Kitsch Me Up and Urban My Outfitters

Call me a hipster, call me what you like... but I really love Urban Outfitters.  True, they sometimes stock some bizarre things, but they offer delightfully trendy and fairly high-quality clothing for decent prices.  Their sales are fantastic.  And, the bizarre things they stock are just... awesome.  They're awesome.  Urban has some really nifty stuff.

I've gotten some excellent pieces of clothing there, and I plan to get many more in the future.  Beyond clothing though, this place has delightful homewares.  Like the company's higher end/ mori girl shop Anthropologie, there are a lot of home goods at Urban that are really lovely and unique.  Little figurines, pretty shaped candles, cups, plates, etc.  We have a neat plum-coloured, tiered side table from them in our apartment that I got for like $35.

  Unlike Anthropologie, they also stock a lot of sassy and "inappropriate" stuff, like party banners with curse words raunchy sayings, sex books, and well, just other tchotchkes that some might deem inappropriate.  This collection of stuff is always fun to look through, just to see what kinds of wacky things they can sell!  Though, you do find a few artistic gems from time to time that aren't really mainstream enough to sell anywhere else.  They also sell cute and funny kitschy items from old cartoons and such, which are generally fun to look at too!

 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Photographer Feature: Joan Kanarkiewicz

Joan was my roommate for a semester during college.  She's currently a student at NYU and takes some awesome photographs.  During the fall, she studied abroad in Spain and was able to capture some amazing scenes and locations, that I am very excited to share with you!  Beyond being a great artist, she's a good friend and wonderful person... as well as a very fast runner.

Coimbra, Portugal

Barcelona, Spain

 Bellas Artes, Oceanografic

Valencia, Spain

 Ke$ha Concert 

Madrid, Spain

 Archipelagos

Goteborg, Sweden

Forlorn Ferris Wheel

Rome, Italy

Before the Train Passes By

Standing on the subway platform-  Sometimes I feel like I spend half of my day doing this.  

It's the commute.  It's the adventure.  It's the ride.  It's part of being a New Yorker.

And wow, does it ever beat driving.

These are a little hint of what is to come... a Subway Series!  I'll be following a New York City Subway line and taking photographs of every station, its surroundings, and the people who use it.  This will be starting up fairly soon.

All of these photographs were taken at the 14th St Union Square station.

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Hello there, Busy!

So my life has been a bit nuts the past few days.  I've been going to tons of auditions, meeting up with lots of friends, and doing a whole bunch of photo shoots.

Photo shoots.  They are awesome!  I am taking all kinds of photographs of really lovely people.  It's unbelievably fun.

However, it's also idiotically time consuming.  From an hour long shoot, I've been ending up with approximately 600 photographs.  Yeah.  That's ten per minute.  It's a lot.  Then, I'm going home and working on editing them, and narrowing them down.  I've been doing two shoots almost every day.  Beyond that, I've come up with a new kind of weekly feature, following some characters I've come up with.  This is pretty exciting for me as well. I was also a model in one  photoshoot, but more on that later :-D.

Anyways, once I'm done working on editing, I just haven't wanted to do anything with photographs.  So, I haven't posted on my blog the past few days.  I do ask you to forgive me for this- all of my readers (you!  yes, that is you!) are wonderful.  I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate you, and I'm sorry to let you down by being so inconsistent with my posts.  Things should return to normal tomorrow or Sunday.

Thank you everyone!  Happy Travels!

~ Emily

Through the Window or Out the Door

Sitting in the window, staring at the world, I long to join in.  Sometimes it can be hard to step outside, to risk, to be a part of life out there.  Some days, it feels more comfortable to stay snuggled up in your blankets, playing on your computer, reading a book, or watching a film.  But, you have to go out.  You have to make friends, have love, have a great time. 

Make a difference.  You have to make a difference.

Well, you don't have to... but why not?

 

So much is happening in the world right now- with pro-democracy protests in so many countries, and the protests standing up for rights here in the United States, specifically Wisconsin.  It is easy in a time like this to say that your voice doesn't matter, but it does.  You have a body, you have a voice and an opinion.  It is yours.  Go out and share it.  I mean, if you want to.

Go out and make a little bit of difference today, if you want to.  Times like this can make us meek, but they can also make us bold.  Share what you have, if you want to.

I've been doing this wonderful volunteering gig, at The Stella Adler Studio of Acting.  I attended Stella Adler's school through New York University (NYU) in Undergrad.  Almost all of my acting classes were at Adler.  The school is wonderful, but one of its best programs is the Stella Adler Outreach Program.  It provides free acting training to low-income high school students.  These students are at the studio, among students and professionals, for four or more hours a week, learning very advanced acting.  All of the young adults had to audition for placement into the program, and are taught by excellent instructors.  I have the priviledge of getting to aid these instructors two days a week.  

It's a joy to watch the difference I am making for these young people.  I hesitate to call them kids- most of them aren't.  Though they are young, some of them have had a pretty rough go, but they haven't let it get them down.   They are all insanely motivated, and auditioned for this program, to become better at an art they love.  

They inspire me every time I am there- the drive and zeal with which they approach the work puts me to shame.  There are so many days when my alarm goes off really early and I just want to (and sometimes do) go right back to sleep, instead of going to an audition.  It's so easy to look at the world and say "no," sometimes.  Doing the better thing is hard, but it's still the better thing to do.

Help someone today.  Make art.  Change the life of a child.  Be an inspiration.

I mean, if you want to.

Why not... right?

Photographs taken in the West Village.

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

A View from the Bridge

No, not the Arthur Miller play... 

Though, you win super brownie points if you knew that "A View from the Bridge" is the title of an Arthur Miller play.  Brownie points and kudos.  And rainbows, puppies and unicorns.  Invisible ones.

I'm talking about the Manhattan Bridge.  It's a bridge that connects Manhattan's Canal Street to Brooklyn's Flatbush Avenue.  It was the only bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn that I had not walked over.  Now, I have walked over it.  I did it on Thursday, when it was about 50 degrees Farenheit outside, and the world was basically made of smiles and roses.  The view was excellent.

  I did mess up a bit and walked on the bike lane side instead of the pedestrian lane side... but I couldn't find the entrance!  I'm probably an idiot, but it didn't seem that well marked.  In any case, the sun was setting, and photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge etc. to the south would have just had massive amounts of backlight and sun flare.  That would have been cool, but the more standard photographs that I was able to capture of the northern view from the bridge, and the Williamsburg Bridge are what you see here.  I'm rather proud of them, and I hope you enjoy!

Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA