Black Tulip of Celebration

Finally, my last ACU tie has been cut--I am, officially, no longer editor of the Shinnery Review. Now let's be honest, even though we were "co-editors," Kalyn was the only real editor of the Shinnery Review, and I was the person she assigned things to when she absolutely didn't have time to do them because she knew I absolutely didn't have time to do them and wouldn't do them unless she absolutely didn't have time to do them. Which is not exactly a strong point of my character. ::thoughtful pause:: But in my defense, I am no longer a student at ACU and didn't plan on graduating a semester early when I decided to help Kalyn co-edit the magazine.

So, my harried 4:00 trips to the Ad Building every Wednesday are officially over. My hurried attempts at being an entire art/advertising department??? Finis! Au revoir to late night meetings, phone calls, and interviews with Kalyn answering questions about things I know nothing about. And so long to Abilene Christian University...as soon as they send me my blasted diploma.

Here are pictures from the Black Tulip, an annual poetry reading-- and our final event as editors!

The Shinnery Review will be on sale for $5 in the
ACU campus center during finals week

Kalyn's husband BJ, and their friend Alyson Bellisle
manning the cheesecake table while listening to poetry

Professor Al Hailey, the Shinnery Review's sponsor,
reading a little poetry of his own

Dustin Reid, an ACU student, singing his own poetry and
playing his own accompaniment...because isn't music poetry?

This year's staff of the Shinnery Review (minus a few people)
photo by: Rachel Lau

The Melissa Lemmons Photography Gallery

Featured Artist: Emerald Lemmons

A few months ago, I posted my new "interior decorator line" inspired by my sister-in-law, Melissa. At that time, I told you I would update you on what she ordered. In the mean time, she went bargain hunting in thrift stores for frames, spray painted them "antiqued silver," and popped over to my house to argue over prints with me. Here's what we decided:

Over the bed 20x30 (black border represents the mat):

Poets, Witches and Pretty Pink Flowers

By itself on one wall 8x8 with 2 inch mat:

Burning Birdies

As a series along one wall facing their window:

Big Ben

Divine Light through Cologne Cathedral

Wrought-iron Wonder of Holyrood Palace

First Glimpse of London
(through Trafalgar Square Tube Station exit)

Blarney Tower


On the wall near the window 5x7:

Chris

On Chris's nightstand 5x7:

Melissa

So, basically, their bedroom turned into a private gallery for displaying my work. If anyone else is interested in modifying my interior decorator line to fit your needs--or requesting a personal themed line of your own--let me know!

Yellow Roses of Texas...in bluebonnets and DQ!

I know I've posted about Fat Tuesday before, but I thought I'd explain again (since, after casually mentioning taking pictures of my Fat Tuesday Friends to my brother-in-law, he calmly told me that none of them looked fat to him...grrrrrrrr). A group of my friends take turns cooking for each other on Tuesdays. Since dessert is one of the most important parts of this meal--and we have it on Tuesday--we call it Fat Tuesday, a play on the original, which is also about gluttony. Coincidentally, this same set of friends are the ones who were wonderful enough to get me Indy for my birthday.

So last week at Fat Tuesday, we were talking about bluebonnets and decided we should all go take bluebonnet pictures as a group. Now, I'm the only one of our group who is not from Texas. I've never taken bluebonnet pictures of any kind before. In fact, I have never, before this weekend, been even six feet from a bluebonnet. Did you know bluebonnets have a smell???

Anyway, so, we set off around 2:00 down a farm road and finally decided to stop at some poor farmer's house. We drove down the mile long driveway and elected Kalyn and Kayla (who are definitely the most persuasive while still remaining cute) to knock on the door and ask if we could take pictures in the guy's front yard. He said yes.

Some of the pictures turned out looking like head-shots for the Miss Texas competition (Kalyn!!), but they all turned out pretty cute. And the girls were nice enough to wield my huge, more-buttons-than-a-Nasa-control-center camera to take a few shots of me.

Enjoy!

Carolyn

Kayla

Erin

Brittany

Kalyn

Me pretending to be Ferdinand

photo by: Kalyn

Erin using my reflector cover to keep her hair from blowing in the
silly Abilene wind!

Us pretending we're models with "attitude,"
at least from the direction of our derrières.

After the bluebonnet shoot, we decided to make a quick stop in at
Dairy Queen--the perfect end to a characteristically Texan day.

photo by: Carolyn

Surprise Bridals

This weekend I helped Belle's with another workshop in Dallas. It went really well--I got to teach the participants about window light portraits--and we even had a surprise twist of events! One of the members of the church we were shooting at had planned on taking bridal portraits of his daughter that day...so, since we were monopolizing all the pretty spots in the church, we offered to use her as a model. Instead of one dad shooting his camera at her, she ended up with 26 professional photographers shooting at her. Talk about star shock!

To further the strangeness of the situation, it turned out that she was an ACU grad and, though neither of us recognized the other at first, we had actually taken a photography class together. Talk about irony! Anyway, meet Katy Rowan and let me know what you think of my set of her bridals. I think #3 makes her look like a queen, what do you think?

Shooting through the fog

Over spring break, our friends Jarrod and Julia came home with me and Eric to my parents' house for some rest and Cajun cooking. While we were there, we sneaked in some engagement pictures. Our plan was to get up and go to the beach at sunrise since we're from Abilene and there is no such thing as beach where we've chosen to reside. We did not, however, expect the unpredictable Louisiana weather...so we ended up shooting the majority of their engagement pictures in fog. Yes, you heard me, fog. Let me tell you that's interesting to say the least. But they were great sports and we all had a lot of fun. Just before sunset everything cleared up so we went out to the Sallier Oak (the oldest tree in Calcasieu Parish) and took a few more just in case I couldn't edit fog. Here are my favorites...I have about 8 gazillion more to choose from, though. Enjoy and tell me what you think!