ChOiCes

This is my Photo-quote # 8!… yay I created it with an image I took of a NYC subway sign and quote from Ezra Benson. 

Below I posted an essay I wrote about a year ago that I thought was perfect to accompany the photo-quote, but I decided to edit it a bit and re-write couple of things.

How do you describe the path of your life? Are you leading? Are you following? Are you moving at all? Through time a part of you lives by making choices, the timeless in you whispers which way you should go… but are you listening?

The past is a memory, the future just an idea, and the choices that we make now define our existence. Where you stand in moments of pleasure and convenience is not as significant as where you stand in times of affliction, for to choose to do what is challenging as if it were easy denotes not only inner strength but also the fact that you are really listening.

There is so much wisdom in silence if you choose to be suspended in the gap of your thoughts , and so much beauty in differences if you choose to connect with your heart. There is truth in a stranger’s glimpse if you choose to raze your walls, and lessons in mistakes if you choose to be beautifully wrong.

If you fear your life you will never truly live, for NOT choosing is also a choice. But if you love your life and choose with vision and courage, you will not only live beyond the ordinary,  you will also experience a progressive inner growth that will expand your personal power and it will make your heart free. 

You can take the 6, E or V trains, it is up to you… just make sure you choose wisely and fearlessly Thanks again for stopping by!

 

Sunny California {Part III} LACMA LINES

This third post about CA mainly illustrates the art and architecture of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It is truly an amazing space that everyone should visit with very interesting permanent and temporary exhibits. I was particularly impressed with the Museum’s exterior. I love the surrounding gardens and the modernistic design of the courtyards between the buildings. Even the elevators were fantastic. I titled this post LACMA LINES because I focused more on capturing the angles and sections of buildings that accentuate and best showcase their architecture. For me, showing certain aspects of the building instead of photographing the building itself creates images more visually interesting, leaving the rest of the structure to the imagination.

This first photograph is actually a collage I created with several images. The background is a picture I took in one of LACMA’s courtyards, and the wording was composed of many individual images I took of a fabulous quote I saw on the wall of the Architecture and Design Museum of LA. The quote refers to Charles and Ray Eames designs. They were American designers who made major contributions to Modern Architechture and Furniture.

This exhibit uses Eames words to focus on the lesser-known aspects of their lives, revealing their appreciation for the value of humble objects and useful tools. From tumbleweeds to strawberries, a bolt of cloth to a keg of nails, from elephants in India to the bread of Scandinavia, the whole world was their canvas.

LACMA bookstore had a wonderful sale, of course I wanted to buy all the books! What a feast for my soul.Very few things I love more than books, perhaps because I love reading and writing so much. I am currently working on my own book. I can’t wait to see how that will unfold…

I love the perspective here. This image was taken at the Rodin gardens of the museum. I absolutely love sculptures, especially from Rodin, and I think the fact that they exhibited them outdoors is something remarkable. I love how this bust contrasts against the straight lines of the modernistic architecture of the museum. This is definitely a fabulous place to read, paint, sketch, have lunch and relax.

These large pillars belong to 202 Old Cast Iron Street Lamps. It is an exhibit by Chris Burden called Urban Light and it is located right at the corner of Ogden and Wilshire Blvd. I though it was soo cool! I Love the perspective the lamps create as they stand perfectly aligned from each other, and when they are lit up at night it is quite a scene I absolutely love the light here. It was around sunset time of course, and the yellow-golden light of the sun was bathing the buildings against a cloudless sky. A plane had just left a smoke (condensation) trail in the sky too, so I thought that enhanced the image. I love these lines… what a cool frame!

And here are the Street Lamps lit up at dusk. I thought they looked so beautiful.

ART & STREET FINDINGS 

Instead of writing an additional post I wanted to add up couple more images of some of the amazing and interesting art I saw at the museum, and couple other interesting things I found on the streets of LA.

The first images belong to an exhibit called “California Design 1930-1965″ which it depicted the modern way Americans lived in California during that period. Throughout the 20th century this state symbolized the good life in America. After 1945 a newly prosperous population, intoxicated by the power of purchase after the deprivation years of the Great Depression, turned the state into America’s most important center for progressive architecture and furnishings. The exhibition explored how the California of our collective imagination – a democratic utopia where a benign climate permitted life to be led informally and largely outdoors was translated into a material culture that defined an era.

Of course the Jazz from this period was the BEST of this exhibition for me. I sat in front of this old stereo playing all the albums above and I did not leave for an hour! At the end, I purchased a cool tee with one the designs from the old LPs. I loooove it !

 

MODERN ART 

As we were driving back to the hotel I saw this and I had to capture it. No words needed. Just in Hollywood.

