traci with an i

{A Valentine}

Happy Valentines Day! Here is an idea of something that you can lovingly put together for your special someone. This is the valentines day basket that I put together for my husband :) It is simple and easy to incorporate your personal touch! Contents include: card, homemade peanut butter truffles, love message in a bottle, a valentine present clue, custom fortune cookies (etsy), and a mix cd.

{Spending Time with Fall}

Last weekend my husband and I were visiting family in littlestown, pa. Here are a handful of the shots from the weekend. :)

Corcoran Work Fall 2010

Below is some of my work so far for the fall 2010 semester at the Corcoran. These are not linked by a theme, just individual images. I hope you enjoy, and keep an eye out for my next post displaying my midterm project for my core photo class!

{Mixing Film and Digital}

As I was cleaning out my flash drives to make room for my classes this year - I found some work that I haven't shared yet! The majority of it is a mixing of digital and film fused together. The fun part is that most of the film images are from my first years of working with film and exploring photography - my junior and senior years in high school. (Descriptions of each piece are listed below the image) You never know when your older images can come in handy. Keep everything.
This is a 35mm film print that I printed in the darkroom last semester and then scanned into the computer and toned in photoshop.
This is another 35mm film print from last semester, printed in the darkroom, and then scanned into photoshop. Then I played around with coloring, and layers, superimposing other images on top of the original.
The base of this print was one of my first 35mm images (the mannequin/bathroom) and darkroom prints. I believe I then used a cyan toner on the print as well. This was also scanned into photoshop and I looked at superimposing other images on top of the original print.
This series stemmed from a digital photograph taken years ago - my first attempt playing with dramatic lighting portraits. It was input into photoshop where I focused on displaying a message through photography and text combined. I wanted to display the idea of a person's "inner feelings" - the insecurities that we all have and deal with but then wanted to present a positive side, or the truth, as well...that despite all these negative feelings we have about ourselves we are all truly beautiful.
This image "Time Racing" was composed by pieces of two 35mm darkroom prints and one digital image. The task was to create one cohesive piece while pulling different elements together from several other prints.

{Little Saturday Treasures}

This Saturday morning my husband and I got up and headed to the farmer's market. After picking out some delicious and local fruits and vegetables, we shared a fresh apple turnover and the most amazing, fresh apple cider. Then we walked through downtown leesburg and did some antiquing. It was the perfect Saturday morning. :) Here are some of the treasures we found!



Next we found an old teapot for $3 that cleaned up pretty nicely, as well as some fantastic, vintage kitchen canisters!



Also, a few weeks ago I came across some great wooden candle holders that could easily be transformed with a fun color. I finally got around to painting them a dark yellow today, so it was a productive afternoon. :)

{Downtown Philly}

This weekend while celebrating my mom's birthday and visiting my brother at Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, we all spent an afternoon in downtown philly. (P.S. If you have never been to jim's steaks...you should really go.) What a culture there and so many bright colors - perfect picture opportunity. I was so excited to shoot.

Unfortunately, I have been working with film so much for school I neglected to remember that I actually have to charge my digital camera. After taking about 30 shots (BEFORE we even got to south street, the very heart of downtown philly) it died. Yep it died. I was devastated. Won't make that mistake again. But here are a few of the shots I managed to take before my poor Nikon went to sleep. Hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

{Sneak-Peak} : Our Wedding Post

I have been working on putting together a blog post featuring Dan and I's wedding from this June - to showcase my very first wedding designs and what fed the inspiration to start my own wedding design business. Here is a sneak-peak image from the upcoming post!

thinking of fall.

A few weeks ago I did some just-for-fun-shooting at my mom's house in Reston. After a productive coffee from Starbucks I felt inspired to shoot. So I grabbed some things inside, and headed out to the deck. Fall was on my mind - so enjoy the fall colors and the beginning of the season! Also, at the bottomI have posted some fall inspiration I have been looking at.

[Fall Inspiration] - I didn't take these few, but want to use them as inspiration for future shoots!

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Look out for a sneak-peak, of a very special post, coming soon!

A Fine Art Photography Major

Last year was my first year at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. After attending Liberty University for a year I knew that I needed to follow and pursue my passion for photography - at a school with a more intense and focused photography program. So I cam home to Washington, D.C. and began on what will be a long and tough journey - but I know that all of my hard work, rough schedules, and hating the metro already will pay off in the end.

I love all kinds of photography, but my heart is sold on the beautiful, classic, and old-fashioned film and working in the darkroom. There is something about black-and-white film that digital can't seem to match - I feel like it captures a clearer, more personal and more intimate image. On top of that, there is nothing like being in the darkroom. Seeing your photography through the entire process - from creating and composing the shot to watching it slowly appear before your eyes underneath the developer. Dear digital darkroom, I'm sorry. I like you, but I like the darkroom better.

With another year only two-in-a-half weeks away, I have been going through everything to get ready and organized. Posted below is some of my work from my first year at the Corcoran, both first and second semester. All of the photographs were shot in 35mm format and were hand printed in the darkroom. The beginning of many more photographic works to come!

The lines of faces and hands. For my final project I concentrated on dramatic lighting portraits. My idea was to capture, through portraits of the face and the hands, the ability to see and know that someone had been through something, something that has shaped who they are today; to show the full dimension of the person in the photograph rather than simply a glam shot. I wanted to show that it is possible to capture the essence of who a person is because of the trials and hardships they have had to face. Here are my final prints below, and then a shot of how they are meant to be displayed. 

{This light at the end of the day.}

Today my ears were graced by a beautiful song. A song from a recently required album, one that I didn't know all the words to. One of my favorite things about listening to new music is that I feel like I get to uncover little treasures as each new song begins and unfolds to the end. Well this song certainly had plenty of little treasures for me to find. The lyrics are so pure and unique, truly digging deeper, and then leaving you with a nostalgic feeling. It begged me to play it again, just intently listening to the words over and over. It reminded me of some photographs that I took last October while visting Newport, Rhode Island. The very last night of the trip, right before my now husband and I had to leave for the airport to fly home to reality, we looked outside and were taken aback by a gorgeous, rich sunset. Dan said to me: grab your camera, let's go! So out we went. :) Here are the photographs with the lyrics threaded throughout.

This light at the end of the day, when even the highways seem still. The map in my hands folded shut. There isn't one magical word, but a carnival of them instead. Like an old, silent cinema screen.

In this light you are framed classically. Just a painting that hangs in my head, that I know like the back of my hand. And with the sun set, the neon awakes and the cold colours dance on your skin. Finally the modern makes sense to me.
You're effortless, you know you are. And all I want to do is let you lead me off into the dusk. Our shadows kiss before we do, right here in the dark. I revel in the calm before the storm.

The garden is haunted by us, and every mistake that we've made is at peace because it led us both here. The thought that just burns into me, of you in the ink of the night, is the breath-taking danger of you.

You're effortless, you know you are. And all I want to do is let you lead me off into the dusk. Our shadows kiss before we do, right here in the dark. I revel in the calm before the storm.

This is life, this is all I want from life. It's the fervour and the tenderness combined. In the dark, in the ever-falling dark, we are anchorless adrift but barely notice.

You're effortless, you know you are. And all I want to do is let you lead me off into the dusk. Our shadows kiss before we do, right here in the dark. I revel in the calm before the storm.

You're effortless, you know you are. And all I want to do is let you lead me off into the dusk. Our shadows kiss before we do, right here in the dark. I revel in the calm before the storm.

You're effortless, you know you are. And all I want to do is let you lead me off into the dusk. Our shadows kiss before we do, right here in the dark. I revel in the calm before the storm.