Merry Christmas!

Hope you all had an amazing day today!

It was a pretty eventful day at my house!
Yesterday at 6:30 PM we went to the Christmas service at our church which was so fun and amazing! At midnight we had our traditional Filipino feast called Noche Buena followed by the long awaited present opening! Then, at 3 PM today I was able to see one of my all time favorite musicals in movie form! Les Miserables! I was in tears for majority if not the whole duration of the movie haha!
And I'd like to take this moment to do a little show and tell haha :)

I am completely in love with my presents! :D And luckily my family liked the presents I got them! I've already learned 3 songs on my new mandolin, drank tea from my tea tumbler, put the pins on my button blazer, positioned the owl on my display shelf and put the lens on one of my cameras :D This was definitely a success of a Christmas!

What all did you guys get?

Hope you all had a blessed Christmas!

Time to Breathe

Time to Be whatever I please,

Time to Relax for hours,

Time to Exhale all the stress,

Time to Appreciate the Lord in power.

Time to Transform ideas to reality,

Time to Hold love ones dear,

Time to Encourage freedom we  now have,

Time to BREATHE is here.

I finally have it!

Being a junior in high school while also being in photography and being in Ambassador on top of my school work, in which I take two AP classes and advanced math, time is little to none! But luckily I'm on winter break now and I can finally breathe! With my finals done, Holiday Spec over, and school completely out of my brain I can catch up on my own photography, this blog and hopefully I'll catch up on all the hours of sleep I've lost!

In only 2 days it'll be my all time favorite holiday! CHRISTMAS!!! Words cannot describe how excited I am! But, the hardest part about not having a job is getting presents for my family...didn't get them exactly what I wanted to get them but I still got them things they would enjoy :) It's going to be nice just relaxing with a cup of hot chocolate and my family. This is one well needed break!

Hope you all have a great winter break and a Merry Christmas!!!

Happy Thanksgiving! and Black Friday!

Even though I'm kinda behind on this I still wanted to say it! Haha :) Anyways, I had a pretty busy break myself! We had a Thanksgiving party at my house with a couple...more like a few...actually around 5 families...and it was so much fun! Loud...but fun! I tried really hard to take photos and get candid shots but it was probably the most difficult thing to do! It's like whenever they see a camera they've already gone into a pose. Then, when everybody left at 11 I decided to sleep a while before going Black Friday shopping!

The main place I wanted to attack was Urban Outfitters! They were having a 50% off all sale items sale until 10 o'clock so rather than waiting in line and being trampled by people I thought it was best to go at 6:30ish! I thought since I didn't go at 12 there wouldn't be a lot to get but boy was I wrong! With the help of my brother's girlfriend I managed to spend as much as I saved haha! Then, still feeling energized with Black Friday shopping, the two of us went to Forever21 for some pants!

So, let's play show and tell shall we?

Dresses:

 Tops:

 Skits:

 Tights:

 Pants:

Did you have a fun Thanksgiving and Black Friday? I'd love to hear all about it!
Have a great day everyone!

We Discover Through Others

One of my favorite past times to do when I'm super tired is to just sit in front of my computer, go onto flickr and admire all the works everyone else has done! It gives me such inspiration and great ideas for future photos! Like my photography teacher says "the best way to get inspiration is by looking at other's photos". So, I would like to share with you some of my favorites:

 Sweet Home by Oprisco

 Pole on the Beach by Sebastiaan W.

 You Gave Me Your Wings by Jared Tyler

 Our Forests Are Burning by Laura Makabresku

 Untitled by Cameron Sandercock

A World for Each of Us by Boy_Wonder

Frail Moth by Kyle Thompson

Feeling inspired yet? Haha anyways if you want to see more of their work go click on the link underneath their photos...and if you want to see some of my work you can click here to check out my page!

Hope you all have had a great day!

