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“Life is full of beauty, Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, the smiling faces. Smell the rain and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential and fight for your dreams.” -Ashley Smith

Today the skies were stormy, waves were crashing, and the wind was blowing. In other words today was a beautiful day. I got in a car with Lauren (the lovely model in this image) and we drove for miles and miles on a quest to find a Chick-fil-A. We talked about dreams and passions, love and life. We talked and talked and talked. We both laughed, I cried. We listened to songs about happy endings and fist bumped to crazy techno music.

The other day I was almost hit by a car while I was walking accross an intersection. Since I am a walking cliche it made me think about my life and how lucky I am to be doing what I love and how lucky I am to have so many people who support me and love me. Lauren is one of those people 🙂

The other day I was eating dinner with my boyfriend’s family at Outback and his Grandpa turned to me and asked if I liked to dance. My eyes lit up and I responded eagerly, “Yes! I love to dance”. It’s true I love it, I’m actually an awful dancer. I’m very awkward and I mostly just jump around and wave my arms in the air (haha). But I love it despite being horrible at it. There is something so magical about being at a show and feeling the music reverberate in your chest. Something about letting your body move in synch with the ebb and flow of a song made for moving your feet. Something about the way the music takes over every particle of your body if you just close your eyes, open your heart and let it in. Daft punk said it best…”The music’s got me feelin’ so free, I’m gonna celebrate, celebrate and dance so free!”

I was inspired by how music and dancing makes me feel when we were assigned to shoot a product and an lifestyle image to sell that product. I chose headphones as my product and the following is the result of the lifestyle shoot. A big thank you to Liz Ortega, she was a wonderful model and was so patient through all the hair tossing 🙂

P.s. I’ve been neglecting this poor blog terribly! I apologize! I have been uploading more frequently to my fan page for my photo of the every few days project so check it out =D. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Kiana-McCrackin-Photography/188823043145

 

            I spent many frustrated hours as a child in my grandma’s art studio with a sketchbook covered in eraser shavings left over from mistakes made. I wanted so badly to be able to create the visions which were so vivid in my mind. I would gaze in agonized wonder at my Grandma and Mother’s beautiful pieces of art that portrayed real forms and shapes and I would compare them shamefully to my own canvas that was made up of ill-placed globs of paint.

 I have always been an artist. I saw beauty in what others found ugly: old beat up cars, monotonous city streets slicked with rain, my grandpa’s hair stubbled chin. I was never at a loss for ideas for paintings and sketches. I loved art galleries and studios; I thrived in a world of creation. I was an artist through and through, but I had no talent for art. I wanted so badly to express myself, to replicate the concepts in my mind and the fantasy’s in my heart onto paper for the rest of the world to see. I needed art. Without it, my soul and mind got too full and felt like it would surely burst. Art is an outlet for me; I can’t hold my dreams inside.

            My junior year of high school I stumbled into a beginning photography class because I needed an art credit to graduate. I had long since pushed my art under the surface. I hid my creations from the world and often from myself because they didn’t represent the ideas in my head. I chose photography class over a more standard art class because I was too embarrassed to paint or draw in front of others. I knew I had no talent for art, I had accepted it long ago. When I was told that I had an eye for photography I was flabbergasted. Finally, I had found a medium that I could use to express myself with. Finally, I had an outlet for all the creative juices that flowed freely in my body despite my best efforts to dam them.

            The ability to express the inner-workings of my soul is what I love most about photography. I truly believe that every photograph I take has a piece of me in it. I cannot create my images without subconsciously including my history, my present emotions, and my future dreams. My identity, my art, and my craft are all one; I cannot separate them. Chuck Place once said “The most personal work is usually the most universally appealing.” This is my goal: to create images which contain my spirit but make my spirit appealing to the rest of the world. When I shoot I try to be as true to myself as I can because if I’m not, my images turn out emotionless. When I photograph a model when I am sad, their faces and poses reflect this. Their eyes may be haunting and questioning, and their body huddled in upon itself as though afraid. When I photograph a model when I am happy the same is true, hair will fly, bodies will jump, and lips will curve up. My emotions leap off of the image though I don’t think of it consciously as I take the pictures.

            Everyone can relate to emotion. We all feel things deeply whether it is sadness or happiness, loneliness or love, passion or regret, hate or hope. At some point we have all felt every emotion there is. Therefore, an emotional image has the most appeal. My photographs will not be emotional if I do not include myself and my feelings in them. I hope to always shoot with my heart and mind at the wheel.

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

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)

You know that qoute that goes something like the things that scare you are usually the most worthwhile? For me this means skydiving, space travel, and photographing people I don’t know. haha. But seriously folks, one of the most frustrating things about myself is how I let situations and people intimidate me into not living up to my best potential. Of course, when you go for something it always turns out wonderfully. I wouldn’t say this shoot was the equivalent of rocketing into outer space but I was pretty nervous all the same.

I had the awesome opportunity to photograph the morning show hosts from 99.9 KTYD, David Perry and Julie Ramos. They were amazing models and I had such a fantastic time shooting in their studio. =) Of course, Brian helped me astronomicaly by being the most awesome assistant ever! And, Ally Perry set the whole thing up and came along for moral support =)

 I am proud of my mama who is probably going to open another location of her magical childrens store. I’m proud of my grandma who just got the cover of her soon to be published novel finished. I’m proud of my boyfriend who has the most amazing photographs. Im proud of my dad for being such a strong hero in my life, for being a foundation, for building our homes. Im proud of my brother, who plays the guitar so beautifully, it makes me want to cry. I’m proud of myself for following my dreams, for being happy, for the life I’m living. So if pride comes before a fall…then falling is a welcome thing in my life…because I am prideful.

On another note, these are my contemporary glamour shots. =) I’m super proud of the first one! The second one…not so much lol. Geneva Brown was a wonderful model!

For those of you who don’t already know, I’m doing a fun little project on my facebook page. Every day (I’m on day three today) I am uploading an image I took and writing a sentence or two that represents my day. Become a fan or just check in every once in a while to follow my year =)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kiana-McCrackin-Photography/188823043145