melanie bonajo

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I wanted to share some photos from one of my new favourite photographers, Melanie Bonajo. I ran across her work in Portland when I saw her book I Have a Room With Everything. I wanted to share some of her work here because she's amazing. This is really what I wish that all of my photos conveyed: my desire to cover everything with plants and set up make shift shrines in the forest and spend all of my time outside and not thinking about city things. I like to think that I have biophilia. I just love nature and the outdoors so much and these photos capture that emotion better than any others I've seen. Her other work is pretty rad, too.

weekend worship: i dream of icebergs

This is a picture of my sister Kate and I standing on an actual iceberg, maybe in 1986 or 1987. I like so much about this photo. I love both of our stances, and imagine that I'm being asked to stand still while Kate is being the good daughter (look at that CUTE face! I swear, she's got the cutest little kid photos ever!). I like that we are holding hands...maybe because the iceberg is extremely slippery? This photo was taken one year near Halifax, Nova Scotia, my home town. It was quite the event when all of these 'bergs washed up onto the Atlantic beaches. I remember driving to go and see them, dreaming of huge icebergs, the Titanic, maybe even penguins. When we got there some of the 'bergs were pretty big, but I was a bit disappointed by how dirty they all were...not the deep blue whites that we see in pictures, but gritty and even black on the underneath parts that were most visible to little me. 

I feel pretty fortunate to have experiences like this one under my belt. Now it seems that a lot of kids don't get to go outside, or play on icebergs. Growing up running around on my grandmother's farm, playing in the frigid Atlantic Ocean, and going to Mississippi parties that featured baby alligators (more on that another day, perhaps), I was allowed to do a lot and had really great outdoor experiences that have given me an appreciation of the natural world. Spending a Saturday checking out washed up ice flows, dirty or not, is a pretty great thing to do with your kids. This photo reminds me of those great outside times of my childhood...and of a time when my sister and I consistently looked rad in photos together. I mean look at us! We are awesome standing on that iceberg!