Only Boring people get Bored

Or so I thought until I had nothing to do since Sunday. I was supposed to work at the bar tonight but mysteriously I'm not on the schedule. I guess because drama went down at the other bar they own a few towns over, they lost their liquor license because of noise or some shit? Anyway, those bitches apparently got president over me. Pifft. I made a big dramatic stink to the manager and he laughed and so did I and then I left.

Oh well. I was stoked about working because I have had nothing to do. I'm tempted to stop by there later, but it's always a mob fest filled with douchebags down on that street on thursdays because of this huge Saranac Thursdays where the brewery opens up every week with cheep prices on Saranac beers and a band. Brings out all the young crowd. Rude. Obnoxious. Don't tip. Et cetera.

Fridays are way better. Older crowd. I love me the older crowds.

I guess I'll spend tonight like I've spent the last three nights. Editing and cleaning. I think I've lost some brain cells. If I could scan, at least I could see some new stuff. But I'm forced to go back and edit all my older work, which I need to do anyway.

But still. I'm going stir crazy.

Above is the first of many of Sam. A fully wardrobe-styled shoot with five different looks by none other than Holly Ross. Makes me feel all special.

Next: Makeup artist
Next: Hair stylist

Let me fluff my feathers as I gloat about having my own wardrobe stylist at my fingertips. Not to mention she's fucking awesome as a general rule.

Whatever. Back to... editing...

Luxury

I'm pretty sure that my favorite time of day is dawn. It's fucking amazing. The colours, the air, the quiet... I wish I were up more often at this time. And not from staying up all night, though that has it's charm, too.

However, my favorite colour is the the colour of leaves being hit by bright afternoon sun. God damn, it's glorious.

So I've decided that I'm going to start taking bubble baths every day that I'm home, and try to read every day for at least an hour. This is in moving my daily life to be more relaxing and productive. It's productive to indulge in a bit of luxury, particularly bubble baths! Ahh, love. And I have a KILLER claw-foot tub in probably one of the best bathrooms you ever did seeeee.

Later today I'm working on developing a nice pile of black and white film, which I'm stoked about. woot-woot.

Building a Scrapbook

I keep talking about this scrapbook idea (well, maybe just to James), and I wish I'd start it, already. The more I use this silly fuji finepix bullshit, the more I love it. I took it with me to the bar when a bunch of fabulous people were in there all at the same time. One of them being Nerlande, featured above. The headless shoulder is none other than Gary Breckheimer, who I just met and is right up there with Ner in the super-awesome category (though obviously she's way cooler). ;)

Had a great time in the city. Again.


I've been planning to move to Brooklyn for two years now.


Have you ever gone back to a city you haven't lived in for a while? It's like stepping into your past, seeing who you were and what you were doing. I feel nothing but ghosts from the past towns and cities I've lived in. But at one point I felt wary of each as I let go of that life and got tangled in the next. I feel that wary (or maybe weary) of Utica, but New York City makes me excited. Driving there feels like moving forward.

And I have driven into Manhattan across the George Washington bridge and snaked my way down the FDR to the Brooklyn bridge so many times now, and crossing that first bridge and watching the buildings raise to the sky, it still makes me feel light and inspired and giddy.

The city is seducing me.

(still really scary, though)

I feel like every time I move, I evolve.

Equations

This is the shot I took of Melissa almost three years ago.

Here's the one I took yesterday-



"You look like you're doing math."
-Melissa Ayala

She's a student,
And studies constantly.
She's scared of bugs,
And squeals and makes a big deal.
She never wears makeup,
And looks best that way.

We've had a long break in our friendship, but it seems like nothing's changed. That's nice. She's never modeled except for with me, but she's unafraid and trusts me. Which is fan-fucking-tastic.

You can see a few more on my flickr

My #1 Fear

Is to never get out of Utica.
It's been especially eating at me today,
for whatever reason.




This is Dan. He works at a mexican place in Syracuse where Holly and I go from time to time. I knew him about five years ago for a couple months while we had mutual friends. But you know how "those things" are (particularly in spontaneous 11th graders traveling an hour and a half away every couple weeks to go party with non-highschoolers), most new friends are fleeting.

This makes me remember how every few years I do a lot of couch sleeping and hopping and ridiculousness. I feel ridiculous now, actually, on the verge of a new stage in my life.

Dan moves to Brooklyn tomorrow.

Jealous.

Oh, and, by-the-way.. The above photo isn't photoshop, it's the result of me fucking up a roll of film. Not too shabby, I'd say. Wouldn't you?

