the girl band in LA with emilija and taylor

Listen to caligulove - them crooked vultures (can you believe it's been like 7 years since this album came out?) and bone house - the dead weather. I am all about the super groups for this post, it seems.

When I went to LA in February, pictures of which you can see right over here, I spent an afternoon with two of my favourite girls. We've shot before, which you can see over here if you'd like. Do I have anything else to shamelessly plug? No, not really.

Here are some pictures of the girl band in LA.

 
 

Aren't they the best? 

Also, for something you can't unsee, for our first set of photos together, you'll notice that Emilija is mostly on the right side, and for this shoot, Taylor is. I don't know why that is. I just noticed it right now. 

Till the next one!

r.

a week in LA

listen to: so good by band of skulls and busy earnin' by jungle

 

i went to LA in february for my reading break and had a bad time. it wasn't LA though, it was me. I don't think i want to get into it right now but i took a fuckload of photos that i've been hoarding for the past couple of months. here are some of them. they were shot with either my pentax espio mini, nikon fg, canon 5d mii, a ricoh gr, or my iphone. 

enjoy!

on one of my first days there, i walked around downtown and ended up in chinatown. it was pretty cool, i guess. there's this burger place in there called burger lords. they had some pretty damn good burgers.

 
 

there was also a day where i went to a couple beaches. i started off in santa monica.

i ended that day at venice beach. abbot kinney is my fave.

a mardi gras parade with a marching band started up right as i got close to the boardwalk. the first few black and white photos are from that.

and of course i went to the observatory.

 

okay fine! i'll tell you why i didn't like LA. if you made it this far, i guess you deserve it. 

also, i'm aware that this post has a ridiculous amount of photos and every time, i tell myself that i'll only post a certain amount of photos, and that i'll curate it well, but here we are again. i digress.

one of the reasons i took so many photos was because i was alone most of the time i was there. i should have gotten a friend to go with me and i should have made more of an effort to spend time with people that were there but i guess i didn't and i had a bad time. in addition, i didn't have a vehicle which made getting everywhere i wanted to go in a day exhausting. to top it off, smack dab in the middle of my trip, my great aunt passed away and there was nothing more that i wanted than to go home. so why did i even go? i found a cheap plane ticket but the rest of my trip was expensive so that might be the last factor as to why i didn't enjoy my time in LA. if i could, would i take back the whole trip? yeah. i would. 

 

anyway i hope you liked the photos.

r.

with emilija

listen to: too much to ask - arctic monkeys and sound & colour - alabama shakes

 

emilija is my favorite; this is no secret. she's one of the sweetest, most genuine people i know and i'm so lucky to have the chance to work with her whenever i do. we got together closer to the end of the summer time and took some photos around burnaby. here are some of my favorites.

 
 

isn't she awesome? follow her on instagram: @emilijabaranac. 

till next time,

r.

meet alison

listen to : the sea (night version) - mø  and let it happen - tame impala

this is alison. alison is jack's girlfriend. alison might be the coolest person i've met in a while. she studies studio arts in ontario, where she's from (i think she explained what studio art is to me when we were shooting but i still have no idea.) she's cool in the way that you know she's looking at things a little differently that you are and that, for me, is the most intriguing thing. i would highly recommend checking out her work here (website) and here (tumblr.)

she was in vancouver for the summer and i got to see her a few times and i kind of think she only agreed to let me shoot her because jack made her (just kidding) but nevertheless i'm really happy we got to. here are some of my favorite shots.

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isn't she great? you should follow her on instagram too: @rumalow.

 

till next time, 

r.

last days of summer with claire

listen to: L.E.S artistes by santigold and sweet emotion by the kooks.

this is claire, of detention agency. she's a sweetheart and i loved shooting her. we talked about school and aspirations, bad jobs, and pretty couches. we got together on south granville one day and took some photos. here are some of my favorites.

that's all folks.

- r

get to know jesse

 

listen to: toes by glass animals, and doldrums by atlas sound.

my first shoot with jesse was the first time i met him and you can see those photos here. i think jesse's great, he's honestly one of the sweetest guys i know. jesse's an incredible artist and the tattoo you see on his forearm is one of his own illustrations. jesse came over one day and we took a few photos in my room. these are some of our favorites.

