On the Wall

Tony Katai takes very fun, unusual and beautiful portraits. His work is definitely worth checking out.

While browsing online today I stumbled upon Cass Bird, who takes incredible portraits. I can't believe I haven't been introduced to her before now. Check out more of her work!

Lately I've been trying to spice up my apartment, but like most 22-year-olds I don't have much money. What I do have is time and energy, so after doing some online research I found lots of cool ways to decorate for little money. My favorite idea was DIY's suggestion of curtain rods out of tree branches. After seeing the photo I immediately ran to my local park, found fallen tree branches of the proper size, brought them home and sanded them.

The only problem were my curtains. I only had bright red curtains (my bedding is cream/ mocha) and didn't want/ couldn't afford to spend money on new ones, so I decided to improvise here as well. I used Rit color remover to soften the color, and dyed them with Rit fabric dye in dark brown. I used four boxes of dye for four curtains (3 lbs. of fabric).

I decided to spray paint the branches for a more finished look, and it pops more against the dark curtains.

To save on over-priced curtain tie-backs, I decided to just use old bracelets that match my bedding.

I dyed my bedroom curtains and living room curtains the same color, so to avoid boring repetition I wove a scarf purchased from Goodwill through the top of the living room curtains.

The curtain-rod-branch idea got my brain in motion, and I came up with this idea to hang some of my polaroids.


You don't need lots of money to spruce up your apartment- just some creativity.

Lately I've been evaluating my passion for photography, hence the break in my posts. I haven't taken personal photos in quite a while, but I'm sure this is all just a passing phase. These are the last photos I took, during a summer storm the other day.

Chris and I finished our paintings of each other last night. It was actually a lot of fun, and I found out I can paint better than a small child. This project gave me the inspiration to try to paint some of my photos for a change of pace.





One thing's for sure, I know I can at least paint better than I can draw:

I've been really digging ffffound! recently and have come across some pretty cool images. Like with all image-sharing (and etcetera-sharing) sites, there's a lot of crap. But once you sift through the junk- which can sometimes be fun to look at anyways- there's some really great stuff mixed in. These are a few photos that caught my eye when browsing. I tried to give credit where appropriate, but since the site has so much activity I couldn't find some of the images again.

Saw this cute little guy on ffffound! and saw an uncanny resemblence between the two of us. See more of these cute little characters at Everyday Cute.

I have a crazy sweet tooth and last night I made cookie-stuffed cookies. I saw a picture of these on Reddit and figured I couldn't go wrong with a cookie in a cookie. Both delicious and disgusting.

I can't think of anything more perfect for my blog than a body of work titled Up the Wall. Monica Forss takes very minimalist, beautifully composed photos in this series. She has many other amazing photos on her photostream worth checking out, including Polaroids.

Although my birthday is not until the 28th, Chris gave me an early gift: a Canon 50mm lens. The depth of field is ridiculous and it makes me hate my digital camera a lot less. Yesterday I took a photo of the chocolate-covered bacon sundae at Swig in Perrysburg for the Free Press, and I think the pictures came out well thanks to my lens. It's definitely a great lens for food photography due to the depth of field it creates.

Lately I have been in the mood to paint, so Chris came up with the idea that we paint each other's portraits and hang them on our wall. The only problem with this is I have no talent whatsoever. When I say paint, I mean the kind of arts and crafts tools one would give a small child with a short attention span; not anything that requires talent. Nevertheless I agreed to it and took his picture for the painting, which will surely look magnificent.


If you tend to keep up with my blog, don't forget to view my previous post "Boobs" if you haven't already done so.

Chris took some photos of me in the bathtub over the weekend. He put one of the photos on Flickr and within hours the picture had nearly 500 views. Although it is a good shot, the fact that so many people were drawn to a thumbnail of a naked girl is interesting and kind of disappointing to me. I guess the reality is that sex always sells and is what people will always want to see. Maybe I'll have to just start taking nude self-portraits again.

This 'n That

Last week I finished reading Patti Smith's Just Kids, about her lifelong friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith told a very touching story of not just a friendship, but of two people who respected, loved and understood each other completely. I didn't know very much about Mapplethorpe before reading this book except that I didn't really like what I knew of his work. After getting a different point of view and learning more about his process and ideas, I decided to give his work another chance. I appreciate and understand his work more now after learning more about his concept and struggles. These are just a few of the (much tamer) photos of his.

Yesterday I spent a good portion of my day strategically arranging the polaroids on my wall in a more cohesive, organized manner as opposed to the previous random, jumbled display. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

What could possibly be more appropriate for the 4th of July than photos from Robert Frank's The Americans? Enjoy.