thirty eight from california

  For years we made the trek. Nine hours plus however many bathroom breaks it took to reach San Francisco from San Diego. It was to see my grandparents which was great, but it meant being thrown in the car at the wee hours of the morning where your only activity options were sleeping or eating or staring out the window. So when my dear friend Victoria and I were planning our much needed vacations, the concept of a road trip, much less a road trip in California, seemed less than enticing to me. Nevertheless, a few scheduling coincidences and a chance to reclaim the California coast in the make of adventure finally swayed my vote.

Thus, just as fall was quickly ushering Manhattan into its arms, we skipped backwards into the eternal summer of San Diego. Right before we left, I made the spontaneous decision to purchase a Fujifilm Instax instant camera and a boatload of film to document our adventures. What came out of it was thirty eight prints - some posed, some candids, some given away as gifts, and many that will be treasured for a lifetime.

On my turf, Victoria was shown all my favorite spots and some of my favorite people - Marine St Beach with Maegan, the Cove, Don Carlos with Ruth, Extraordinary Desserts with Drew, Balboa Park and Coronado with my family, and so much more.

We then began the first part of our journey and headed up North to Santa Barbara where we spent time leisurely walking along boardwalks, destressing for the first time in too long, and of course basking in the sun on both the beach and our rooftop pool.

After Santa Barbara, we faced the ambitious task of conquering the Pacific Coast Highway in one day. Unfortunately, our giant stacks of Swedish pancakes at our first stop in Solvang put us off to a delayed start (and a dangerous food coma while driving), but we made it to Morro Bay without w hitch. We then tackled Big Sur which was hands down my favorite part of the trip. It's gorgeous driving along the coast no matter what, but to have these enormous cliffs alongside you and breathtaking beach inlets below you was just something else. We managed to find Pfeiffer Beach which you cam literally only identify by sign that says "No RVs." You them drive about 2 miles down to the beach itself where the powerful waves have created a hole in an enormous rock formation and the sand runs purple from erosion. Not wanting to say goodbye, we pressed on to do the 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach. It's a fascinating neighborhood with ridiculous coastal views that even managed to make a La Jollan jealous.

Finally, finally we made it to our last destination of Sam Francisco where my amazing Big, Lauren, hosted us in her oh-my-god-is-that-the-golden-gate-bridge-from-your-window?! apartment. We had the chance to see Brad and Laura for some phenomenal views of The Golden Gate Bridge and oysters out on the deck of The Ferry Building. The food was such a highlight of San Francisco: Dinner with Nate and Alex at Delarosa's was phenomenal, salami sandwiches at Molinari's, chocolate at XOX truffles, and of course pizza at Tony's (with no wait!).

It was the perfect nine days. Pure bliss, wonderful rest, and the sun on our faces.

The Pear Shape: A San Francisco Collaboration

For the majority of my life, I didn't have a role model. Sure, there were certain people I looked up to, but there was never quite anybody that I wanted to emulate. That is, until I met Lauren. As a naive little freshman, when I was paired with Lauren in the Chi Omega house I was blown away that we were from the same hometown. I'm pretty sure I actually uttered, "What are the chances?!" (A year later I would found out that was 100% planned...) Being the out-of-the-loop freshman that I was, I somehow got it into my mind that sorority rush was the equivalent of an interview. That meant I talked about all things nerdy - my "accomplishments", my educational interests, classes I loved, etc etc. Luckily for me, I was paired with one of the few people who found that absolutely fascinating, and my friendship with Lauren was instantly born. A few rounds of rush later, I was joining Chi Omega and going on the equivalent of speed-dates with sophomores to find my Big only to come full circle and be paired with her! For the past 5+ years of knowing her, she has become my role model in ways I never imagined. Lauren is strong, confident, determined and one of the most accomplished people I know. Only a few years out of her undergrad, she has accomplished so much in her career by merging both fashion and technology. And on top of all of that, she has been running a successful fashion blog targeting "the hip endowed" over at The Pear Shape for nearly two years.

Naturally, in my recent visit to San Francisco, I knew I had to force a photo shoot on her. And wow, I'm so thankful I did. By now a blogging veteran, she is immensely comfortable and fun in front of the camera - making my work as a photographer much easier. Learning from my collaboration with @stylemediator, I knew that I liked detail shots showing off smaller aspects of the outfit as well as tight frame close-ups. I struggled a bit with how to best take advantage of the setting sun - there were certain shots where the sun was far too bright against her, but I was able to fix a few of the issues post-editing with Camera Raw. Definitely head over to The Pear Shape to take a look at the rest of Lauren's gorgeously planned outfits!

The Photograph Collective: Plenty Moving, Little Crossing

For our 3rd (yes, we've reached 3!) project for The Photograph Collective, we had to work on the project "Tell somebody else's story." Having been the one to come up with the idea initially, I quickly hated myself because of how difficult the task was! Many of us struggled with what story we wanted to tell - a real one? a fictional one? I felt that in order to challenge myself, I ought to go for a more documentary approach since that isn't something I've experienced before. However, roadblocks with my work schedule and various other factors all got in the way. In the end, I decided to tell a story but to remove the subjects themselves. I wanted to tell the story of roommates and how it's very possible in this busy city to go days without seeing someone who only lives 10 feet away from you. Overall, I'm happy with the way that the progression played out and had a lot of fun working in a GIF format. However, the image quality is so poor over GIF and the colors became so distorted, I'm not sure I will choose to use this format again (perhaps a video timelapse would have worked better.) Many thanks to my dear friends Victoria, Tutu, Kristin and Brittany for opening up their home to me for a night of shooting! I'm happy to say that they actually see each other quite often and share their space together throughout the day. To see the full project along with the critiques, please check out the original post at The Photograph Collective:  http://thephotographcollective.com/2014/09/29/plenty-movement-little-crossing-by-amanda/

Bombshell in the City: @stylemediator Collaboration

  I shook her hand and introduced myself. "WOW. You have the SMALLEST hands! That is so weird!!...SO weird!", she said. And that, my friends, is how I met the firecracker that is Samantha Davis of @stylemediator. Once we moved past that hilarity, I was thrilled to learn of Samantha's love for fashion, styling, and her blog stylemediator.com. Having never done a photoshoot focused on style before, I aimed to capture three things specifically: 1) my bombshell of a model 2) style details 3) the city. This meant full-length shots, creative close-ups, standing in the street and trying not to get run over by that taxi, but oh wait that taxi is stopping let's hurry and get as many shots as we can in front of it before the person comes out, and hey there's a police barrier, do you think you could sit on that? From the get-go, we took a "Well why not?" approach, and in the end it turned out spectacular. We picked the area around Madison Square Park but gravitated more towards the buildings and streets to provide an urban feel. If you can't tell, Samantha is an extremely photogenic person with an exquisite eye for styling. I particularly love the photographs that highlight the details of her accessories - it just goes to show style often takes much more thought than just throwing something together.

Make sure to follow Samantha on Instagram @stylemediator and on her website stylemediator.com.