Last weekend, I met the lovely Meredith Sledge in real life.

We’ve known each other through blogging for a few years, but even though we live relatively close together, we’d never gotten the chance to meet. This changed last weekend when she drove to my college and spent a few days in the DC area. We played tourist on Capitol Hill and went on an evening adventure to Alexandria. The second day, we drove down to visit my family’s farm. (You can see Meredith’s lovely post on it here.)

Since we’re both photographers, it was really fun to experiment with portraits. Unlike shooting for a client, shooting with friends is so much fun because of the creative freedom and less pressure to deliver the photos in a timely manner (as you can see from the lateness of this post).

Here are a few photos of this gorgeous girl.

To say that it has been a crazy year would definitely be an understatement.

I can’t believe that I’m writing this post, writing about how I am almost done with my first year at college. I want to tell you about all these crazy-awesome things happening to me, and why I only pop on here occasionally.

First of all, I took 18 credits this semester. Call me crazy (since most people do), but it’s been pretty fantastic. Yesterday was the last time I would ever sit in class as a freshman. Needless to say, I haven’t done much with this blog, and I miss writing to you.

You’re probably thinking that I’ll be online a lot more now that I’m done with classes, but that’s not entirely true. I’m not done with classes. In two weeks, I fly to Oxford with several classmates to study several eras of literature. For one class, I’ll be studying Shakespeare and other authors at the time. I’ll see several of his plays at the reconstructed Globe Theatre in London and take field trips to palaces. This is crazy. I can’t believe this is happening. For my second class, I’ll be studying (tutorial-style) Virginia Woolf with an Oxford don. We’ve spoken via email and discussed the reading list. I can’t wait to meet and learn from her.

I won’t be in Oxford the entire summer. This July, I’ll be back at school working on research with one of my favorite professors. I can’t wait to tell you more about the research when the time comes, but for now, I will just mention that Virginia Woolf is a current obsession. In case you haven’t noticed already (see above paragraph).

I will be blogging about the Oxford trip, and I hope to maintain a weekly blogging schedule. But just in case you don’t hear from me, you’ll probably be able to find me with my nose in a book, somewhere in either Oxford or DC.

Do you have any summer plans that you’re excited about?

(p.s. for the complete collection of Spain photographs, head to my portfolio)

Someone told me the other day that I was the perfect student. A careless comment, dropped by someone who meant well, who is confident in my perceived brilliance.

Brilliant would be the last word I would use. Someone who is brilliant is not naive, at the bottom or inexperienced in their subject of study.

I am still in college. I am a freshman. I may have more credits, but I don’t have the experience, the reading to back it up. There are days when I feel like I’ve mastered something, learned a new concept, and then hours later I sit in front of my computer feeling utterly humiliated by my lack of comprehension or beaten by an assignment. How can I possibly type anymore? How much more should I know? What did I do wrong?

I live in my English professors’ offices, asking for critique, wanting more knowledge, more to read, more to do. How can I help with your event? What did you think about this paper? Most of the time I walk out feeling stupid, like I know nothing. The wealth of the knowledge of my professors pours out around me and I struggle in the current to keep from drowning.

Yes, I am an honors student. No, I am not brilliant, but I want to be. If I were to respond to criticism how I’d like to at times, I would have left long ago, hidden behind a mundane job and contented myself with freelancing. I hate feeling stupid, inadequate, like I haven’t done enough. I want to learn the things in every book, every essay that I skim through in search of research materials. I want to read every book by every author I am fascinated by. Maybe then I’ll know more, be able to impress more, to move further faster. But impossibility places me here, working towards that one day when I’ll be able to show one of my students how to edit a paper, teach them about Woolf, Austen, Shakespeare.

I’m not perfect. I am not the perfect student. I feel inadequate with my knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that I stop trying. I push on, because I know that one day this will all be worth it. I will know something, and I will be able to use that knowledge to the betterment of somebody or something.

I’m not the perfect student. I just keep on trying to learn, to grow, because in reality, that’s the best any college student can do.

(Photos: Salamanca, Madrid)

Somehow it is always difficult to summon the words to adequately describe a trip, an experience, a life-changing event. Perhaps that’s why I take photographs, to capture the moments, the colors, the vibrant life of a place and time. Yet because this was a class trip, an English class trip, I have a journal chock full of details and moments that are helping me to reconstruct that week. It is impossible to remember everything that happened, it is impossible for anyone to remember everything about a trip. The key is in reconstructing the moments that I want to treasure and giving them room to come alive in my memory and on paper.
But for now, here are a few pictures to start the sharing process.

