{Kim and Jim.}

Mount Pleasant, SC




The brief photography hiatus is over. Actually you could probably say there never was one. But It had been a few months since I had photographed a wedding. And my process beforehand usually includes a mini meltdown consisting of calling my sister to talk me off the ledge and tell me "yes, you do know how to use a camera".... Once that first stage is over, (it usually doesn't last long), I chide myself for thinking such irrational thoughts, realize how excited I am for the wedding and morph into the "Ashley-photographer mode"; process complete.



I, like many other guests of the wedding, found myself doing a rain dance the morning of April 9th. There was talk of 60mph winds and golf ball sized hail. The only golf balls we wanted to have present at the wedding were the ones at the golf course, and not flying through the air at us. Thankfully we did not have to worry about any adverse weather conditions and the day went on beautifully.

I often have couples who have rules, limits, or some kind of stipulation to go along with the photographing of the wedding. I am informed of their "good side" or where exactly we are to stand to photograph the entire ceremony...etc. Kim and Jim were as easy going as any photographer could ask for. It made for a creative and fun filled evening. There were photos with Civil War soldiers, reading books in Barnes and Noble, reclined in lounge chairs, and it is not every wedding I can say that I danced with the bride.


I love, love. Lets just be honest.
I tear up at every wedding for so many reasons. There are so many details that make every wedding unique, different, wonderful. I would have never thought to have steel drums play at my wedding, Kim and Jim did and it was perfect for them. There was some of the best dancing I had seen in a long time, complete with the wedding guests in full costume for the YMCA. And instead of rice or flowers tossed in the air for their send off....lavender.

You left feeling loved. And you can't say that for every wedding. That is the all time, most wanted feeling when you are surrounded by people who have made your life beautiful. That is the glue that holds every bit of the day together, everything is its own separate entity until it becomes bound by pure, strong love. It was unmistakable; something no one could miss.

Congrats to you both Kim and Jim!! May your laughing wall be full of moments from this day.





And of course, HUGE thanks to Dustin Ryan for your amazing photography skills and comic relief all night long; much appreciated!

{How to raise your Daughters.}

Wakefield, RI.

Little else needs to be said than what is written below, except perhaps that no one ever tells you when your Father is extraordinary and has taught you, practically given you, every tool and bit of knowledge he knows to make you thrive in this world. He never doubted once that my sister and I would become more that what he could have ever possibly dreamt us to be. His imagination was infinite, as is his heart and soul....Thanks Dad.


How to raise your Daughters.



Read. everything.
learn to dribble with both hands.
always put a note in with packed lunches.
do what you love.
take your shoes off at the door.
be barefoot. often.
alou.
play red light green light. as many times as you can.
wear Dad's t-shirts to bed. to school. to wherever.
play the Mary Chapin Carpenter tape again.
learn to tell Miles from Coltrane.
Dance in the kitchen.
Dance when you decorate the Christmas tree.
All I want for Christmas is you.
the Christmas Moose!
Know good wine from great wine.
Go to Italy.
Gelato.
Va Bene.
A little road rage is okay.
Don't ever say "y'all".
look for beach glass.
go for ice cream in the wintertime.
walk in the wildlife refuge.
don't forget the binoculars.
try to make it to Phil's before 8am. $.99 breakfast is always good. especially for poor college students.
aloujo.
smile.
laugh.
cry.
look for cloud animals.
balloonland.
make room for Scottie.
always say I love you.
put me on your shoulders when you mow the lawn.
"clean this 'shit' up."
call your grandparents.
Sunday at 1.
everyone should have a crazy dance.
dress up as Santa and take a picture with the Pizza Girl.
"patience is a virtue"
figure out the physics of how the phone bounced from the couch, half way across the room. it can be done!
Fuzzy Duck.
Dad-E.
Fada.
Daddyboo.
Socko and Sockorina.
count the birds in the sky.
"Jump to me".
start the day with coffee.
catch fireflies.
Tupelo Honey.
Brown-eyed Girl.
Play the guitar.
take too many pictures.
always know where the exits are.
"what color is this?"
pepper before parmesan.
the flying pillow.
Wednesday night dinners.
"be a shameless opportunist"
dump ducks.
look for dollar bills in the sand.
wrap birthday presents in the funnies.
hand wash the dishes.
bend the rules.
sneak onto the beach.
find out why the moon is yellow sometimes.
always check the surf.
mtty.
Rocky the Cat.
learn to drive a stick shift.
point your toes.
stick your landings.
SCMC.
The Polar Bear Princess.
The Day Jake Vacuumed.
Salt.
Dinotopia.
The Velveteen Rabbit.
"I Spy."
"stuuuck".
Alf.
Calvin and Hobbes.
the wooden spoon.
procrastinate. later.
the special breakfast place.
a limo for your 21st birthday, just to be safe and because you're special.
always have good running shoes.
you are never without me.
watch the sunrise...


and let each day go with the sunset.

