Sticking to a theme

Just sticking to the breast cancer theme I've had of late....

Abiento x

Brilliant

How great is this!?

Abiento x

Styled Shoots

I think I mentioned the styled shoots that I am arranging. Vaguely. I definitely shared some of my inspiration for them. But I definitely didn't explain them.

As plans are progressing for them, I thought I would explain....

At the beginning of May I sent out an email on Network Cornwall asking if anyone would be interested in putting together a few photo shoots. My aim, I explained, was that I wanted us to work together, to collaborate on ideas and help each other out. I wanted to build my portfolio by helping others build theirs. I offered them images that they could use for advertising and promotional purposes, along with exposure on a UK fashion or wedding blog. In return they would only have to lend me their products, and a small amount of their time.

What I had hoped for was exceeded within an hour. In 15 minutes I had had two enthusiastic responses. By the end of the day I had 10 interested vendors, and by the end of that weekend I had nearly 20! Now, at date, despite having had two participants drop out,  I have 23 vendors involved! What was plans for one shoot, quickly became plans for 5!

So let me share the plans so far, in no particular order:

#1.  50's All out vintage bridal shoot featuring a bespoke gown by Anna D'Souza and two cute vintage dresses from Two Little Birds Boutique

Image by Emma Case

#2. A 70's inspired gypsy shoot, featuring vintage clothes and accessories from Shabby Tiger Vintage.

Image from unknown; not mine

Image from unknown; not mine

#3. A 90's grunge inspired shoot with Pink Peppercorn Vintage

Image from unknown; not mine

#4. Classically themed bridal shoot with gowns from Bride! and Anna D'Souza

Image from unknown; not mine

#5. A retro shoot showcasing products and clothes from KIT's Boutique, with styling from KIT herself. This shoot has now become a competition for a couple planning a wedding.

Image from unknown; not mine

The couple that wins will receive their engagement photos fully styled, for free! KIT will style the couple, while Neila from Weddings by Neila will do their hair and make up for the day, and I will create their beautiful engagement photos! This will also give them the chance to meet some great wedding vendors, who they could then go on to use on their wedding day at a discounted price if they chose to do so.

(If you know of an engaged couple then please let them know about this competition! To enter they just need to send me an email to lucyjanegreg@gmail.com with a photo of them and the story of their engagement.)

Plus we also have the following other vendors involved:

Just Bunting
Lilac and Cream
Vintage Road Classics
Clare Webb Cornish Cultivation
Tracy Q Flowers
Big Fat Cake Company
Hayley's Cupcake bouquets
Shady Candle
Very Vintage Tea Time
Sarah Drew
Holly Young Hats
Pie Bird

and

Weddings by Neila
Jodie Hanson Hair
Julie Wieczorek Make Up
Denise Andrews from Ritzy Loxp
The Hair and Nail Studio

I am so excited about these shoots, but am also so exhausted by all the planning and co-ordinating that is now required! I am also really starting to feel the pressure, and hope to god that all of my planning pays off, and that the images turn out how I want them to! I will be completely devastated and quite frankly highly embarrassed if they don't!!

So- what do you think!? know of anyone else who would like to be involved?

Abiento x

Deep words

This quote keeps coming up to me again and again and I can't stop thinking about it.

It really resonates with me, and every time I read it I get goosebumps.

"Our deep­est fear is not that we are inad­e­quate. Our deep­est fear is that we are pow­er­ful beyond mea­sure. It is our light, not our dark­ness that most fright­ens us. Your play­ing small does not serve the world. There is noth­ing enlight­ened about shrink­ing so that other peo­ple won’t feel inse­cure around you. We are all meant to shine as chil­dren do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in every­one. And as we let our own lights shine, we uncon­sciously give other peo­ple per­mis­sion to do the same. As we are lib­er­ated from our own fear, our pres­ence auto­mat­i­cally lib­er­ates others."

Abiento x

Intense

Full screen this bad boy please


Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.



Found here

Abiento x

Friday Fun

Yeh I totally didn't do this when I went to Thailand....


3 weeks in Thailand from Inspired by Life on Vimeo.

Abiento x

My Week in Photos (365 Project)

20/05/11

21/05/11

22/05/11

23/05/11

24/05/11

25/05/11

26/05/11

Abiento x

Tonight's the night

Guess what I'm doing tonight!? I am watching Derren Brown! Woo Hoo!! If you have no idea who this guy is- check him out! He is a seriously clever "magician" of sorts who plays tricks with your mind using varying psychological tools. He can play with your mind like no one else. It's freaky. More on that to come later on in the week! But for now, here are the promotional photos I shot for Karen Davey of Just Bunting last week! Karen creates, by hand, bespoke bunting; using a range of fabrics. She can create any type of bunting that you want, and can re-use a fabric special to you, or create something entirely new for a function or event you have coming up!

Essentially, the aim of our shoot, was to show to potential clients the many ways in which bunting can be used, even in their daily lives at home.

Abiento x

Magic

On ye olde interweb there are lots of different creative people coming up with brand spanking new creative ideas. It's quite hard to keep up sometimes! These creative people often get married too, and come up with some if the most ingenious ways to propose ever! I've seen videos of a man who used a street performer, one who used a circus, one who wrote a comic book, the list goes on. But at the end of the day, what gets us, is the simple, happy things in life. And this one is that. It makes me jealous for the life they have, the holidays they take and the love they share.


LUCK - NYC Wedding Proposal from Aria Melody DJ on Vimeo.

Many thanks to Rock and Roll Bride, where I found this little gem :) .

