I am mad about Alphastructaesthetitologist + Illustrator Jon Contino. I was having tea with a new friend the other day (yes, I made ONE friend here, I hope!), we were discussing our love of hand lettering artists and Jon Contino came up, my eyes sparkled and I swooned, I knew that I must showcase his fine work on today’s Lettering Love post.  Many of you may already be more than aware of Mr. Contino, for those that don’t I am hoping this is quite the visual treat. I love all his work, but it’s his work on the Original Makers Club that I am currently coo coo for. These pieces make me want to hitch a ride to Lexington, Kentucky and join this club that I know nothing about, his work is that good. I am sure he is going to be around for a long time and I am eager to see what other magic he has up his sleeve as I know it will be equally as coveted by moi.

I have been having a grand ‘ol time putting together these Pinterest curator posts. My fave part is finding themes within each board, it’s a visual treasure hunt, very challenging and satisfying to me. Graphic designer, Kelsey Cronkhite of Pinegate Road has pretty eclectic tastes and is decidedly modern but you can find a woodland nature bent throughout her pins that I adore. Kelsey’s pins feel very fresh and unique, not the same old pins floating through the ‘Pin-o-sphere’. Miss Kelsey is also very good about pinning original sources and I feel that deserves a big virtual thumbs up. If you want to follow someone that is pinning new, original, interesting and modern inspiration with a bit of nature thrown in then I think you should give Kelsey a looksy.

I do have a little Pin tip this week. I know I mentioned before to try to get original sources and I do have a lot of early Pins and mobile pins that do not (very bad behavior). When I have gone back and tried in vain to find a source and haven’t been able to, I have been adding a note to please let me know who the photo is by so I can give proper credit. In a perfect world I would not Pin it at all, but I truly would like to know more about a photographer; if I see great work and it feels like my only option is to ask for information from the interwebs than I will. Lately, I have noticed a lot of my photographs being pinned which is completely flattering and I am so grateful. A lot of my photographs have been pinned via Tumblr blogs and there NEVER seems to be any credit given to original sources there. What I have been doing and I suggest is a sweet/kind way if you see your images pinned without credit (or even with credit) is I leave a comment and thank the person for pinning my image.  I know not everyone cares about attribution and they are going with the flow and pinning on impulse waiting in line at the DMV etc. so this is my little solution for now to get my attribution out there. I can’t be angry about not having attribution, I think that’s silly, especially when I put images on-line.  I take the risk of my images being used in nefarious ways or not being credited for them, that’s a risk I am willing to take and thus my sweet + simple solution above.  Now go off and Pin to your hearts desire and try to give credit or find the original source, it may not happen overnight but just future Pins try to keep this little bit of advice in mind.

//Former Pinterest Curators//

Ginny Branch Stelling
Suzonne Stirling
Michelle P.

I have mentioned that I don’t listen to music when I work, I know totally weird, but true. I have been addicted to the podcast ‘Stuff you Missed in History Class’ and after I had plowed through every episode and every episode of ‘This American Life’ I had been left bereft that I no longer had anything interesting to listen to. The kindest soul (and possibly one of the most awesome) mentioned Radio Lab and I went over to check it out, ‘Whoa, Nelly!‘ Talk about awesome to the ‘nth degree. It’s almost like if ‘My Missed in History’ (if it was science-centric) and ‘This American Life’ had a love child it would be this podcast.  My only complaint (if you could call it that), is sometimes I find myself a little too engrossed and writing or more like re-writing emails multiple times because I am so enthralled.   I am sadly almost through all of these episodes as well, so I am putting out a public plea for more podcast suggestions, please do let me know what I should be listening to next.

Oh, and I do have an Audible account (totally bragging), which is hit or miss.  I have downloaded some pretty boring narrations. I recently bought a wild card audiobook-The Dangerous Animals Club that has had me laughing out loud. It’s in the vain of David Sedaris and I have loved almost every minute of it, there is a weird engineering snafu on one of the chapters but other than that I am so pleased that  was feeling wild and bought it on a whim.

It’s October today and it seems like the Southern storms that I have been documenting are not just relegated to summer as I formally deduced. Oh, no, it’s supposed to be stormy all week. This was taken over the weekend, thus the September moniker.  Being from Southern California I am really not used to the downpours. The other night the thunder sounded like a gun shot, it gave me goose bumps.  I thought it would be interesting to show you the storm rolling in.  The first shot is when the clouds start to close in on the blue sky, birds are nowhere to be seen, there’s a stillness to the air and it all feels a bit foreboding.  I love the second shot because even though the sky has been engulfed with storm clouds the sun’s rays are still beaming down from above (heavenly), then the sky rumbles and in a blink it’s a smoke + charcoal gray and the clouds release their raindrops in a torrent.  My studio looks out onto a pond and I love the sound of the rain heavy on the pond’s surface. I honestly didn’t do enough research into this cross country move to know that I would be in the eye of the storm 98% of the time. I am not sure how I feel about it; on one hand it’s novel, majestic and awe inspiring on the other it’s disconcerting, a little moody for my sunny disposition and I hate that my dogs fear for their lives (or at least act as if they do). I am in a word torn. What I am not torn about is starting Souvenir Foto School today!  I love to geek out and be in the company of other photo enthusiasts for a few weeks of my life. Food + Foto is always one of our favorite classes as it combines my love for pragmatic craft (what?), you know a hobby that has purpose–food is a great purposeful hobby.  No one around you will complain that you are making them a beautiful dinner.  It’s also nice to be connected to other like-minded individuals whilst I am living in the country and people are scarce. What’s not scarce is wildlife. I did see a turtle the other day walking on the road (we don’t have sidewalks). I made my husband pick it up and put it near water (away from cars and horses) and then went home to Google it.  It seems this turtle is indigenous to North Carolina and is not a turtle that needs/likes water. We went back to move the turtle to higher ground but the turtle had high-tailed it out of the way of danger, smart turtle. Live and learn.

We are pleased to announce that the two scholarships for our Food + Foto class were granted to Lisa S. and Simone|Fleaing France! We wish we could have chosen more scholarships, we believe everyone that applied is worthy of one. We are getting very excited here at the Souvenir Foto School, we have been working round the clock for months planning and for the past few weeks my co-professor Michelle P. and myself have been cooking + shooting like our lives depend on it. To say we are inspired is an understatement, just check out the above test image that Michelle shot above, breathtaking!  I can’t wait, you?  We have a few more spots left, won’t you join us?