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.

The Photograph Collective: Namesake

  “Namesake” by Amanda Liew We each have our own struggles, and mine is with love. For years, the lies I told myself have consumed me: You don’t deserve it You won’t ever have it You aren’t worth it You aren’t worth it You aren’t worth it You’ll never be worth it. There was a cry to God, One from the depths of my heart. And suddenly He made me remember: “Amanda. Worthy of love.” A literal translation. A declaration. A title. A namesake chosen before my birth to battle my greatest fear. A promise I can never run from. Amanda, You are worth it You are worth it You are worth it You’ll always be worth it. Love.

It's been such an amazing experience seeing The Photograph Collective take off. Our second project was on Self Portraits, and I chose to focus on my namesake. There was a time in my life when I was particularly struggling with being able to accept that I was worthy of love. From broken relationships to promises that were not kept, I allowed myself to interpret others' actions as a reflection of my own worth. When I was at Martha's Vineyard for FOCUS camp a few years ago, I was praying and sobbing with God - just wrestling over this emptiness and pain that I couldn't seem to get rid of. And then all of a sudden I heard "Amanda. Worthy of love." I realized then and there that yes, my name was a direct counter to my greatest struggle. It was a moment that left me in awe - to suddenly realize that before I was even born, God gave me a name so significant. A constant reminder that I was worthy of love, and more than anything worthy of His love.

To view the full post along with other projects, go to The Photograph Collective: http://thephotographcollective.com/2014/07/21/namesake-by-amanda-liew/