 

follow him on instagram: @princewitch, and for any inquiries, email him at jessetyloarts@gmail.com.

yarrow

listen to: 5/4 by gorillaz and cactus by the pixies.

has there been a summer that your vast expectations have lived up to yet? you know what i'm talking about; you spend all winter and spring thinking about the Best Summer Ever and when it comes, most days are spent watching netflix and working 6 day weeks. that's what my summers are like, at least. i don't usually go anywhere or do anything grand and i have my reasons but a big part of has to do with the fact that i'm lazy. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing but honestly, some days, i just want more. 

at the beginning of every summer i tell myself that i'm going to go places, even if they're not far, and i'm going to take pictures, and i'm going to stop lying to my friends about the fact that i'm busy and have plans so i dont have to hang out with them, yet here i am, unchanged. 

am i planning on changing my ways? no, not really. not exactly. i know that i'm not going to make a whole effort to get out there and do things more than i would regularly, but i'm working on saying yes more.

anyway, so i met this guy riun, right, and on our first time hanging out, he asked me about a place i wanted to go. I said Yarrow. and he said, Let's go. 

Here are some pictures from our little day trip to yarrow and cultus lake.

this was a mix of some film, iphone, and dlsr pictures. riun's pretty cool. check him out on instagram: @riungarner.

till next time,

r.

girl band with emilija and taylor

listen to: whatever happened to my rock and roll? by black rebel motorcycle club and i turn my camera on by spoon

oh man these two are great. i've had the pleasure of shooting both of them before and we've all being itching to shoot together and last month, we did. here are some of my favorite shots.

 

i know i had a lot of fun with this one.

follow them on instagram: @emilijabaranac and @tayrrussell.

till next time,

r.

sydney and the bends

listen to: i've got your number by elbow and did i make you cry on christmas day by sufjan stevens

there was a point when i wanted my art up in a show. i wanted my friends to see my babes plasters up on walls like the masterpieces the girls are. i thought that was what success was. a friend of mine directed me to sydney, saying that if i wanted to put on a show in this city, she was the girl to talk to. luckily sydney talked some sense into me and gave some advice that i still hold dear and im honestly so thankful for that.

anyway, i went over to sydneys place a few weeks ago and we took some photos. im happy with how they turned out.

 

she's the kimono queen and she's cool as heck. i'm seriously contemplating shaving my head now to be honest.

till next time,

r.

little heat with samira

listen to : room where you sleep - dead man's bones, and just a little heat - the black keys

i met samira years ago very briefly at a concert and i haven't seen her since. what a shame, because she is so much fun. we talked about how nice it is when you're paired with a photographer or a model that you can get along with and produce work that both parties are happy with because that's definitely not always the case, but it was here. i'm super stoked on these photos and i hope y'all enjoy looking at em. 

isn't she great? i've been trying to not use vsco film to edit my photos lately, so i've been playing around with different things in lightroom and i think i've found some things that i like. 

anyway, a little update for y'all:  i've been busy and i'm not going to apologize for that or anything because this is how i prefer things to be but the good thing about it is that i've got a lot of ideas and what-have-you. i think i'll make a quick little roundup post of the past little while sometime early next week so y'all can see it all in pictures.

 

on turning 21

i am 21. i am legal all over the world. i am an adult. i am 21.

to me, being 21 just means those two things but it's birthdays that get to me.

i'm not good with dates but i never forget a birthday. i dont know why.

ok. so x amount of years ago, you were born. its not really that big of a deal but i personally believe birthdays should be recognized. celebrate yourself. you made it.

 

i think i hate the traditions surrounding january first. it's the beginning of a new year but it comes smack dab in the middle of winter, the school year, and the peak of my seasonal affective disorder. so. im not generally interested.

i especially hate new years resolutions. i dont get why people are setting themselves up to fail. you're not going to go to the gym and you're probably not going to quit smoking. stop giving yourself false hope. stop it. this isn't the beginning of a new you.

despite that cynical rant, i like to make goals around my birthday for the coming year. i guess they are sort of like my own personal new year's resolution but let's not call it that. i think goals are important. i think goals are smart. here are some of my new goals for this year. 

take more photos.

i need to get specific. i have a camera on me 80% of the time but don't use it as often as i'd like (its like the only accessory i wear lol (that was a shitty joke (its okay, you laughed.)))

some photo specific goals:

  • shoot more couples!!!!!!!
  • shoot more series!!!!!!! and shoot more cinematically!!!!!!!
  • shoot things that aren't babes!!!!!
  • host a photog workshop!!!!!!!!! (i swear i'll do this by the end of may.)

write more.

