One of the funny things about living in New York City and thinking that it’s the greatest place is that I’m still constantly jealous of photographers who live in the middle of nowhere and get to photograph that instead. The moment I step out of the car and onto my family farm back in Ohio, I’m ready to hit the fields with my camera. When I got home at the end of last month, my poor dad had to come out to the cornfield and accost me to get some attention. Of course it only took leaving to make me appreciate what I spent the first twenty-five years of my life surrounded by.
Off to the Circleville Pumpkin Show 2013!
The Circleville Pumpkin Show is better than Christmas for me. There aren’t presents, but there are blocks and blocks of pumpkin whoopie pies, pumpkin burgers, pumpkin fudge, pumpkin milkshakes, pumpkin pizza, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin chili, chocolate-covered pumpkin cheesecake on a stick, pumpkin buckeyes, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and then also everything deep-fried in the world. It’s right next to my hometown, and some of my fondest childhood memories are of walking around the streets of Circleville with my mom and little sister, freezing our tiny fingers off and not caring at all.
As an adult, I look forward to going with my BFF, Tracey, her husband, and as many of our friends as we can and meeting my dad and stepmom there for stromboli from this one particular booth that does it best. This year, my roommate/landlord/former co-worker/friend Jack is coming from NYC, too! I’m so scared about how this thing might look to an outsider and how many times he’ll get beaten up by my friends and family for accidentally calling it a “festival” instead of a “show”, but I’ll soothe his bruises with rainbow-sprinkles-covered candy apples.
I’ll be in Ohio until the 18th (I KNOW!), so here are my recaps from the past few years (minus 2012, when I got too busy with photographing a wedding and dealing with a hurricane that shut down the entire city to blog about it) to keep you company:
Pumpkin Show 2011
Pumpkin Show 2010
Pumpkin Show 2009
Miss you!
A Day in DUMBO
DUMBO is the Brooklyn neighborhood that’s Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, just to the north of my neighborhood and a hot spot for people who like living in old factories, visiting the Etsy office, and having very little access to public transportation. It also has some of the most beautiful views of the city, though, and the food and shopping scenes would make it a destination even if the photo opportunities didn’t.
It’s approximately a ten-minute walk from our apartment, which means I’ve been there exactly three times since moving to Downtown Brooklyn nearly three years ago. Luckily, my friend Ash loves to do photography walks of different NYC neighborhoods, especially now that she’s moved to Connecticut, and she invited my landlord/roommate/former co-worker/friend Jack and me up there one weekend recently to explore.
Whoever had the foresight to paint the Manhattan Bridge this insane color is my BFF:
Some simple, perfect iced coffee from the Brooklyn Roasting Company:
“Be Bklyn, Be Bold” outside of the Dabney Lee stationary store:
THE iconic DUMBO shot of the Empire State Building through the Manhattan Bridge arch:
Apricot flan and a French macaron at Almondine Bakery:
Ash showing off her Big Daddy Bar at Jacques Torres Chocolate:
Look! Someone’s attempting to make a Brooklyn lock bridge a la Paris:
The Manhattan skyline with the addition of One World Trade Center right there in the middle:
The Statue of Liberty off in the distance at sunset:
This isn’t street art; it’s just lazy:
Roasted pork baby ribs at AlMar:
Jack’s whooooole fish:
The perfect finish at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory:
Ohio Historical Society Wedding: Dayna and Matt
To give you a little backstory, my best friend Tracey was randomly paired with Dayna as a freshman in a dorm at THE Ohio State University, and they went on to be roommates for the remainder of college, through different dorms and apartments. I got to know Dayna through ringing her doorbell in the middle of the night when my car got towed while I was at a concert on campus and being a bridesmaid in Tracey’s wedding with her and going to the local pumpkin festival together for years and scrapbooking every year over Christmas break while I’m in Ohio and a million other girly things.
Dayna is quite the photographer herself and has a million artist friends, so I was beside myself when she asked me to photograph her marriage to Matt at the Ohio Historical Society’s Ohio Village. It’s an adorable old-timey town with barns and wagons and outhouses around every corner, so it was not only a beautiful but also a really fun setting. Dayna was stunning and somehow so relaxed, and Matt was sarcastic and quippy the entire time, and I really couldn’t have had a better day photographing their looooove.