abuse

For my photography final, I was assigned to photograph an issue in the world that bothers me. I chose to create images that depict sexual abuse and violence.

The inspiration for my project came through an event that I helped organize on campus called Take Back The Night. This organization raises awareness in order to end sexual violence against women. After hat night I couldn't stop thinking about all of the women, my peers, who were brave enough to get up in front of an audience and tell their survivor stories. 

For this project, I wanted to give them a voice. I wanted to show how these acts or sexual violence make a lasting imprint on the women. It is something that they will have to live with and remember for the rest of their lives. 

This is an issue that we need to fight against; no one deserves to be taken advantage of.

exploding water balloons

For my latest photography project, I had to come up with a way to make TIME visible.

I toyed around with many different ways and took a lot of pictures.

One Saturday afternoon Caleb and I filled up some balloons with water, went outside and he started popping them with a pin one by one while I tried to capture the water while it was exploding.

We went through probably 200 balloons and I used the continuous shooting feature of my camera and took about 500 pictures in order to capture a "good enough for Taylor" picture.

I'm pretty sure Caleb thought the first few were good enough and was ready to be done after being soaked over and over again. But he was a great sport and stuck it out for me!

I eventually came up with 4 different types of projects (bubbles, water balloons, melting ice cream and a story sequence) to turn in to my professor, but this water balloon session was my favorite!

(Sorry the photos aren't edited very well concerning color and contrast. I don't have very good photo editing software on my little laptop as compared to what we have in the photo lab for class.)

it's all His

what do you think about this quote?

my guess is that a [real] artist would have a lot of unhappy things to say about this

BUT.

me, I kinda, really actually like it

the [photographer/artist] in me actually thinks is makes a lot of sense

the things that I photograph are not my art.

those things are His.

He created them.

God equipped me the eyes and the passion to "steal" His art.

sweet life.

SB2K11

Spring Break this year consisted of eating a lot, sleeping a lot, watching a lot of tv, and camping!

Alivia, Annelise, Stephen and I all decided to go camping at Assateague Island for 3 days!

Stephen was our camping guru for the trip and taught us so many practical things:

how to pitch a tent

how to make a fire

how to cook over a fire
how to cook [in] a fire

And some other things:
a fire is like a baby that always needs to be fed but never actually needs to poop
horses poop on other poop instead of in a new/clean spot
a warm wind comes before a thunderstorm

We played bocce ball on the beach, hiked around the island, went to the Ocean City boardwalk, played hide and seek in the woods, climbed some trees, and played with some wild horses (at a distance of course)!

Rose of the trip: SUPER fun time with SUPER great friends!
Thorn of the trip: thunderstorms both nights.. blechh

1 month

WOW

It has been a month (to the day) since I have updated this thing. I really have been so busy. School is starting to take over more and more of my life everyday. It's crazy. If I am this busy during sophomore year, I don't even want to imagine what junior and senior year are going to be like. AHH STRESS

My life hasn't been all that interesting the past month. 

I...

- started a key collection

(only 1 key so far that Caleb got me)

- began my photography class

I have come to realize that I am a VERY big critic of my own work

- started The Purpose Driven Life devotional

and I am in LOVE with it

- joined SPARKS at Elon 

(Students Promoting Awareness Responsibility Knowledge and Success)

basically we advocate and promote awareness for healthy lifestyle choices, 

personal safety and personal wellbeing to students on campus

- finished reading The Help (by Kathyrn Stockett)

if you know about me and books, I HATE endings. I am never satisfied or happy with them

but this one ended in a way that was [acceptable] to me

I highly recommend this book!

- started reading House Rules (by Jodi Picoult)

so far so good

- had/created a virtual baby boy named Blake

he/it is part of my assignment for my Lifespan Development class

only $25 and you TOO can have your own virtual child online

- am still in love with a wonderful guy after 4 1/2 years

:)

- am trying to live each day by a new motto...

Nothing is more powerful 

than a surrendered life 

in the hands of God.

fearrington village

My grandparents used to live in Chapel Hill and over Christmas break, they told Caleb and me about Fearrington Village. We thought it was going to be like an hour away, but it ended up just being 15 minutes away from UNC. 

Saturday we were looking for something fun to do and remembered what my grandparents had suggested to us. So we looked it up, and we were on our way!

 There was a precious bookstore where Caleb had a field day! 

A little inspiration for our study abroad trips!

Just a little elephant LOVE.

They also have belted cows! Caleb and I thought they looked like oreos! haha

This cute little baby still had brown fur. They made the funniest noises to each other.

We went to The Belted Goat for lunch. Such a cute little café!

We split this Belted Goat cake and it was SO delicious!

Connected to the café was a cute shop!

We hope to go again sometime in the Spring. There looked like a lot was there to walk around and see, but we went on a really cold day and after a while we were ready to go home and get out of the cold.

artsy

ever heard of Alphabet Photography?

if you haven't, you should check it out

it's a really creative project someone started and it has really become popular

go here to check it out: http://www.alphabetphotography.com

i have decided that i really want one with my name spelled out

but instead of paying a fortune, im going to try to be artsy for once in my life and make it myself

im going to just walk around all the time looking for things that look like letters

[hopefully i dont get obsessed and ONLY think about ALL the time while walking around]

i'll keep ya updated about my artsy venture