another year another autumn

The time comes every year.  A time for thanks, for temperature drops, for education resuming, for scarves, coats, and gloves, a time for fireplaces, and for comfort food.  For the first 23 years of my life on the east coast, at least.  This time of year looks a lot different here in Los Angeles.  Specifically this year, what with every American's new found degree in politics.  I figured today I'd let my photos do the talking, while I nurse my "I live 3000 miles away from home on Thanksgiving" hangover.   Enjoy!

Autumn 2016 in Los Angeles: A Photo Journal

O and I grab coffee and a pastry at our favorite cafe to celebrate my 2 year LA-versary. 

We grab Austin, and head to the Americana, another nostalgic setting for us.

Nostalgia already setting in as we sit in front of a fountain we used to visit time after time at the start of our Californian journey, and realizing this may be the last time, as we take our next chapters in different directions.  God, I am so lucky to have this girl as my chosen sister.  It's hard to even pick the right words to sum up what she means to me.  But she knows.

My work family and I surprising our baby Riese with a birthday drag brunch. 

Riese takes the stage, murders it, and walks away with first place, of course.

Halloween 2016: warm enough to be Madonna without a coat.
Fun fact: I decided to dress up as her at 3pm the day of.  
The only thing I needed to purchase was the glove.

One last meal out with O and Austin before Home Free's Christmas tour began.  It is the first week of November.  I am wearing a short sleeve shirt, and baking in the sunlight.  Ahhh, LA.

November 9th, 2016. 
Lots of emotions and tempers running wild.  Incredible discourse and divide.  Perfect day to put the phone down and do things that make a girl smile, such as:

1) Breakfast with your bestie who's in town from Brooklyn for a few days.

2) Gallivant all over Los Angeles, taking photos. 

(Love her, hate her, feel indifferent towards her.  It doesn't matter.  What does matter is that the first female president of The United States is out there somewhere.  And she was watching this election.  And boy, is she motivated.  And boy, are we ready for her.)

And finally, 3) Count your blessings.

Sat under the Hollywood sun, jotting ideas and thoughts down, witnessing people in daily life and hearing bits of conversations go passed, until I was too sweaty to not be in air conditioning anymore.  Actually got in front of the camera for someone else besides Olena, and I can't wait to share the project with you!

Impromptu shooting with Jen, always and forever.

Shopped locally for some new books in my attempt to spend less time bingeing on television and more time getting engulfed in stories.  This bookstore has a freaking tree in it, people.  
Los Feliz just gets me.

Afternoon in Malibu to brighten up my day, and let's be honest, my Instagram feed. 

Well here we are guys!  You've reached the end of this week's photo blog.  Congratulations!  For your prize, you get to eat leftover Thanksgiving food!  What was that?  You were going to do that anyway?  Well, just like Donald Trump's victory song, you can't always get what you want.  

That's a weird note to end this post on, so I'll leave you with this.  
I hope your Thanksgiving was peaceful, and warm, and full of love and togetherness.  While there may have been conversations of tension, or disagreement, I hope they were overshadowed by appreciation and gratitude that you even got to spend that day with your loved ones at all.  Lord knows I would have loved to.

Keep loving one another.  Keep being kind.  Keep being accepting.  
And, most importantly, keep being authentically yourself.  No one gets to vote on that.  
Listen to your peers, listen to your elders. listen to your minors.  Let's try to understand each other more, and open up healthy discussion, rather than fighting and neglecting each other.  

If you are someone in this country who feels alone, you are not.  I am with you, and I know so many wonderful people who are also with you.  I have arms for hugging, shoulders for leaning on and ears for listening, and they're all open if you need to use them.

Well, I'm off to go listen to Frank Sinatra's Christmas album for the next 30 days straight.  Thanks for reading! Happy Leftover Turkey Day!

xoxo

twenty five

Welcome back, and happy Monday!

Here's a bit of trivia about me: I hate birthdays.  Not other people's birthdays, but my own.  Every year there's something that goes wrong, or something to make me upset, and I've decided that the overall birthday hype is much more exciting than the day itself.  And that, my friends, is a formula for disappointment.  So, I never get too stoked on the arrival of September 26.  This year was no different.  I was not excited for my birthday.  I felt I had nothing to celebrate.  I felt like celebration would have been totally irresponsible and undeserved, because my life was falling apart and I was in financial turmoil, so who do I think I am throwing some kind of celebration in my honor?

But, this year was the big 2-5, so my wonderful friends, Rachel and Mike, made sure I'd have a birthday getaway to remember.  They completely changed my attitude about the day just by how excited they seemed.  We rounded up the troops, headed to the port, and got on the CATALINA EXPRESS!

Here's where I begin my drink count, because ladies and gentlemen, what the three of us did that day was pretty remarkable, and I must share it.  Just please hold your judgement and remember A) that this is over the span of an entire day, starting at 10am, and ending at who-knows-when-o-clock, and B) it was my freaking quarter century birthday and C) I can cry if I want to.

