Creating photography

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I am not sure that people understand how deep a connection I have to my work! One of the best things I ever did was taking underwater photography along with my journalism education! What that taught me was to not only anticipate a moment beyond all moments but to set up a shot ahead of time and wait for that moment to come to me! It is all about getting connected with my environment and allowing the world to unfurl its majesty before my lens. I think that diving and underwater photography is the best way to put my style of photography into context. I truly feel that diving is connecting literally with nature. It is like being cradled in the womb of nature herself! Ebbing and flowing, constantly having to let go and let God bring you to the perfect place and the perfect time to capture the perfect image! Every image is truly a gift from God! I learned so many incredible things while I was in school at Brooks, but I think the most important piece of knowledge was to anticipate the moment! You need to open to every possibility as you watch a moment unfold before you and you need to be able to see a little bit into the future so that you can decide where and when to take the photograph. I use this technique in every part of my work from journalism to portraits. Effectively blending into your surroundings and becoming a part of the world you are trying to immortalize is your greatest ally when you are working to create the best image possible! For me, I get into a meditative state connecting with my higher self I can feel the energy around me. It does not take such incredible actions however should you decide to do this you will certainly not be disappointed! Happy Capturing! 

http://vmcphoto.com/

New World

Ok, so here I am, in Tunisia. What I have come to understand over the past year is that when you have been living in a state of fear, shame, doubt and depression for many many years stopping that freight train of negative emotion does not come quickly. It takes time and sometimes it takes a lot more than just leaving your country to overcome a past littered with bad thoughts and even more self doubt. I admit that I did not look at all before jumping into this big pool of crazy because I honestly just wanted something new, no matter how hard or how different or extreme. I needed a change to spark something in me.

In the past few weeks I have come to understand the way the Universe works in a whole new light. Not because I had not learned all these things over the course of the last twenty years, but for some reason it finally clicked. I was about to do a meditation on youtube and decided to click on a short talk by Abraham Hicks. To say that everything has dramatically shifted is an understatement. For a lot of my life I have had very little self worth, no confidence to take my dreams to the next level no matter how close they were. I would literally stand at the edge of the oasis of all my dreams and each time I would not drink I would run. No matter how great my work was or how much I believed that I could find my path nothing was coming to me. No amount of meditating or being around amazing wondrous people could make me understand until I was ready. I had lived in some of the most amazing places and worked with the world’s greatest spiritualists and professionals in my field but kept hitting wall after wall. So what’s changed you ask? My point of attraction! My THOUGHTS! My emotions and my doubt have all been replaced by feelings of compassion and grace and understanding. The momentum is shifting and I can feel it and see it already! 

I see now what went wrong for all these years. No matter how much I wanted something, all I thought about was everything I did not have! I focused on not having a perfect job and not having tons of confidence and the best equipment. I was not focusing on the most important thing! FEELING GOOD!!! Because all I was feeling all of the time was bad. For whatever reason hearing that my only purpose in life was to feel good really hit me hard. Find any thought, even a tiny one, which makes you feel good and go with it. Do what makes you feeeeeel good! Think what makes you feel good! And if you do not feel good then you are out of alignment with the truth of who you are and with God or Source. Taking that to another level think about all the things that you want in life and let that great feeling be your guide, to everything!

In the past three weeks I started taking a class with my good friend Brandleen called Psychic Boot Camp and am now meditating and doing yoga all day long, why? Because it feels good! And I found out that I am an Empath, and am pretty good at all sorts of things that I doubted within myself while growing up! One thing being connecting with Source and Spirits and I have a pretty cool spirit guide her name is Artemis, yes, THE Artemis! She came to me in a vision a long time ago but I did not believe it. Then she came to me again and again so there was nothing else I could do but except that she is real and that she is my spirit guide.

