Hope for Humanity

You know how sometimes you catch moments of life and wish you had taken your camera out sooner? Well here is a photo that such a thing happened. I will describe the full scene to the best of my ability but this photo is a reminder to me of just how good some people are.

Ok first of all this is a group of kids helping up a homeless man who had fallen on the street and couldn't get up. First I want to stress that none of these kids were walking together. They were all walking separately down the street and all banded together to help the man up. Next I want say that just to the left of them is about 10-15 men is suits waiting for the bus. Not one of the men in suits would help the guy up even though they were all right there when he fell. I was walking on the other side of the street and was unable to capture the whole scene. This photo was taken about 4 years ago and still the actions of those kids today affect me. The funny thing is that the day this had happened I was having a rough year. My life was tumbling over itself and everything was pretty much going to shit. I had little to no faith in humanity and was a pretty depressed person.

The event in this photograph changed that for me. It gave me a more positive outlook and renewed my faith in humanity. This event even though it was so small, This tiny act of kindness has changed my life. It reaffirmed my belief in helping people. My belief that even though this world can be a dark place there is still a speck of light that will never fade. There will always be someone willing to lend a helping hand.

A Commentary on Modern Day Relationships and Love

I have to laugh when I think about the notion of love and relationships. It seems to me that as we grow everything gets more complicated  Including love and relationships. I laugh every time I think of all the "heart ache" I went through my teenage years desiring love, unrequited love and the like. Now it seems as I grow older the whole nuclear family the whole nuclear relationship seems so passe. So many people I know are in "non-relationship relationships" It seems to me the whole commitment love forever thing has been thrown out the window even though if you talk to people about what they want they describe the "traditional" love ideal.
It all seems so romantic in a completely unromantic sort of way.

Marriage seems like something that is so out of reach these days. At least for me who seems to be flip flop about whether or not I want to get married at all. I mean the ideal of marriage is so worn and destroyed these days what with divorce rates being so high and all. Is there really any purpose to it? Can't you just love someone with out the proclamation and paper work?  You don't even really get much of a tax break. So what is the point? I think many people struggle with this idea. I feel that romance has been deemed a silly tradition. I admittedly feel rather sad about this. I was raised on Disneys idea of love. I was told my whole life that one day my Prince would come and sweep me away and everything that was horrible would go away and we would ride off into our happily ever after. This of course has not aligned with my experience.

In my experience it is not finding someone to love that is the hard part but finding someone to love who will decide to love you back. That is where people hit brick walls and they hit them hard. We all have that perfect lover idea in our head. We skip over people who could be perfectly awesome if they do not fit that ideal. Everyone does it. I myself am often made fun of for the fact that I have a very obvious type. I can't help it. Neither can you. We all are attracted to who we are attracted to. It is no ones fault. It is not your fault for falling for someone who isn't into you and it is not their fault for not being attracted to you. That is just life. I would like to believe that one day I will find that "one." Even though I realize that that is a silly ideal it makes me happy to think of it.

This is likely a subject I will touch on often so I apologize for any redundancy on my part. I am still working out this whole idea myself. I doubt I will ever stop trying to figure it out. Also I have to ask myself.... "why are all these image in black and white".....it must mean something....right? The answer: Only if I want it to.

Beauty

For a long time I used to work with models doing random fashions shoots and art shoots. I still do on occasion but I find it funny that I often spent hours looking through photos of pretty girls deciding which one I would shoot with. I always had the same complaint... They all look the same. It was seriously like trying to find a needle in a haystack to find that one unique girl. I was looking through some of the photos today I had taken today and it got me thinking on this whole idea of beauty. There seems to be a very concrete concept of what is beautiful or what is ugly. Of course given peoples variety of tastes those ideals shift slightly but you would think there would be a greater shift then what is normally considered beautiful.

Butterflies are a good example of a grand mix of beauty and uniqueness. We have this conception that butterflies are beautiful so therefore all butterflies are beautiful. Why is it that we cannot have this idea of all people. Why are only some people coined the term "beautiful?" What makes them so? Is it a proportionate face, a slim healthy figure, Big eyes, Nice butt? What? Also isn't it funny that in the middle ages our ideal of beauty was that of the larger curvy women. Why was that case then but not now? Back in the middle ages men wanted women who could birth children. Curvy women do tend to have an easier time with that. Do modern day men not want children now?

