to shoot them but who goes up to a couple and asks "You too are really cute, can I take some pictures of you?"  As they made their way across the park the dogs seemed determined to weave their leashes together.  To my delight as they got closer I saw that this adorable couple was indeed Wendy and John... though the truth of the matter is my eye sight just not be what it is supposed to be I'm going to blame the sun :D














I can't wait for their wedding this May!  

Photos taken by Rachel Abi Photography



Friday, October 26, 2012

Derek and Emily

Friends sitting on a couch, snowed in for the day.  Stolen glances, finger grazing each other...Derek and Emily went from being friends to being in love.  

I love when I get to become friends with a bride, it is pretty much the best but on occasion I am allowed a great honor of being a part of a friends wedding.  Derek and Emily's wedding was one of these rare occasions.

I met Derrick years ago in College.  Year past and inches of hair grew (on his end) and where hacked off yet again, till one day he came over elated.  "She's fantastic" he announced to Chris and me.  We met Emily not too long afterwards and we fell in love too.  Her beauty and contagious laughter were enthralling to all of us.  She and I became fast friends and I teased Derek, "If you don't marry her I will." He didn't need my tease to know what he had found and not too long he found himself on his knees in the mountains declaring his love.

On the day of the wedding Emily was as beautiful as ever, calm and waiting for the moment when she got to marry the love of her life.  Excited laughter filled the girls dressing area just moments before the line up began.















Sponsored by: 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

A wee bit lost...

I like to pretend I have arrived.  When people ask me what I do I proudly respond, "Wedding photographer" and that's what I am in my heart.  I have a passion for people; I love to spread joy.  But I often portray myself as more "together" than I am I think.  In my mind if I am as confident as a peacock then I'll start sprouting feathers I guess?



Truth be told, much like a lot of you, and nothing as moving or as powerful as those before me, I have a dream.  Each day I get up and I think over what can I be doing to move closer to that dream.  Don't get me wrong I am particularly there I do get the joy of shooting weddings but not as often as I would like.

I don't know about the rest of you but I read so much about my dream; all the blogs, articles and what not I can find about wedding photographers/wedding photography you name it and I get to see so many different people's perspectives.  I get lost in it at times.  I get the idea that there are "lots of right answers" but sometimes my head spins with the differences of opinions or I just don't even know where to begin.



In whatever it is you are passionate about, under water basket weaving if you will: do you ever just get lost in it all?  

Friday, September 7, 2012

Randomocities

Confession time:  I have a weird connection to celebrities.  Not what you'd think.  I don't pour over tabloids or even really read anything about them.  My connection is that I have a deep sympathy for them.  When I am buying my groceries and read about so and so split, custody battles or whatever I'm sad for them.  I mean I'd be sad for anyone but I am all the more sad for celebrities.  Why?  I know they have fame and money but I think their troubles become sport.  Not only do they have the same struggles (I'll be it at a completely different price bracket) as us but their pain is used to cause intrigue. Their pain is splattered across headlines, cemented into journalistic history.  On top of everything else I wonder how many true friends they have.  I hurt at the loneliness I imagine.  Yes, we all have or have had betrayal in our past or soon to come but could you imagine never being able to trust anyone... and all for something as trivial as money... or fame?



On a completely separate note:  I love me some blue bell... 


Thursday, September 6, 2012

h2...O

I'm in love with water.

You think I joke but no really: I have an affair going on with water.  I like water to drink.  I love water to cook.  I love water to splash on my face.  I love the clean feeling a nice shower can have.  I love frozen water.  When sick I love vaporized water.  I love misters at theme parks.  I love relaxing in a tub of hot water and oils after a long day.  I love sprinklers that remind you of when it was ok to run around your lawn in your bathing suit and be entertained by a hose with holes and I desperately and passionately love water that is large enough in which I can submerge myself.



I love swimming in that submerge-able water.  I can't get enough of swimming.  Never have been able to, since I was a kid.  As a small child I would stay in the pool till that very last second.  You know what I am talking about.  Your mom called you said you have 5 min.  You wait till your mom has packed everything up and is starting to walk towards the car and you slowly (keeping yourself fully submerged as long as possible) pull yourself out of the water and sadly make your way to the car.  Internally, since I am now the one who has to determine when that time to leave is, I am still that kid... 

Monday, September 3, 2012

Balancing act

So I was reading Good Housekeeping today, yes... I do apparently do that?  Side note to my Dentist: You might want to update your magazine selection.  Women enjoy things that are outside the home and men enjoy more then ESPN and both really enjoy not reading a magazine from March.... just saying.