This class is teaching me to trust in my own intuition. My teacher sends us daily photos of doors or today it was a picture of her and she asked us to tell her where she is! So far I am two for two in guessing what is behind the doors! Shocking? YES! She sends us a photo and we tell her what we feel is behind it! When I was growing up one thing I loved to do was drive around and just look at houses, old or new, and get their feeling! I could feel and see what was inside of the home or the business. I suppose I do it all the time without realizing it. It’s funny what you discount as being silly then someone finally gives you some support and compassion and things just start to flow, especially when you trust in yourself and the guidance that you are receiving.

To be honest I have always listened to the guidance within me no matter how insane it felt or sounded. Shoot how many people run off to Tunisia on a whim. But that is what I was guided to do. People all my life have made me feel bad about doing things my own way. So I was never really able to count on all these whims and feelings and thoughts I had swarming around inside of me. It was not until listening to that talk and beginning to take this class that things are finally falling into place and I am trusting myself for the first time and it feels pretty amazing! Ok, and a little scary too lol!

It might not be an easy road ahead but I do know that I have support and I want everyone to know that when you let go of what others think and you trust in yourself miracles are possible! I hope you will join me on this journey. I would love to keep sharing my experience with you.

Perfect Timing

Visit Tunis Experiment Online

"The Tunisia Experiment", I have been living in Tunisia for the past year and it has not been easy for me to go certain places and take pictures. I could not stand it! I had to figure out a way to get around this problem! I have always had a fascination with the human experience. People are so beautiful and daily life here in Tunisia is so much different than anything I am used to as an American. Since I live in a small town I like to keep a low profile and walking around with a big ole camera just isn’t a good idea plus I love to get real emotions and show real life as it is happening around me without my interference. I also like to connect with Source and leave a little of it up to God. I learned this while I was an underwater photographer. When you do photography in the ocean or underwater you can’t look through the view finder you just time the perfect moment, aim and shoot leaving some of it up to synchronicity. And with my training in journalism seeing the moment just before it happens, or anticipating the moment is something I have learned to develop over time. I really love this technique because it leaves an air of mystery and I get very excited when something amazing shows up in the photos! It's also great for when you are driving around in the car a lot and you just can't get out and walk around so I had to make due with what I had. For me it is my bliss! I feel connected to my subject, to the world around and to God all at once! I do not try to capture anything obscene or negative, just the beauty of everyday life happening naturally. I believe it is a gift that I would love to share! I hope you will see what I see and enjoy these images I have enjoyed creating them!

If you would like to see more I am constantly updating and adding all the time! Come visit my website! 

http://vmcphoto.weebly.com/tunis-experiment.html

I will be touring and would love and come show my work if you are interested please get in touch anytime! 

vmcphoto@outlook.com

Thank you! 

Blessings

Tunis Experiment

Forgivenss

Ok, so what happened when I got here you are probably asking? Well it didn’t take me long to realize that you can’t escape your past and no matter how far you go you can’t out run your freight train of problems because the momentum has been building and building for such a long time. I had spent the past almost ten years in a very deep hole of depression and negative thoughts and a train like that doesn’t just come to a screeching halt as Abraham Hicks would put it! In fact it still hasn’t! That’s why I am here writing this blog! I would love to share my journey with you and I hope that you will see that even someone who has dug such a deep pit of despair like me can dig themselves out of it no matter how deep it goes and maybe we can do it together. Like I said I don’t really have any friends anymore so it would be great to make some new ones along the way! It has taken me a long time to get the courage to talk about all of this, I guess you may be wondering well why now?

Two weeks ago I was about to start my daily meditation I do on youtube and I looked over and saw a talk by Abraham Hicks. I have not stopped listening to them ever since!  I have been building a new kind of momentum in my life! One that is centered on creating nothing but good feelings and letting go of all the crazy negative thoughts that have plagued me for so long! I mentioned before that I had worked with many different spiritual teachers in Santa Barbara! That is an understatement. I am a Reiki Master, I’ve been to Vapassana a 9 day silent retreat which only a select few get chosen for as part of the Siddha Yoga Center, I am a trained Light Body practitioner, I am a sungazer and have gone up to 22 minutes, I have been studying energy and manifesting since I was 18 years old, martial arts since I was 15, qi qong, yoga, tai chi, meditation, I have studied almost every religion since I was 5, I have read tons of books on everything you could imagine, and been to UFO conventions and met Buddhist monks. But nothing could help to relieve my own pain, depression and suffering. Then I clicked on one little button and everything changed! Isn’t it all so funny!

