a never ending dream

I've been way too restless for sleep the past few days and it's keeping me up into the early hours of the morning to accomplish things and put my mind at ease. I've been spending the night uploading photos to my online store that I'm trying to put together and coming across old photos that I totally forgot about. Not ones that I want to sell but it just reminds me how far I've come in the past few years... especially with the know-hows of photography.



Well, a fellow photographer friend of mine helped me out and gave me a mini tutorial on how to create simple rounded edges to photographs. Obviously people wouldn't want them printed this way BUT it's a nice way to portray photographs online. It's different :) Kind of reminds me of polaroids.



I've been feeling the need to do a long cover on my weekend adventure but I kind of want to wait until I have all pictures and possible video clips together :) I turned sport mode on while riding on the bike to record a time lapse to piece together. I love the way that stop motion animation looks. I found a youtube video that really went all out and made a time lapse AWESOME.



I'm super excited for the next month. A few adventures call my name going on a trip to Hilton Head with my friend Jessie and my sister/best friend Holly. I've never taken an all girl road trip before and even though I do recall mentioning this in a previous blog, I can't help but explode some excitement into this little weblog window :) It's much needed for all of us. Then, I'm heading to Washington D.C. to see LIGHTS acoustic performance. I'm pretty much obsessed with her. I have never in my lifetime found a female individual that I actually admire (that doesn't exist in the virtual/fantasy world) and feel so personally close and attached to. I've met her in person 2 times. Of course she's all too famous to remember me :) But her and I have weird similarities that I instantly noticed online, and offline. Then, I want to end the summer with a bang: skydiving.



I feel kind of self centered for posting all these self portraits of mine lol. But I thought it would be nice to post some photos here that I haven't posted anywhere else. All these photos have been taken in the past year. I look at photos of me from the beginning of 2009 and I look COMPLETELY different..? Or maybe, I just see myself differently.



Or maybe we could go back to when I was repelling and I was 17 :) There really isn't that big of a difference. I knew a lot about life then and I've experienced it a lot more now. And from now til the end there will be EVER MORE. The adventure of life is waiting to be explored.



I'm finally calling it a night though. I have to wake up for work in 4 and a half hours :). Happy 4th of July to everyone! Break out the fireworks, grill up some burgers, drive recklessly :P, and enjoy the beautiful weather that it looks like we're going to have here in the midwest (horray for monsoon season being finished! midwest isn't supposed to experience monsoons lol).



Good Night!
Brooke

Bigger than my Body

"Someday I'll fly, Someday I'll soar
Someday I'll be so damn much more
Cause I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for"
John Mayer




The sun flies through the clouds and his rays warm the cold Earth below. The clouds shadows race across the ground as the wind sends them higher into the atmosphere. My mind is left at ease observing the mini world below. What used to be such tall trees are now shorter than an ants shadow. What were such large rivers are now a silent blue. The birds that flew so high are now here with me soaring freely. All things are different from a new perspective. Climb higher, dig deeper, and always keep wondering.




I'm pretty excited right now because FLICKR has created a new photo page that lets you view peoples photographs in such bigger sizes now..! I decided after this weekend I'm going to be building yearly photo albums because I stopped printing photos about 2 years ago. Why? I'm not so sure. So today will be a think back and immerse myself in old memories day. Hope everyone has a good one!

BROOKE

The littlest creatures can have the biggest words.
Wanted to post this before my weekend trip <3
Much needed getaway.

-Brooke

Ride A Roller Coaster

Life is like a roller coaster. You ride up and down on drastic hills that speed around corners and then slow down before the next big hill. You have to learn to look outside the car every once in a while to see what's going on around you and enjoy the beautiful view and awesome new perspective each one of those hills, or experiences, offer. And throughout the course of our life, we may grow to find lots of different roller coasters. Some new. Some old. Some big. Some small. Each one with its own experience. Well, the past week I feel as though I experienced an entire roller coaster ride and now its time for me to slow down and take in all that's happened.

My cousins came up for the weekend. The cousins I haven't truly spent time with since I was a LITTLE kid. One in particular I haven't really seen since I was 8 but having them both together was an even more rare feat. It was a fun weekend for me playing video games, going to Kings Island (lol hence the roller coaster anaolgy), watching movies, and learning things about each other that none of us knew about each other. The experience was more like riding an old ride that you haven't ridden in a long long time, and you forgot over the course of a few years why you loved it to begin with. It was joyous and my heart warm and happy. Very much needed. And essentially, it set me up for something that threw me downhill quickly.

Yesterday, I hit the bottom of a hill again. My family decided it was time to put our dog to sleep. He has been so sick, living off steroids, and lived an entire year and a half longer than the veterinarian originally said he would. He had a strong spirit and I think he would have pushed himself to stay alive even through the pain of suffering his tumors were putting him through. It's very sad and I'm feeling reluctant to post this but I also feel the need to vent and share. I know, in my lifetime, I'll never have a dog quite like him ever again. He was loyal, sweet, caring, and very obedient. He was simply a classic. Everyone that met him told me they wanted a dog just like him because a dog like him is so rare. As weird as it may be, he was more than a dog to me. He grew to be something bigger to my family than anyone of us thought before and it had us all in tears. But without further ado, R.I.P Bonzi. You were loved in many ways from many, many people.