And what a better way to end my posts about CA than with the word “LOVE”. I saw this written on one of the streets and I thought to myself: When you are fully present and connected to that inexhaustible source of creative energy from your being, you are definitely in the vibration of love and you’ll probably see it everywhere. I loved every minute of my trip, I felt free to capture the wonderful things I saw on my own way and to express it to the world through my own eyes. Thanks for stopping by. Until next time…. <3 (LOVE).

 

 

 

Sunny California {Part II} The Paul Getty Museum

Hello everyone!! The only thing I can say is WWOOWW !! THANK YOU very much for ALL your kind comments about my images. I am so incredibly honored and humbled to have been published on “Freshly Pressed”. The post has received more than 12.000 hits so far and I now have couple hundred subscribers ! I want to also thank all of you who “liked” the post. I am really happy that you find my images inspiring and entertaining, as that is my main purpose… inspiring others. I am glad that through my images a lot of you felt compelled and inspired to visit CA, and some of you living here felt compelled to visit these amazing places ! . Please do it. You will love them !

Among the hundreds of comments I read I also found many questions. I will try to answer some of them here, but for some more specific ones I will do it later in a more individual way.

First, I use a Nikon D300 camera. I know some of you wanted to know the specific settings I used for certain images and I will try to answer that later. The vibrant colors (sky, walls, etc) are achieved using a relatively small aperture when the image is taken, and then working with curves in photoshop.

Here are the some images I took at the AMAZING Paul Getty Museum which I believe is one the biggest museums in the western United States. I have seen many other museums in the U.S and in Europe, but this one just became one of my favorites! Its modern, 21 century architecture, size and the quality of its exhibits set it aside from the rest of the other museums in the country. Admission is FREE by the way!! Can you believe that? They only charge $ 15.00 for parking and that is it. So put this one on your list as well !

As a quick addition, I just want to explain that my style on photographing cityscapes and architecture is very personal. I purposely do not use a wide angle lens for this. For me certain perspectives and sections of a building are more visually interesting than the building itself. I tend to capture what is not obvious to the naked eye and I perceive in an intuitive way, harmonious compositions of angles, light and backgrounds. I really hope you enjoy the new images. Stay tuned for Part III. Much more to come !

I love the composition here. The lines from the buildings flow perfectly together with the shadows. Your eye goes straight to the center of the image…

I love this tree!! Isolating its branches against the cloudless sky created such a unique image.

The very minimalistic composition below is also very interesting to me

Solar reflections are another one of my favorite things to photograph. I particularly like the colorful glare they create on my lens that later is seen on the image.

Another thing I like to include in my compositions when it works is the presence of “one person”…. usually located in the middle of the frame. In this image above the person walking by gave the image a lot more life… and it also worked great with the perspective.

The Museum gardens were AMAZING, even in January. I thought they complemented the museum’s architecture so well. I heard they have 30+ gardeners that work really hard to maintain it so beautiful.

Back lit situations are very tricky to capture. They require a great deal of metering and bracketing in order to find the right exposure. I love everything about this image above. The lines of the building are amazing, the bright light in the background shows you what a clear day it was and immediately gives you a very happy emotional response, and the people peeking through the glass gives the image an element of fun! This was a mini model of the museum showing all the wings. It is so interesting to me how differently we are affected when looking at an image of something big and vast versus something so close and small…I really LOVE this image! The light is gorgeous, the colors are amazing and photographing the reflection of the building instead of the building itself made this image more visually exciting.

SUNNY CALIFORNIA {Part I}

I have been in BEAUTIFUL California for  couple days now and I am loving every minute of it! The weather has been absolutely magnificent with crisp, sparkly, sunny and warm days. Color me pretty-super happy!.. yay . Wednesday we went to the Griffith Observatory which it was one of the main things on my to do list as I am fascinated with Astronomy and particularly with Astrophysics. We first took a short hike in the mountains that surround the building, then we walked the wonderful premises of the building and saw a live show at the observatory that it was amazing, and finally we watched the sun setting behind the Pacific Ocean… It really was a perfect day in all aspects. I am very grateful :). Yesterday we went to the taping of the Bill Maher show, I don’t have any images of that of course as they did not permit any photography at the CBS studios, but I enjoyed the show VERY much! Afterwards, I adventured to downtown L.A to see some cool exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Here are some images from the Griffith Observatory. Hope you enjoy them. Much  more to come…. Thanks for stopping by!! Love and blessings…

The Foucault Pendulum is one of the most interesting experiments used to prove the rotation of the earth but I’d never seen it in person. This one was really descriptive and very informative. I loved it! And this below is the cool Tesla Coil. Sooo cool !