So here I am, finally peeking out of my shell at the world that I have been hiding away from for all these years, hoping that you will like me lol! Terrified that I won’t be accepted that I will be lost and forgotten which is silly! Scared that the people I wronged are going to come and get me! But it doesn’t matter, all that matters is feeling good and letting go of the belief that I am not worthy of success, abundance and joy in my life. And so are you!!! Everyone makes mistakes and it is learning from those mistakes and getting back up and taking responsibility for them and continuing on that makes us all stronger! And helping to lift others up along way that builds character and shows you what you are really made of! I know I wouldn’t be the person I am today had I not made those mistakes. Sure I wish I had not hurt those I love most in this world but sometimes we hurt the ones we love the most. It isn’t because we don’t love them. Sometime it is because we love them too much. It is forgiveness that is the greatest virtue of them all! Aren’t we all deserving of forgiveness and don’t we all have someone that deserves to be forgiven?

My Journey - Part 2

From Here to Tunis

   You may now be asking, well how in the world did you end up in Tunisia of all places and where the heck is that anyway? If you’re not familiar with Tunisia it is located at the very top of Africa on the Mediterranean between Algeria and Libya. Tunisia leads the Middle East on many key issues like women’s rights and democratization. They held their first free elections November 23, 2014. The Jasmine Revolution which began on January 14, 2011 was the catalyst to the Arabic Spring.

    

   I have been here a year now and in that time my entire world has shifted and I have to say, as Abraham Hicks would put it "Perfect timing" indeed.  I have always been someone who has lived by the motto "Jump and the net will appear", which just means trusting fully that God is always guiding you in any moment and no matter what there will always be “enough” if you go for your dreams. As someone who must see it to believe it I have tested this theory many times and found it to be more then true.

   

   For example, as I told you I was accepted to Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Ca. What I have not told you is that I did not yet have any money to go there and no loans. My parents had been through some hard times and were unable to help me with getting a loan and of course I was not able to get one on my own. However, after what I had just been through there was nothing I was going to let stand in my way. When it was time for school to start instead of waiting, and since I was able to obtain student housing (not totally sure how that worked but I am guessing my parents made some kind of promise because they would do anything for me and are phenomenal) I jumped in the car and left knowing it would all work out eventually!!  I will never forget my mom dropping me off at my apartment, all she had was 50$.  She pulled it out of her wallet and told me that everything would work out somehow no matter what! I knew it would! My parents are amazing and have inspired me to never give up even when it seems that everything is lost.

   

   It's hard for me to recall every detail now but it was not long before I got a call from my mom that my grandfather who had passed away a while ago and was my personal idol and reason for becoming a photographer had left me an inheritance! It was enough to get me through a couple of what they call sessions at Brooks. Then not long after that we heard that my parents got the loans I so desperately needed to get me through to the end. I was even able to get an additional loan to buy the gear that I needed for my underwater photography class. Granted in the end this all totaled well over 150k and to some this was ridiculous amounts of money for a photography education but for me it was a lifelong dream come true. And money is not the purpose of being, happiness and fulfillment are!

   Ok back to Tunisia. Now this was many years later and things were not so good in my current situation. In those days I spent most of my time on Facebook wasting away the hours of endlessness with pointless conversing, scrolling and searching for something or someone to make me feel that I mattered. 8 years had passed since I graduated and left the incredibly potent energy of Santa Barbara and it showed. It was immediate and drastic the affect that leaving had on me. My progress stopped and my health declined rapidly. Then in 2010 not five years after leaving I was on disability and living month to month with my boys barely able to survive. It all seemed like a dream that had never really happened. Swimming with sharks on Anacapa Island, racing for the Santa Barbara Outrigger Racing Team, parties at my friend’s mansion in Montecito, walking across that stage on graduation day all seemed like distant memories that were slowly fading away.  Sadness, depression, pain and defeat were my daily existence mixed with tiny bursts of inspiration. I'd done some great work over the years but nothing really worth mentioning, definitely worth seeing, but I was never confident in myself worth to go all the way. And so I sat all day everyday talking to strangers about the condition of our world, God, The Universe, things that really mattered but going nowhere fast. Every day I still meditated and kept that tiny flame burning deep within me. Then one day I met someone that changed everything.

