heathen

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.



I've been enjoying the summer in the South / Southwest this year. Austin has been amazing to experience and I've already gotten to know some fantastic people. My roommates took me out around town. They helped me get to know their friends and some of the fun spots around the city.



This mural was painted on the side of a building near Trudy's (in Austin, TX) - discovered it on accident when we had to park our car a few extra blocks away. I can't recall the exact street, but it's worth checking out the neighborhood for it. This photo is just a small sample of its genius. The whole thing included characters from the Simpsons, Futurama, Army of Darkness, Pan's Labyrinth, The Labyrinth, Nightmare before Christmas, Jaws, Blade Runner, and so many more.

The thing that interested me most, was that the characters chosen to represent the different movies/cartoons/etc were often the more obscure ones. To pick up on some of the references, you really had to know the show.

That's my favorite part about Austin. There's art to discover everywhere and someone new is always making their mark.

While I'm calling Austin home for now, I've already had new travel plans arise. I hopped back in the car and started the drive back to California. I'm hoping to have another shoot in the works in the next couple of weeks and am working on some other fun modeling projects.



Right now, I'm exploring a little more of Arizona before traveling onward for adventures in LA and possibly Las Vegas later this summer. I've gotten to spend a little more time with Bitten! I hadn't gotten to see her since we were together in Chicago over the winter (which feels like forever ago!). We've been taking some photos together again and were brainstorming future fun ideas.



She's been so kind - letting me crash at her place and showing me around the city. I love that everywhere I go, there is a little branch of the SG army around and ready for fun. We went exploring for cool tattoo shops in the area and found a lot of great artists.

I'm really excited because I found the perfect artist to finally finish my sleeve! I have been wanting to get it completed for almost a year now and because of my situation (the breakup and all the traveling that followed) hadn't been able to. This artist really had a lot of great input based on my ideas and I completely loved his portfolio work. I've got 3 appointments with him set up already. Now the only trouble is having the patience while I wait for our first session. There's nothing quite like the feel of fresh ink and I'm long overdue.



Hopefully soon I'll be at a point where I can sit down at my computer to transfer photos off my good camera again. I love my instagram photos for the convenience it offers, but I'd really like to have the time/space to use my Cannon more often. I'd prefer to leave photos of higher quality on my SG blog in the future.



I've been considering getting a quality lens for portrait/macro photography so that I can really delve further into the art form. I was so bummed when I moved and lost my studio space - I haven't fully recovered yet. It'd be great to get back into Zivity with my self shot sets and maybe even explore the possibility of shooting other models. My last set ended up being an Editorial Pick on Zivity - the first of my self shot sets to achieve it. I think I've improved a lot since I first picked up a camera and would like to continue doing so. At the moment, I can't afford the lens I'd really like. I've preserved the info for it on my Wishlist while I save up the funds.
This is something I'm passionate about and truly enjoy.
My life has changed a lot since I first got involved in modeling and photography through SuicideGirls. I'm constantly meeting great new friends and traveling more than I ever have in my entire life. I never really thought I would have these opportunities and I'd like to continue exploring everything this community has to offer. I'm not sure if I have the skill to try for Staff Photography here, but I think just having my own passion inspired by the people here is enough to make me happy.

I came out of a really dark place and though my thoughts still linger there sometimes, I'm starting to see things in an entirely new light.