Greenhouse Goddess

Hello blog!

We need to talk.
This shoot didn't go as planned.
For starters, I could not find film for my polaroid camera anywhere, and before I knew it, I had less than an hour to be on location. So unfortunately, Mission Polaroid did not make it to the Greenhouse.
Aside from my polaroid mishap, both my model and assistant notified me that they were unable to shoot less than 24 hours before your scheduled shoot at a Greenhouse was to take place.
With little time to spare, I franticly searched on Instagram and took a leap of faith. I DMed a model that was on my "collaborations" list (Yes, I have a "collaborations" list. I'm overly persistent). Surprisingly, she agreed to our super last minute shoot. So now I have a new model. Thus I must now create a whole new wardrobe and a whole new mood board. Anyone who has worked with me knows that mood board + styling are an essential part to my existence, so I could not skip out on any of these steps.

Did I mention I have to be at the Greenhouse in 1 hour?
Now I'm at the part in the story where I sucked up my anxiety and accepted the fact that I would have to do the shoot alone
To be frank, shooting alone, honestly, isn't that big of a deal. But having to balance social anxiety, time anxiety, a strong social media presence, filming for YouTube videos, and shooting quality images, alone, was a whole new monster that I didn't want to face.

Needless to say, all of these obstacles were far from passive but in the end, these tribulations ending up being a blessing in disguise.
So, yes we must talk about today.
We must talk about how your dear Succulent Queen found her dream home in the Greenhouse of Plants & Answers.
We must talk about how I can proudly place a check mark next to "Greenhouse Photoshoot" on my "2017 Photoshoot Bucket List".
We must talk about how freaking beautiful these photos are.
We must talk about how this might be some of my best work.

And more importantly, we must talk about how insanely beautiful Jesse is.
Her luscious long hair, her baby blue eyes, and carefree personality made this shoot more than I could have ever imagined.

Jesse is a juxtaposition of ethereal and whimsical mixed with low key grunge. She can easily switch from playfully sticking her tongue out to serving me her stone-faced glare.

She is a young natural talent and being able to collaborate with her was truly an honor. It's not often that you find as much authenticity in a single person as I found in Jesse.
And it is chaotic shoot days like this that remind me why I decided to pursue photography.
I love creating authentic moments with authentic people.
I love being able to show others the way I view the world.
I love being able to make art out of nothing.
I love shooting through a rollercoaster of emotions and not being able to remember the little details but being able to relive these pivotal memories through photographs.

BUT WAIT,

I'm not done with you all yet.

Remember, that Youtube video filming I mentioned up there? Yeah well I did it, all by myself:

Click HERE see a behind the scenes video of this photo set.

I say this so often that it might as well be my tagline, but I truly believe that our world is naturally cinematic and I've been blessed with the ability to capture it in stills.

As melodramatic and unnecessarily deep this blog post may sound, I feel that, the more I go out and shoot, the more I fall in love with the art of photography.
The more I fall in love with writing blog post.
The more I fall in love with the scientific art of being able to convert intangible moments into tangible memories.

**Big thanks to Jessica Kobeissi for again creating such beautiful work that continues to inspire me daily and being the inspo behind this shoot + for creating lovely and subtle Lightroom presets

Don't let obstacles discourage you. Allow those obstacles to be motivation for you to preserver.