   It started off innocent enough then over the course of several months it just blossomed. Despite our obvious language barrier it didn't matter there was something there, a spark that was igniting, and it felt right and for me that is all it takes.

   There is something I should explain. Since I was about 12 years old I have been having extremely intense and vivid dreams about someone. I realized as I got older that he was my soul mate.  I never really got a clear look at his face though. It was just this vibrant warmth within me that could only be explained as pure love. I admit I lost a lot of my friends on my search for this person and confused many people for him along the way. It had created within me so much doubt and despair because of what I had given up and how many had given up on me. In fact by that time almost everyone I knew had given up on me and who could blame them. From their perspective I had done nothing but squander the biggest opportunity of my life. My boys were now both gone and I was alone. I had nothing. Someone even broke into my car and stole both of my dogs ashes right in front of my house. I moved a lot, and I mean a lot almost once a month so I rarely unpacked. My car was still filled to the brim and this person broke into my car, left everything else alone except for the two boxes the held the ashes of the only two things that mattered to me, my boys. I mean I had been robbed in broad daylight before, all of my dive gear was stolen right out of my car in the parking lot of Kohl's in the middle of the day but apparently they didn't use security cameras. 10k dollars worth, ya that was a dream crusher but my dead dogs! At that point you would say I had hit rock bottom. I knew it and the world knew it. Everyone hated me, no one would touch me seeing as I was sharing a room with some guy I met on Craigslist and living in a disgusting apartment in Santa Maria. By the way, why do Mexican people use toilet paper then put it in trash instead of flush it down the toilet. Anyway it could always be worse but not much.  

   So where were we, oh ya, you will have to forgive me I did knock my head pretty bad in that accident so I tend to jump around a bit lol. As I was saying, since I was young I had been having some pretty amazing dreams. The only reason I mention that is because the night before I had planned on Skyping with my new mystery man from another world I had another dream. Only this time I saw his face. He was hovering over me as I stood on an escalator. It was slowly going down and when I reached the bottom he stood before me and we embraced in what can only be described as a kiss that was orgasmic to be completely honest. He was just slightly taller than me, slender with angelic dark brown eyes. His hair was a luxurious silky dark brown the kind you could run your fingers through all day long. He had the kind of plump, supple lips that would make any girl blush. To say he was the tall, dark and handsome man of my dreams was an understatement!

The next day came with a lot of excitement and anticipation! Not because of my dream but because I was just happy to make a new friend and it was the first time in a while that I felt something good. I was not prepared at all for what was about to happen. I opened Skype and came face to face with the same man that was in my dream the night before. It literally was love at first site. But having been through so much hell already my rational brain took over pretty quickly. I almost couldn't handle it and was in shock. We hit it off instantly the language barrier, well, it wasn't. His native language is Arabic and French, I speak neither but for some reason I understood him. We could communicate almost intuitively.

   For the next several months we talked all day every day about everything you could imagine and it didn't take long to start talking about marriage and making the trip out there. All I had was the money I was getting for my disability which would just barely pay for my plane ticket. So I began selling and giving away all of my things. I even sold my precious Nikon camera that was a gift from my parents for Christmas the year before along with my computer and my Epson printer. Within a month I had sold everything, gotten my passport, bought my ticket and was ready to go. The hard part wasn't getting all these things ready, it was trying to tell my friends and family and convincing them was nearly impossible. Most of them had already given up on me years ago or never understood why I did the things I did in the first place. So explaining this seemed pointless but I gave it my best effort although. I knew only time would tell the real story, in other words I said my goodbyes. I did have my lifelong supporters, my parents, who were reluctant given some of the research they had done about Tunisia but that was soon resolved, somewhat I suppose as best it could be either way I was leaving and nothing could stop me. I was like a freight train once I got going and no one would dare get in my way.

