Category: photos

notes from a weekend.

outside is lovely, and a key element to sanity. a long walk on the first mild day in memory does your soul wonders. breathe deeply. practically feel the vitamin d synthesizing in your bones. appreciate.

Prospect Park, Brooklyn

it is good to recapture a sense of carefree abandon, to let your constant stresses relax away for a few hours. you’ll feel remarkably lighter. and everything will get done, in due time.

Me - a selfie in the park

drinking wine and playing games with good friends never ever gets old. it’s rejuvenating.

a guest lesson from Kim: do not let the fear of the picture not being original stop you from taking it. you are building proficiency. capture what inspires you.

Subway Tracks, Brooklyn

writing with a pen and paper is inherently different from writing online. you never know what will emerge and escape. you will breathe easier once it comes out.

every night is nicer when you fill your room with candlelight. or even, like in times long past, with the smoke of incense.

Villa Bergamot Candle

Posted on by dominique 1

list #2: 2013 via instagram.

i’m getting really into the role of images and photos in my world – i’ve been exploring a lot of local/popular tags on instagram and i talked in a post last week about my newfound adoration of tumblr. scrolling through my instagram feed, i found myself remembering some of the finer moments of last year. i’m pretty terrible at year in review things that happen in december, but clearly i’m quite good when they happen in late january. so here are 12 good moments that happened last year, conveniently separated into months.

2013 in review

 

(we’re starting at the top left and going across the rows)

january: rang in the new year with wafels and dinges (one of my very favorite food trucks), watching fireworks in prospect park.

february: i went to harry potter world with the bouncer, tiff, and her husband nick. we also went on a five day cruise, but i chose the hp world photo because i can’t remember the last time i was so full of unadulterated joy. please see evidence via my tears when the bouncer surprised me with a wand and robe. this photo is from the legit three broomsticks cafe.

march: nothing truly momentuous happened, but i did take this photo while we were out for the bouncer’s birthday celebration and i love the way it came out.

april: by this point, i’d begun taking on freelance clients and decided to legitimize myself via business cards from zazzle. i’m incredibly proud of the strides i made professionally last year, the skills i taught myself and honed, and the extra money i was able to pull in.

may: bloggers in sin city, obviously. there was no one photo i could choose that had people in it, so to save myself that agonizing decision, i went with this one of the hanging lanterns in the wynn (or maybe the encore, they’re connected and i’m never sure which is which).

june: i took an amazing trip down to dc to celebrate lauren’s birthday, and berto was kind enough to host me in his home and show me the city. it was an injection of joy and friendship and laughter and pure amazing. this photo is after the road trip from philly with raoul and ed, when we magically ran into tom in the hotel.

july: we took a trip down to coney island with paula and jr. second summer i’ve had a coney island trip and now it’s going to be a tradition.

august: and then we had a picnic in central park with paula and jr. please note, one of the photos i could’ve chosen from june was a trip to atlantic city with paula and jr so in short, we became pretty good friends with paula and jr this year.

september: i went away for the weekend for the actress’ birthday, and she got a hold of a beautiful mountain house in pennsylvania. after spending the night, we went on a hike at glen onoko falls. and then i fell in love with nature. IT IS SO COOL YOU GUYS. (have i mentioned i am often very late to the party?) (also note, if you follow that link, i am really desperate to see these falls during the winter. that ice looks truly incredible.)

october: the bouncer and i ran away to the mountains, mostly because i was excited to do more hiking. we stayed in the most precious little cabin and had an amazing, recharging getaway. we’re hoping to make it an annual tradition.

november: i joined my local CSA for the fall/winter share. i’ve gotten incredible farm fresh vegetables all winter, i’ve made an abundance of delicious soups, and i got to know my community a little better. next, we’ll be doing the summer fruit and veggie share and possibly also a meat share from the same farm.

december: you’d think i’d post something christmasy, but no. i didn’t go crazy on the christmas instagrams this year. this photo is from the union square holiday market, which i was dashing through with a friend from work after visiting julep’s popup shop here in new york.