^OLD picture from when I was about 10. Bonzi was less than a year old and I have to say this is my favorite picture of him since there are very few from when he was a puppy.

Hope everyone has a great weekend coming up. Going on a motorcycle trip down to the Tail of the Dragon. Should have lots of awesome pictures to come back with :) Keep smiling. Keep doing the things that make you happy.. and never give up on the things that keep you going in life. For me - Photography.

BROOKE

Our Human Experience

We are all spiritual beings living the human experience.

I heard this perfectly phrased at a funeral I attended Friday for my great-grandma who passed away last week. When this entered my ears and processed through my brain, it got me thinking enormously about how spiritual many of us really are. We all choose different ways to express it through religion, art, certain relationships we create... but we really are here to make the most out of this life that we are given. I've never really been a religious person myself, but I do believe that there is more to death/life than what meets the eye. The ending of one thing can mean a completely new beginning of another. This life that we all find ourselves within isn't about meeting the expectations others set for you but the goals and desires that your heart screams to run toward, like my great-grandma did. Letting go of fear you have toward living freely, embracing who you are inside and out, and accepting everything with a smile and a spice of laughter is what makes the most out of this life. Less worry. More curiosity. Less safety. More adventure.

Anyway - I did get the chance to get some pictures yesterday after visiting the Khron Conservatory downtown for the "Butterflies of Japan" exhibit. Butterflies are the most cliche and over-photographed insect that exists BUT I did meet a cute little fellow that wouldn't seem to leave me alone.








After driving around Eden Park we came across an old water tower that used to be one of the hubs of Cincinnati... but as the city grew larger and more people flocked here obviously bigger ones were needed :) I didn't really edit this one much because the RAW file turned out pretty good.




Last Note - I still have a bulk of wedding photos to edit from last weekend and will be making a blog post featuring the best of the best here after the bride and groom get to witness first. I've been having very long, vivid moments of deja vu lately and a strangely unknown feeling of relief. And also, short rests of sleep and tired, sleepy eyes pour down on Halo 2 as I fall in love with the music of the game. Next game on my list: Dead Space.

BROOKE

Go Do

Go sing, too loud
Make your voice break - Sing it out
Go scream, do shout
Make an earthquake...

You wish fire, would die and turn colder
You wish, your love, could see you grow older
We should always know that we can do anything

Jonsi - Go Do

Yesterday while I was at work, someone mentioned a statement to me that got me thinking that dream/fantasy worlds that exist within our imagination are the very fabrication of what makes our reality. Some of us have a deeper connection to our imaginations and some never even truly develop one. There is a "normal reality" that is accepted by the majority of the human population and we're taught from an early age to believe in only this reality as being real. And most people are fine with it, accept it, and keep expanding the roots of the entire human network in this "normal reality".

I believe that we as humans know on a very subconscious level that we work better as a team, not as individuals. Our civilizations prosper, grow, and we can contribute things to a greater society by accenting in our specialities. Maybe that's why individualism is so rejected by so many people because on this deeper subconscious understanding we know our civilization would crumble from its greatness with such individuality. But what if it didn't?

What if the human consciousness could learn to accept such individualism to allow ourselves to evolve into a higher stage of spirituality? Develop skills and attributes that exist supposedly only in our dream worlds. What if more people decided to change the way they see reality as something that combines all elements of things they love? Open their heart to new possibilities and change the world around them. As the saying goes, we should all be the change that we wish to see in the world. It's not truly possible to change the entire human consciousness without freeing yourself of the reality that shackles you to the ground.

The challenge of life is to never lose yourself and never let the world change you. If more people accepted this as their goal in life, maybe more happiness, freedom, and prosperity could linger in all corners of our entire human civilization.

Nine in the Afternoon.

The past 2 days I've spent down in Louisville, Kentucky exploring and relaxing with family. My cousin gave me the opportunity to really explore Louisville in a way I haven't had the chance to before and see more of the history and uniqueness that makes the city what it is at heart. Seeing both downtown and the historic district, I not only got the chance to add some pictures to my portfolio but also got my hands on photoshop 7, saw the new movie valentines day, ate junk food, and got soaked to the bone playing in the rain!


^ After looking at this one and intensly studying this building, I came to the conclusion that I might have very well been teleported into New Orleans..!

^ This is a museum/art exhibit of local art right by the water tower that was built in the 1800's. I'm working on stitching a photo together of the water tower itself :]







Also, I have a lot of exciting things planned for summertime! Skydiving in July/August. Tail of the Dragon adventure at the end of this month. Going to try and get my work featured at the Art on the Levee downtown for print selling. Wedding this saturday. Hilton Head, SC in July and hopefully make a stop at Charleston, SC to get pictures of the Angel Oak I recently discovered. All in all, I'm looking forward to how awesome this summer is going to be.

BROOKE

PS. Title comes from the song by Panic at the Disco