Inspiration

     Inspiration. I get asked a lot about where I get my ideas and how I continuously create. It has a lot to do with my imagination and my whole life being completely engulfed in creative thoughts. I realized once my thoughts were free, open, and positive, I was able to allow myself to create easier. My mind wasn't cluttered with what celebrity was wearing what, who broke up with who, or he said she said nonsense. My mind was open to make my reality whatever I pleased.

     I get inspiration mostly from my dreams, feelings, or a story I want to portray. I get inspiration from colors, music, other art, poetry, or anything possible. Locations I love the most are wooden areas or abandoned places. I have this real itch to always shoot in the woods or abandoned areas. The woods I guess would be because of my childhood. As a child I would constantly go play and get lost in the huge wooden area in our back yard. Hour and hours I dedicated to climbing trees and just playing out there. I wouldn't really be doing anything specific but just play with my imagination. Ah, the memories already overflow me with happiness. I think the love for abandoned areas comes from the old abandoned junk yard in the woods behind my house. It wasn't big or anything but enough to just go on for days as a child and play. Also, there was a house down the road from me that was abandoned. Everyday after school I'd stare at it as we drove past it and always begged my mother to let me go inside or look around. She was too scared I'd get hurt or that there would be snakes in the grass so alas I never got to explore it. Later they tore it down and built a huge cul de sac of many two story houses. I'll never know what it looked like on the inside but my memories remember the outside like I visited yesterday. 

Middle floor of the building. There were 3 floors and 6 wings each. Quite an
adventure and took maybe 2 hours and I'm still not even sure we got
through it all or not.

     Another reason why I love abandoned areas is because I love how they each have their own story. Every time I walk into a house like that I can just feel the history and little bit of sadness but I love the ones that still have furniture in it. I know of an amazing one that still has photos and books and other things in it. It's kind of funny because there isn't an obvious place of what room was a bed room or a kitchen. The bathroom is obvious but for a two story house it's actually small on the inside. A good 4 or 5 models of mine have braved it and walked across a floor that shook every step you took. I love it so much! I think the adventurous side of me comes out when I find these places. "The Hunt". I never disrespect these places though. I generally don't touch anything and I don't destroy anything in the property. I respect it even though its abandoned. One thing I can not stand is when I find these places and they're completely ruined with graffiti or there is evidence of beer, needles, drugs, and other things. 

Taken while exploring. The texture
photos I got from this place is
amazing!

     Something else I like is placing new or pure subjects in the frame against the old, tore away background of the location. Something about the old with the new, clean with dirty, or young with old just makes me love it even more. I generally love models with pale skin and I will put them in pale or white dresses to give that essence of the pure with the old and decaying. 

     Like I said, anything can give me inspiration. Lately fall and just October has given me so much inspiration it's making my head explode with all the ideas I have. I love this month more than anything! Lately what has really inspired me has to be dresses. Not just white ones but really old vintage and long dresses. I just love the look it adds to my photos. I feel like it starts to complete them in a way other outfits couldn't. I'm not much of a fan of smiling in my photos or anything "glamorous". I try to keep it as natural as possible unless I have an idea that I really want to achieve using crazy hair and makeup. I don't use shoes in my photos, which is funny because I have way too many and I love buying more, but I keep it bare foot with natural hair if all possible. I will get into talking a bit more about my style and why I love it in another post!
 

Taken while exploring. I'm not a fan
of vandalism but this made me
chuckle. "Hello Again."

Let me paint a better picture for you. If
you've ever been in a really old church...
you know that old carpet smell? It was
like that x100. I couldn't breathe it was
pretty potent. 

     For this photo my inspiration came from a dream I had a couple of years ago. I'm not really sure what the dream was about or what it meant but this was a part of the dream and ever since I had that dream I searched for the perfect place to photograph my dream. I had no luck finding a place with a lot of stray books or papers anywhere until one day I visited this place and stumbled across this room. I saw it all the way down a hallway and I instantly knew that was the room that would be best to portray my vision. I made a straight line for the room and even stepped on glass along the way but completely ignored it and went in here and I turned to my boyfriend and looked at him and said, "This is the room! This is the room I've been searching for a couple of years now." Though he didn't really have a clue what I meant he didn't have any issues with escorting me back to this location when there was more light outside to shoot! If you look closely you can even see his reflection in on of the windows.

"Dreams Imagined" Taken October 31, 2013.