Reason #27 why I love Holly Ross

"I cannot wear flipflops in public."
-Holly Ross

And in response:
"Put that cooch away Meagan"

500 Miles

almost exactly from my house to James'.

While I'm driving I often forget about music, and I often create shoots and blog posts. I make lists, sort issues out and miss people. I admire colours a lot, too. Today I drove home from NYC, and especially admired the clouds. I think blue is my new favorite colour. I've been slowly figuring out my pallet for my photos. Blue tint = yes, red and yellow= no.

Though, for the life of me, I can't remember all the interesting things I wanted to say.

I do know, however, that I have the best fucking boyfriend on the face of the earth.

Besides all that, I have a lot of photo editing to catch up on, which is happiness.

And for the record I'm pretty proud of myself for making my blog look as it does. My html skillz r 4 teh win.

Here is the absolutely beautiful and talented Renee. There's something about her that makes my heart ache.

So Get This:

For the last four years that I've been taking pictures.. I've been of the mindset to NOT bring up photography in conversation or be caught in talking about it, or to encourage others on the topic. There were too many people (four years ago, at least...) who wanted to tell me all they knew about the subject, and assuming I knew nothing.

But apparently something's changed, because the last two nights I've carried my Konica around at work and it's working serious magic. I took pictures of most of the people who work at Hollyrock, which was fun. There's this one girl, Kristin, who is this bitchy loud wonderful italian princess. Long black hair, perfect makeup, short shorts every week and sporting a solid summer tan. She is obnoxious in that I-Love-Her-For-It sort of way, bitchy in that charming way. She had matching purple underwear on today and is a total ham. Of course, naturally, I asked her to model for me.

There is this other bartender (Shelly) who I've never really talked to and, until tonight, have always gotten not stellar vibes from. But she's proven worthy of the limbo stage - even before she asked me "are you Artistic?". To which I didn't know how to answer.

And Get. This.

Some older guy comes up to me while I'm prancing around on the bar with a bottle of liquor in my hands to pour into the mouths of thirsty costomers for a dollar a shot and, after buying one, asks me if I have a blog, and if I'm a photographer. He then continues to tell me how he loves my work, and not only my modeling and photography but my writing as well. Okay okay, so I understand that I'm a cute girl (not to mention I have naked pictures of myself here somewhere) and he may have just been flattering me... but fuck, dude, who doesn't like to be flattered.

I'll take it. I was pretty caught off guard.

Hopefully half-frame photos of all the pretty bartenders who work with me soon.

Someone Please Remind Me

That I should be acting on the photos I see in my head.

There are times when I look at a person and a whole scene plays out for how I want their photo to be. There are also (more recently) where I just know that I'll be able to photograph so-and-so and it'll be dandy. Expectation vs No Expectations. And while I'm a person who believes in the latter, I can't keep myself from the former. Though that isn't to confuse straight up with switchbacks.

But damn, these photos in my head are brilliant, I sayyy

I took my Konica to work tonight and took pictures of a bunch of people. I guessed on the exposure (which I'm getting better at, slowly but surely, though it still worries me) and by the end of the night I had the numbers of a transvestite, three straight girls and two gay boys. All beautiful.

I'm praying that this roll of film comes out fine. While exposure can be fudged to a degree, focus cannot. I think this is why it takes me so long to process film: Scared.

But you can't learn if you don't fuck up, so on with it!

I'm actually just really stoked to see the photos I took of Melanie. The shoot with her was one where I had a vision for her, though I'm sure the best shots are not the one I had in mind. Here's a digital of her, and one she took of me.

Happy Fuckin Birthday

Birthday Highlights:

-Holly gift of a Gunne Sax dress that is just effing perfect (POCKETS!)
-Spastic last minute early flight- I mean drive - to NYC, arriving at Boyfriends with my recently attached-at-the-hip aforementioned friend Holly at 5am.
-Wake up with said boyfriend
-Went on a hunt for a tiara (birthday=princess) (success!)
-Show up to the bar where a friend had reserved the back room with the pool table at 8pm, where (slightly buzzed, naturally) I announce obnoxiously that it's my birthday to the door man and make him check my id again, where he responds by buying me a drink!
-Had an amazing mix of photographer friends (and some people I didn't know but who are none the less fantastic, and friends with James) show up
-Sanders and Melanie gave me a box of 120 film!!! MAH
-I molested a hot girl


- JAMES GOT ME A KONICA HALF FRAME CAMERA!!!!!!