Represent

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
- Colossians 3:17

This weekend for the first time in my life I went to a fall retreat with my church! A moment I've been so excited for for the longest time! It was absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend! It was a weekend of renewal for me, confirming my place in the Kingdom of God and feeling completely at place and welcomed by my small group who I have come to absolutely love this past weekend!

Everything was perfect. The weather was perfect, the leaves were beautiful, the people were welcoming and my mind was in the right place. I couldn't stop thanking God throughout the whole weekend for making me see the power of his love. We all go through difficult times and these past few weeks I've been really struggling with feeling wanted and accepted and I thank God so much for my beautiful small group for making me feel just that and knowing that I am indeed loved beyond compare.

I'm crying now in happiness because I know now that along with God's love I have the love of these wonderful girls that He's put in my life. He couldn't have timed it more perfectly. A common thing we talked about this weekend was how powerful and amazing God is for creating all these things around us. Like the song by Gungor "He makes beautiful things out of dust. He makes beautiful things out of us."

We kept on being awestruck over how beautiful God made everything for us this weekend. Without cell phones. Without worrying about boys. Without thinking about school. There were no distractions. Only God. Our eyes were opened to see all the beauty: the beauty of the leaves on the ground and the feeling of the sun on our skin, and the beauty of all the stars at night...which you never get to see in the suburbs...

Everything was just a blessing! I hope to keep this spiritual high up forever and make sure it lives on past this weekend and with the help of my small group, I really think it's possible.

So that pretty much sums up my weekend!
I hope you all have had an equally amazing weekend as well!

And So It Begins...

(These photos are all taken, developed and printed by me in order of being made)

My passion has been photography for a very long time now but up until this year I was never able to do the whole process of developing and printing by myself. Thankfully I've finally had time in my school schedule to take the class and it's been such a blast! I've already had one of my photos up on the wall of fame! It's one of the best classes I've ever taken and it's definitely secured the idea in my head that photography is something I want to pursue in life. If follow me on flickr you've seen these before and if you don't well go check me out and I'll probably as you as a contact back because I don't have that many haha :) 

I know I'm still an amateur and there's a lot for me to learn but how do you all think I've done so far? And do you have any tips for what I should do in the future (besides dusting because I know they're all pretty dusty haha) I'd love to know what you all think!

Hope you all have had a fabulous day!

Seen by the Sightless

I've always been so intrigued by photos...I think one of the reasons I'm so into photography now is because I'll spend hours just looking at different photos thinking about the story behind them, wondering if they would work in another lighting or at a different angle, and just admiring the fact that some genius caught that moment at that time.

Since being in photography class I've spent pretty much every period in the dark room and since I already finished the assignment that was due today I gave myself a little break. On the days we aren't developing or using an enlarger our teacher has a bookshelf stacked with books of photos to give us inspiration...it worked!

I stumbled across this book made up entirely of photos taken by blind teenagers. When I saw the cover I became interested but opening that first page I became completely intrigued. The photos were amazing and the little stories about the kids were inspiring! I fell in love with the book! It's so cool to think that a person from low vision to no vision at all can take the amazing photographs!

Here are some of my favorites:

 

Just something little I wanted to share with you all :)
Hope you've had an inspiring day as well!

Starts With a Blank Canvas

Have you ever been stuck on what to be for Halloween but you don't want to spend a lot of money on some elaborate costume? That's where I was this year. I had a party on Saturday but had no idea what I could possible be in such short notice. I wanted to be something creative and cute but I didn't want to pay a bunch of money for something I'll only wear probably once. So from the help of my brother he came up with probably one of the most brilliant ideas for a Halloween costume! And amazingly it's never been done before! (at least google says so haha) 

All you need is:

- a white/tan monochrome outfit

- 1 blank canvas

- 1 paint pallet

- sharpies, paint markers, or whatever you choose for coloring

- (and if you want) face paint to make a design on your face

It's as easy as that! And it's super fun and interactive...and the greatest part is that you'll have a wonderful masterpiece made by your friends to keep forever!

Hope that helps any of you out there :)

Have a wonderful Halloween everyone!