Posted on by dominique 3

#augustbreak – days 11-13

is it cheating to use instagram pictures? i hope not. i am an android girl and i nearly whooped for joy when instagram FINALLY came out for android, but i had no idea how much it would spark my creativity and make me appreciate the inspirational within the mundane. most fridays, my job has wine time at about 5:30, and i was two glasses into the evening walking home, and snapped these. they’re all within 50 feet of my house – the flower is down the block, the white building behind the little tree is mine, and the closeup is the stairs to my front door.

day 11

day 12

day 13

Posted on by dominique 2

#augustbreak – days 7-10

i’m still behind, i know. but while i can fill in the gaps, i will. catching up to come, as always.

day 7

in the winter i caught a bitch of a sickness and i was in bed for days. i had been aching to go to the park and play with my camera in the cold light – it’s different in winter, thinner, trees bare and i wanted to capture it. i begged the bouncer for a walk through the park before i was really ready, and it was bitter cold, and i didn’t last long. but this was one of the shots i got.

probably my favorite from coney island day with tiff and nick, when they visited. i laid on the ground in a dress that was way too short for me to do so to grab this, and it could use some editing but i love it.

 here in brooklyn every year, there is a cherry blossom festival at the botanic gardens, which i can walk to if i so choose. i forget, sometimes, how lucky i am for this. the festival is always very crowded and neither the bouncer or i are fond of crowds, so i watched the little guide on the gardens’ website this year and we went when the first trees bloomed. i have better, clearer shots of the blossoms, but this one, i loved.

this one – it makes my heart smile. that is so cheesy, and i’m sorry. i don’t treat myself to random impulses often (except when onyi is in town and then all bets are obviously off), but while grocery shopping at the fancy supermarket in the better neighborhood in the spring, i fell in love with this tiny daffodil plant. tiny! daffodils! i think i was not using my macro setting here, but i remember being home from work one day alone, and knowing i needed to grab the light coming in the window. the true part that is happy, though, is that when the bouncer saw how giddy i was over this, he surprised me with three more plants. sometimes, he is the sweetest.

Posted on by dominique 5

#augustbreak – days 1-6

August Break 2012
fooled you, didn’t i? you thought because it was august 6th and i had no photos that i wasn’t participating. this was all a cleverly designed trick…

day 1

My D - from Kim

i thought it was only fitting that my first photo be a gift from my friend that
originally introduced the idea of the august break to me.
Kim sent this to me last year, and i love it. it hangs in my corner of me things, above my dresser.

day 2

another gift, from the actress. i can’t remember if i posted about this one
in last year’s august break, but the text reads, “she learned to cup
possibility in her hands”. it reminds me every day to try not to be afraid.

day 3 

a stack of quarters. playing with aperture on my camera.

day 4 

Trash - Coney Island

part of the reason for my late start is having some amazing guests in town.
we spent a long, hot, fun day down at coney island, and this is one of the trash
cans on the boardwalk.

day 5

my necklaces, hanging from a stand my friend jamie got me a few christmases ago.

day 6 

Beach moss

 beach moss, growing on the wood before the jetty, coney island.

 

Posted on by dominique 4

august break, revisited.

so i got me a pretty (and fancy, by my standards) camera for christmas. i am a lucky girl, in many ways.

it’s a fuji finepix. it has all sorts of neat settings regarding aperture and shutter speed. so, i present to you, a brooklyn christmas.

hey look, i have a camera! here is my bedroom!
(funny note: the ladder is in the hallway because i roasted a chicken in an aluminum pan. i also have a crappy oven and i do a bunch of cooking, so i also have an oven thermometer that hangs from the rack. the oven thermometer poked a hole in the bottom of the chicken roasting pan and i had chicken drippings making frighteningly smoky conditions and the smoke alarm was going off every six minutes. ah, holidays.)


snowflakes were my theme this year.

what was left after making nutella brownies. it did not last long.

this was a sweet potato souffle. it was damned delicious.

this was the end of a steak pinwheel. it was also damned delicious.

this is the door of a tattoo shop around the corner from me. i keep intending to get my nose repierced there one of these weekends.

cheap decorations at the local discount store. why yes, i did look like a fool walking around my neighborhood with a camera on my neck.

abita beer in the grocery store. the actress really likes abita. i don’t drink beer (or anything with bubbles), but i try to know these things about my friends.

my block, slightly overexposed. i am fond of too much light in pictures, i find.

also on my block. also overexposed. also, yes, those are really lots of shoes on a power line and yes, i think that is the most pointless thing ever and no, i don’t know if it means a drug dealer lives here. i haven’t met any so far.

this is a wee wizard candle. they were very popular when i was a teenager and people had collections. now, i can barely find them. i love this little dude.

a bell ornament.

a snowflake ornament. i said that was the theme, remember?

i am digging my camera. one of my goals for 2012 is to foster creativity and i plan on incorporating photography into that and incorporating that into my blog/the internet somehow, so we’ll see how it comes out. i think a project 365 will be a bit much for me – let me know if you have any ideas (and yes, i am already thinking of copying the deep old desk’s photo fridays…)

Posted on by dominique 7