Livingston Farmers Market

I absolutely LOVE farmers markets because they're so cozy and organic, and you can help support local businesses! & there's a farmers market about 5 minutes away from my house every Thursday evening, which is even better because I can go so often!
Last Thursday I took my friend Taylor there for the first time with my younger sister Nadeene and she fell in love with the market just like I did the first time I went there! We're planning on going back again together sometime before college starts in the fall to practice our photography skills because I simply adore photography and Taylor's majoring in photography!!

diggin' local, lovin' fresh - their slogan.

thanks to Taylor for taking this nice shot of me during golden hour!

my sister Nadeene & I :)

she doesn't really look anything like me, but she sure is gorgeous. and she's becoming an amazing photographer!! she really has an eye for lighting and angles.

- Vanessa 

I'm finally 18!

So yesterday was my birthday!! :D
I guess you could say I'm "all grown up" now, haha. Although I don't feel any older..

Anyway, I never do much for my birthdays anymore, but I still had a lovely day!
My mom and I baked a cake together - a delicious, Greek, chocolate one. & when we were making it, we almost forgot the flour and nearly destroyed the cake, but it gave us a good laugh afterwards and the cake still tasted absolutely amazing. I also made some cute drinks to go with the cake using cranberry juice, ginger ale and orange sherbet ice cream! They were also super delicious, I was quite proud of myself actually.

Here are some photos from my little birthday bash!

Well I look pretty gross in that last picture, but oh well.

I had a great time yesterday so thank you to my sisters for being little darlings, to my mom for baking the cake with me and being my best friend, and to my dad for just being an awesome dad. It's going to be extremely bittersweet leaving for college in August, but thankfully I'll still be really near (:

-Vanessa xx 

1st successful photo shoot

The first photo shoot I had wasn't horrible, but it didn't turn out exactly how I had planned, so I was extremely happy when my next photo shoot turned out far better than I had hoped!
I've been planning to name all my photo shoots, based on the theme of the photos, but since this is only my second real photo shoot, I think I'm going to wait until I improve my portrait skills a little more and then start naming them. The theme for this shoot is "old-fashioned" though. We even managed to get two vintage dresses from our local thrift store!

I personally like my eyes, but they always make me look so tired, even when I'm wide awake. but I guess it worked for this shoot. my eyebrows could use some work though :p

I'm VERY happy with how these five photos came out. ^

this is a terrible picture with terrible lighting, but my nose started bleeding during the shoot and my sister felt the need to document it. I think it was too hot or something, but it was a pretty bad nose bleed :/

my favorite picture of Roxanne to date. I love the hand position and the lighting and everything.

my youngest sister, Nadeene, wanted to join in on this shoot. she's also a natural in front of the camera.

along with our thrifted dresses, we also picked up an ancient-looking math book from our local library that turned out to be from 1839!

my idea to put the playing cards on Nadeene's dress. and since Roxanne was already the flower crown princess, we decided that Nadeene would represent the queen of hearts!

So what do you think of this shoot? Let me know in my comments section! I accept compliments and constructive criticism ;)

-Vanessa

Long time, no posts

Hello people! I'm sorry that it's been FOREVER since I last posted. Which is why I'm going to post a whole lot today, to make up for all the events I haven't blogged about in the past couple of months!

These photos are from a test shoot I did with my sister, Roxanne. This was our first official shoot together, but the pictures didn't turn out too great. We still have a lot of improving to do, especially when it comes to lighting and facial expressions. I'd have to say we've improved a lot since then though! (this shoot was in March of this year).

our location for the shoot.

I'd like to use this location again someday, to take better pictures!

me in black and white. I always like to make at least one photo from each shoot black and white. there's just something special about black and white photographs.

during this shoot, I still had bangs. I kind of miss them, but then again I don't because they were too hard to manage. I could barely even keep them tamed just for this photo shoot!

my sister Roxanne is seriously such a good poser. she really knows how to manipulate different positions.

this is my favorite picture of Roxy that I shot that day, simply because her shirt and hair were both flowing in the same direction, and the light landed perfectly on the middle of her arm.

 & that's it from this first test shoot! Hopefully I'll make time to reuse this location someday, and hopefully those pictures will come out looking more natural (:

-Vanessa

Wolves Like Sheep

Went to a friend's concert last night at a local coffee shop called Cups! I had a great time, they played an amazing show (: I hope to go see another one sometime soon, and then I'll also be able to take more photos, haha.

Here are some of the photos I took last night. They're pretty "hipsterish" though, but I'm happy with the way they turned out.

My boots.

Personally, this is my favorite photo of the bunch. It's an old-fashioned chair's reflection in the café window. And I thought it looked so much better in black and white.

I hope you enjoy my pictures! This isn't all of them though, so I'll be able to upload some more of them later on. Maybe tomorrow or later in the week.

I'm also signed up for a photography workshop with this local photographer that I recently met and I'm super stoked about that! Can't wait to see how the photos turn out!