"i rely fully on your faithfulness, oh God."

today i learned:

1. it is entirely possible to be content while doing nothing
2. i like reggae music
3. never drink more than 6 shots of espresso in a 2 hour period
4. i want to and will spend the rest of my life traveling
5. coconut rum does not have pieces of coconut in it
7. children are beautiful
8. i pretty much am in need of nothing
9. god is jealous and sometimes does things to make us jealous after him

thats all.

my dear beautiful friend, Bethanys wedding (and her wonderful man Brian).

Leah

oh the pain in my heart it whispers can you hear?
run away run away hide
there's just to much pain in the world
i want to retreat i want to be numb
it hurts to much to feel.

broken places
blank faces
pain bleeds from their pores
its not to late, don't run away
Leah, just come home.

ma'am please don't wear that

today: saturday the 23rd 2009 the mystery woman was slightly more put together than other days, wearing a slightly mid-rift bearing outfit the skirt was surprisingly at least 2 inches longer than most days. and i'll give it to her the blue was a nice touch. way to not go crazy with the eyeliner you didn't look entirely like an egyptian today but you still turned the heads of every 12-80 year old man around.

ma'am please don't wear that

i saw her again. the mystery woman has really added to my quality of life, i have actually begun to look forward to see what her fashion choice is next - or uhhh should i say, how little one can wear possible. today: saturday the 16th, mystery woman wears black see-through shirt suctioned to body with brilliant magenta highlight strategically placed throughout as accent choice. ma'am, please don't wear that.

sometimes life just sucks

it just occurred to me how sucky this whole god thing is. the fact that good and evil does exist that there is a god who requires of us to accept the person of his son in place of our sins and if we don't we're going to hell. well thats all well and good for you and me maybe if we're christians but what about all my friends who are living in sin, and don't give a hoot about a god. i love them, i love some of them more than i love the majority of christian people. (thats not okay- i realize that i need to love christians as much as non-christians) but for the atheists at work that i would give my life for if i had the opportunity, what about them? i hate this. i hate all this talk about revelation and how jesus is coming soon. and i know he is but that doesn't help the current situation the very grave situation that still the majority of the inhabitants of the earth are going to burn in an eternal fire....people that i love. i hate this sometimes i wish i were never born so that i would never love anyone.

ma'am please don't wear that

recently i saw the most interesting woman whom i have consistently seen once a week for the following three saturdays. the first saturday her outfit consisted of fishnet stockings with lace-up black shoes with heals that looked as thin as a pencil. a top of sorts which revealed the majority of her bra, elbow length gloves, and a skirt which really wasn't a skirt ... more like a flaired piece of circular paper with a hole in the center to fit her body through. her eye makeup made her face look like a cat or a racoon with dark black paint masking the entire eye socket area then curving around to the sides of her head in an upward stroke. i am not by any means criticizing this woman, just suggesting to the general public that such an outfit never be worn -in or outside of the home. thank you.

steph photoshoot II

steph and i went on photoshoot II today we found a pretty cool field and then ended up downtown wilmore. we had tons of fun as always. here are a few of the shots, most of them are in the rain, which softened and diffused the light perfectly and gave everything a lovely tint of green-gray. of course that meant we got drenched but no worries im about 350+ more photographs and only down one starbucks apron that we left in an alley somewhere. they're all on flickr guys!!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/amyelizabethphotography/

spinning

sometimes i feel like everything is spinning life doesnt slow down for a second even if i want it to i dont know where my time is going i think sometimes im in a time warp of this endless nothing with nothing happening going no where yet unable to stop i forget where i am a lot and sometimes i forget the names of people ive known for years and so i greet everyone with a "heeeeeeyyy!" hoping the extra excitement will block out the noise from my thought "oh god i forget your name!" taking photographs a lot makes me forget everything though i get lost in it and i start seeing snapshots everywhere whether i have my camera or not im finding i especially like when people stand in a doorway or in front of an open window it reminds me that life can always get better

steph photoshoot II

today steph and i went on a photoshoot. we took with us some stuff we found on the side of a road, and a few of my paintings. sorry sr. for using your field but it was oh so enticing, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for a day filled with sunburns, photographs and fun.

please check out all the other photographs from this shoot on my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amyelizabethphotography/

weddings: heidi and rob & lauren and carlos

i photographed two weddings with ruth these past weekends. they were days that were filled with tons of photo-taking, and fun! i felt like i was crashing someones party half the time and witnessing an event of a lifetime. check out her photography at rebeccaruthphotography.com i'll have my photos up soon on my flickr so stay posted! :)

design :: create :: play

i was bored today.

Ryan and Bridgette

recently i was invited to photograph the engagement of 

two very dear friends Bridgette Myers and Ryan Kocak. It was a beautiful experience! 

Bridgette & Ryan got engaged!