I really liked the shadow one of the binoculars made on the wall

I love everything about this image… the colors of the beautiful sky, the delicate silhouettes that people, trees and even the helicopter created, and the beautiful crescent moon. I think everything worked in harmony to create a beautiful image…

As everyone was photographing the sunset I saw the shadows on this wall and I thought it was much more visually interesting than the hazy sunset or the Hollywood sign :)

The Duman Family

I photographed the Duman family at their home yesterday during a windy but beautiful afternoon. I started my session with sweet little Noah, their adorable 3 month old. He is so cute and VERY well- behaved. I really had a wonderful time working with them

The many faces of NOAH !! How incredibly cute is this baby !?!?

I LOVE this collage of Noah and Dana! I was tapping the window with my fingers and making funny noises to get Noah’s attention. I guess he loved it!

After doing the majority of the photos at the house we adventured to a park near by. Because of the high winds I could not shoot in open areas but I found this AMAZING copper wall in one of the buildings. I knew it would be a perfect backdrop for these shots, especially because of the colors they were wearing. It worked out great !

 

 

Winners of the “Bride’s Choice Award 2012″

We want to announce formally that we have been awarded with the WEDDING WIRE BRIDE’S CHOICE AWARD !!! We want to THANK all of our brides and clients for giving us such amazing reviews. The purpose of our business is not just providing our clients with exceptional service and unique images that they will cherish for a lifetime, but also exceeding their expectations and making them happy. We are incredibly honored and humbled by all these recognitions.

This is how the winners were determined:

The WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards ™ recognizes the top local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ are awarded solely based on the reviews from over 1.2 million newlyweds. Awards are determined by a combination of four factors: Overall rating (quality), total number of reviews (quantity), review performance from 2011 (recency), and consistency of reviews from year to year (consistency). This year’s recipients represent the top 5% of WeddingWire’s vendor community, across all service categories and all regions throughout the US and Canada.

© 2012, Wedding Wire, Inc.

All Rights Reserved.

2012 {Taking Responsibility}

As we enter a fabulous new year our minds and hearts get deluged by many different types of thoughts and emotions. It is almost a disorganized assortment of pictures of new projects, goals, fears, grievances, accomplishments, hopes and dreams. No matter our differences in cultural backgrounds, social status, age, race, religion or financial standing, we all have one goal in common: HAPPINESS.

Without delving too much into the complex concept of happiness and over-stating the almighty cliché that “happiness is a state of mind” I would like to take this essay in a different direction, a direction perhaps very personal to me but one that I am sure you can all relate to.

I believe that up until now humanity has been working backwards…. from individuals to entire nations, they were desperately trying to re-arrange the external world to their convenience without doing any transformational work on their own selves. The famous writer Neville states very wisely: “Man’s chief delusion is his conviction that there are causes to his problems other than his own state of consciousness”.But for the last 5 years the whole world has been slowly awakening to a new way of thinking, we are taking an evolutionary leap and realizing that the purpose of our existence is mastering ourselves so we can not just transcend suffering, but also help others to ascend to a higher realm.

Most people relate the concept of mastering oneself to living in isolation in a remote land meditating every day, fasting, and perhaps practicing teachings from some enlightened being. Even though that is not a bad idea for some of us … in this era of awakening and evolving that is not necessarily what is required in order to accomplish such an essential goal. I personally believe that independently of your spiritual beliefs or religious background the secret on mastering the self is uniquely implicit in only one thing: Taking responsibility for your life.

As you take complete responsibility for your life: physically, emotionally and spiritually, you enter a new realm of personal power that allows you to trust and love yourself more. The more you know and love yourself the better your chances to transcend suffering in all areas of your life and therefore achieving balance and happiness.

Taking responsibility for your physical condition means not just doing all the necessary things to keep a healthy body, but understanding that if your body is unbalanced in some manner that there is an underlined cause for that lack of health and it is up to you to restore it. We already know that our thoughts create our reality, so taking full responsibility for the thoughts we think in our minds means learning how to change negative patterns that don’t serve us anymore, and replacing them with new positive habits.

Most people are so terrified of confronting negative emotions that they choose to either deny them or to drown them in alcohol, drugs,
medications, or on all kinds of empty distractions. But the side effect of this denial or avoidance is a sort of psycological quicksand, the more you move to try to push these emotions away, the more you sink into darkness. Taking responsibility for our emotional health, acknowledging and integrating our negative feelings will provide us with a sense of emotional freedom that is exceedingly more satisfying than any shot, pill or hit you have taken in your life.