Drink count: 1 glass of champagne, 1 can of a blonde ale

That's right kids.  My friends took me to the fuckin Catalina Wine Mixer for my 25th birthday!  

It was more beautiful than I ever imagined, and also without out a doubt, the weirdest place I have ever been. 

After we took the short journey around everything that is the town of Catalina, we settled down at a Mexican restaurant for some lunch.  They served us ceviche out of an avocado.  To die for. 

Drink count: 1 glass of champagne and 1 can of a blonde ale on the ferry, and however much 1/3 of a pitcher of margaritas is

Then we decided to take a dip in the ocean.  Bad idea.  Hey kids, remember when your parents said to wait to swim for 30 minutes after a meal?  Listen to them.  I was trying to wade in the water as we all talked, but then one of them made me laugh, and since I was laughing, I couldn't keep myself afloat, which made me laugh harder, which made me sink faster, and being full and tipsy didn't help, and kids, it could have been a shocking ending to an otherwise beautiful day. 

Wanting to be adventurous, but understanding that we were probably too tipsy to attempt anything too dangerous, we went on a miniature hike!  The views there in Catalina were next level.  It completely felt like we were on an altogether different island in the middle of nowhere, instead of just an hour and a half of the coast of California.  

As the sun became less prevalent, so did our desire to hike.  We went to the tiniest little grocery shop to get water and other necessities, and we headed back to the room to shower and change.  

There was a rooftop deck at our hotel, overlooking the entire town, and after we got into our Sunday best, we grabbed my gifted bottle of Basil Hayden's (which is my favorite whiskey in the world so thank you Shea!) and watched the sunset.  

Rachel has been that steadfast friend I so needed upon moving here.  We've got each other's backs in that sister type of way.  One of the running jokes of the trip was that every time Shea made fun of Rachel even slightly, I would respond, "Don't talk to my friend that way!" 

She is always down for WHATever, she indulges with me, she's the voice of reason when she needs to be, she is just the best and I'm so lucky to have snagged her into my inner circle.  

Drink count: 1 glass of champagne and 1 can of a blonde ale on the ferry, however much 1/3 of a pitcher of margaritas is at the Mexican restaurant, and two glasses of Basil Hayden's on the rocks

This is Michael Shea.  Another friend I snagged out of that Godforsaken restaurant I used to work at.  A downright good homie.  Always down for anything from getting coffee and talking comedy, to splitting a pitcher of margaritas and hardcore parkour-ing.  I mean, he came on this birthday trip with two girls, with no possibility of getting laid.  That's friendship.  

I have no photos of that night, but once the sun was fully down, we walked to an ocean view restaurant, ate our weight in three courses, and proceeded to have one of the weirdest nights of my life.  We made our way to what seemed like the local dive bar, but left after one beer because it felt like everyone was staring at us.  We were just on a much higher level than everyone there, so we made our way to the only nightclub in Catalina, which we're convinced was an off duty strip club.  There were about, 12 people inside, no exaggeration, and we started controlling the music, and dancing our asses off on the dance floor, pretty much by ourselves.  I fell on the dance floor multiple times, but was told by my friends that I'd accompany the fall with an, "It's my birthday!" and keep going.  

Drink count: 1 glass of champagne and 1 can of a blonde ale on the ferry, however much 1/3 of a pitcher of margaritas is at the Mexican restaurant, two glasses of Basil Hayden's on the rocks at the hotel, two glasses of Woodford Reserve on the rocks at dinner, 1 beer at the dive bar, and one last glass of Basil Hayden's on the rocks at the off duty strip club, and a partridge in a pear tree.  

Needless to say, I woke up the next day in one of the rougher hangovers of my existence.  But not regretful.  Never regretful.  I'm 25 and alive ok?  We got breakfast at this cute but bizarre little diner, I grabbed myself a pedialyte from the town shop, cause duh, and we laid on the beach for the rest of the day.  We talked about going kayaking or paddle boarding, but then we got a beer as a kind of hair of the dog situation instead. 

Then we headed back to the ferry, slept on the ride home, and we were back.  A wonderfully weird two days spent in the oddest place on earth, and it was the perfect place with the perfect company to start my 25th year.  

If you've made it this far, you might be someone who's interested enough in what I do here on The Jones to purchase a print of one of my photographs!  I'm starting to think about creating a click-through link on my photos, so if you feel connected to one, you can go ahead and purchase a print for your home!  If you'd be interested in this at all, leave a comment so I know if I should look into it!!! 

I hope your week goes smoothly, and that if not, you buy a bottle of Basil Hayden's to make it all okay.  Love one another.  Til next time!

xoxo

catchin up

Hello again!  TGIF am I right? 
So, for those three months in which I was totally absent from The Jones, I was still getting outside, taking photos, and trying my best to make my days full, I just wasn't showing it here.  So now I get to play catch up, which is great cause I haven't done any cardio yet today! 
This is the collection of photos I have taken in the past three months that I have had yet to show you!! Hope you enjoy, and if you do, feel free to like this post, comment on it, share it, memorize it, whatever feels natural for you.