being stuck between things is a shitty place to be in. i want to make this blog more personal and i want to write more in it but i don't even enjoy looking at blogs with lots of writing so why would you? hopefully you feel like i have something worth saying so you read it and i hope i can come up with shit that just as interesting to read. maybe interesting is the wrong word. captivating? enthralling? definitely not. but you know what i mean, right?

this one is kind of tough because i want to write more for myself but i'm stuck in a spot where i want to share things but what's worse than throwing a premature thing into the cesspool that is the internet? (nothing.) and honestly, nowadays it feels like 'are you really doing it if it's not out there being shown to the world?' this is a terrible mindset that i want to rid myself of. anyway.

some writing specific goals:

  • start on that damn book!!!!! (not because i think i have a novels worth of words, but it'll teach me discipline.)
  • blog here more regularly!!!!! (whatever that means)
  • commit to a piece!!!! (edit and rewrite and refine)

do more for me.

now this is not to say that im a completely selfless being that disregards myself entirely to put other people first. i am selfish as heck and i have no problem with admitting that, but i don't take care of myself. i don't eat well or often enough and i've got bad habits. when i was younger i honestly didnt think i'd make it past 18 but here we are so i guess this living shit is going to last a lot longer than i though so maybe i should take are of myself to see how long i can ride this out. a few things this resolution entails: exercise. learn to cook. mental health. don't fricking overwork yourself. 

the last one is something that i struggle with the most. my problem lies in time management. i feel like y'all might be able to relate with this. i function like there are 40 hours in a day. i tell myself i have time to fuck around for the first bit of a day because i'll be able to do more things later. shit goes south when it's 8 pm and im tired and ill i want to do is binge on social media till i pass out and wake up with some weird internet hangover. 

so i guess the solution is to plan things out better. because one thing i want to do for myself is build this blog. i want to buy more books and spend time reading those books. i want to buy that shirt that i tried on, liked, and put away because it was a little more than i wanted to spend but fuck it. im going to buy it and i'm going to wear it and i'm going to feel good because treat yoself am i right?

one more thing this entails is focusing more on school. i'm taking the summer off to really get my shit together so i can really do what i need to do to finish this shit because honestly taking things slow is cool but man. i just want to be done. that being said, this summer i get to exercise my first goal and keep my camera going so i'm stoked re: that.

 

 

ANYWAY.

i turned 21 on Good Friday. last year on my birthday i took a photo of myself in a bathtub loaded with donuts. this year i decided i wanted to take on of me holding a cake. the night before i thought it would be a good idea to make the cake. so i tried. turns out i'm really bad at making cake. this is what it looked like.

i honestly have no idea where i went wrong. anyway. my friends came over and helped me fix it.

Tenzin took the photos above for the most part and the ones below. 

after the cake was semi-decent, we took it over to a plain wall and shot! here are some of my faves.

i like how things turned out. 

thank you coco for helping me fix the cake, belle, for the emotional support and taking pix on the instax, and tenzin for taking the photos above and all of y'all for the friendship.

and you! thank you all for your birthday wishes. the past week of being 21 has been pretty cool i guess.

stay messy, guys. till next time,

r. 

 

the process of a self portrait

i started out in photography by taking photographs of myself. i didn't have any models when i was 15 nor did i know what i was doing, so it was the best practice someone in my shoes could get. all i needed was a tripod and a camera, two things that i had. 

i have never been too keen on how i looked but this isn't the time or place to talk about that. one thing i can say is that after years of photographing myself and seeing myself in every unprepared angle my cameras have captured, i very much feel like my face is something that belongs to me, and not that i belong to it. i digress.

about a month ago, i started thinking about a new profile picture. i posted the one i currently had on new years day of something that i took the past december. i figured it was time for change. and like with everything i do, i started panicking and consulting my friends. many of them did have photographs for me to use but i decided that i wanted to take a new one.

now this is the part where i tell you that this is not easy. i often have people tell me that i'm so good in front of a camera and that i'm so incredibly photogenic ect based just on my self portraits and that is the furthest from the truth. if you've ever seen a group photo i'm in, you'll see that i'm horrible in front of any camera that isn't my own (and maybe daniels' but that's because he's too good at what he does.)

taking self portraits like i do that you'll like is hard because it's not usually just a straight ahead shot in front of anything. i like movement. i like utilizing space. so it takes time and it takes patience. it never turns out how you envision it but if you keep at it, you'll get something you're happy with. i initially thought i wanted to take a photo in my room with my mirror but the lighting didn't really work out and i figured i had way too many photos here so i took a few, hated them, and changed scenery. here's one failed selfie.

