Finding Your Happiness

Finding something that you love to do is always incredibly rewarding.  It is something that you can turn to no matter what kind of mood you're in and make you feel happy.  For me, I have a lot of things that make my life.  Photography obviously is the thing I turn to.  I love seeing the happiness that my photographs can give people.  A lot of people hate getting their picture taken.  But if I can give them photographs that they love, it makes me feel accomplished and like I have done my job.  The satisfaction that comes with giving my gift to others to enjoy is simply amazing.

I have known Morgan for almost 7 years now.  He started just a few months before me at Sacramento's kendo dojo, so we were all kind of new together.  We've been friends ever since.  He is a self-taught guitar player and has been playing for about 4 years now.  Morgan's recorded some things already, but is constantly working on new songs.  His style is simply guitar (no singing) with a lot of fancy fret work.  He's currently working on a youtube channel, but for now here's a link to a performance from 3 years ago.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7h24MYm_pM

I went to visit this past weekend, and I asked if I could take some photos.  My style of portraits is to take ones of people doing the things they love to do.  I took the more natural approach since it's more his style, but the lighting was kind of strange, so I definitely want to try more some other time when I have better lighting.  I also didn't do too many pictures with his face in it, because most people don't like having pictures of themselves on a wall.  XD  I am saving posting my favorite pictures till later.  I want them to have impact when he sees them for the first time in person.  I promise I'll post them up here later if people are interested.  Maybe someday when he makes CD's I will be able to do his album art.  :)  I hope you enjoy these photos and look for Morgan in the future.  :D

Best of First Session

The following is the best of my images that I turned into my teacher for my final.  There were a few others that I would have chosen, but I think these turned out nicely.  My calling is definitely portraits, but I also love finding beauty in the little details.  I hope that next session turns out even more amazing images.  :)  Please do not steal these images and call them your own.  Once you become an artist yourself, you realize just how much copyright laws protect your right to your images.  I hope you enjoy them!  Now I am off to head home and enjoy the company of friends and family for a brief week.  :D  

All images copyright of ©Lauren Kanegawa

 Shape, Line, Texture assignment 

Architecture Detail assignment

Architecture Detail assignment

Pans, Blurs, Selective Focus assignment

Pans, Blurs, Selective Focus assignment

Picture Story assignment

Diffused Light assignment

Window Light assignment

A Picture Story

So, at Brooks this past week, we had to do a sort of stop motion picture story.  It didn't have to be as fast transitions as I did, but I quickly learned the bare basics of Final Cut Pro to make it look the way it does.  I couldn't have it more than 3 minutes and didn't want to cut it short, so it ended up being 2:30 minutes with some cut stuff.  Next time I want to make one without limitations.  :)  So, I had my best guy friend Eddie (his real name is Edward) come out and model for me, which was really awesome because he is 5+ hours away from Santa Barbara, and he was my "Alice" and my "Wonderland" was a Disco Inferno in one of the studios.  hahaha.  We played loud upbeat music to get everyone into the mood and I took the pictures from the floor.  XD  I love how it turned out.  I bought poster board and paint and we created 2 of the panels in the background and then the other 2 pieces were just really cool types of paper.  The music is also kinda fun to talk about.  The first song is a song called Alice by the artist Pogo.  This guy takes sounds from specific movies and makes whole songs from JUST sounds from the movies!  He's done ones for movies such as Hook, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original and better!), Alice, Mary Poppins, Up, Terminator 2, and so forth.  Here is his youtube page.  http://www.youtube.com/user/Fagottron
The little ping sound is a tribute to my all time favorite band m-flo because they use it in their albums often.  Plus it was a really cool sound to signify his arrival to the Disco Inferno!  And the final song is by the ever awesome and dance inducing Electric Six.  :D  btw, I only realized till after I finished the movie that Disco Inferno is a name of a 50 Cent song.  XD  oops.  and I thought I was being creative.  That's what I get for not knowing most of the hip-hop era's song titles.  lol.  Well, anyways, I hope you enjoy my video!!!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=310699256757


please let me know if you cannot view this. youtube wouldn't upload my video correctly. =/

The Happiest Place on Earth

My happiest place on Earth is definitely Disneyland.  The first time I went to Disneyland, I was 3 months old.  XD  My dad is part of this Disney group called NFFC (National Fantasy Fan Club) and we used to go to conventions a lot.  A lot of the artwork in my house are Disney cells from various movies and old collectables that my dad has found over the years.  I remember going to Disneyland a lot when I was growing up (at least 2-3x a year) and it is about a 6 hour drive from where my family lives.  Everyone in my classes knew me as the Disney girl and everyone looks to me to know the Disney trivia.  XD  Going to Disneyland now, makes me nostalgic and remember the fond memories I have of going with family and friends.  I used to hate roller coaster types, but now I am obsessed.  hahaha.  I think my favorite Disneyland ride is probably Indiana Jones.  Or perhaps Big Thunder Mountain.  I also REALLY like Haunted Mansion at Halloween till Christmas because it is Nightmare Before Christmas themed.  Some of my favorites growing up where Alice in Wonderland and the Submarine ride (now the sub ride is Nemo themed and is super cute!!).

I went over Super Bowl Sunday to Disneyland and shot my photo assignment there.  We had to do pans (where the subject is sharp, but the background blurry), blurs (the subject blurry, background sharp) and depth of field (having the background out of focus).

Pan shot/ can't you just feel the motion?

Blur shot/ teacup mayhem!

