you speak your fears, thinking in circles and checking what mirrors don't see. you live your life like a page from the book of my fantasy.

photo by heatherchipps

life happened and i had to take a mental break from everything. you know how they say things fall apart so they can fall together? yeah, that. i'll be back soon.

i have space to spare inside me
for the stars, too: so full of room
fills my heart; so lightly
would it let go of him whom
for all i know i have started
to love, it may be to hold.
strange, as if never charted,
stares my fortune untold.

rainer maria rilke

i hope that everyone's january has been positive and smooth so far. things have been really great on my end and i am extremely happy. i wish nothing but the same for everyone, if not better.

i'm currently working on another photo project, a rendition to one of my favorite films of all time. the entire project will be double/multiple exposed photographs. i haven't played around with my nikon fm10 and light is scarce during this time of the year. so this project has been quite the challenge. the image above was one of the first ones i attempted to portray.

i've also become a blog contributor for +F.i.A+ i blog music (which will be both old and new) on tuesdays and thursdays. this is really exciting because i now have an outlet for the music that i've been wanting to share. you can check out my first post here. i even take my capitalization rules seriously.

my "places to go" list seems to be growing out of control! i found more natural and historical sites that i plan on visiting in the south that i am pretty excited about. while those places are feasible, there are other far away cities that i would love to travel to as well next year. i'm positively sure that i will return to the the bay area and nyc but i've been falling in love with the idea of seeing portland for a while now. after favorite-ing so many beautiful photographs on flickr, i think i will seriously plan a summer trip there. for wishful thinking, i would really love to go to south australia. a few years ago, i wrote about my search for our long lost cousins in adelaide. thanks to facebook, we are connected now and they've given a lot of encouragement in visiting them down under. if given the opportunity, i would really appreciate another trip to cambodia. i've been missing my family and that beautiful country a lot lately.

i am obviously obsessed with wandering from place to place.
what is on your travel itinerary?

if you could choose a word to describe your year, what would it be? mine would be intuition.

i've always known that i was intuitive, i just didn't know how to trust it. i didn't know whether to accept it as a strength, so i saw it only as a weakness. i would get myself into situations when i knew what the outcome would be. i always hesitated when i knew it would be something good but when it was bad i didn't even think twice, i'd dive in head first. i kept setting myself up for a lot of heartache, trouble and loss. i was so afraid that if i didn't let myself experience it, then how would i ever really know? i've always been a private person, so i kept all of the perceptions i was having to myself. i figured the less i spoke about them, the more i could hear them. that didn't work out very well. until recently, i taught myself to be more outspoken. i would say them aloud just so someone else would be a witness to my thoughts. that didn't work out very well either, because i suckered myself into it anyway.

i was always letting myself go only to watch it unravel before my eyes. as predicted, everything always transpired exactly as i imagined it would. i allowed all of these terrible things happen to me. and of course, i'd proceed to beat myself up over it because i should have listened to my intuition. i never did. i came to the conclusion that i was afraid of being wrong and afraid of controlling the situation. i just didn't trust myself and with that came the disability to trust in others. i created a mess for myself, all because i wouldn't follow my instincts.

forward from here, i will create or find a sanctuary to meditate. i will teach myself to quiet the inner dialogue in my head and listen to the blank space behind it. i will write down my dreams and everything that comes to my mind, no matter how outlandish it seems. i will question myself more positively. with this exercise i trust that i will find inner balance, have a clearer conscious and develop healthier decisions and relationships. this will be an art in itself.

i will also learn how to develop my own film.

"the fluttering in the stomach goes away and the dull waking pain. sometimes i think of you and i feel giddy. memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. all the things we did. and if anyone had said this was the price i would have agreed to pay it. that surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. it was worth it. love is worth it."
-jeanette winterson

this mix is dedicated to darkness: physical, mental and emotional perspectives.

01 zola jesus - night
02 sneaker pimps - 6 underground
03 weimar gesang - worn out prayer
04 future islands - as i fall
05 the naked and the famous - the sun
06 joy division - shadowplay
07 new young pony club - talking talking
08 warpaint - stars
09 the church - under the milkyway tonight
10 cocteau twins - pink orange red
11 ghostland observatory - silver city
12 the shangri-las - dressed in black

download it here

i used to live in a room full of mirrors; all i could see was me. i take my spirit and i crash my mirrors. now the whole world is here for me to see.
jimi hendrix

halloween is my favorite holiday of all time! for the past two years, i dressed as lydia deetz. i decided my main costume this year would be the dark version of minnie mouse. my sister and i went down to the historic oakland cemetery to do some halloween portraits. they came out exactly like i wished. view my session here.

cheers to the weekend. i'm on the hunt for great food and good laughs.
xo

currently playing warpaint's new single, "undertow" over and over. jenny lee's melodic bass and their voices intertwining resonates under my skin. feelings of fury and loneliness-- i really cannot deny the power that warpaint has over me. the exquisite corpse ep was enough to knock me off the floor, i can't imagine what the fool will do.

nobody ever has to find out whats in my mind tonight.

"somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
art by branden collins

taking a post break from california ones, i haven't forgotten about the south at all! i took this dreamy photo while walking through beautiful inman park one sunday evening. just around the corner is springvale park, a pet project of area developer joel hurt. the park was designed by the olmsted brothers who also worked on new york city's central park. inman park is one of the neighborhoods i'd love to have a georgia home in.

i love the moods in this photograph.

i'm finally unpacked but i seriously wouldn't mind packing again. i am having some extreme west coast withdrawals and i am missing it so. i developed 5 rolls of film today from my vacation, and i can't say that i did my best. my only excuse is that instead of using my energy on taking good photos, i was using it to enjoy myself.

there is always next time, and i'm sure that will be very soon.

every night and every morn,
some to misery are born.
every morn and every night,
some are born to sweet delight.

some are born to sweet delight.
some are born to endless night.

i wish the weather would slowdown a bit here in atlanta. we skip winter only to run right into summeresque weather. only the pollen gets so intense. i'm using the next few days to concentrate on spaces left blank before the weekend arrives. there's so much to get done, it just goes unnoticed sometimes.

i can't coerce you into this one.
jealousy lay all your spells to bed.
i'll choose unloved instead.

35mm photos by danielle sereno