All the same, I was sitting waiting patiently for my time to have my teeth shined and I picked up the only magazine that interested me and that was solely to do with Kelly Ripa being on the front cover.  I fell head over heels for her way back in high school, home sick and enjoying every minute of it.  In case you haven't picked up on it I am like the worst story teller in all the world cause I want to throw in all this information that seems to be important to me but according to my husband it is not so important to other people; all the same I will share it cause it is my story.


I missed the point of the article, if there was one, but basically what I took away from it is either Kelly--yes we are on a first name basis--is pretty neat.  I could almost hear her voice as I read over her responses to the journalist.  She told a story that effected me.  As she was going about answering questions about her family life, specifically kids.  The journalist asked her if she had ever burst out at her kids and she told this story about a long day of work returning home hungry greeted by a sitter praising her wonderful kids before skirting the coming disturbance.  All the kids awoke all asking her to do this or not do that (seeing as she does have a teenager that likes to repeatedly remind her that he wants her to be in no contact with him or his life).  With each request she told them all to go back to bed and each continued on.  Weary from her long day she sat down in tears.  Her two sons quickly skirted back to the privacy of their rooms and the daughter offered, "want me to rub your feet".  Kelly slumped shoulders and all tearfully said, "No, I want you to obey me and go to bed."

This story has stuck with me.  At the end of the article I felt close and at home with Kelly as a person but it made me wonder is she really just that transparent in interviews or she is amazing and sharing just enough information that you feel like her best friend.  Either way I feel like she kept a good balance of her life being private and her being real.  It made me wonder if I could manage the same in her situation.


So often I tend to be an all or nothing kind of person.  It is easier for me to exercise everyday.  If I take a day off I take another and finally just don't exercise.  I used to be, if you can believe it, a really internal person.  I have some serious trust issues and to keep myself "safe" I just didn't share, well anything.  All that changed, obviously.

Why is it so hard to keep balance and why can't I just have some training wheels like I did when I was a kid?

Sunday, August 19, 2012

I'm "special"

My mother thinks I am high strung.  I understand her assumption and in some ways I guess I am.  I love order, the idea that everything has its own place... always easy to be found and always waiting where you left it.  This idea I would imagine doesn't sound too bad to most... or if January sales ad's are to be believed I am not alone in this idealistic desire.

I know the reality is that even if you buy every last beautiful contraption they sell to organize your every facet of life they only work if YOU actually organize it and you keep it that way.  I realize my pipe dream of having a label maker will never happen, if nothing else because my husband has declared it loudly on more than one occasion.  My crazy comes out when I actually try and make that "new years resolution" of organization an actual reality in my life... In my world every cabinet has a label so that whenever anyone puts anything away there is a clearly labeled place for it.

My husband calls insanity... and thus I get no label maker.  I still think it a brilliant plan and that all our organization problems would be solved if only for that beautiful and unreachable label maker... despite me knowing the reality...

So instead I simply harness my crazy and only let it run free on occasion.  Like when I will, later tonight go through and color coordinate my closet, first by style then by color.  

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Daily do's and don'ts

Things just seem to pile on at a certain point.  It is like when you are at a cookout and you say "Hey thanks, that was a great burger", then every time you visit you're eating burgers and you can only eat so many burgers.

It always starts small.  I told you the story of my Giraffe figurine.  That's where it started.  "Yea, my dad got it for me on our trip, it's pretty cool huh"  For the years following  birthdays, Christmases, and anytime anyone went out of the country, I got a Giraffe figurine or related theme gift.  

It was sweet.  They were thinking of me.  They felt confident that they knew what to get.  At a certain point it gets a bit ridiculous.  

I had thought over this moment for months.  Sweat started to pearl at my temples sitting there at the table, how do I let them down easy?  Stumbling on my words and unsure of what to say I fumbled till finally blurting, "I really don't get the Giraffes.  It's really nice and all but no more nick nacks.  I don't have anymore shelf space!"  My eyes widened at I had finally allowed out.  Sitting around the table everyone started laughing.  I quickly switched from each person to the next, "what's going on?"  "We didn't get it either but we thought 'Hey everyone's got something?'."

All this time thinking over what I was going to say and in the end... why?  I have never been a timid person.  You can ask pretty much anyone.  Blunt is a good way to describe me.  I think I learned a lesson that day.  So much pain and struggle on my end at least could have been saved with simple honesty.  Why is it then in my business, in my photography I am so concerned with what this person will say or if I'll step on this photographer's toes?  You'd think with my blunt and transparent take on life that I would translate it to my work.


It is a struggle of mine.  Not when I'm dealing with brides, nor when I'm behind the camera.  There, behind the camera or in front, I feel at home.  It is like and extension of me.  It is a place where being playful and silly is not only okay or acceptable but it is down right fitting.  Who wants a portrait like your one stop flash portrait of the Victorian days?  I love seeing life in photos, capturing life that is happening now to make those photos happen.  No, it is not then I struggle with this but with dealing with other photographers and with being me here.



