the banks of the seine

I took a bunch of fun outfits to wear in Paris, but I actually ended up wearing pretty much just one outfit the whole time, and this is it.  I did so much walking and in the end I was way more interested in being comfortable than fancy, and I had no one to impress anyway.  I planned a styled bridal photo shoot while I was there and I took just one carry-on because I was not interested in having Delta loose my bag full of the entire wardrobe for my shoot.  It was a Françoise Hardy inspired shoot and so one of the big pieces was a giant faux fur coat similar to the one in her iconic photos, but a shipping error left me running around Tacoma last minute scrambling to find something that would fit the wardrobe.  My friend Brooke from Urban X Change pulled through last minute with one of her vintage coats, and since I didn't have any room in my bags for any other coats, it was my daily coat for walking around Paris.

I had some pretty bad jet lag that lasted almost the entire time I was there, so the morning of these photos I was up at like 4 am and decided to head down to Notre Dame and watch the sunrise over the cathedral.  It was pretty cloudy, so it was more like watching it go from dark to dim, but still a moving experience.  I sat there for a while taking it all in, but my style shoot was later that morning and I wanted to scout out some spots to shoot.  These photos were actually test shots to see how the light in Paris looked on camera (magical, duh).  Notre Dame in the background?  Still so crazy to me that I was standing right there one month ago.  

These are the only photos I took of myself in Paris, other than a couple selfies.  Even though I'm over outfit photos, I'm so glad I took these shots of myself in Paris.  Even having forgotten my tripod in my room, I found some stuff to set my camera on so I could have some shots of my tourist self standing in front of the Cathedral Notre Dame on the banks of the Seine.  It's kind of funny having taken self portraits for 8 years for my outfit photos, self portraits come so naturally in terms of subject matter.  I started doing a 365 photo challenge and while ideally I'd love to do more photos of other people, it's fun to do self portraits in a more artistic and interesting way, rather than taking them with the idea of showing my outfit.  It feels like reclaiming ownership over my self portrait, rather than having it be for a commercial use.  Maybe I'll share some of my 365 photos here (my photos of Dusty and Dan were actually some of my 365 challenge) but I'm enjoying just doing them for fun without pressure for them to be for anything.

camping

 

 



Photos from a rainy camping trip with friends from over a year ago.  I always meant to post these photos, but never got around to it.  Dusty's first camping trip, good friends, and being surrounded by nature.  I missed this year's friend-camping-excursion, so Dusty and I went on a solo camping adventure together instead.  

adventures in joshua tree

'm sitting in SeaTac airport right now, headed back down to California for the GoLive workshop, and I realized that I never posted these photos from my last adventure to California!  Dan's parents live right next to Joshua Tree National Park and his mom is actually a park ranger (so cool!).  His parents are super outdoorsy so when we were there for Christmas we spent a couple days exploring the park and climbing around on all the incredible rock formations.  I hurt my foot last year and had to stop climbing so I was super out of practice, but it was really fun!  Dan and I really want to head back to Joshua Tree again sometime this year to really climb around more, there are SO many unbelievable routes and a lot of it is bouldering, which we both prefer.  Rock climbing outdoors on real rock is such a different animal, a lot scarier in some ways, but I really enjoy both types of climbing.   Well, I have to hop on a plane to LA now, but you can stay tuned with the hashtag #LizIsGoingLive to follow along, and I'll be sharing exclusives for my VIP members so sign up for that here!

ace up my sleeve

his past week I got to spend time up in Anchorage, which was such a great way to start off the year.  I shot a wedding on the 2nd, saw an Aces game on the 3rd, did a styled bridal shoot on the 4th, had a mini family Christmas on the 5th, and headed back to Tacoma on the 6th.  These photos are actually from our time in Palm Springs over Christmas, not to be confused, Anchorage Alaska certainly does not look like this in January.  For both the wedding and styled shoot we were working outside at temperatures around 8º F.  Brisk, to say the least!  I love traveling, but it is nice to be home for the next couple months with no travel, especially with Whole30.  Eating while traveling makes it much more difficult to find Whole30 compliant meals, so it'll be great to spend the month at home cooking for myself.  After 8 flights in 6 weeks, some stability will be nice, and a great way to get grounded for the coming year.  
In recent years I've chosen a word that I hold on to throughout the year, last year's was honest/genuine and it helped me let go of a lot of things that were holding me back, things that no longer served me.  I let go of goals that I had been holding on to just because I had them as goals in the past, but realized I didn't really want those things anymore (or that I wanted other things more).  This year, my word is Build.  I let go of a lot of stuff in the last year, which means that in some ways I'm starting afresh at the bottom.  2015 is a year for building.  I like that it's a word of action.  It gives me purpose and drive, and I need that this year.
Do you pick a word for the year?  If so, what word are you picking for 2015 and why?


jacket/modcloth :: dress/courtesy of lulu's :: necklace/francesca's belt/thrifted :: top/courtesy of modcloth :: photos by Dan

postcards from paradise pt. 3

his month has been travel mania!  Dan and I just got back from spending Christmas in Palm Springs with his family and in less than a week I get on a plane to Anchorage to shoot a wedding!  These are the last few photos from our time in Hawai'i, and a little video I made from some of the footage I shot.  I'm no filmmaker like my brother but I do enjoy shooting a bit of video now and then.  The last couple days we got big enough waves on our beach for boogie boarding, which Dan loved.  We also went hiking at twin falls, which is sort of a tradition of ours.  It's a short little hike, but you get to swim in the pools and, if you're brave, jump off the falls.  It was a little chilly for swimming that day, but I felt like conquering some fears so I took the leap.  My mom got footage of it in the video, but I edited out the five minutes of me standing there chickening out before I finally jumped.