there is nothing about this that works.

it was a sunny afternoon and my family was in mexico so i decided i wanted to take a photo in my driveway. that sounds boring, especially in front of a suburban home like mine, but the sun was shining and i like shades of blue and lines so i said fuck it, put on my favorite shirt, and did it.

i took my tripod, my camera, and my remote out with me and got ready to shoot.

here are a few things i think about when i'm starting out:

  • where can i stand that'll make sense compositionally*
  • is there room for me to move around
  • (this one is silly) what poses can i do that are flattering and cool looking
  • how is what i'm wearing going to work with my surroundings

* you don't want to over think this. for me in the photos in this post, i was thinking about having most of me generally centred in the photo but it wasn't the most important thing. also you don't want to over think any of these because nothing matters and we're all going to die anyway.

the next few things i think about are camera settings, arranging my camera, moving things around in the frame, and test shots. usually take a few test shots to make sure i kind of know where to stand when i get at 'er. 

disclaimer: my test shot never really looks this good but here it is.

things i like about this:

  • it's a full body shot which is what i wanted
  • the contrast between my dark clothing and the light background is perf
  • the ass end of my dads truck is covering the ugly part of my yard
  • yooo my legs look long #dope

so i played around with this framing. i moved my camera around a little bit from time to time for a little variation. if you're taking a lot it's nice to have little differences.

i took 112 photos. there was about 10 that i actually liked. not all selfies work out. here are some failed ones.

did i drop something

my face looks cute tho

i've got like 90 more of those if you want.

some did work out though. i've taken the liberty of editing them. here are some of my favorites.

and sometimes things get weird. i was taking photos and the people that live across from me came up and started talking to me about alkaline water. here's a photo of floyd, me, and harriet. they're pretty cool. also this definitely isn't the first time something like this has occurred where an old person in my neighbourhood has caught me taking selfies and has joined me for one but that's a story for another time.

anyway. after it all you finally get the shot you want and all is well and you have a new profile picture. when you take the one, you'll know. i knew right when i saw it. 

so that's it! that's how i take selfies! the trick is to take a lot i guess. change it around. don't be scared to take a bad one because if you're like me you'll have a 9:1 shitty photo to good one ratio. 

also all i've been listening to for the past week is kendrick lamars latest, to pimp a butterfly. if you haven't heard it, get outta here.

 

till next time,

r

the summer heat with jennifer

this shoot is from august 12, 2014.

listen to: disparate youth by santigold and girl is on my mind by the black keys.

i've wanted to shoot jen for as long as i've known she existed and i was ecstatic when i got the chance.

it was one of the hottest days of the summer when we were shooting this but i'm happy with how the photos turned out. here are some of my favorites.

you can follow jen on instagram (@mrreeow). 

till next time!

r

reds and blues with jesse

this shoot is from december 11, 2014.

listen to : you're so dark by arctic monkeys and spellbound by siouxie and the banshees

this was my first time meeting jessie. he's got such a presence and we got along very well. i can't wait to work with him again.

we wandered around chinatown in the pouring rain and took some photos. here are some of my favorites.

i love love love him. you can follow him on instagram here and here.

till next time,

r

whytecliff with jack

i went to whytecliff park with my friend jack over the weekend. it was nice and i wish i could paint you guys a picture of how this place makes me feel but i couldn't ever do it justice. you're just going to have to go and experience it for yourself. it's about a 25 minute drive out of downtown vancouver into west van and i would highly recommend it. 

also, i'm pretty bad at taking photos of nature type things and i always feel like a photo is better with a person in it so you're going to get glimpses of my favorite place but mostly pictures of jack. 

enjoy.

you can see some of jacks photos of the trip here, on his blog. jack and i went to lighthouse park as well but it wasn't that great also we were hungry as heck, so we went to lucy's (pictured above.) jack didn't like his face in this picture but i fixed it. 

anyway, the gorillaz are back and i'm beyond stoked. listen to rhinestone eyes, kids with guns, and phoner to arizona.

 

happy monday and wishes of a prosperous week ahead for y'all.

-r

the island with alison

i met up with alison in december and we headed down to granville island to take some photos.

here are some of my favorites.

we met a guy who let us shoot on the aqua bus. isn't that cool? (yes.) anyway alison is gorgeous but y'all already know that. i mean look at that hair! we got donuts after our shoot and it was great. 

so i've been listening to the latest by the kooks. check out bad habit, and always where i need to be, for nostalgias sake.