You're Invited!

For Marta, Terry, Madison, Scotty ...

... And everyone else who can't come see my show... Here it is!




Everyone else: see you Friday night!

... Ta Da!

I haven't slept properly in a week, haven't had a normal meal since last Monday, and haven't done any homework in a month ... but ...

My show is up!!!

Please come see it if you can. If you can't, I'll post the images here shortly after the show comes down. I'll also be hanging the show somewhere else, so there will be many opportunities to see it. Don't fret if you can't make the trek to Provo.

Now, the most important part of my project: Thank You's!

Abby Steele: Best. Stylist. Ever. To all you photographers out there, I don't want to share her with you because she is so amazing, but if you beg and I think you deserve her, I'll give you her number.

Lauren Swainston, Parker Radcliffe, Aenon Johnson, Ashley Steele, Taylor Hartley, Reed Rowe, Abby Steel, Carly Ostler, Paul Adams, Cody Jolley, Johnny Galagos, Bekah Pike, Steve Rowe, Ashton Rodgers, Ella Rodgers, Becca Rodgers, Brian Smith, Nan Tibbits, and Lucy Williams: All my awesome models!

Tony Jensen: Cut the titles out of the metal

Carl Harman: Came in on a Saturday to do the clear coating, not to mention all the tests and experiments we did before that.

Chris Dunker: For allowing, and facilitating, the poaching of his clear-coating idea

Brian Smith: Let me shoot in his studio for 4 of the shoots

Paul Adams: Advisor, helper in all sorts of ways

Lucy Call: Printing assistance, nice text messages to keep me going, food when I hadn't eaten all day, all around nice-ness

Michael Wiltbank: Endless honest criticism, late-night retouching advice

Travis Lovell: Printing help and laptop borrowing!

Jenica Heintzelman: Lending me her laptop, doing the dishes while I had time for nothing but editing

Sister Lucy: G-chat encouragement and praise(all the way from India sometimes!)

Kent Miller: Designed show flier

Dad: Supplied the metal, helped me think of the title, always so enthusiastic about everything I undertake

Mom: Encouragement, reception help to the max

and last, but the opposite of least:

Reed: First (best, #1, whatever you prefer) assistant, whose job ended up including: retouching life-saver, idea man, keeping me motivated and on task, giving me shoulder massages after long retouching hours, making THE box, designing the titles and captions, running errands, surfacing the metal, helping with the clear coating, giving me rides everywhere, making sure I didn't murder myself or anyone else during times of stress, and holding my hand all the way through, start to finish. This is about .000001 percent of the things he actually did. He even helped me hang my show on his birthday, people. Get yourself one of these! But not mine. HAPPY BIRTHDAY REED!

Almost finished ...

Here is what has been happening since all the shooting, editing, and printing has been done.






And this is what happens when someone knocks over one of my prints and scratches the whole thing so I have to reprint at the last minute...

THANK YOU CARL AND REED FOR ALL YOUR HELP! I would be jumping in front of oncoming traffic right now if it were not for you two!!!

And the Winner is ...

Congratulations to Michael Ann, who answered my trivia question extremely thoroughly, saying:

"the band is they might be giants, although someone already said that. ALTHOUGH i do know that its an old standard, like golden age of jazz standard, though i couldn't tell you who sings it orignially..."

Let me know what print you want, and how to get it to you!

Luckily for everyone else who entered (everyone got the right answer, by the way), Weston is kindly trading some of his prints for some of my inferior ones, ycul is getting five nicely printed and matted images on Friday (which she took, I just helped with the printing and matting), and I have a CD and box of prints for Essayem, which I have had for months and months and keep forgetting to deliver (maybe we should get together so I can hand them to you!).

Anyway, thanks to you guys for participating!

And don't forget ... tomorrow my show hangs!!! I'll have some photos up, and if you're in Provo, head over to the Harris Fine Arts Center in the evening to see it completed! I won't be there, though, I'll be out celebrating my Reed's birthday. But I'll see you all there on Friday at the opening (details coming so very soon)!

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

A few nights ago I got an email from someone in Istanbul who has been reading my blog. They wrote:

" I saw your blog, and i read your posts. You are great human... now I am listening Beatles fun songs by your blog. thank you for posts , photos and songs... you did great composition in your blog and entries. I read all night, thank you so much..

