Sea Turtles, mate.

Hello, all!  I'm taking this opportunity to ask that you please support my very good friend, Shea Hofferica, to reach her fund-raising goal for a trip to La Tortuga Feliz in 2011.  Here's her description of what she'll be doing there:


"La Tortuga Feliz is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of sea turtles in Costa Rica and once I complete my Associates Degree in Chemsitry next May I am flying down to volunteer for 35 days! Volunteers help out by patrolling beaches at night, guarding the hatcheries, helping with maintenance of the buildings and creating an ideal environment for the turtles to lay their eggs safely and without danger of poachers and fisherman. I am super excited for this opportunity and the experience it will give me in the environmental sciences. I need all the help I can get funding my flights, lodging fees and my travel pack necessary for the duration of my stay there, but I hope that with support, donations towards the cause and facebook/email forwarding I can make it down there for this experience of a lifetime!"


Please help Shea raise money for her trip, and if you have any questions about the program she's working with, feel free to visit their website.

Road trip!

Part of me loves road trips - I enjoy getting out of the Philly area and seeing new places.  In West Virginia I didn't get the chance to take quite as many photos as I would have liked to, since we were first and foremost celebrating my aunt's birthday.  We had a beautiful, relaxing time, but I'd really like to go back some time soon to devote a lot more into capturing that area.  What in interesting world!


Tomorrow is another exciting day!  I'll be heading off to Washington D.C. for the day to photograph Sarah and Terence and their nearly born baby Gabriel.


I can't wait to spend the day with them!  Sarah and Terence are such a beautiful couple and Gabriel is going to be an amazing addition to their lives.  I'm really excited to see what we get!

Y'all come back, now.

This weekend was such a beautiful and needed time away from the city.  My aunt's birthday was cause for a West Virginia mountain celebration - so we packed our tents and drove the four hours to their newly purchased 14 acres of land!

What a lovely place we found when we arrived.  Trees and tree saplings everywhere, and in the distance a farm on a hill where in the early morning you could just make out a rooster's crow.  It was absolutely gorgeous!

We had a little rain, but we all managed to have a good time anyway.  It was so good to be with my family for a few days and enjoy their company.  My fiancé and I were able to relax from the business of wedding planning and classes and take some time to go on a walk or stand in the rain.  It was wonderful. I'm excited to go back again some time soon!

Three months and one week!

It's so bizarre to think that in just over three months I am going to be a wife.  Have I reached "grown-up" at long last?  Can I now begin this long and complex journey to wrinkly and rocking-chair?  I'm excited.


Yesterday was muggy and 80 degrees, but it could have been worse, and out in my backyard it actually felt pretty nice, so I decided to take a few pictures.  I'm going to miss my backyard so much when we move.  I'm hoping for something equally beautiful, or even more-so.


There was a nice soft light underneath the trees that I took advantage of for these.  It really feels like walking into another world out there, I love it.  I wanted to plant a garden but I feel now sort of like there's not much of a point if I'll be leaving in just a few short months.


In other news, things are finally in the works for my Canon 5D Mark II and 24-70 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 lenses!  So excited!!! I should, if all things go according to plan, have them in the next few weeks so I can familiarize myself with them before the wedding I'm shooting in August.  Can't wait!

Dreamweaver.

Hello all.  The semester is coming to a close and I am relishing the free time to catch up on the rest of life! The wedding is just over three months away, can you believe it?


I had an interesting assignment in my Design for Journalists course.  My introduction to Dreamweaver was to create a website.  At first I was really confused about how this program works, but after some greatly appreciated help from friends Kevin Cook and Arielle Morgan, I was able to get things up and running.


I used my school domain for this project, but now that I understand how Dreamweaver works a little better, I am excited to build a website under my own domain.  How great to be learning these things, finally!


If you'd like to see what my school website ended up looking like, you can check it out here.
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Edit:  I reserved a free domain for my work and uploaded all of the HTML to that as well.  I also bought AlexisRyan.com, but I still need to work on getting that up and running.  In the meantime, please check out my current, working site!

Exit Reality

There hasn't been much time for writing, lately.  It's finals week, and there has been a lot of work to get done.

Tomorrow, I'll be displaying and selling work at Temple's Main Campus from 3:00 to 8:00 in the Annenberg Atrium!

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to having a little break before Summer I starts up.  It's been a long and tiresome semester.  I've learned a lot of really valuable things thus far and I'm gaining a lot of really useful contacts, which is awesome.  But I'm looking forward to having a free few days to straighten up my apartment, work on the wedding plans and get a nap or two before it all starts up again.


Nathaniel and I went back to the Kimmel Center yesterday, where we were engaged.  The clouds were absolutely amazing and felt so close, standing up in the garden.  I had to take this photo - somehow this is just what I feel like right now.  I have so many things happening at once, I just want to open a door somewhere and walk into a cloud and absolute silence except for the whir of air going past my ears.  The semester will be done soon.  There is an end in sight.  I will survive!