Spring Break Day 3

This post will need a bit of background, so I am going to quickly go back to January of this year. At the beginning of January (January 2nd to be exact) I had surgery on my elbow to fix nerve damage there. I had injured it while climbing last spring, and essentially had a pinched nerve for about 8 months. The surgery moved the nerve from the outside of my elbow, where it typically sits, to the inside of my elbow where it is more protected and freed from being pinched.

The day of surgery, shortly after I arrived home.

Since surgery I have obviously been in recovery mode. After lots of physical therapy I felt like I was finally getting back to normal (somewhat at least). I had just started climbing again about a week before our trip, and even though I knew I would have to be extra careful while in Arizona I was still fully expecting to climb almost every day. However, Tuesday morning of our trip (day 3), I woke up in extreme pain. I thought I was taking it easy climbing wise, with only 2 easy routes both days, and yet I could hardly make a fist my arm hurt so bad. The guys were wanting to do a multi-pitch (essentially climbing a route longer than one rope length) on Tuesday, and with the state of my arm I knew I had to take the day off. I went to the base of the climb with them, and hung out in a hammock and read while they were off climbing above me. I shot around a little bit, with my Polaroid and digital camera, but because of the position of the route I wasn’t able to get many shots (or any good ones really) of them climbing.

And the Polaroids. All of these were shot on my SX-70 with Impossible Project film.

 

Spring Break Day 2

Day two (Monday) of our spring break was spent in the Prison Camp area again. We still had quite a few routes in that area that we wanted to try, so after cooking breakfast and making a quick run back to Tucson to get some more supplies, we hiked in and climbed for the afternoon. I don’t think this place could get old to me. I also shot some Polaroids here, but will share all those in one post once I get them scanned in.

 

Happy Sunday everyone!

Spring Break Day 1

Last week was our spring break here at Kansas State. Scott, our friend Ben, and I flew down to Arizona for a week of climbing, camping, and sunshine. I, of course, took a ton of photographs, and will share them based on the day that they were shot to avoid an incredibly long post.

We flew into Phoenix late Saturday night, and after picking up our rental car drove to Scott’s sister’s house in Tucson. We crashed there that night, and then Sunday woke up to get supplies and head into the mountains for a few days of camping and climbing. We camped at the Prison Camp area (Gordon Hirabayashi Campground) in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The great thing about the Prison Camp campground is that there is a ton of climbing just a short hike down from the campsites. It is a beautiful area in a little canyon with a cool view of the city in the distance. Enjoy day one, and be on the lookout for day 2 soon!

Prairie Hike

I hadn’t been out to the Konza Prairie for ages, and when it warmed up last weekend I jumped at the chance to head out there for a hike with fellow photography graduate student, Myra. I also hadn’t been out there with my new lens, so I was excited to be able to get a new perspective on something I have shot multiple times before. Unfortunately when we got out there it got super windy and a cold front started moving in, but luckily we still had sunshine and decent light for most of the hike.

Tomorrow evening I am off to Arizona for a week of climbing, camping, hiking, art museum visits, and of course photographing! I am so excited to get a break from Manhattan and share lots of images and stories here when I get back. If you want to keep up with our adventures during the week be sure to follow me on instagram. I will be posting lots there throughout the week, but posts here on the blog will have to wait since I don’t have room to pack my computer. Have a wonderful week you lovely people!

 

moments of light.

I have always been very interested in capturing moments of beautiful natural light. The way that light reflects off of things, shines through and wraps around, casting beautifully unique shadows and ripples of light, is fascinating to me. Lately I seem to be even more drawn (borderline obsessed perhaps) to these things, and often stop in the middle of whatever I am doing to capture these little moments.

The first two are from my phone, because that is what I consistently have easily available when these moments happen. And, unfortunately I accidentally cleared off some of my favorite images (or I expected them to be) from my SD card before transferring them to my computer. I’m hoping to re-shoot a similar thing soon, but for now here are some of my recently documented “moments of light” to share with you.

 

Blue Giraffe

This semester I moved to a new studio, one that has windows. I was so excited to finally have natural light in my studio, so I brought in some plants to decorate my windowsill. I still felt like I needed more color, and was inspired by all the gold-leafed or painted animals I had seen on Pinterest. So, meet Gerald the blue giraffe!

Also, I have noticed many new followers in the past few weeks, and I would love to meet you all and hear how you found my blog! Welcome to the blog and I hope you enjoy!

Remembering The Everyday Part 3.

I am proud to say that I have passed through my mid-program review, and am now an official MFA candidate! It was a huge relief to get past that point. My committee had lots of great comments for me and gave me lots of things to consider as I continue moving forward with this work. Since I feel confident with how the meeting went I thought I would share a few more images with you all.

Now to work on the suggestions my committee made and see where the work goes from here!