And I had a wonderful time and flitted from friend to friend and have decided that Stacey and her Husband need to have a party. And after, err, going for a walk with Stacey I decided that fun had peeked and it was TTG at 11.

I figure as long as I make it to midnight on my birthday, I am good to go.

I love my birthday. Specially this one.

HELL-OO twenty-two!! hi-ya!

And then the next day I got to shoot Melanie. Fuck yeah. Can't wait to develop the film!

Death and Stuff

Just got home from work... and came back to an email from my mother telling me that my Uncle Morris passed away this morning.

This said Uncle Morris is - was - my grandmother's husband's brother. So he's actually of no relation seeing as said husband wasn't actually my grandfather, but he loved me just the same. When Pop-pop died, he left Uncle Morris money to spend on my sister and I. It went to school clothes when we were in High School and then paid for most of the college that we chose to go to.

So what I'm saying is that my Uncle paid for some-odd amount of the last four years of my college career (a hundred-something attempted credits and no degree to show for it), sent me money so that I could buy photo supplies and bought my first cameras (which, besides the Rolleiflex, are my two cameras that I use all the time and are oh-so-reliable). He never forgot a birthday or small holiday. He sent nice boxes of chocolate for no reason and jewelry for Valentines Day.

One time I sent him this long letter, being completely open and pretending he wasn't an 80-something year old man who was kindof-not-really related and described to him all about getting a piercing and what it meant to me and why I liked piercings and tattoos. I thought that maybe it was too much for a conservative man, but I decided not to care and to treat him like a person who loved me just because. He responded with a really lovely letter about a girl he met once "at a dance". I feel it was the only time that him and I really actually communicated.

I've been "trying" to write him a letter for about a week now.. and I feel guilty that I didn't make it.

I never sent him any of the photos I took.

I've never met him.

Rest in Peace, Uncle Morris... I hope you know that I've always thought about you, whether I wrote to you or not...

Nothing New

I have a bunch of black and white film to develop. I'm putting it off. Tuesday, though, I think, I'll do it. I have a roll of T-max in my camera that I'll have to use first, though I dunno on what.

My Aunt apparently googled my name. Huh. She came up with Sanders' photo of Coni right below here and stopped investigating. haha

My birthday's coming up. I'll be 22, which I love the sound of it. Twenty two. Much better than twenty one. 21 sounds so "omigawd, I can DRIIINK". Whatever.

For my birthday I want to have fun. I want friends and laughter and silliness.

I want Melody to be there, too.

Sigh.

Healthy Pride

I shot this girl, and then this awesome photographer dude shot her. And that makes me happy. She's awesome, too.






Photo by Sanders McNew

The sun is coming up

I got home from work (bar) at quarter-to-five. I don't know about you, but I can't sleep after I'm done with work. Esspecially fast-passed ass-busting work like tonight. Or bartending at a decent place, period.

I love it. I love pre-dawn. I love the light at sunrise.

I have so much more to say, but I'll leave it at that.

And a photo of this girl I used to be friends with. Her name is Molly.

Sam

I shot this girl Sam today. She was awesome and she looked amazing in the dresses I have in my possesion that, of course, are Holly's . I can't decide if I like the colour or black and white better. I went a bit photoshop happy. Anyone have an opinion?



I got my film back from shooting Coni who was another gem. I'm really pleased with the girls I've been able to shoot lately. Girls like Coni and Sam who are talented and new, who actually like my work and want to work with me. And I think they each gave me a cavity. Which is nice.

I've got so many shots of Coni.. I'll be editing for days haha. But I don't mind. And I'm sure I got some great stuff with Sam today. Makes me happy.

Sad Happy: Part Two

I decided to go now, or, as it were, twenty minutes ago. And while I wasn't shorted $30, I was $2 but decided not to push it, though my desperate frustration at making $53 at the busiest bar in Utica, on the busiest night of the summer, having been the first bartender there to set up and continuing my over-achiever for almost 12 hours was at least happy to find my half pack of damp Camel Lights. This whole situation is tiring, not so much physically, but mentally. It's the idea that you have to clean bathrooms before you get to rightfully assist Richard Avedon. But I don't want to be someone's bitch my entire life, I want to float and be fair and Make A Difference. Unlike whats-his-name in "A Happy Death" where Camus argues his characters for perfect bliss as being free to do nothing. Yet for some strange reason I (and arguably Camus) cannot find peace in being idol. But I stray, perhaps in my want to sound well read. Well fuck that, I am well read, I just read Tristessa. Christ. Art fag. And my fight for Cool Points continues.

