Feast Your Eyes

 

All foods shown were made and prepared by Tracy Riddell.

So, in the last couple of days, I haven't taken a lot of photos outside of school assignments. BUT! Finally, I got to take some food photography for Tracy Riddell (aka Mom). What's the best part about your mom being a chef/food consultant? YOU GET TO EAT WHAT SHE MAKES! It was all sooo delicious. Plus, we had fun. She even let me throw some stuff together...but my stuff looked ugly, so I wont upload any photos of it :)

This will be quick post. Actually, I'm almost done!

I'm going to Havre/Cutbank today and then I'll be back in town on Sunday evening. Then March 4th I'm leaving to go to Missoula for a concert and for a missions conference. After that, I'll be in Texas for about a week for SXSW with code-monkeys.com and somagames.com. Finally, we're going to Portland and then doing our anniversary (we = myself and husband).

I'll be back in Montana in April! Just in time for the release of Through the Lens magazine!

Must-Have Monday

I don't know is the PS3 is better than the XBox 360 or vice versa, but the fact of the matter is that I own an XBox 360 and I love magazines. When I lived in England, I had a HUGE collection of PLAY (a PS2 magazine), but when moving back to the US, I got rid of about 2/3 of my collection.
Unfortunately, I've had this desire to once again....collect a multitude of magazines. Amazon.com is great for this! You can get a year's worth of the Official XBox Magazine for about $15 (without DVDs). I've seen some yearlong subscriptions go for $5 - $10 if you catch it on Amazon's Deal of the Day.
Awesome? I know it!

Terrible Me [Photography]

Yes, I skipped blogging for a few days.
However, I'll make it up to you! Here's some more shots of Jamie Steele Griffith featuring clothing by Lindsay Becker of Buffalo Heart from our last shoot!

All in all, epic shoot was epic! Tonight I'll be testing out some still life lighting schemes, working on part of my Photo History final, getting ready for Photographic Illustration, and then...*shrug* Same ol'!

Charlie Chaplin and I

Here's a little comparison of myself and Charlie Chaplin! He's definitely cooler ;P

Yesterday's shoot with Julie Daniels of Jubilee Photography was AWESOME! She is definitely a cool lady! I showed up, she had some poses picked out and supplied the props. We even tried some...interesting poses (heel-click-jump-thing). I'm just glad that I didn't break anything with my lack of jumping skills!

Notice the shortness of my hair? Yea, my hair actually goes to my shoulders! But for the Charlie Chaplin theme, I decided to make it shorter. To do this, I first did all the hair curling, brushing, curling, and so forth. Then, I took my hair into three sections and tied a little black rubber band to the ends. Next, I folded the sections of hair underneath my hair and secured it with bobby pins (does that make sense?).
At any rate, it was lots of fun!

Charlie Chaplin, School, and Sammy

Today's shoot with Julie Daniels (Jubilee Photography) was an amazing amount of fun! We based the shoot around Charlie Chaplin...who I sadly did not know til recently! The shoot was filled with bowler hats, a mustache at the end, and jumping (yes, jumping).
Julie is truly a talented individual that is easy and fun to work with. Check her out here:
Jubilee.Smugmug.Com

Now, as some know, I'm studying Photography at an online college (Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online). While I wish I could study on-campus and have more of a focus in Photography, my area doesn't offer much. Anyways, finals are next week and I'm psyched! I'm only taking Photo History right now due to financial aid problems, but that's alright. So far, I have an A, yay! After that I'm taking Photo Illustration and then I'll finish up my history classes with Photo History II (thankfully, I've taken so many history of art courses).

And to sum up this post, I'll talk about my cat, Sammy.
HE IS GETTING SO HUGE! He's 8 or 9 months old and already weighs 11lbs. He's a Siamese-mix and well...he really did not get the sleek Siamese build. But he's the best :) Lately he's been acting like a puppy. he follows me EVERYWHERE. I'll post up pictures of him soon.

Stay tuned for photographs from today's shoot!

Skype, Lens, and Shooting

I didn't know Skype was cool again! Well, apparently it is! So, I've signed up once more. Look for me under marissa.carabin!

Now, today I should be expecting a package. Actually today AND tomorrow I should be getting things! Today I'm expecting my Canon EF 85mm  f1/8 USM lens, UV Filters, Lens cap leashes, and a cleaning kit. Tomorrow I should have my new Canon 7D in! A little further into the future (Friday/Saturday), I should have in a book of my photography. I'm pretty stoked about it all!

In other news, I have another shoot tomorrow with the lovely Julie Daniels of Jubilee Photography! We'll be doing some fun B&W with a 'vintage' theme. It should include classy hair, a cane, and a nifty hat! Yep...good summary right there! STAY TUNED!

Must-Have Monday

So simple, yet so genius! The "Opteka Hot Shoe Two Axis Double Bubble Spirit Level for Digital and Film Cameras" (thank you, Amazon, for your super long names). At any rate, this little baby will only you put you back $7.95. While I don't have my own yet, I can really see the value to this sweet thang!
If you're anything like me, being able to tell how straight your photo is is not an easy task. It takes time, dedication, and most of all...post-processing.
The big disadvantage I see to this (for me, anyways) is that it'll be a little hard to use my hot-shoe flash with this dealio on it. Anyone know any methods to remedy this without spending a fortune? Post!