What exactly instigated the shift between healthy curves to stick thin harmful diet plans?

Since when did eating things become so wrong? I feel the taste sense is not something that should be disregarded. Sure everything in moderation. The point is to maintain health not fit into that size zero because some magazine says you should. No matter what you believe, one life, multiple lives, You are only conscious for one at a time. Why would you deny yourself the pleasure for eating that one cookie, that one scoop of ice cream? Life is meant to be enjoyed. Why would you exclude a whole sense? Certainly in this day and age we are no strangers to using our senses for pleasure. Touch, sight, hearing even smell is all used frequently to bring about a blissful and happy experience so why not taste?

Another thing that bugs me about this whole notion of beauty thing is the fact that we seem to be pulling away from anything natural. The lengths some people will go through to be considered beautiful is ridiculous. Yes makeup is fun and sometimes it is fun to switch it up but the whole point of it is to add to your natural state not completely cover it up with layers and layers of paint. Beauty treatments can be scary sometimes. Have you seen some of the machines that supposedly turn you "beautiful?" They look like science fiction torture devices. Who ever thought of the term "pain is beauty" was a sadist. Again it comes down to moderation. Everything is alright in moderation. If you enjoy tanning then go for it but in moderation. Don't sit under a lamp till someone down the street comments "do you smell bacon?" and then you go to the doctor and are shocked when they diagnose you with skin cancer.

I guess the point I am trying to make is love yourself. It doesn't matter what you "add" to yourself. Nothing you do is going to change the way you look naturally by much. You have to learn to accept your "flaws" and I use that term loosely. Your flaws are what make you unique. Do you really want to be a carbon copy of what look is in? Being yourself and loving yourself will gain you more beauty then any product, diet or treatment ever will. People are automatically drawn to others who are comfortable in their own skin. If you love yourself people will see that and they will find reasons to love you back. If you are insecure then they will see that and find reasons for you to be insecure.  So stop sabotaging yourself!

Moments You Live For

So I figured to start out this photo blog I will post some pictures of my favorite moments or memories.

Rooftop Picnic at the Alley Cat

Paint fight at the park

Happy squid dance-Rhea

One of the first house shows I ever went to.

Cody at the sand dunes

Climbing buildings to watch the sunrise

Trying to capture christmas lights in Trevors eyes

Main Meadow at the Rainbow Gathering

The prettiest flower I have ever seen

Golden Gate Bridge from a small fishermans ship

Something I have noticed about all my favorite memories is that they all include people. Either the process of connecting with someone or meeting someone. One of the biggest reasons I have to live is those experiences of connecting to another individual. To me that feeling of connection is intoxicating. I adore it.  I think the Beatles had it right when they said "Love is all you need."

The love of friends, family, significant others, It is something we breath for. It is the one thing that nobody can do without.  Passion is one of the most important aspects of life. At least for me. I love adventure, experiences that make you feel...any emotion. It makes me feel alive.

Every single day I attempt to have an adventure even if it is small. I attempt to experience something. I try to keep my eyes open to every thing around me.  The world is a fantastic place. The colors all around us, the movement, the characters...somedays I feel I could sit and watch the world go by for forever. Unfortunately that is not the case. You have to maintain some sort of production, some sort of function. You have to be a member of society. That doesn't mean however you can't keep your eyes open to all the beauty and rhythm the world has to offer.

Lets give this a shot!

So I have decided to start a photo blog. I have realized that I have a ton of pictures of people experiencing life. Of course being the type of person I am I will probably ramble a little bit about philosophy, psychology along with posting photos. The goal of this blog is to share a little insight into my own world in the hopes of expanding yours (my readers, assuming there are any). I will attempt to take at least one photo a day and post that along with some old photos and stories and musings.

This is me. I can't make a serious face in photos. My name is Chrystal and as of this date and time I am a 24 year old loser artist girl. I take photos. I paint. I over analyze everything.  I think a ton about the universe, astronomy, philosophy and just about any other abstract concept you can imagine.  My life itself is not really that interesting thus why this blog will not really be exactly about my life but about capturing life around me and trying to explain it, enjoy it and understand it.