a year

Copyright: Kiana McCrackin

A little over a year ago a girl with big eyes, bigger dreams, a naive soul, and an open heart flew into the Santa Barbara airport on a little Horizon airplane. That girl is portrayed in the picture above. She is a child thrust into the big world of reality. A girl forced into a more grown up role. I know this girl, she used to be me. This is the Kiana that existed before everything changed. I took this self portrait with a 4×5 view camera. I took it the day my family’s wonderful Golden Retriever passed away. I was heartbroken. I spent much of the next few months heartbroken. My Grandpa had recently passed away, my uncle passed away, and my dog passed away.

The pictures below represent who I am now. They too are self portraits, but they couldn’t be more different then the ones I once took.  Photography, my amazing boyfriend, my best friends (my roomies), my family, and my sister all helped transform me. But, the biggest transition simply happened within myself. I’m more carefree, confident, happy, and secure in how my life will end up now. I have no doubts that my world is full of love. I now know that no matter what the situation is, everything WILL be okay. I am so thankful for the amazing opportunities that have shaped me into who I am now. I still have big eyes, my dreams have not shrunk but instead have tripled in size, I’m less naive, but my heart remains open. It’s been the absolute best year of my life. =D Thanks to everyone who made it so. <3

Copyright: Kiana McCrackin, assisted by Lauren Kanegawa

Copyright: Kiana McCrackin, assisted by Lauren Kanegawa

Copyright: Kiana McCrackin, assisted by Lauren Kanegawa

ballerina, ballerina

I have always been quite jealous of ballerinas. For me, ballet means grace, beauty, romance, and etherial dreaminess. I know that in reality it is a brutally hard sport requireing every ounce of strength and flexibility the dancer has but since I’m not a dancer I don’t think about that part. For my final six I wanted to shoot s0mething that represented my artistic style which I like to describe as etherial vintage and tragically beautiful. Ok, I admit I never actually achieve this style and I certainly didn’t in this shoot but I like to strive towards it. I had three amazing models during this shoot who I am so grateful for but I only ended up using two of them. (Geneva Brown and Laura D’Asaro were the girls I used and Kaity Mae was my third wonderful model)

Copyright: Kiana McCrackin Photography
Copyright: Kiana McCrackin Photography
Copyright: Kiana McCrackin Photography
Copyright: Kiana McCrackin Photography
Copyright: Kiana McCrackin Photography
Copyright: Kiana McCrackin Photography