I am following you please write every week.. congratulations."

Wow! What a way to make someone's night! I love hearing from people who are reading my blog. It reminds me that people are reading and I'm not just posting for myself. It pushes me to improve and polish my work. And it encourages me to get out and shoot! 

Thank you so much to all of you who comment and/or email me to tell me you appreciate my work. It really does keep me going!  

For everyone who is faithful and checks back every once in awhile, even though I have been awful at posting lately (I promise promise promise it will be worth the wait), I will now host another mini giveaway, since the first one was so much fun:

Comment here and tell me which awesome band sings a song with the same title as this post. You have to know it without looking it up. Be honest - no cheating!  I'll choose a random winner tomorrow at midnight and you will receive an 8x10 print of your choice! Thanks for reading ... goodnight!!!

Packaging Design by Kent Miller

Sorry, my posts will be few and far between for the next little bit. I'm in full show-prep mode! Last week I slowed down enough to take photos for a talented designer named Kent Miller. See more of his work here (he's also a ridiculously talented painter).

One Month

The time has come! My show hangs one month from TODAY, so I'll finally tell you what it's all about! For my final project, I am illustrating ten different songs by the Beatles. It has been SO much fun (also a lot of work), and I'm getting giddy pulling it all together and getting it ready to hang! It is going to be awesome, so I hope you'll all come see it at the opening on February 5th, or look for it here after my show comes down, on the 15th. Here's a cute little thing I figured out how to do just for you, so you can have an idea of what you will see when my project is finished! Oh and P.S. Happy Palindrome Day!

Goodbye, 2009!!!

What a crazy year I have had! Looking back, I cannot believe everything that has happened. Last January seems like it was so long ago, but everything since then has flown by in what seems like hours (it is probably because I spent such a huge chunk of 2009 trying to make a tintype. *Sigh* Maybe another year I can conquer that one). I cannot believe that I traveled to India and back, moved 5 times, started my BFA project, and all but finished school during 2009! I, like all of you, have high hopes for 2010, personally and photographically. I cannot wait to unveil my final project (which is coming up so quickly. Just wait one month!), finally get my website up and running, start a new project once I'm done with my BFA project, and start working in the real life photography world! How scary ... how exciting! I am anticipating some big changes for me in 2010, and normally I would be freaking out at how uncertain and unplanned everything is. But recently I've found some reassuring peace in the unknown. I have a wonderful family and truly amazing friends who love me, and I honestly feel, for the first time in my life, like that is enough for me, no matter what else happens. I feel so lucky and blessed to feel this way, since most of my life has been lived in paralyzing fear of not having a plan. What a great way to end 2009 and start 2010.

Here are some photos of how I wrapped up 2009. This is a little peek at Christmas Eve at the Williams house. We have a really great tradition: on Christmas Eve, we do "Dinner in the Stable", and we eat something that each person who was there on the first Christmas would have eaten (Pasta and salad or "hay" for the animals, meatballs, hummus, and crackers for the wise men, bread and cheese for the shepherds, even warm milk for the baby Jesus. Hint: the wise men had the best food). It sounds weird, but we have done it for as long as I can remember and it has become one of my favorite Christmas traditions! It always surprises us how delicious the dinner is for being a primarily creative project.






*** I must apologize to Lucy for this last one. I got totally mad at her for intentionally putting her hand right in my shot, but I ended up liking it better than the one sans hand. It makes me happy because looking at it brings my mom's voice into my head: "Don't eat before the prayer! Use a fork, please!" as my siblings and I giggle with our mouths full.

Nov 11, 1914 - Dec 23, 2009

We love you grandpa Dick!

Two Christmases Ago ...

... My family went to Washington DC. My dad and I saw a really cool photography installation that was so much fun to participate in. I was just looking through some photos on my hard drive and I found these. The installation was based on the idea that people love looking at pictures of themselves. True, right? There were two small photo booths where you could take as many photos of yourself as you wanted, then they were projected onto the wall of the gallery randomly. We seriously sat there for over an hour looking for our pictures and waiting for them to come up again. Point proven, obviously. I wanted to show these because a. what a cool idea and b. I had so much fun with my dad and I wanted to make everyone jealous!