Forgiveness isn’t a comfortable place. It’s really hard to tell someone that things “will be okay”. It’s like saying, “hey, you’ll feel better eventually, get over it”. It’s so much easier to sympathize, to agree that the other person was in the wrong, to dig the hole deeper and deeper around ourselves.
What is forgiveness, really? It’s not saying that the other person was right. It’s not saying that we’re horrible people. It’s not even saying that things are okay now. It’s just letting go of the hurt, climbing out of the hole and continuing on with life. It’s letting go and letting God.
So why does it hurt so much? Why is it so hard to forgive, so hard to “never let the sun set” on our anger? I recently forgave someone that I never thought I could forgive. I never thought I could get rid of the hurt, the sting of memory of being abandoned by someone I thought I trusted. When I think about the person, I no longer think about the pain, I no longer feel hatred. Instead, I feel thankfulness. Yes, thankfulness. I’m no longer tied to the hurt, and I can move on. I can wish the person well, and thank God that I’m free from the chains of unforgiveness. It’s an amazing feeling – nine months ago, I couldn’t have imagined feeling this way.

But forgiveness isn’t comfortable. An incrementally small part of me wishes I was still angry so that I could kill them again and again in my mind, to recreate the scene of when we meet again (when I’m on top of the world). You couldn’t have approached me with forgiveness six months afterwards, with that anger/sadness burning a hole in my heart. Yet, throughout the past nine months, God has been teaching me the true definition of forgiveness.
I think it’s a misunderstanding that forgiveness is saying that it’s okay. Some things may never be “okay” again in our innermost selves – we may always regret that moment, that event, that lost friendship. Forgiveness is telling God that I can’t take it anymore. I can no longer live with the burden of hurt, the guilt of “what if”. I need the freedom that God promises through his grace, and this is found in forgiving. Letting go and letting God.
I’m reminded of a song by Martina McBride from a few years ago. In Anyway, she sings “God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good. When I pray, it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should.” Life has a funny way of turning us in circles. I never would have dreamed that I’d be at this point in my life without the support of this person, yet amazing things are happening that I never would have dreamed of nine months ago. The very fact that I can thank God for the grace of His forgiveness astounds me every day. I don’t want to hold back. I don’t want to be haunted by what I can’t control, what I couldn’t do, where I failed. The things I wanted nine months ago are not the catalysts for the amazing things that are happening now, and it’s so much better this way.
You may not always be able to see what the future holds, but give the past over to God, and let Him work His miracles. Let go. Let God. Forgiveness isn’t comfortable, but grace and thanksgiving mend the heart, the soul, the mind. Choose forgiveness.

I was skyping my best friend last night – she had called while I was reading an English assignment at some insane evening hour and we proceeded to spend the next hour and a half laughing and acting like we weren’t actually grown ups. You can do that with your best friend, you know. She said that she missed seeing my posts. I said that I’d post “something pretty” for her to wake up to.

True to college student form, she’s probably already awake by the time I’m posting this. The snow pictures are from last winter’s rare snowfall, and it doesn’t do justice to what is falling outside my window right now. It’s beautiful out, dear readers. Campus is covered in a blanket of white, and Marymount’s brick buildings make parts of it look like the scene is copied from a Thomas Kinkade painting. I can’t see the Main House well from this angle, but I’m sure it is breathtaking. I’m watching everyone walk along the sidewalk, or where there was a sidewalk, because everything has a way of being perfectly non distinct in the falling snow. Only a few students are wearing sweats and clunky boots – between the cute hats and fashionable coats, it’s not hard to tell that we’re  a very fashion-focused campus.

The first thing I wanted to do this morning was to brew a cup of tea, just like I was instructed to do via skype last night. Somehow, snow outside seems to make the inside seem extra cozy, which made me recall a few pictures from Christmas. Cozy then was defined by good food and making card houses with my sisters – the kind of cozy that I’d love to emulate in this dorm room, but the concrete block walls and mediocre food makes that somewhat impossible. But that’s why we photograph, no? To capture those memories, to make them live again in places where they may be impossibly perfect or picturesque or blunt or even… impossible.

