Lucid Light - MA Portrait & Wedding Photographer, Living & Breathing Photography.

RT @zarias: Everyone is a photographer? They're hurting the industry? Nope. Good ones win. Bad ones die. #getbetter :) http://t.co/GHyU1FF4

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April2nd

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The Very Best Saturday [Bristol, RI]

Posted in: Blogging, City, Inspiration, iphoneography

I’m fortunate enough to have a pretty wonderful boyfriend, and he further cemented his place in my cold, black heart with the notion of spending an afternoon rummaging through antique stores. In fact, he’d already looked some up. Be still my beating heart! Off to Bristol, RI we went.

This involved 3 of my favorite things: 1. Old shit 2. Shopping 3. Instagram opportunities. And I got to do it with my favorite fella. It was pretty awesome and I’ve got the Instagrams to prove it.

The first place, Alfreds, was cramped full of beautiful things…a lot of Asian art and furniture. We fell in love with this piece and couldn’t leave without it. It needs a better frame but look.at.it.

Next we walked over to Robin Jenkins Antiques. This place was great, it’s small but full of cool things. I am having remorse over not grabbing a pair of vintage specs and a book of circus posters, but I did grab a beautiful sterling ring and a fun shot of her vintage election buttons!

Last up was probably my favorite just because of the sheer volume of amazing junk/treasure, Second Helpings Consignment on Gooding Ave in Bristol.

So much to see and check out the haul we came home with.

Vintage Coca-Cola tray

Close up of two small framed drawings. $6/each!

Trippiest ginger snap tin ever.

AMAZING tin recipe box full of blank cards. Score! Nick spotted this and the Coca-Cola tin for me…he’s good!

And $4.00 worth of fabric, which has glamourized my wall behind the living room TV.

After being struck by a couple of LL Bean catalog models driving a ginormous SUV making an illegal 3-point turn, we settled in for lunch at Leo’s Ristorante on Hope Street. I got the eggplant parm and garlic bread and Nick got a “petite” pizza (that lived up to its name!) The food was delicious though and the staff was very friendly.

I’ve decided I love Bristol and of course, my amazing guy.
February20th

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[Review] Gala Darling’s Love & Sequins

Posted in: Blogging, Inspiration
Image of Gala Darling from http://galadarling.com

REVIEW: Gala Darling’s Love & Sequins Book/Podcast

LINK: http://galadarling.com/static/love-sequins-podcast

PRICE: $84.00 (Currently $42.00 through 2/28/12) or $12 per chapter ($6.00 right now!)

DESCRIPTION (from the author)

Love & Sequinsis my handbook on being a love letter to the universe. It’s about living magically & celebrating ourselves & it is delivered right to your inbox!

Each chapter is a whopping 10,000 words (or more!) long, & you also get an MP3 of me reading it aloud to you, which is brilliant for boring subway rides or as a kind ofmodern bedtime story!

So I had an admission to make…I’m kind of addicted to self-help, business and motivational books. This spawned early in life but really spread in the last couple of years. Is it possible to have a mid-20s crisis? If so, I’ve had it. Blame radical life changes in a short span of time for my excessive soul-searching, but I figure if I put all this work into my children, my career, my relationship, my apartment and my beloved Pinterest boards and nothing into myself…well that seems pretty stupid.