And lastly, taking responsibility for your spiritual state means learning to get in touch with the most important part of your being and understanding the impact of this essential relationship in your life. Pain and suffering are two different things. Suffering is self-imposed and it happens when we disconnect from our wisdom and remain ignorantly drifting around in the realm of the mundane, as things in the mundane are rarely what they seem and they will always provide us with the wrong answers.

The girl with the ring is not necessarily happier than the spinster, the CEO of the company may be more unfulfilled than the cashier, and the guy living in the penthouse may be more tormented and ignorant than the superintendent. It all lies in the level of responsibly we take for our own happiness.

As 2011 fades, I reflect on the year and know that I am not a victim of my circumstances and that I am responsible for my successes, failures and accomplishments. I embrace where I have been and love where I am going because I know I have the power to change. And next year when I reflect back about the quality of my life, either if I have advanced one inch or one mile, I will know that all depended on the kind of responsibility I have taken.

Thanks again for visiting my blog, I hope you found my words inspiring and helpful. Wishing you all a year full of positive change and personal growth

With love always,

Karina

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday filled with warmth, love and happiness, and the most amazing New Year yet!…. All I wanted for Christmas was a hippopotamus but I did not get it …. oh well, as Frankie would say ” Just wrap your troubles in dreams, and dream your troubles away”  Here is a cute holiday card I created with an image I took in downtown yesterday…. my fingers were frozen but it was sooo worth it! Continuing with the Bokeh fun! Stay tuned, there is more to come! I will upload the rest of the images next week. Until then… Happy Holidays.

Bittersweet Anticipation: Expecting The Expected

I was listening the NPR “All things considered” yesterday and I heard Ben Dolnick narrate his amazing essay titled “Bittersweet Anticipation” I thought it was so great that I needed to find it and share it here. I like Ben’s  narrative style and I find this essay to be truthful and beautifully written.  I hope you enjoy it! Sending you all love and best wishes

Lately, just in time for Christmas, I’ve discovered that I’ve been acting in a play. A kind of holiday pageant, really. Working title: Things Are Always Better Before You Have Them.

Act One: I learn about the existence of something I want. Say, a book. (Ooh, a book of letters between William Maxwell and Eudora Welty!)

Act Two: I add the book to my Amazon wish list, which I proceed to circulate shamelessly to my family.

Act Three: I receive the object, put it on my nightstand and forget about it — at least until the following Christmas; possibly forever.

This plot, now that I’ve become aware of it, seems to play as central a role in my life as the ticking-time-bomb plot does in 24. I see it in the eagerness with which I await the cheerful ding of a new email message and then the speed with which it joins the un-bolded others. I see it in the crisp promise of a newly arrived magazine, soon to join the rumpled stack on the coffee table. I see it in the meal, sizzling in the waiter’s hands, mere minutes from becoming a lukewarm and poorly chosen heap on my plate.

I seem to spend disturbing quantities of my life arcing from anticipation to indifference (with a fleeting, occasional stop at fulfillment), and, now that I’ve recognized this trajectory, I find myself madly envious of the people who’ve managed to escape it.

I refer not to monks, or even to those with sensibly researched wish lists. Instead I’m thinking of the die-hards who continue to believe that somewhere a perfect Republican presidential nominee is waiting in the wings. The basketball fans who insist that Arvydas Sabonis would be the greatest player of all time, if not for that small matter of having injured seemingly everything below his neck. And the art-lovers who keep themselves warm with the thought of Vermeer’s still-undiscovered masterpieces.

What have these people done, after all, if not placed Amazon orders that will never be subject to the indignity of arrival? What better place to take up residence than in a paradise that can never be invaded by pesky reality?

Maybe Amazon should, it occurs to me, open a new warehouse devoted entirely to losing packages, leaving customers in a permanent state of anticipation. And maybe Rick Perry should hold a press conference at which he announces his intention to withdraw from the race so as to resume considering whether to enter. Nothing is so perfect as that which never gets to be experienced, and nothing is so alluring as the thought that the next job, the next book, the nextpresident is finally going to be the souffle that doesn’t fall between the oven and the table.

Maybe monk-hood really is the best solution. Or, barring that, a pledge to let myself  be surprised on Christmas, to cast my wish list overboard. In the meantime, though, have you heard about this new Cook’s Illustrated cookbook? It’s supposed to be amazing.

PlaYinG wiTh LighT

Here is more Bokeh fun!… I created this image photographing some Christmas lights in my home using some disks I ordered with all kinds of cute shapes for Bokeh Photography. They attach to the lens or the UV filter. It also very easy to make them… but I thought the variety of shapes that came with the kit were fantastic! Can’t wait to photograph all the lights from downtown Denver using some of these cute shapes!… More fun to come