James, you are like E. The come-down is really rough. Cept I'm not fucking up my brain, or at least not putting holes in it.

All of this semi-complaining. I don't feel I'm actually complaining, though. I feel it is easier to "publicly" share my thoughts on my frustrating climb through my career-life than it is my love-life.

Which, by the way, is fucking awesome.

But I wouldn't want to jinx it, so I'll leave it at that.

Okay, now I'm tired. Photographing possibly three people tomorrow. Picking up a couple rolls of colour from the other day with the amazing Constanza. Pretty stoked. Sunday I go to the community darkroom that I got a membership for the summer for the huge unreasonable sum of forty dollars. In this respect, I feel on the right step again.

Sigh. He inspires me so.

Constanza:

And while I learned how much I love cross processing with that little point-and-shoot camera, I also learned that it's a hell of a lot cheaper to do it with my half point-and-shoot half slr digital. Not only can I go into photoshop and fuck with it till my heart's content, I can also control the image better.

But film is still so much more gratifying.

Can't. Wait. For. The. Film.

I have so much to do on Sunday! I can't wait to be back in the lab.

Sad Happy

I just got home from work.. a particularly frustrating night consisting of down-pouring rain and standing out in the cold and soaked down to my panties, shivering and standing idol. And while this may sound like a fun adventure (say, if I werren't working and my palm was full of my baby's palm, perhaps with Manhattan glowing over there and six stories up on a roof with my head tilted back; stupid happy and rightly so), it may sound like an adventure but instead it was my boss pulling me aside by the arm and speaking low, if you put a negative energy to these new girls I will cut you so fast and I feel the tears pulling out, my throat tighten like a child. I child who is wet and cold and lonely and truely only wishes to make people happy. I just wanted to close the bar, to at least clean and lift boxes of liquor and work toward something real; make myself useful. Moments later, though, and he's having us do just that, and I find myself wondering how come he couldn't have just said it's okay, we'll get you guys out of the rain, get your bar packed. It makes me feel inhuman, I feel the strength of stoicism and apathy fighting with my passion for life and love and approval. Silly girl. Silly girl who got lost in the world of a man she loves, forgetting that the outside world exists and you have to go back to it. Everything's about ballance. Fuck balance, I just want to do the things that make me happy. Happy is not in Utica, but four hours North-East of here.

I just realized that I'm $30 short of what I should have gotten in tips according to the little slip of paper attached to the wad of ones (yes, they don't even have the decency to change it in for bigger bills). I'm torn between going back to the bar and seeing if they're still there and ask them why, or waiting and doing it tomorrow. My fear is that they'll not trust that it was actually short. Seeing as I'm clearly a liar and a thief.






James took this.. And while it's supposed to say "fuck you" I feel it says a lot of things, "fuck you" being lower on the list.

I want to

Travel the world.
I want to travel the world.
I want to travel the world.

Somehow, I forgot this in the last year or so. When I left highschool I had this plan of moving to a new city every two years. Living in different countries, traveling, photographing and modeling. Different cultures and languages and foliage! Different facial features, fashion, movement...

I want to go everywhere. Everrryyywhere.


I'm looking at hostels in Peru. $6 a night.


First step: Passport.

One Roll

Took the Rolleiflex to a party yesterday afternoon... Had one roll left and I know I got some nice portraits, particularly one or two of this girl Molly. I've shot her a lot, but because she's so guarded and self conscious, so much always going on with her, but very pretty, she makes for an awesome subject. Also, my friend Eleni was there, who is a gorgeous Lebanese/Greek mix and who is very pregnant (due in three weeks). Both girls have gotten used to me shoving cameras in their faces, so they trust me to make sure they look good or whatever. I'm so excited. Everyone was asking me what kind of camera it was, many thought it was a film (moving) camera. I explained that it makes these super sweet square negatives and let them look through it.. mostly for my own enjoyment of, "wow, cool!". No shit, right?

I hope they came out, I had to guess on the exposure.

Oh, and I think I'll break down and get a digital camera.
And though I want a Nikon, I'll prolly get a Canon cause I already have a battery grip, lens, and two batteries for it.

Or maybe I'll just get a Nikon.

Nikon just sounds better.

Besides, then it'll match my Nikon N80. Maybe I'll even get a D80 and it'll REALLY match. Like twins. Ew, okay, maybe that's not a good idea. Come to think of it, maybe I'll just get the Canon and the two can be buddies.