Today's To-Do

For the football fans (and the women who are with football fans), as you know, Sunday is Super Bowl! The husband and I will be throwing a Super Bowl party with some of our friends and boy oh boy, it should be fun :D
The unfortunate part is preparation. John (the hubby) and I have a lot of cleaning to do. Yesterday we bought a new rug, put some of my prints on the walls (finally...we had photographs from other people up, but none from me til now), and a couple of days ago, we even revamped the terrarium.
Now, what else? Ah yes, food. So far I know I'll be making a buffalo-hot-sauce-cream-cheesiness dip...and that's it. I guess I'll start thinking more about foods today as well.

On the other side of this, I'll also be meeting up with Dennis Dorr of Digital Montana Photography this evening to go over our last shoot and we'll decide on a dozen photos that make the 'finale' list.
If you don't know Dennis Dorr and his work, here's a link to his site! Check it out
Digital Montana - Dennis Dorr

Just A Blog

I don't like starting blogs. Why? Because of the first post. What am I supposed to say? Well, I'll just talk about the last two weeks worth of shooting and updates.


I had my first model shoot in the last two...three...(?) years just recently. Dennis Dorr of Digital Montana allowed me into his wonderful studio setup in Kalispell. There wasn't any theme, BUT...who needs a theme when you have some Dolce & Gabbana that you really want to wear?! And so, that is what I brought! A wonderful red blazer and skirt combo. The lovely Ema Delby was also present with all her stylist skills. She had a vast array of accessories, clothing, and shoes to offer. It was every girl's dream, basically. Dennis' camera talents, Ema's expert opinions, and my Dolce & Gabbana were not to be messed with that day. Here's one of the images that Dennis produced

 

Dennis was incredibly easy to work with. He gave great direction and was remarkable with feedback! Altogether, it was an enjoyable experience!

My next shoot was with Julie Daniels of Jubilee Photography. This wonderful lady had a very intriguing idea: LUMBERJACK GIRL! So, for the first time ever...I bought a flannel, red, plaid shirt! It was a fairly warm shirt...and comfortable. It was also a tad too big considering that I could only find these shirts in the Men's department.
Julie had the axe, a chainsaw, and a cute set up outdoors for the day's shoot. My lovely husband acted as the assistant and maneuvered the reflector in the noon sun.

Julie sent me this wonderful photograph from the first half of our shoot. Around came the second half of the shoot. We were able to wrap things up pretty quickly...until she spotted something. A lovely little bench that must have told her to photograph me on.

The above was one of the results from the bench.

And now...to bring this to present!
Today I had a shoot with fashion designer Lindsay Becker of Buffalo Heart. Curious about the "Buffalo Heart" name? If so, read on:

What's in a name?

The Hidatsa people of the present-day Dakotas were dependent on four staples that defined their summer diet: beans, squash, corn, and sunflowers. The sunflowers were a particularly versatile source of food. The Hidatsa could press oil from the seeds, or crush the seeds into a paste, or roll them into balls that resembled little round granola bars.

These sunflower seed balls were carried by hunters when they went in search of deer or buffalo. In a pouch made from the dried heart of a buffalo, the seed balls were kept dry on the hunter's journey. Thus they were protected and were useful to sustain the hunter.

Much like the conservative, efficient use the Hidatsa made of their resources, so should we make an effort to use our resources efficiently. Like the leathery buffalo heart protected the precious sustenance of a hunter, so should our clothing envelope our precious human vessels.

BuffaloHeart is about making wise use of what we have, because it's all we have.

I thought that was pretty nifty! While I don't have any preview pictures to show off quite yet (seeing as how we just gone done shooting this afternoon), here is a pre-preview

Just a silly webcam shot. Enjoy that!


In other news! I'm not just a model. I'm a photographer! And guess what? Next month shall be abundant in awesomeness! Besides the fact that March 27th is my one year anniversary, besides the fact that my husband and I are going to SXSW, besides the fact that I'm going to a missions convention...we may be going to Uganda! Why, you ask? Well, amazing opportunities have arisen! If things go as planned, I'll be going to various places in Africa and Indonesia this year to document missions! Pretty exciting, I must say. In preparation, I just finished ordering a new camera and lens today. I might pick up some more memory cards, a camera backpack, a portable external hard-drive, and...yup, that'll make the trip much easier! The only sad part is the fact that I'll be leaving my siamese-mix kitten, Sammy. Here's a picture of the cutie:

(The white one, obviously) The black one is his buddy, Georgie. That's my father in-law's cat that the hubby and I got him. On top of leaving the cutest kitty EVER...we'll also be leaving our bajillions of lizards, birds, and my plants :(
So, here's some photos I've taken over the last few weeks of all of these things!

That's all for today! Bye :D