Abiento x

Self Portrait Photos

So, as I mentioned last week, this is the last instalment in my Self Portrait project. I made the decision to draw this project to an end, as it has been going for 15 weeks; resulting in 15 images of me. There is only a certain amount of me I can take. Plus when I work a full time job, and then work on all my photography stuff, edit photos, have a social life, try to keep up with errands and laundry and oh I don't know- have a life- there is only a certain amount of creativity left in me, and only a certain number of ways in which I can interpret how I'm feeling in order to take a photo of it! And so, it ends. And here it is my dears.

Abiento x

Animation

Two of my house-mates are just finished up their degrees in animation, and one of them one on the team to make this for their final project. I think it rocks. What about you?


Swing Heil Part One - Rough Cut from Swing Heil on Vimeo.

Abiento x

Feature!

So yesterday I pulled a double shift at work. I started at 9.30am and left at 9pm. Fun times. Oh and did I mention that I'm also ill? And that I'm working 6 out of 7 days this week? Again, fun times. But at 6pm I ran outside and sat down for 10 minutes and checked my emails and the lovely Lou from Whimsical Wonderland Weddings had emailed me saying this:

hey lovely! hope you are good, the shoot is live!!! Hope you like, thanks so much again, see the attached site badge too :-) xx

So I squealed just a little bit! I had mentioned it a few weeks ago, and waited with baited breath :) And so I then went and finished the last 3 hours of work with a big fat grin on my face. Please please go check it out, read her lovely words, and read what else she has up on there too. She's pretty awesome you know :).

follow this link: http://www.whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com/2011/05/wayfarers-guitar-and-ballons-love-shoot.html

Abiento x

Plus look out for the new badge that I get to wear now! :D

Photography Inspiration (Personal)

You might know, and you might not, that I'm part of a group on flickr called 'From Our Hearts to Our Hands' run by Emma Case, Joanna Brown, Anna Hardy and Debs Ivelja. All these lovely ladies created an online community to inspire and create together. Each month they set a project for those involved to complete based on a work, which we then interpret and photograph. Well one of the other girls involved, Kelly, just posted her submission of her blog, and I have to say it totally inspired me. This months word is 'communication' and I've been pondering how I want to photograph that. At the moment I'm thinking of ideas involved with work, as we spend a lot of time communicating in a variation of ways both with our colleagues, and with customers.

Kelly used sign language for hers

and I love it. So simple. So cute. Rather heartfelt too. Well done Kelly!

Abiento x

Origin Barista Training

So have you may have noticed, I now have a job. It's nothing special, just a waitressing/barista job in a cafe. If you live in Cornwall, or the Falmouth area, you may know of Gylly Beach Cafe- a hugely popular beach cafe in my town. Well, I scored a job with them! Sadly (or lucky in some circumstances) all of my work experience is with restaurant and cafe work, so I'm pretty well trained for the catering industry. As you may also know, I had a while ago, arranged some further Barista training with Origin Coffee, as I love to make coffee (even though I hate to drink it) and wanted to take my skills a bit further. I've been using a coffee machine in cafe's since my first job at Loe Beach Cafe when I was 13, since then I have had the pleasure of training with Origin twice, and through experience as well, could make a pretty good coffee. However I still wanted to know more- I felt I was lacking some specifics and had a few gaps in my knowledge of coffee. Plus, as my training was at least a year ago, and I have been living and working so sporadically, I lost touch with the science and the details to the coffee making. For instance I knew from experience that whole milk is better for steaming, but had no idea why. Small little things like that. So I got in touch with Origin, and lucky for me they could squeeze me in! So, yesterday I popped over to the warehouse and spent the afternoon with Dave :)

Origin have some of the best branding I have seen. Whilst I think about how I will begin to brand my business, I often think of them. They're delivery vans have these fun designs on them too, and they stick to the basic colours orange and brown, synonymous with coffee and them.

I also had no idea about the selecting and roasting processes, so Dave took me through that. He laid out samples of the different stages of roasting, showing them in their ripe green stage, all the way through the finished product 15 minutes later. Origin are getting ready to open a new roasting warehouse over in Helston soon, which I would have been very interested to see, had there been more time.

Plus the famous latte art. I can do it while I'm at work, but not always that consistently. So we broke it down to the basics yesterday. And I failed. I didn't even do a single leaf . Or heart.... :( so neither of the hearts you see above are mine. Boooo

Abiento x

I want one

I want one of these. Just for funsies.

Buy one here

Found here

Abiento x

Blogging

Sometimes the blogging world blows my mind.... One of my favourite blogs tends to get 100,000 readers/views a month. 100,000!!?! Well, on a good day I can easily get 100 readers. So in a month that's what- roughly 3,000 views per month, at the most. That's only 3% of what she gets- CRAZY!!! Now, I'm not saying that after 3 months of writing this lil' blog that I expected to have that many monthly reads- but I honestly don't think I could ever have imagined anyone getting that many readers. It's just such a huge number. plus, by sharing a link to her blog that number is most likely going to increase......

Insane no?

Well anyway, enough of my freak out- here is a little bit of fun for you this Monday morning. I promise that  this week will have some insights into a few projects I am doing plus a little bit about my new job as well as the origin coffee training I am doing today AND the usual photography and art inspiration! :) As you might have noticed- last Thursday was missing the usual self portrait photo- thanks to work I was faaar too busy and tired and completely forgot all about it! However I have also reached a stage where I have done a certain number of self portraits and have achieved everything I had wanted to through the project. And so, I have come to the decision that this week will be my last doing the self portrait project. I might come up with something else to keep you entertained every Thursday afternoon, so watch this space :).

So for now, have a look at this awesome chicken house,

and this funny note from the MoMa

Abiento x

Friday Fun

Abiento x

My Week in Photos (365 Project)

13/05/11

14/05/11

15/05/11

16/05/11

17/05/11

18/05/11

19/05/11

Abiento x