Selective Focus/ I LOVE the expression on the guy's face.  This is when he was flipping the girl during the parade.  :)

I also really like these things that are called "circles of confusion."  My teacher is really into them and likes to point them out every time he sees them.  =P

Lights look like this when you open the lens opening VERY wide and keep the back out of focus.  These look really cool right?  Here are a few other pictures that I really like the way they turned out.

A little bit of Disney magic.  :D  

Submarine view  ^_^

It might be a little hard to tell, but that's a girl there.  :)  this is while the teacup was spinning.

This was hard because the only light on her face was from the back of her camera.

The carousel spinning.  :)

Anytime I go to Disneyland I love taking pictures and trying to make the things in Disneyland look less recognizable.  Can anyone tell where this is (this was taken with film and printed in a darkroom)?  It's one of my favorite places to go in the world!  :)  Disneyland is a place that will always make me happy, and I hope that when I have kids, I will be able to give them amazing memories at this place too.  ^_^

New Home

*Edit* and thanks to mr/ms anonymous comment who said my blogs are getting a bit better.  i hope to please!  thanks for the feedback.  I like hearing about how people think about this blog and the things I put time into.

So, I finally moved into my new place in Santa Barbara, CA!!  (actually it's in Goleta, but eh, details.  XD) It's this nice 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment in the middle of all the shops/food, which is perfect for me cause I love to food and for some weird reason, grocery stores.  :)  The place is nice, and our neighbors seems really good too.  I have 2 other girls living with me, but actually, we had one other girl, but she decided super last minute that Brook's was not for her.  So she moved out super quick and now we're 3.  Now I have an empty bed next to me and lots of closet space.  And since we're part of a housing company with Brook's we don't have to pay extra since we lost a girl.  I like the layout of my things and we've been starting to get a lot of more personal things like art and stuff for the walls.  They're looking a little white and boring lately.  >_<  Today I made my first meal on my own.  I tried my mom's teriyaki chicken recipe and it was a huge hit.  :)  Should have made a bit more rice and even though I'm not really a salad person, I ate quite a bit.

The first week of school starts on Monday, and I have classes from 10:15am-1:00pm for Photo 111A (the beginning class) and then 1:30pm-4:15pm for a environmental science class for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  On three Fridays there are scheduled photo shoots, but other than that it will just be work, work, work.  2 months of crazy living will be starting soon.  We have to live in this R&R housing for at least June, but hopefully I will make good enough friends that I can move to a cheaper and better place.  :D
I'm far away from my friends, but I've been branching out and making a lot of new ones.  The feeling for me is that great friends can never be replaced.  And I know I will be going back to see them.  :)  But all in all, I can't wait to get started on my photo career and get out there and do what I love.  ^_^  2010 is going to be crazy!

a year of happiness :D

Man, 2009 went by in a flash.  Loved, lost, and learned to be happy through it all.  :)  The beginning of the year was a hard one.  But I made new friends and got to be more outgoing.  Summer '09 was one of the best I've had yet, and I became super close with my best guy friend over the course of the year.  ^_^  I've had to say goodbye to one of my best friends (her family moved out to Wisconsin) and hopefully we will see her again, and then another one of my best friends is now 6 months pregnant!  ah, that time in my life already?  XD

I made the executive decision to start my education at the Brook's Institute of Photography and will begin on January 8th.  For those who don't know what brooks is, it is a very famous photography school in beautiful Santa Barbara, CA.

 It's a 3 year, year-round program and by the end I will have a BFA.  :D  Not sure what my main focus will be (I wanna keep an open mind), but I love fashion photography and people photography (making them kinda artsy and all that stuff).  My parents used to want me to get a degree in Japanese (my first passion), but then I realize that to be a language major you should really start off at your four year, I decided I would continue to work on Japanese on my own (I've taken 6 years of Japanese).  I would love to live there for a year or so and just learn the language that way.  I know most of it, it's just the flow of it now.  Who knows what these next 3 years will bring me.  If all goes as planned I will be done Dec. 22, 2012.   :)  I'm ready to get out there and do stuff.  2 years at a junior college was good, and I got to be on nor-cal's team for the US Kendo championships in exchange and was able to feel confident with my kendo.  I will miss my friends from that the most.  And just the experience of being in it.  I hope to practice down in Santa Barbara someday and get back into it.

Since not many people know what it is, Kendo is a Japanese martial art that is sorta like fencing.  Except that it has MUCH more contact than the fencing that many people are used to seeing on TV.   You have headgear, a protective body armor and wrist guards.  You can hit an opponent at the head, wrist, body, (and for experienced players) the neck.  Your kiai (or yelling) is essential to scoring points also.  The idea is that you are making your opponent fear you by vocalizing.  haha.  I am told that my kiai is intimidating and I am usually very loud.  I like to help raise the spirits of my team mates when we have really hard and strenuous practices.  Here's a video of what a kendo match typically looks like.  These guys are the top of the world, so they're a different league, but it's the general idea.  haha.  Maybe someday I'll get a video of me on Youtube, but until then....




This is what I love to do.  I have been doing it since I started high school, which now would be...6 1/2 years now.  :)  I hope that you guys also have something that you're passionate about and love to still due today.  My life is about to take some crazy turns and I am hoping for the best.  :)  And I know most people will want to make resolutions like always, but I know that I won't go through with it.  I love my Dr. Pepper too much.  (I wish I could give up soda)  hahaha.  Good luck to you guys in your 2010 endeavors too.  :D

 "life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning how to dance in the rain."