So often I am unsure of what to post.  I mean if you think about it everything you post online is permanent and public.  Even in your private facebook groups, more often then not people can see what you have posted on the wall.  They can see every down day you have and every time you post about your third bowl of ice cream in a day (okay, so that may just be me, but they were small bowls ;P).  It makes you question if "you" being "yourself" is enough.  "Maybe I should just keep that part to myself"  or "no one needs to know that I can't stand _____"  

And other photographers... well it is like going back to the first day of school in a new state.  There are comrades to find but you feel all alone when walking through those crowds to find them.  Honestly the few photographers I have taken the time to talk to, be myself and hear about them are great, wonderfully fun people.  Each with their different take, their own art with a lens and eager to talk, show and do their art.  So why is it that I am still so tentative?

You tell me?  Cause it baffles me!  I wake up each day with a resolve to be bold and not just in my personal life.  What's your daily affirmation?



Friday, July 27, 2012

"It's time for a change!"


Standing once again looking in the mirror only to see the same thing.
I used to have long hair... like crazy weird long.  My parents are hippies and they had a love for long hair and I didn't argue.  My hair had well hit my calves before I  decided, in college, to chop it all off. Since then, every stylist I have seen always cuts my hair the same.  Every time I would go to get my hair cut I would toy with pictures of different cuts, the idea of doing something drastic, something extreme, something that wouldn't make me come home disappointed once again.  Finally Chris just plain out called me out, "Just do it already!"

So I sat down into my friend's, who is a stylist, chair and said, "Do whatever you want.  Any length, any style... Anything."

It was a bit crazy to watch as hair kept coming off... 
The strangest part now is I still go reaching for my pony tale.  Like when my niece asked me to teach her how to do a fish tale braid, "Oh, yea..." 

Before: (sorry best shot I had considering that I forgot to get a before pic)

After:





Thursday, July 26, 2012

"Life Happened"

... then we go to visit your sister.  Then we have the conference.

You name it between you and me, Chris and I have done it.  He have gone all over the place with hectic schedules... all save for go on a vacation since our honeymoon.  It was almost 4 years ago that we last donned our sun hats and took to... well absolutely nothing!

Life just seemed to get in the way.  Time off was hard to come by, money was even harder and to have both at the same time seemed like a dream.  So each year we would save what we could for our "dream".  In the mean time we took a mini vacation.  


Back in the while ago, when I was more responsible with my blog postings I was honored enough to win a nights stay at The Kings Daughter Inn in Durham, NC.  Like all things me I kept stalling on using it because "What about when...????"  Enough was enough: I called got tickets to a Durham Bulls game and off we Goooooo... (yes, we did have capes and full body Lycra suits)




Like the true tourists we were, despite living less than an hour away, we slowly drive our way through downtown, taking just enough time to miss street signs.  A small drive takes you to The Kings Daughter Inn's parking and patio.  Scattered benches and bistro sets  sit about waiting for use.  Just across the way lays the grassy fields, gazebos, benches and a walking path that circles the Duke campus.  The historic wide stair cases and the beautiful hardwood floors take you to friendly staff awating to take you to your room and bring you tea upon your request.




"Each room is completely different?" Casting a smirk to my knowing husband.  "Yes, we can go look at all of them."


After our tour we took a bike ride on their complimentary bicycles just before returning to enjoy our baseball game.  It was dollar concessions night, how can you turn that down.  "Um... I guess 13 hot dogs and 5 fries will do..."




Couldn't help but take this... too big a fan!


Filled with too many hot dogs and the most wonderful Italian ice (always get lemon... don't let them fool you) we returned to not only the average turn down and chocolate but port and truffles.  I mean really, but then again I love truffles.  Though both were amazing it got me wondering where the tradition of chocolate before bed started?  Sounds crazy to me but then again I'm a bit obsessed with my teeth, so I'm not the best judge.


A few pouts and with the help of Chris actually pulling me out of bed I thumped my way downstairs, did I mention I don't like waking up... not so much mornings but they go hand in hand so kind of.  This particular morning I wasn't greated with the fact and necessity of making my own breakfast, and yes, breakfast is a necessity at least if you are me.  Before I got a chance to even look at the hot breakfast menu I was greeted by almost dancing breakfast pastries begging to be eaten. . . a mini buffet of beverages, cereals, fruit and yogurt.  Finally at my table thinking I had made a pretty great heaping plate when I finally get around to ordering my hot breakfast, I told you breakfast is a necessity:  their famous Chocolate Chip Waffles.  Unfortunately they were so delicious that Chris and I ate them with so much haste I forgot to snap a shot.



We walked away pampered and wishing all our friends and family to come enjoy this little bit of "dream" if only for a night.