Anyway, I am only a recent convert to the church of Gala but I just adore her now. When I saw that her book and bootcamp were half off in February, I couldn’t resist the bargain and snapped up the entire book with it’s companion audio files! I am so glad I gave in to my early morning impulse buy because I spent the last week with Gala’s dainty little Kiwi accent in my ears telling me to BE HAPPY, DAMMIT! Of course, that isn’t all the book is about! Here’s a breakdown of the chapters by topic. For descriptions and excerpts, click the link above.
1. Learning to Love Yourself: Self-adoration, manifesting your ideal persona, channelling your inner Marie Antoinette & everything in between!
2. The Smart Girl’s Guide to Business: Taking control of your life, finding your passion, loving what you do & making mad bling!
3. Love, Sex, The Galaxy and Everything: From falling in love to co-habitation, & all the beauty & madness contained within!
4. A Guide To Manners for the Modern Minx: Etiquette, social graces & charming the pants off total strangers for the uninitiated!
5. Finding Happiness & Making it Stay: Choosing joy, making magic & devoting your life to love, adventure & deliciousness!
6. Daintier, Smarter, Better Dressed: A deluxe guide to looking truly fabulous, defining your personal style & being the best-dressed girl at any party!
7. Blogging 101 : Living & loving online, monetisation in the new world & thinking beyond the 9-5!
8. Best Friends Forever: Keeping your friendships fresh, finding platonic soul mates & clearing out the fakes, phonies & meanies!
9. Manifesting & Magic-Making: Using imagination & reverie to create a perfect universe!
10. International Playgirls Unlimited: Taking to the skies, travelling in style, romance on foreign shores & more!
11. It’s Up to You, New York, New York! : Decadence & debauchery, enchantment & madness, love & cockroaches!
12. What I Know For Sure
My favorite chapters were 2, 5 and 7 but I really loved all of them. As I was typing out this list of chapters, I realized I had somehow missed chapter 6…it’s like getting a new chapter! I have listened to all of the chapters twice and will probably listen to them all again sometime. They’re great to listen to while cleaning, and I do that a lot. A LOT.

Love & Sequins has inspired me to do many things. Some of these things include
- Rushed out to Barnes and Noble to buy a new journal and consequently proved what a shitty vegetarian I am by purchasing a leather one. I have this problem with shoes and bags, too. Send your letters to “DEAL WITH IT DEPT”.
- Bought a sequined bunny ear headband and several masks. They’re “for the photobooth”…sure.
- Started blogging here again, and I have many changes scribbled down in the dead cow journal.
- Re-organized my entire office area with every good intention to be fabulous and self-employed within my designated, equally fabulous workspace. I have yet to move my laptop there, but I have admired it several times.
- Start a new Monday ritual in which I contact three friends and either just say hello or make a date with them. So far this is my favorite.
- Corrected a shitty attitude with pure MIND MAGIC several times.
I’d be writing all night if I went through Love & Sequins chapter by chapter, but here are a few of the things I took away from these podcasts.

We cannot always control what happens to us, we CAN control how we react to it. Yes, some dick can swerve in front of you and cause you to spill your delicious and piping hot mocha latte you just purchased on the jeans you just laundered…but you are the one who chooses to either wallow in it or laugh it off. You can assume your day has been ruined and bitch to everyone who will listen (spoiling their day as well) or you can say “oh well” and get the fuck over it. Simple concept, but one few people adhere to. I’d like to give it a go.

We are the master of our own day. Through several chapters in Love & Sequins, Gala reminds us that we need to live in the now. We need to be happy now. Whether it’s quitting our shitty day job to do what we really love, traveling as much as possible, doing yoga in the morning or wearing a tiara to the laundromat…we need to design our lives with happiness in mind.

I do not travel enough. This one doesn’t need much explanation, but just listening to Gala’s tour de New York City in chapter 11 and the preceding on traveling in style, my wanderlust is on FIRE. I love visiting New York City and I think this year’s PDN Expo will also feature several of her “must-sees”.

I recommend this series to any woman (and maybe even some men) who feels uninspired by life right now. If you feel like the universe beats up on you and you have shitty luck, read this book…or at the very least my favorite chapter, #5. You will not regret it!
February19th

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LSG’s Fourth Anniversary – WEBS Trip [Northampton, MA]

Posted in: Friends, Knitter Nerdery

It’s hard to believe the little group of foul-mouthed, sassy string-slingers that spawned from the Can You Swear on Ravelry thread are now approaching TEN THOUSAND strong and four years going! FOUR YEARS, MAN…four years. I was a very different person in February of 2007. I was married, a carnivore, a size 14, a student and a mother of one. I am now a divorced vegetarian wearing a size six, a small business owner and mother of two. Fuck!