Jealous Walls.

Wakefield, Rhode Isand
Pandora station: John Coltrane.



I have been in my Father's house for nearly 4 weeks now and I find myself reminiscing about every transition it has has been through. I recall the hideous pink carpet, a bald light bulb over the bathroom sink, and when the coffee stain on the white rug looked like a dragon. There was also, the countless hours of "Red Light. Green Light" played in the living room, dancing around the kitchen to Jimmy Buffet, and the little blue swing that still hangs from the tree outside.

In the years since my childhood, things have changed. We are no longer the three musketeers every other weekend, but rather a little family of 4. Dad and Carla's wedding marked the biggest change these walls had seen in a long time. The ugly pink carpet was ripped up and hardwood replaced it. The kitchen is now equipped to make any type of food imaginable. (I personally see the need for more chocolate, but I am working on it.). If walls could be astonished these ones would be the first to admit it. Wednesday nights became THE night we all came together for good wine and food. Never a shortage of laughter. The garden blooms with every flower imaginable, it seems like something out of a dream. A cross between Alice in Wonderland and real life. This is a good life we have. I say it every time I am here, I love this life, these people, this house. This all started from something very small, something sacred and loved. We just wanted a place, a home that brought out the best in us and the best in everyone.

These walls are jealous. They have seen every bit of this house from the beginning. They watched my father dance in the kitchen with us as kids, read us bedtime stories, watch the same movie over and over again, fly us up to bed on a pillow, and continue the favorite family tradition of singing while decorating the Christmas tree. This is my favorite world to live in, for a little while nothing else exists while we all sit around the kitchen counter with our wine.

A comforting realization in this little world is, the future does not necessarily have to be known for the outcome to be wonderful. By default, we all know it will be. There has never been anything to suggest otherwise, regardless of the turn of events this house has seen. It was Dad who, purely by example, taught me what it means to have faith. And that faith did not necessarily have to be in a religious sense. Faith that there would be surf in the morning was a good start. So with the help of the ocean and Dad's uncanny wisdom, we have come to learn to have faith most importantly in ourselves, because he believed it first.

If I have learned anything from sitting in this kitchen it is how loved I am. And how loved we ALL are by one another. And from that alone, I have learned to live and spread love better than I could have ever tried to do alone.




And so, as the house watches us all move about in a state that we would much rather ignore or be rid of all together, we will do as we were told; to always say " I love you", embrace one another, take care of each other, allow for space but not so much that we get lost, and that it will be alright...it will be alright.

The Lens of a Brown-eyed girl.

Wakefield, Rhode Island
Song of the Day: Rolling in the Deep - Adele.


Number eighty-six on my bucket list is to road trip somewhere by myself. I was 17 when I first wrote that. My initial logic on the idea was that I would meander through the continental U.S., take as many pictures as I wanted, meet extraordinary people, and somehow with the little money I had, arrive at my final destination in my envied classic Mercedes. 8 years later, the only deviations in the plan were the Mercedes and the projected route.



Taken from an unpublished entry, written at 3:32am...

"I have somewhere over the last few years acquired a wanderlust heart. It moves, sometimes without warning, from place to place, person to person, all with the purest intentions. I wish to be cut loose, free and full of the piercing realization of feeling alive. Even if that feeling is at the expense of my own heart, I will recover. I just want to live. The contradiction to the wandering is the desire to be rooted to a place, something so foreign. But for as long as I have been aching for a new place to travel, I have been searching longer, for a place to root my bare feet to the dirt and begin. This lifelong search to be stationary and to be detached of all permanence gives quite a perspective. I have met more extraordinary people from holding on to one place AND from leaving just as quickly as I have arrived. And somewhere in the middle of meeting all the wonderful people I have learned to possess an independent life, slightly feminist perhaps, mixed with a hopeless romantic, barefooted Contessa, who maybe has the intention of one day writing a book and having just one of my photos grace the cover of National Geographic. ( pretty please!). "


There was an uncharacteristic flutter in my heart when I drove out of Charleston. It was not borne of heartache or excitement, hard to place. It took me nearly to Virginia to categorize it. But we'll get to that. I left my city, paused my life there is more like it. It will be waiting for me to come back, three months from now. I left it at that. And turned up the radio.