To my best friend – something pretty, for you. <3

Part of me cannot believe that it’s already Christmas. It seemed that only a few months ago it was summer, and school was just beginning. Yet here it is, December 24th. Christmas Eve. Time seems to go so fast and so slow at the same time, never stopping, just going on and on. This Christmas, I’m more excited than before to spend time with my family – you never know how much you miss spending time with them (just the normal days, the little pretend arguments, and the laughter) until you’ve spent a significant amount of time away from them. And so this Christmas, I’m just thankful to be here. I’m thankful that I’ve finished a semester and I’m excited for the next. Most of all though, I’m thankful for the gift that Christ gave, enabling us to celebrate this season with true joy.

Here in the highly unpredictable Mid-Atlantic, winter isn’t generally full of snow. Sometimes it’s just plain nasty out, like right now (30 degrees with I-have-no-idea-how-many-MPH-winds). At school, we all just roll our eyes and say “Ugh, Virginia weather” or “why can’t we have snow instead of rain?”.But not all days are nasty, and sometimes it’s cold out with the most beautiful sunlight that you’ve ever seen. That’s what happened with these photos. The sunflare was fabulous, but the first and last ones are my favorite. The sun was almost done setting, and we crouched down to the level of the smoldering horizon, before brushing briars and grasses off of our clothes and running back to the house, lured by the promise of hot tea. And so, for me personally, the last image so perfectly captures the end of a winters day here. It’s soft, and volatile, but while the sun lasts you’ll find us wandering through the crisp air, chasing those elusive moments of beauty and perfection.

(Kudos to my fabulous best friend for being my model, for freezing for the sake of art and for running off in search of beautiful moments to capture with me.)

I’m super excited to announce that I have a new set of free Lightroom Presets for you. I’ve released presets in the past, and some of my first ones were even featured on PhotoTuts. However, I’ve grown a lot as both a photographer and editor since then. I made the decision to release, for your own use, four of my signature presets that I use to achieve my personal look. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

Classic Vintage was originally developed for a barn shoot where the weather was overcast. It brightens and gives a film look to photos because of a slight grain (which is easily removed in the Lightroom grain menu).For those of you who are enthralled with VSCO, this is the closest preset I have to VSCO.

Evening Bold is incredibly versatile. I generally use it for half of the portraits I shoot, especially during golden hour or dusk. This was originally developed on beach photographs, but it does great in a lot of different settings. It’s not as film-y as Classic Vintage, and doesn’t bring out as many highlights.

Portrait Brights was actually released before, but because I use it so much, I decided to include it again in this set. It brightens and gives photos a creamy look that is easily adjustable. I also developed this on beach photos, but it does great things for skin tones in a variety of conditions. Just add a little vibrance and you’re good to go!

Saturated Blonde was developed from Portrait Brights. Let’s just say that this preset is the former’s more outgoing cousin. It is full of vibrance, and I love it for some golden hour photos. Colors like reds and yellows tend to pop, but you may need to saturate the green a little bit more, depending on your taste.

My goal with these presets was to create something that was a good base to adjust. Between these four, I can cover about 70% of lighting conditions for my photographs, and then just adjust it based on the photo’s specific needs.

Please enjoy these. I also want to let you all know that while my previous presets have been a lot of fun, as of January 2013, they will no longer be available for download. I may bring a few favorites back in the future once I’ve modified and improved them. However, you have until then to download them to your heart’s content.

GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD PRESETS

Hello there, my friends!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Let’s just say that this semester has been a bit crazy, and I shouldn’t be typing this right now. I should be finishing a presentation and a paper, because it’s the week before finals and I’m sure that every college student in the US is going crazy right now.

But life has been good, and blessed. I’m recovering from the flu + bronchitis, and have managed to almost make up for missing an entire week of school after Thanksgiving Break. I’m grateful for my sweet family, who put up with me for an extra week, and grateful to be back at school, learning. (Well, I mean, cramming and procrastinating, but we’ll take what we can get.)

I’m sure you all are wondering a bit about the title of this post. About a month or so ago, I redid my main website, which can be found here. Every season, I’ll be publishing a photography lookbook. You can view the Christmas 2012 Lookbook here – I’m so excited to publish this… Just scrolling through it makes me happy, and I hope it does the same for you.

This means that I can keep this space somewhat personal, even if it only gets used once a month (whoops).

Merry Christmas, and I wish you all the joys of this beautiful season.