Maui in Photographs, Part One

I'm Back!

I'm back from my honeymoon, and let me just say this: Maui is absolutely beautiful and it was truly, truly difficult to leave. I will post some photos soon, but for now I have the winner of the giveaway!

Jamie, please email me (rachelceleste@live.ca) your mailing address and I will get the prints sent off to you!

Honeymooners - & A Giveaway!

Tonight we leave for Maui on our honeymoon. Yes, I got married back in April, but with the immigration process and what not we had to put it off. Of course none of that matters now, because we're finally leaving, and I couldn't be more excited.

I won't be posting while I'm gone, but you should definitely follow me on instagram (racheldelgrosso) for some beautiful photos.

Giveaway

To celebrate my honeymoon I'm giving away a 9-piece Paris postcard set from Little Brown Pen! Ever since I stumbled across their Etsy shop back in April/May I have fallen in love with so many of their photos and I just know that you all will as well!

To enter to win, visit the Etsy shop, become a follower of my blog and leave a comment below. Extra entries for tweeting about the giveaway or mentioning it on Facebook (make sure to link to your tweets/mentions below!). The winner will be randomly chosen upon my return in a week.

Good luck! Aloha!

Five Things

1. I was embarrassingly close to leaning forward and licking my screen when I first saw this recipe for Cookies 'N Cream Oreo Fudge Brownies. Mark my words: these will be made.

2. It's no secret that I have modern tastes, and so I often love the look of IKEA furniture, though it's not the greatest quality. When I came across this idea for a cube table a la West Elm (& it actually reminds me of the shelves I fell in love with from this post) I nearly fell over. Genius!

When Reality Gets in the Way

It’s true that I have, over the past year, flip flopped back and forth about the direction in which I should take my career. I worked on starting a photography business, and then once my immigration papers came through I decided that I should get a full-time job. Well, that certainly didn’t turn out the way I hoped it would. After that I felt lost, but also incredibly motivated and determined to get my business up and running.

Enter reality.

Due to some circumstances that I won’t get into right now it has become necessary for me to again begin my search for a full-time job.

This past weekend a photographer friend of mine was asking if I had bought my WPPI ticket yet and I responded, “Well I will hopefully have a job by then so I don’t think I will be able to go.”

“But what about photography?” she asked.

"I need to get a job, I’ll have to do photography on the side.”

Her response was a saddening, “Noo… Rachel…”

I felt like saying: believe me, I know.

My only hope is that I can pursue photography on the side for now and that someday I am able to transition to doing it full-time.

I guess that sometimes reality makes the decisions for you.

Image via

The Art of Travel

My history of travel is a short one. Cuba. A jaunt to New York City. Edinburgh, Scotland and a few visits to Las Vegas before moving here in January 2011. There is much of the world I have not seen.

I think about my cousin Danielle, who is a flight attendant and has seen so many beautiful places in the past five years. I think: now that’s the kind of job to have when you’re young: before life really kicks in; before life means mortgages and diaper changes. All day I am reminded – by the whoosh of planes in the sky above our house – of all the places that I have never been.

I crave the vast plains and rolling hillsides of New Zealand.

My fingers itch to capture the beauty of San Francisco through photographs.

And next week my immense desire to feel warm sand between my toes will be satisfied. Next Saturday, after seven months of marriage and immigration papers my husband and I will finally be leaving for our honeymoon. Maui, here we come. I’m ready for your breathtaking sunsets, your blue skies and sun; I’m ready to celebrate my marriage.

The Art of Travel

I am reading this book slowly, not wanting to miss anything, and getting lost in the romance of it all. It has me thinking more deeply about how I want to document our upcoming trip, and of course: about how others go about capturing the essence of their own trips. And so I ask you this:

Tell me about your travels. What do you seek to learn/see/experience? How do you document them?

Breathing in Fall

I love that it's the time of the year when a scarf is the perfect addition to my outfit; as soon as the temperature cools down it's unusual to find me without one. I probably own twelve of them and am always swooning over others any time I see them in-store.

It is definitely beginning to feel like fall here, but boy am I craving just a quick taste of an Ontario fall day; the bright reds and oranges of the trees and that scent in the air that whispers FALL. Just a reminder, that's all I need.

We're settling in nicely to the new home and I've already fallen in love with the mid-day light hitting the bed and shining across the corner of the living room floor where my cat sleeps away the afternoon in the warm sun. Life may have not changed (just our address) but a feeling of calm has fallen on my shoulders and settled in for a long, welcome stay.

Just a Little Reminder

Some good things are on the horizon, and I'm oh so excited.

In Film

No new post today, but I did share some film shots I took last month on a photo walk. Check them out here.

DIY Garbage Can Revival

Last week my husband came home from work, showed me a simple plastic garbage can and asked "what do you think of this?" I will admit that I got a little too excited over something so simple, but the ideas were running around rampant in my head. "Oh yeah, we can use that. I'll spray paint it... Ooh, maybe with black stripes!" See. Excited.

I'm sure that some people would ask why I even bothered to go through this when I could just buy a new one. Well, my answer to that would be twofold: (1) We are a throw-away society and I don't like to contribute to that any more than possible and (2) because I love a good revival project. And maybe (3) because I secretly want to incorporate black and white stripes into the house.

I forgot to take a photo of the trash can before I started working on it, but you can get an idea from this photo, after I taped off the stripes.

The paint was definitely more of a dark charcoal, metallic gray than black but I love the outcome.

All in all I love the result and I feel better knowing that I didn't add to the already rampant pile of garbage in the world, and it only cost me $4.50 for the spray paint.

I must say that this project has got me really excited about fixing up everyday, ordinary items in the house and giving them a new life! I'm looking forward to seeing what I come up with next!

And so it Begins

Nanowrimo 2011 has officially begun; with a very large cup of hot tea and a blank word document staring me in the face.