 

This series of photos were taken late July during what social media was calling the #SandfireSky.  Basically, there was a raging wildfire burning in Santa Clarita (a town in the valley outside LA) causing smoke and ash to drift into the air covering most of Los Angeles.  While concerning and dangerous, it made the sky BEAUTIFUL.  The sun was literally bright red!  These photos are enhanced ever so slightly but the colors are not exaggerated.  This is really what Los Angeles looked like that day!

Naturally, I had to ninja my way to the rooftop of my apartment building, snapping photos for over an hour at least.  Of course, the universe had its way of letting me know to get the f*** off the roof by having me fall through a skylight, camera in hand.  I had lots of scrapes and bruises to prove the tale, but the most heartbreaking wound of all was the wound to Sonya (if you forgot, Sonya is my camera's name, cause I do that sort of thing).  Sonya's lens was completely bent, because I refused to let go of it, and it ended up breaking my fall.  

It was worth it for these photos, though.  But just an FYI, the rest of the photos in this post are all taken either on my iPhone or with my zoom lens, which has been difficult to manage, but it's forced me to get outside my photography comfort zone and I'm really excited about the strides I've been taking! 

Rachel and I went on a hike.  And when you go on a hike with Rachel, you agree to get very lost, and very dirty.  I love having her as a friend, because it's always an adventure. 

August was an incredibly tough month for me.  It was filled to the brim with obstacles and obligations.  I completely overbooked myself and I had started to lead a panicked, high strung, secluded every day life.  Needless to say, my psyche was taking a real hit.  One day, I irresponsibly (or so I thought) took myself to the beach and sat there for about an hour in between obligations, and it's crazy how healing something so simple can be.  

Simply taking the hour in between appointments to do something for myself, to have quality Sami time that I hadn't gifted myself in weeks, put a calm back in my soul that I hadn't seen since I was back home in Jersey.  Of course, as soon as I got off the beach, that calm quickly subsided as I rushed to get to work, but it was such a healthy reminder.  
No matter how much you have on your plate, no matter how many challenges you are facing or tasks you've committed to, there is ALWAYS room to take a little time for yourself, and that is more important than all the time we spend doing everything else. 
If you ever get to a point where you feel you've spread yourself so thin that you can't do the simplest thing like taking an hour to sit on the beach, or go to a coffee shop, or listen to your favorite album all the way through, or meditate, or any of the things that you do to stay sane, then you are not doing what's best for you, even if you think you are.  

Salt water heals all the boo boos.

OK CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING FOR A SECOND?!
If you know me well, you know about my weird, obsession-level love for deer.  I LOVE DEER.  I've loved deer since I was a child, but the weird level at which I admire them started about five or six years ago.  I don't know why, but every time it would storm or even just rain outside, I'd start thinking about how the deer were outside with no place to go and were they ok?/did they know what to do in storm conditions?/what if they are hit with lightning?/ARE ALL THE BABY DEER WITH THEIR MOMMA DEER? Ya know, rational not insane thoughts like that.  

Anywho, I went on a hike with my friend Colin, and about two minutes into it, we came across a family of three deer and it felt like my whole life had led up to that moment.  It was everything I thought it would be.  They are the most beautiful, gentle, fascinating, curious creatures, and I was about ready to abandon my life as a human and join them, living the rest of my days as a deer, sort of like a Tarzan situation.  Colin advised against that, so we parted ways and went on with our hike, but I have these gorgeous photos of us totally vibing and connecting to cherish forever. 

Jen is a wonderful friend of mine.  We've known each other since we studied abroad together in London, but certain circumstances kept us from ever getting the chance to really know each other.  It wasn't until 4 years later when I was sitting hungover with my best friend at a restaurant the morning of my 24th birthday and I heard a familiar voice say, "Sami?" and I turned around to see her waiting tables, that we finally got the chance to connect.  In the last year Jen has become part of my family out here.  She and I share so many similarities in the way we were raised and the backgrounds we come from, and she's become a little slice of home for me out here.  She's my support system, my own personal stand up comedian, my cheerleader, and my partner in crime.  We try to make the most of our every day and she's always more than down to have me practice photographing her and for that I'm very grateful.  

That's just me doin my thang.

Friendship with Jennifer DiBella: A Three Part Photo Series

We took another adventure and ended up on a hiking trail and at a historic mansion where we could have gotten fined for taking photographs.  We rebellious.  Photographing her is so easy, and it's really been a learning lesson for me.  Every shoot we have, the more confident I become in my ability to photograph people, the more it makes me want to do it more often, and with other people.  If you're reading this and would want to do a fun shoot with me, leave a comment below!!!

Well folks, that's about all I've got for you this time on The Jones!  Life is still hard, money is still tight, but my camera came in today, and my best friends are home with me for the time being, so there's a silver lining!  I'm gonna log out of here now and go soak up the Los Angeles October sunshine that we are so lucky to get out here, and until next time, HAVE A GOOD LIFE!

xoxo