Beach Nightlife...

of a different sort.







After we took these pictures we went out on the beach to look at the stars and listen to the waves for a while, though as you can see in the first picture, the moon was reeeeally bright. After it got a little higher in the sky we could barely see the stars anymore! I love the beach at night almost as much as during the day. I mean, at night it's nice and quiet, usually uncrowded, and you can have bonfires! I guess I should just live at the beach so I can be there 24/7.

I can dream right?

Chasing Sting Rays...and Sunglasses.

Carolina Beach part two! Where was I...oh yes, there was also a lot of me trying to get Maizey to go in the water:





Do what I say!





Rob did finally get her in, but only by carrying her! I love how she's holding her bum out of the water in this one...



And there were even some hand stands:





and attempted hand stands...



and sabotaged hand stands! Caught red-handed.



We drove out to Fort Fisher again on our last day (Memorial Day) and it was pretty crowded. But luckily a group of sting rays showed up and scared everyone out of the water! Except me, of course. I had my trusty waterproof camera case and made it my mission to get at least one good picture of them underwater.

The water was super murky so at first they were just turning out like this:



Not too exciting. But finally I got close enough for a good one!







I love sea creatures. As if I need to state the obvious. It was funny that these cownose rays showed up though, because the night before we had watched River Monsters about the biggest (and deadliest??) river fish of all time...a giant sting ray! So when they started getting curious about me and darting by me at top speed within an inch or two of my legs I decided I probably had enough pictures...

And I almost forgot...shortly after taking these pictures (literally 30 minutes before we left to go home) I was out catching some waves and lost ANOTHER pair of sunglasses. I also lost a pair in Australia in the surf, and at Virginia Beach last year the same exact way. This is why my sunglasses come from Target...not quite as sad when you lose a $10 pair. Yet I still searched up and down the beach for them for at least half an hour...why?? I should know from experience that it's hopeless. Brent thinks I should invest in a more expensive pair, and that way I wouldn't risk taking them into dangerous situations...but what's the fun in that?? haha.

So that was our trip. Here are some more randoms, because I know you haven't had enough yet!







hahahahaaa...doesn't she look like she's having fun??







Wish we could do it again this weekend...but Brent and I will be in ATLANTA!! Brent is taking step 2CS (so specific!) of the boards...plus we're going on an adventure while we're there! More about that later...

Do you want to go to the seaside?

We went to the beach!!! And it was great. Especially since these beautiful people came with us:



It was called Carolina Beach, and we stayed in a cute little beachfront condo:




Complete with these amazing beds:



I don't want you to be confused and think that these are twin beds....because they're not, they're whatever size is smaller than that. And I don't want you to assume that those are real mattresses, because they're just foam! I was confused too, until we tried to sleep in ONE of these beds. Well, first we got on the top one, but Brent was worried that it might collapse (ha!) so then we got in the bottom one instead. Brent was so tired that he fell asleep in .2 seconds (as usual) but I don't think I was asleep for more than 10 minutes at a time the whole night! haha. Good thing we found the sheets for the pull out bed the next day or it would have been a looooong weekend.

Moving on...let's talk about the fun stuff. There was lots of tanning and reading:









And lots of walking around trying to find Britt's Donuts, then eating them:









They were SO good that we had to go back for more that night, but this place is so popular that the line was wrapped around the building at 9:30pm! Don't worry, we came back the next morning and only had to wait about 20 minutes. Mmmmmm...

There was also a lot of driving on the beach at Fort Fisher State Park, which was scary for Brent but fun for those of us who weren't driving! We only passed two "beached" cars...











Ok, this is getting too long, I think I'll have to make a part deux because there is still so much left to tell!! Well, mostly pictures to show. Hope you're ready for more!



*Anybody know the song from the title? It's one of Brent's favorites, listen to it here.

A Man of Mystery...

School's out for summer....kind of. I start my summer classes in San Francisco in 2 weeks!! But I've had a couple of weeks off to recharge, which has been fantastic. We even went to the beach with our friends over Memorial Day and had a blast - will be posting about that soon.

But first I want to show you what I worked on last semester!

This is my final project for the class "Color and Light":



They are meant to be viewed in that order - as you can probably tell by the last shot - hence the slideshow view. We got to choose whatever subject matter we wanted (which was really hard) but we had to have a consistent color scheme (mine is warm/cool contrast). I love the air of mystery that these "darker" parts of the city bring to the images, so the "mystery man" theme was a natural progression of things. I want the viewer to be wondering: who is this guy? where is he going? why is he running? And at the end I hope I at least got a smile, if not a laugh out of you! Brent and I had a lot of fun scouting out locations and shooting for this class (most of the time!), especially when it got warmer outside. The last shot was actually Brent's idea (hard to believe, I know). As you can see, these areas are not the nicest part of town, but that was what was so great about this project. I got to explore areas of the city that I would never have gone to otherwise. And we only got kicked off of Reynolds Tobacco Factory Property ONE time!! I don't wish to incriminate myself further, but trust me, that's a good record. It's mostly abandoned anyway, so I don't know why they bother being so defensive of it.

The final project for my other shooting class, called "Photography Concepts", was a hypothetical ad series for the blog A Foodie Stays Fit, written by my good friend Teri (you may have seen her on my blog before, such as, in my very first post ever ;)

Voila:



The point we are trying to get across with these photos is that everyone can make time to be fit and healthy, even with a crazy, hectic schedule like Teri's. She works full time at a bank and also teaches classes at the gym multiple times per week, while also working out on her own (and with me!), not to mention taking care of her puppy and husband, and of course blogging. I wanted to catch people's attention with these images by making them over-the-top and showing Teri exercising in situations where she wouldn't normally do so. Let me know if you think it works!

So that's what I've been doing for the past 4 months...plus about a million other pictures that didn't make the cut! Oh, and some other things that I'll be posting about very soon...