Um, my dad and I are not deformed. It's called shake face. It's lots of  fun but it looks scary, I know. 

Dad's individual portrait was much cooler than mine. 

Typical. 

Ah Ha! One where we look normal!

BPD Studios

Here are some pictures of the studio where I've been interning this semester.








That's Brian. He's the photographer I intern for. Cute.

Cheshire Diptych

These are my great grandparents. I love them.



Sorry it is so tiny. Blogger has issues with images being wide and I haven't been able to figure it out. Click to make this bigger!

Giveaway Winner!

Thanks for all of your comments yesterday on my giveaway! That was pretty fun, I might do it again sometime soon!

The random winner this time was Laura, who said,

"Today I will tell my daughter that she and her Daddy are the loves of my life."

Which I thought was totally sweet.

Laura, email me your information and I will send this print on its way!


Also, I have to give a little shout out to my sister Lucy, who was the only one to correct the grammatical error in her post, or to even notice that she had one, for that matter.

Olive & Tweed: Park City, Utah

Olive & Tweed is the newest hip clothing store on Main Street in Park City. For those of you who are about to stop reading because Main Street = clothes you can't afford, wait! Don't go! Olive & Tweed is not only cute as can be, but so affordable! These are some pictures I took of the interior of the store. Check back tomorrow for some detail shots. This is such a cute store, and perfect for finding affordable Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Winter Solstice gifts for the cutest girl in your life. And at these prices, you can probably justify buying something for yourself too, even if it is December.

Olive & Tweed
608 Main Street
Park City, Utah 84060
435.649.9392

Alright Fine, I'll Do It Too: GIVEAWAY!

Oh hello again. Two days in a row? Guess I'm back! So lately everyone has been doing cute little giveaways on their blogs. Fine. I'll do one too. I'll give some random blogger an early Christmas present, sure. Here's the deal:

One of you can have any one of my prints that you want, provided I can find it on my hard drive. I will print anything I've posted on my blog, start to finish. Comment here before midnight and tell me what print you want. Also, say something nice about someone you know, because reading nice things about people makes me happy. At midnight I'll randomly choose a winner and send him/her an 8x10-ish print. Sound good?

Oh, and you should also tell the person you write about the nice thing you write here. That will make them feel good. Look at me spreading all sorts of niceness!

Here is the print I would choose if I weren't me and I didn't have any of my prints. But that's just me.

I am Thankful

I've read a lot of posts today that have left me smiling and feeling so grateful for so many things (Thanks Ashton, Betty, and Marta for your thoughtful posts). I am not crazy about sharing my personal life on my blog, but today I am so happy, I can't help but tell everyone about it! Thanksgiving is two short days away, and I, like everyone else, am thinking about everything I have been blessed with.

I am grateful for a family who loves me. I am so grateful for this boy in my life. I am grateful for a healthy body, and for the swine flu vaccine I got today.I am grateful for good friends. I am grateful for being almost done with school, and for the excitement of a life beyond BYU! I am grateful to live in such a beautiful place. I am grateful for the fact that I thought I slept through class today, then found out it was a Friday schedule. I am grateful for working furnaces (well, I think I will be. I wouldn't know yet). I am grateful for pancakes and Family Guy (preferably together, but separate is good too). I am grateful that it still hasn't really snowed yet. I am grateful for Reed's iPhone. I am grateful that my sister will be home from India before I know it. I am grateful for g-chat so I can talk to her in the meantime. I am grateful for Nordstrom's customer service that made my Frye boots shiny and new, free of charge. I am grateful for hot tubs. I am grateful that I have three weeks left of my Statistics class. I am grateful for the upcoming Holiday season, and getting to spend time with family and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

{Museum of Natural History}

I shot this forever ago and forgot to post it. This is one of the best places EVER, the museum of natural history at the University of Utah. My aunt Terry took me here when I was really little and bought me a Pop-Up book about Dinosaurs, which I still have and read surprisingly often. 

I keep having an image size problem, so click to make this bigger

{Temple Har Shalom Interior #1}

{Preview: Temple Har Shalom}