Taken from another unpublished post. 4:53am...
"The staggering number of life experiences that are readily available is sometimes overwhelming; unseemingly so in the moment. And life throws curveballs; unplanned events that may or may not cause you to feel that terrible illusion of urgency when trying to sort through the dichotomy of emotions linked to life's events. Truthfully, during the times of complete joy or complete heartache, I feel as if I am going to implode, combust.

What do you do then?"

My answer to this question came, not long after I had asked it to my inanimate coffee mug. Drive. This may not be the complete solution to the question, but it provided me with two things: the satisfaction of crossing off #86 and once again fueling the wild desire for travel. So many people wanted to drive this with me. And up until a few weeks before I considered it. But, there is a purpose behind the solitude I've come to find out. This was the ultimate sit-and-listen-to-yourself-moment. I would have nowhere to go but north, no one else to listen to except myself. I conveniently placed my thoughts in the recesses of my mind and left them there for a later date....possibly 50years from now if I could help it. But this was the chance to unlock the vault. To let myself unwind and think about everything I had talked about or not. So I alone I went.

Charleston, SC.
Wilmington, NC.
Elizabeth City, NC.
Kitty Hawk.
Fredricksburg, VA.
Occoquan, VA.
Scarsdale, NY.
NYC.
Wakefield, RI.


The first picture of the trip was nothing spectacular, but the weight that it held was enormous. I peered through my lens thinking this was it, there can't be another first picture. I was poised on the side of the highway, photographing an old house. pause. click. A rush of air came from my right just as I hit the shutter, I debated mentioning the large 18-wheelers that were passing me as I was standing there. But for affect, I added that small tidbit (sorry Mom).

Day two consisted of a fascinating conversation held with Ethel over the hotel breakfast (I'm not kidding, this was her name and this is a true encounter) about vampires and there whereabouts across the U.S. and the world. She had never seen "Interview with a Vampire", so I suggested it, but mostly I listened to her ideas about how they potentially live in the sewers. Thank you Ethel. I drove to Kitty Hawk, where I nearly froze as the gale force winds cut into my threadbare shirt, having just come from much warmer weather I wasn't prepared. This did not stop me from doing handstands in the middle of the roads where there were no cars to be seen. I had terrible service at a local restaurant, I sat myself at the bar while the 2 hostesses whined about which boy liked who better. I left exactly $2.04 to the waitress that showed zero interest in her patrons and more interest in her iphone. Regardless of the service, the weather, and the crazy conversations, I wouldn't have traded any of it for the plane ticket that would have got me there in less than 3hours. This was priceless....and hilarious.

769.
The total number of photos taken in the course of the weeks adventure. I could have taken more. I can always take more. And there were a thousand, that I did not take. I tried as hard as I could, but there was no amount of adjusting the settings for the camera to capture how I felt. There may not even be words. I gazed upon beauty with the first lens I was given. pause.blink. There is an unparalleled wanting for an existence far greater than the one I have. My heart hammers against my chest because it knows, I know....that change will be the constant variable in my life. It maybe the only thing I can count on for a while. And my uncharacteristic heart beat was my realization of what my reality will be; somethings are certain, and others are inconveniently unknown.


I will say, the fact that I love to drive helped tremendously; something inherited from my Father I suppose. Not once have I seen him roll his eyes at the thought of driving somewhere, regardless of the situation. Coincidentally, however, I believe I have also acquired his lead foot, and sarcastic tone towards other motorists. Minor imperfections, easily overlooked.

I had no specific goals set for this trip. I concentrated on enjoying the space and the time I was allowed to have with myself, and also the extraordinary friends and family I stopped to see along the way. Virginia and New York were filled with stories and the kind of laughter you only find with good people. It helped tremendously and there are never words during the times you receive a hug and feel loved when you least expect it.

I crossed the Rhode Island state line, and the sun had just started to set below the trees. I drove by Narragansett beach, its unmistakable salty air permeated my whole car, as if to purify it from the weeks journey through swamp and city. And as I turned the knob to my Father's house, and as he napped in the study, book in his lap, glasses held gingerly by his right hand, I exhaled, relaxed. I left one home to arrive at another. Pause. Click.





As always, huge thanks to my friends and family. To Val, Liz and Eric and the constant entertainment, amazing food and good laughs in Occoquan I will be back for sure. To Aunt Carol and Lauren for the amazing food and company, Lindsey for reintroducing me to the New York City I love so much, the spectacular nightlife and the best restaurants that don't even have names. Love you all.


sha la la la la la la la la la la tee dah. la tee dah.