I’m a happier person now, a wiser person and I’ve watched so many of the people I love on LSG blossom into ever-improving versions of their former selves and it’s been really fantastic. We’ve seen dozens of babies born, college graduates, newlyweds and scary disease…so much can happen in four years.

Our annual anniversary WEBS trip in February is one of the highlights of my winter (I am so a child of summer), and it was awesome to see everyone! Here’s the belated photos (sorry ladies!), all six of them! Hey…I was busy buying yarn I don’t need, alright?

Debbie (ritsuka) spinning fine webs using some kind of witchcraft.

Nadine (Yarnfrog42), Andrea and her fab new cut (ZantiMissKnit) and Tiffany (AlpacalipsNow)

Chrystee (playinglife) lookin’ pretty in the window light.

Megan (MetalJune13) and Jenna (KnarlyKnitter) did well…

Group shot! Not pictured: Shelby (Ealachan). We always have lunch at the FABULOUS Northampton Brewery after WEBS. The place is amazeballs. I recommend getting the paddle with 4 beers to sample. It’s about eight dollars and enough to get you a little cranked, which I assume everyone wants after binging on yarn?

Debbie (ritsuka) and her boyfriend being adorable…help Debbie, I lost his name in my brainfog.

See you next year, LSG! (And hopefully before that because I refuse to miss Rhinebeck this year!)
February19th

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Blowing the dust off my blog.

Posted in: Announcements, Blogging, Friends, Portraits

A huge part of my New Year’s resolutions (yes, I make them…deal with it) was to blog more and blog HERE instead of just on my work blog. I miss personal blogging, I miss posting photos of my friends and family…so I’m starting this off tonight. I’m spending the pre-wedding season trying to catch up on photos I took in 2011 that never left their RAW format, so expect some old photos to get posted in the next couple of weeks while I clear out the backlog! And there’s A LOT OF THEM.

In the meantime, here’s a photo of Kate as-yet-unpublished from the annual/autumnal Hideout New England meet up…more to come!

Next up: LSG’s fourth annual trip to WEBS!
September28th

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Kate

Posted in: People, Portraits, Sports & Action

I met Kate last week at the 2nd “Heavy Metal Karaoke Takeover” a mutual friend of ours invited us to. The next day when I added her to Facebook (because that’s what you do to be OFFICIALLY FRIENDS now, right?) and noticed she was a belly dancer! I LOVE belly dancing. I used to even do it before hooping consumed my life! I was never great though, and Kate is AMAZING! She was so fun to shoot!

Here’s some favorites!

more to come from the Secret Dawn workshop, including model James Negri (a familiar face if you follow my work) and candid behind the scene shots!
September27th

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Drew

Posted in: People, Portraits

Drew is Leah’s other half, and he had laid claim on her company last Saturday! But he was kind enough to share his day with his lady with a group of shutternerds and myself at Michelle’s Secret Dawn Workshop. To repay his kindness, we put him to work modeling! Here’s a couple favorites…thanks Drew!
September26th

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Leah

Posted in: People, Portraits

I’ve been in a serious slump. Weddings are going great and I see my work improving and evolving…but outside of work I have barely lifted my camera.

I’m not really sure why…I guess I haven’t been dedicating enough time to fostering inspiration. I barely have time to flip through my piles of magazines, let alone read a book. Most of that is backlogged wedding work fighting for all my time, the rest is the usual leeches of creativity and time-management (facebook, etc.)

So when it came time for Michelle’s Secret Dawn workshop in Worcester, I was so excited. I needed some time to spend thinking about what’s going wrong and how to fix it.

I will do a full review of the workshop once all the photos are done, but I’m going to post the model’s photos one by one as well.

This is Leah, she was our first model!

You can “like” Leah, aka Siren on Facebook here. You can “like” lil’ old me here.

Coming next…Kate, an amazing belly dancer!
July8th

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What I’ve Been Up To.

Posted in: Uncategorized

…you know, besides never blogging!

I had a bit of a slump that spanned the unending winter and straight into summer, but I think it’s finally ending. I think. My mojo didn’t really even come rushing back…I had to force it! I woke up one morning sick of feeling so useless and started vowing to spend an hour looking at photography, reading blogs and making lists…endless lists.