(other photos on flickr)

a wilmore wedding

recently i second shot a wedding with matt renaud (a friend and wedding photographer in the lexington area) and here are a few of my favorite shots. congrats katy & andrew mckeown!

i just need to get free

monday

the jersey golden light of evening.

sandstorms, surfboards, and beach boys

so i guess no matter how much i deny it, jersey's in my blood. its said that you know you live by the shore when you cant ever seem to get the sand out from between your toes and you leave your hair looking windblown, because it starts to naturally fall that way. i never really believed that, because although i grew up 5 minutes from the bay to the west of us, and 5 to the ocean in the east, i rarely ventured to the ocean except late in the season when all the tourists went home. and that being said, i prefer not to leave my hair looking windblown. but today i couldnt get the thought of "sand between my toes" from my mind. maybe it was the lazy leona naess tunes playing on my ipod, or the frigid temperatures that made me long for summer...either way i started to miss the beach, windblown hair and all. theres nothing quite like the ocean crashing behind you, bare feet burning on scorched sand, riding a wave on a surfboard that you dont know how to navigate, lifeguards blowing their whistles, wildwood boardwalks famous "watch the tramcar please" and the taste of salt in the air to make you feel at home. at least in a jersey girls mind. maybe one day ill go back, maybe one day ill again call it home... but until then ill just dream about the ocean and try and be satisfied with frigid landlocked wilmore.

leesburg, nj

a car my dad and i found when we were rummaging around the old abandoned

whipco factory in leesburg, nj.

it is for freedom that christ has set us free

i take life way to seriously, but im finding freedom in the letting go

609

i went home (home is such a relative term) to south jersey for christmas and got into a bunch of abandoned homes/old factories etc. to photograph them. here's the old cranberry factory in belleplain nj. the walls were all covered in graffiti ... south jersey is often refered to "the 609" after our area code so this one was appropriate.

im gonna be putting up tons from the photoshoot with jordan/the abandoned house in wilmore as well as the ones i took from sj on my flickr, so check it out.

a conversation

Person I: Do you still like to photograph?
Person II: Yes. I love photography, but I don't really do it anymore.
Person I: Why?
Person II: Don't know. Maybe I got burnt out, maybe I'm just waiting, maybe its not what I'm supposed to do.
Person I: Well maybe you're in a season of waiting, maybe you're in the valley, maybe you don't have any idea what you're going to do for the rest of your life, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't photograph. Take advantage, take more photos than you can handle, what could it hurt if its what you love...like what else are you going to do.

maybe one day ill actually make money off this stuff,

but until then im just gonna shoot what i love.

jordan photo shoot

jordan photo shoot

in the hatfield abandoned home jordan and i conducted a photoshoot. unfortunantly on day II it was cut short and we were kicked out. here's one of our favorites...

alone

i never know what to write here

my lil cousin nicolas at thanksgiving

friday 10:01am

here's some more random photos from the 40 day photo journey.

z & his studio

check out the spider

steph and i carved really cool pumpkins at adam's house

chillin at the figg

some photos

well if you get a grade for the 40 day photo "challenge" then im pretty sure i get an "f." i kind of fell into mode where i would photograph but just didnt feel like writing anything, so i didn't put anything up. however this photographic journey as B and i decided to call it has caused me to look at life differently -through a the lense of a camera on a daily basis. and so here are some photos from the past few weeks in random order because i dont remember what day i took what. more to come...

melissa in the front yard

kip and melissa!

z's studio
my shoes!

another leaf photo

josh's parents/family were in town, so party at the kocak house!

today for now

"theres something powerful about silence. i dont know entirely what it is, but something of silence speaks louder than words. music for example, good music (in my opinion) often is comprised of instrumental (and sometimes electronically enhanced) melodic harmonies that vary and flow aesthetically from quiet rhythmic interludes to occasional explosions of chaotic organized sound. for example listen to "the long spring" by explosions in the sky. words arent neccesary to communicate and verify its meaning and existence. it just is. one might argue that music without words leaves it open to interpretation. (just like a painting without a description leaves it open to interpretation) but, i dont think thats neccesarily true. all music has an underlying tone- a beat a note a key -that gives the song a particular aire. it says something without really saying something and its heard the way its said no matter whose ears it reaches. another example if you know guitar tab strum this chord - 022032 - its simple but in its simplicity it still emits a sound of longing and sorrowful yearning. when i play it, my ears internally ache to hear the next sound in a progression, the completion of a pattern. 022032 is opened ended thats just the way it is and the emotion of sadness attached isnt really open to change. (of course the beat or manner in which the chord is strummed also plays a major part in which emotion is communicated) anyhow -that rant aside - i dont think ive realized until the past week how significant silence is. i havent really had words for anything, or anyone. not even to describe what i was feeling or what my days consisted of. i spent a lot of the week in silence not because i really wanted to, but because i had nothing to say. however in that silence the lord spoke very clearly to me in several different areas. and he didnt even speak in that "still small voice" as it is so often termed. he spoke to me in a way ive never really heard before. of just knowing (and maybe that is the "still small voice" who knows) ive havent been doing all that well lately and at first i was worried that i was falling into complacency and a worldly drunkeness (not literally alcohol) that i so often fade into. but really it wasnt any of that, really it wasnt anything to be worried about and i wasnt worried because through it i knew god was speaking to me. in that silence. i'd be at work listening to a co-worker talk about nothing in particular and i'd look at the clock and it would say 333 and god'd be like "i see you even when you dont see me" and it just threw me every time. that might sound creepy and yeah, it kind of makes me look insane, but really it was just an assurance of his peace of his presence that speaks louder than words -any words that this world could ever have. all that being said, in that time i was photographing in part, but not speaking or even thinking really, i was just being and didnt bother to put anything up. but tomorrow i will. peace."

The 40 day photo challenge: Day 25

the journey: day 25:

solomon's porch

melissa and i like to go study at coffee shops together. (okay im not actually studying, more reading or editing photos or the like) we went to solomons and grabbed some coffee/tea until the closed -sadly at 9pm -before we headed to the library porch. it rained today, and it was a lovely day filled with work, rest and play.