New York and Connecticut

A week or so ago, my mom and I sat down in the kitchen for one of our late night conversations. We do this fairly often, just sit down and talk for a couple of hours about who knows what. This time our conversation subjected to 9/11. She told me where she was, where I was, and what the entire experience was like; how deathly quiet it was for such a long time after. We talked and talked about it. Eventually my dad walked in and my mom wanted to change the subject because my dad gets really riled up when 9/11 gets talked about. He's the type of person that doesn't move on so easily, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. Knowing that my dad is one of the most talkative people on the planet, I prepared myself for a very long one sided conversation. Unexpectedly, he didn't talk for long (mostly because it was twelve in the morning), but he did say where he was and he voiced his opinion of the tragedy now.

That night led up to Friday. We were invited to my Aunt and Uncle's house (technically they're just long-time family friends) and we decided to take a detour into the city to see the 9/11 memorial. 

It was weird to see everyone taking pictures and not really paying attention to anyone else. 

I stood at one of the empty sides and took a picture of everyone.

I also took a panorama at one side of the South Pool. The editing isn't perfect, but I didn't really try all that hard.

When we were just about dead from heat exhaustion we got our car and drove the rest of the way to Connecticut. I had a bit of a headache so I listened to Lana Del Rey and fell asleep. We got there around 7 and we ate dinner, caught fireflies, played badminton, and then watched Forest Gump for the remainder of the night.

We went to the beach on Saturday. It was hot and humid and a very uncomfortable day for me since I don't have the ability to just jump in the ocean and cool off. We sat on the docks for a bit, and when I got too hot I went up to a shaded area and sat and read one of my summer reading books.

One of the lifeguards ended up striking conversation with me about my book. He asked me what I was reading and I flashed him the cover of the book and said it was Stephen King's memoir. It was funny watching him get excited about it. He proclaimed Stephen King to be the king of all authors and I didn't disagree. He asked me if I had read any of his other books, I said no, but that I had watched the film for It, The Shining, and The Mist. He told me to read The Last Stand, I think it was called, and that was kind of the end of our conversation, because he had lives to monitor and I had a book to read.

Skylar and I then explored underneath the docks and I took some photos of her. I didn't take too many because my camera was on the brink of death from not being charged.

I let my camera charge for the rest of the day, but I made sure to ask my mom if we could go back to the beach around sunset so I could get nice pictures and take my 52 weeks photo. We ate dinner and had a rather hilarious conversation about spanking and deathly hot peppers and how they should instead be called suicide peppers, because my six year old cousin doesn't understand why anyone would want to eat anything so hot. Then my uncle broke out into song and we all got packed up to go to the beach again.

My dad was yelling at me from the paddle board to get a picture of him going into the sunset.

This was my 52 week photo that I got with Skylar! I stood on the dock and made her submerge herself in the water. She's probably one of my favorite people to photograph. She's a great model and doesn't need all that much direction. She takes it more seriously than some of the people I've photographed from my high school, which is pretty phenomenal.

 My aunt's foolproof way to protect against the bugs that were eating us alive.

We got home from the beach around 9:30 at night and we all changed into pajamas, made popcorn and watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It wasn't necessarily appropriate for my 6 year old cousin, but it was funny when he asked what a pot brownie was and in the end it was fine. Everyone loved it. Even my aunt said to me Sunday morning that she was still thinking about how good it was, which made me happy. I told her to read the book because it's even better.
Sunday we went out onto their boat for some fun! We ended up anchoring by this cool little island and everyone swam and I took some pictures.

This was the island that we anchored next to! It was so big in person. I was staring at it for a while when my uncle and my cousin Bryce swam over to it. I asked my dad if he would swim my camera over there, and he got frustrated and asked me if it was worth losing my camera over (if it got wet). I immediately said yes. We put it in a ziplock bag and he paddled over to the island with a boogie board and I swam over with my tripod. I was reluctant to get in the water, but the drive of taking photos on that beautiful island was worth it. (Plus it was really close to the boat)When I got on the island I realized I couldn't take a self portrait without my white dress, so I swam back with the boogie board and got it. Everyone on the boat was laughing at me, I was kind of laughing too.

The island explorers! *photoshops self into photo*

The view of our boat from the island.

Shane, my cousin, who was very absent during my time in Connecticut. I guess he's around the age where he thinks he's too cool for me. He spent most of his time with friends or on his xbox.

This was the final image I got while on the island. I'm super pleased with it, mostly because it's my first successful self portrait (including my face) that I've taken in a really long time.