So far I think it’s working. I’m trying to push through the rest of my edits-to-be-edited so I can start fresh. One of the things I want to try is a daily cell phone photo that I think I’ll upload to tumblr. If you’ve never checked out tumblr before, it’s pretty awesome. It’s micro-blogging and full of great photography!

Despite the funk I’ve been wallowing in, I have been shooting here and there. I did Beth’s maternity session a few months ago. She just had Madilyn Hope yesterday! Congrats, Beth!!

There was also the model party we had back in May, I’ve still got some edits to do from this but here’s the shots I edited already.

Julie.

Jacky.

Janelle.

Maria.

I also took a trip to NYC with my friend Haskell to see Scott Kelby’s Light It! Shoot It! Retouch It! tour at the Javitts center. It was totally amazing, as is to be expected from Scott Kelby’s tours at this point. I really enjoyed his Photoshop tour I saw in Boston and this one was even better. Unfortunately we didn’t have too much time to roam the streets and shoot, but I did take a few photos.

Here’s what it looked like from our we-arrived-late seats!

We went to an amazing little Thai place for lunch.

Haskell was a better photographer and actually took some photos while we were there. I was a crappy one and just took a photo of him taking a photo. META!

You can check out what I’ve been doing for wedding work at the Altared Visions blog.

More to come. I will smash this funk! SMASH!
April30th

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Weekend Win: Watching Zack Arias on creativeLIVE!

Posted in: Blogging, Gear & Reviews, Links

This one’s for the photographers! If you haven’t been watching the FREE weekend classes from creativeLIVE the last year or so, you’ve been missing out! creativeLIVE is online classroom that hosts some of the world’s most innovative photographers and airs their courses live for free on the internet. They believe in peer to peer education and using each other’s knowledge to lift the industry as a whole and as someone who couldn’t stand the rigidness of art school, that’s a philosophy I can get behind 100%. I love sharing information and hope to do something like this someday, so I just love it so much.

Bummed you missed amazing classes with Zack, Jasmine Star, David duChemin, Jeremy Cowart, Bambi Cantrell and Tamara Lackey? No worries, you can buy the DVDs for around a hundred bucks…and they’re beyond worth it.

During the classes there’s tons of fun stuff like quote contests on Twitter and a flickr pool for shots of where viewers are currently watching the class.

Zack’s class this weekend is called Foundations of a Working Photographer and so far it’s been amazing. As I write this, Zack is about to start some outdoor portraits!

Yesterday was an overview of photography and lighting basics, but before you roll your eyes…this wasn’t the usual aperture-does-this type of explanation! Everything Zack talked about I technically *knew* but now I really feel like I GET. Zack was the first photographer to explain the inverse square law in a way I understood in his One Light DVD and his explanation on lens compression and distortion yesterday was equally clarifying.

Technically, I knew what a wide angle will do to a face and I knew that telephoto lenses compressed a background…but it wasn’t until I saw the staggering side-by-side photo examples that I really got how powerful something as simple as lens choice can be.

I also FINALLY feel like I can calculate reciprocal exposures on-demand whereas before it was still EEEP MATH. I suck at math.

I’d rave more, but Zack is getting going and I don’t want to miss anything! Catching this today or tomorrow? Tune in! http://creativelive.com/live
March23rd

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Happy Spring!

Posted in: Blogging, Domesticity, Project 365

Spring is all about new beginnings! I’ve been busy brainstorming and planning for the summer, my spring resolution (cause who can be motivated in the dead of winter for the New Year kind? not I!) is to shoot, shoot, shoot. No excuses, every day. I started my *cough*th attempt at a Project 365 on Sunday, 3/20/11. Album here. I’m putting zero pressure on myself to do anything other than take at least one photo every day, like a visual journal. The thought of pulling off a high-production/thought out photo every single day is a little much for me right now…that’s for next year! For now, I need to carry my camera all the time. Time to thaw out the mojo!

Since I started, having my camera next to me at all times is resulting in Aiden having his own personal paparazzi in the house. Not that he minds…