Birthday Girl

So, today is my 24th birthday. And I am happy. I am content. I have so much to look forward to this year. And have been so blessed with the opportunity to give and receive love from my amazing friends and family. Today, I'm just excited for life in general.

Image: Los Angeles Times Staff Photographer Don Bartletti for photo essay, Enrique's Journey (I saw this photo of two Central American children running away on a horse to find their parents in the US this weekend at the Newseum. It was in the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs exhibit and a lot of the photos there made me want to cry. This one made me want to cheer).

Firefly

I love these beautiful long exposure photographs of fireflies by Tsuneaki Hiramatsu. With the weak winter weather we've been having in Washington, DC, it feels like summer is just around the corner. 

Images: Tsuneaki Hiramatsu, via The Design Ark

Photographers and their Photos

Steve McCurry holds his 1984 photo of a young woman from Peshawar, Pakistan. "I looked for this girl for 17 years and finally found her in 2002. Her name is Sharbat Gula."

Neil Leifer holds his photo, Ali vs. Liston, which he took on May 25, 1965 in Lewiston, Maine.

Mary Ellen Mark: "I am holding my photograph of Ram Prakash Singh and his beloved elephant Shyama — taken in 1990. Ram Prakash Singh was the ringmaster of "The Great Golden Circus." The photograph was done in Ahmedabad India. This was part of my Indian Circus Project.

I love India and I love the circus so photographing eighteen circuses all around India was an incredible experience. Unfortunately, Shyama died a few months after this photograph was taken. Supposedly he succumbed to a poisoned chapatti. Ram Prakash Singh was heartbroken. Me also."

Harry Benson: "Brian Epstein — Beatles' manager — had just told them they were number one in America, and I was coming with them to New York, 1964."

Elliot Erwitt: "The picture I am holding was snapped in 1974 just across the street from my apartment in New York's Central Park. It has been 38 years since that event and sadly I have lost track of the participants." 


Just some photographers and their most iconic images, as part of a book/project called Behind the Photographs to honor those who devote their entire lives to photography. Its eye-opening to see the face behind the photos that many of us know so well. 

Images: Tim Mantoani for Behind the Photographs, via WIRED magazine

Hunter would be so down with this

Most grooms (I assume) are not all that excited to take hours of photos for the engagement and wedding. Most grooms (I assume) would be very excited to do something like this - at least mine would have been.

Via Pics-O-Andrea

Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week

Well, there you have it. I honestly couldn't have said it better myself: Live every week like it's shark week (thank you, Tracy Jordan). So without further ado, I bring you this shark week inspired post (viewer discretion advised):

Via The Feather (get the look)

$12.90 at MonsterGallery (also see this and this)

Via Ocean Enthusiast

Via Pinterest

$8.00 via Kate Greiner

And I've saved the best for last... via Space Sinkhole

Dear Photographs,

Why must you all appeal so strongly to my already out of control nostalgia? Check out more (or better yet, submit some), here. Which photo/place would you choose?

Images: Dear Photograph, via Free People

Vintage Photos

You know how they sell old vintage photos at flea markets? I always want to take some home with me, but feel strange about showing off photos of strangers in my home. I would not hesitate with this batch, though.

Images: Froken O

Bus Portraits

I think this series of photographs called "Buses" by Andrew Miksys is so beautiful and melancholy. The photographs were taken in Lithuania between 2001-2009. It makes me a bit nostalgic for my old bus commute, and how I would see the same people day in and day out. It's its own little world, the bus is.

Images: Andrew Miksys, via 16 House

The beauty of nature

A beautiful photograph by Victoria Pearson to start off your morning.

Image: Victoria Pearson, via Automatism

Whales

I love these peaceful photographs taken of whales by Bryant Austin. Do you think of whales as peaceful or is it just me? These photographs come in life-sized prints - the largest is 6 x 30 ft. - to truly "capture the magnificence of whales" (quoting from this New York Times article, which I recommend reading. His story is incredible - I never knew how difficult it would be to capture whales on film). If you are in San Francisco, you should definitely go check these photos out on display at the Electric Works gallery. See more of his images here.

Images: Bryant Austin, via Hither and Thither

A Southern Romance

“she walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies;
and all that’s best of dark and bright
meet in her aspect and her eyes;
thus mellowed to that tender light
which heaven to gaudy day denies”
- Lord Byron

“love at the lips was touch as sweet as I could bear;
and once that seemed too much; I lived on air
that crossed me from sweet things
the scent of…was it musk
from hidden grapevine springs
down hill at dusk”
- Robert Frost

“here is the deepest secret nobody knows
it is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”
- E.E. Cummings

I know this post is a little picture overload - but I am in love with every single one of the shots in this season's Ruche Early Summer lookbook! And was memorized by all the romantic poems slipped in between. These were shot by my amazing wedding photographer, Stephanie Williams. She was amazing to work with and I have loved following her career as she's done some non-wedding projects, like this lookbook. These photos were shot in South Carolina - don't they remind you of the Notebook (I know I wasn't the only one who had a major crush on Noah and Allie, aka Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams)? Its just so romantic! And now I can't wait to go to Charleston next week.

Images: Stephanie Williams; Make-up + Hair: KC Witkamp; all for Ruche