elephant love medley

So, been sick for the past couple days so I've just been watching movies here and there to help with the healing process. Today, it was Moulin Rouge. I always forget how much I absolutely love this film, sometimes it's just overwhelming how much it amazes me. I'm a huuuge sucker for incredibly beautiful visuals and this film is chalk full of them.

This is one of my favourite sequences. It's not as powerful as the El Tango de Roxanne sequence, but this one always gives me the warm fuzzy goosebumps.



AGH. So good. Especially love the part with the exploding heart effect. This whole film is just a really great marriage of over the top embellishments, great acting, incredible art direction, really good editing, etc. Definitely one of my all time favourites.

Anywho, gushing over. I need to upload my new photos, there's quite a few, but I'm always hesitant since I often want to have them part of a 'series' or small group, but then never get around to finishing said 'series' or group. Ah well. I'll get to them eventually. Need to redo my flickr account too. I've sort of reached my 200 photos already, but I'm not certain I like all of them. Might just have to get myself a pro account so I don't have to worry about the cap.

'Til next time~

decision daisy

I am aware that the flowers in question are actually blackeyed susans, but originally I tried this idea out with daisies and liked the title so I kept it. The daisies were much smaller, so writing on the petals was much more difficult than it was with the susans and would have required way more photoshopping than necessary. Fortunately, my mum had a nice crop of these flowers growing in the backyard during the summer and they didn't seem to mind the black marker as much, so WIN.

decision daisy, originally uploaded by avalilly.

all yellow, originally uploaded by avalilly.

handful, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I'm not sure if I want/need any more images to go with these. Might just leave it as a triptych, since it seems okay the way it is.

The leaves are already changing colours here. I love autumn, but I had so many summer-requiring ideas, I guess I'll just have to wait 'til next year to do them.

make-over

So, this year I decided I should actually get a desk for school instead of just using my laptop on my bed all the time. I happened upon the Salvation Army store in my town getting rid of everything for super cheap so they could move locations or something. I found this desk in there for $30. It's small, cute, and fits perfectly in my new room.

I decided the dark forest green wasn't really working for me though. I have this thing for red, white, and black, so ofcourse that needed to happen in the new paint job. Picked up some marine oil paint 'sample' cans from the paint place, sanded it down and painted away!

Before!

After!

Unfortunately, the stripes didn't come out perfectly straight. The tape I used sort of allowed for some paint to seap under it, but it's nothing terribly noticeable. I'll probably just fix it with a small brush if I'm in a tedious mood sometime. I have some small circular mirror accents I'm debating putting on the drawers too, but I think I like it the way it is.

hearts

heart petals, originally uploaded by avalilly.

love colour, originally uploaded by avalilly.

heart shaped lipstick, originally uploaded by avalilly.

colour love, originally uploaded by avalilly.

tilted love, originally uploaded by avalilly.

love tea, originally uploaded by avalilly.

love bokeh, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I don't know why, but one day I woke up and decided I'd like to start a photo series of hearts. I know it's been done a million ways already, but I like it. It's just a silly side project I'll keep ongoing, if I think of something or come across something that'll work I'll add it to the set.


It might eventually amalgamate into some sort of "love is" series, but I'll have to think about it. Well, maybe not, but I'll need the assistance of other people so it doesn't get stale. I'd like to do more people portraits anyways, so it's a definite possibility.

PS why does blogspot horribly compress the images in the thumbnails into grotsky quality? Sadface.

it's raining

This film was shot on June 21, 2009. It was written and directed by Will Murphy and is special to me because it was my very first non-student production. It was a simple set up, just a bedroom and a bathroom, but the director trusted me with creative freedom to just bring in whatever and dress it how I felt. That was awesome, because the character who the room belonged to was pretty much in the exact demographic as I am, so a lot of my own things ended up being in the shots.

Worked out pretty well, the end budget for art department was only $4.52, which was spent on pregnancy tests from the dollar store for props. I still find it hilarious that you can buy pregnancy tests at the dollar store. They were perfect though because they were label free.

You can find more stills from the day here in my Flickr set, but here's a few favourites:

realization, originally uploaded by avalilly.

connection, originally uploaded by avalilly.

camera, originally uploaded by avalilly.

blanket, originally uploaded by avalilly.

lil hammer, big hammer, originally uploaded by avalilly.

makeup tears, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Overall it was pretty much the best experience I've had on set to date. There were a handful of industry professionals on the crew that graciously donated their time to help make this film. It was a really interesting change from working on student productions. Everything went by much quicker with a lot less downtime and everyone stuck to their own job, etc. I thought it might be more difficult to work with strangers, but it was a surprisingly lovely experience!

The film is not yet completed last I heard, but I can't wait to see the finished product!

money honeys

This is precisely why I need to find summer employment... immediately.

Song: "Money Honey" by Lady Gaga

(Hopefully they won't get mad and make me take it down. Facebook wouldn't even let me upload it, so it'll go here for a little bit anyways...)

In other news, I'll be Art Directing a film on sunday, so look forward to seeing some production stills from that soon!

photoshoot fun

So Katie and I had a fun little photoshoot last weekend. She wanted to do some makeup on a couple friends of ours to start building up a bit of a makeup portfolio, so I agreed to do the photography for her.


The following are of the lovely Jamie! Those lashes were so huge that the wind was actually blowing them around on her eyelids. She rocked them though!

Photography: Laura Crowell

Make-up: Katie Melanson

Model: Jamie Miller

Editting: Laura Crowell

The next batch are of Astrea. We ran into a bit of a time issue, as she had to get to a meeting, so it was a quick process with makeup and then a quick photoshoot, but they still turned out nice! Admittedly, not the most spectacular creative makeup in the world, but we were in a hurry. What can you do. She worked it though~

Photography: Laura Crowell
Make-up: Katie Melanson
Model: Astrea Campbell-Cobb
Editting: Laura Crowell

All in all, a fun little photoshoot. Hopefully with some more thought and time in the future, we can come up with some more elaborate ideas. I had a lot of fun working with these ladies, so hopefully they'll be up for it in the future!