   It felt like the old days again. I was filled with passion and driven to discover the unknown. It was everything I lived for, to jump knowing the net would always be there for me. Knowing that God led me here and I was so excited to find out what was on the other side. It couldn't come fast enough. And even though I left for a 40 hour journey with not one penny in my pocket it didn't bother me one bit because I knew that he was waiting there for me on the other side and I had come this far so what was just a few more hours compared to a lifetime of waiting!

My Journey - Part 1

How did I get here?

    I am guessing you are wondering how this all happened and where I get off talking about all this stuff. So I decided it would be a good idea to tell you a bit more about me and my journey. 

    It all began where it all ended. On May 14, 2001 I almost lost my life in a disastrous car accident where I was ejected out of the driver side window of my jeep going 70mph. It felt more like I was lifted out of the car. Even to this day I remember the feeling of pressure under my arms like someone was pulling me out. I had taken off my seat belt to grab a toy for my dogs. It was lucky that I did have my seat belt off, although I wear it every time I am in a car now, I know I can only be that lucky once. All I remember was going through the window then waking up on the ground and I started yelling for my dogs. I felt no pain at all. And I even thought I was fine and I looked at my jeep and it looked fine too, but it was not fine at all. I later saw a picture, just once, of my jeep in a crumpled mess of metal and was in shock at what I saw. It is true that your mind sees what it is most comfortable and used to seeing, that everything is a vibration. The only pain I felt in that moment was a little pain in my pelvis. My left hand was also looking a bit strange and would not move. I asked a man that had stopped to help to fix it because it was bent forward all funny and I could not straighten it lol. Little did I know that it was hanging on by just a thread and had broken almost clean off but for the skin holding it on and the bones were busted through the skin and I was bleeding out pretty bad. My pelvis or pubic bone was broken in half which later I would find is nearly impossible to do because it is a thickest bone in a women's body and my doctor had never seen anything like it, at least not in a survivor before. My left wrist was another story. As I lay on the ground watching more and more people show up I kept telling them I felt fine and my car was fine and I didn't know what all the fuss was about and if they could just find my dogs I would be on my way. Well that wasn't going to happen and all of a sudden the ambulance showed up and I remember at that very moment when I locked eyes with the paramedic I was OUT! It was like my inner being knew that I had to stay awake until they got there because the moment I was out I had a Grand Mal Seizure in the ambulance. 

    I woke up in the hospital with a lot of confusion as I had a weird tube down my throat and I wasn't having that so I ripped that out pretty much right away! My arm was in a cast and it was all surreal to put it mildly. My body was covered in road rash from sliding across the pavement for who knows how long. I spent my days being soaked in Bacitracin, having my skin peeled off, and learning to walk again because it was not within my conscious mind to have it any other way. You see, I had been accepted to the school of my dreams, Brooks Institute of Photography. And in 6 months I was going to be starting classes so for me that was all the time I had to get better.  

    I only spent 9 days in the hospital. I was doing so well that on the last day they pushed me really hard to take my first steps and told me that I would make it! Grand Junction, Co St. Mary's Hospital was one of the best places to be if you happen to be where I was. They did miracle surgery on my left wrist. Doctors said that most would never be able to use it again. Once I got back to Arizona I spent a lot of time at the YMCA swimming pool since I couldn't afford insurance to pay for any kind of recovery treatment. So it was just me and my cast hanging out of the water with the older ladies most of the day or with my grandmother at her senior center pool because I could take my walker into the pool easier. 

    Now, you might be wondering, so what about my dogs!!? Well, my Golden Retriever Lancelot was actually picked up on the side of the road the same day and brought to me in the hospital! My Beagle, Benny on the other hand had a little adventure of his own. For this reason I do advocate putting a chip in your dog because while he was walking down the highway he was picked up by the most amazing family in the world! They took him home to where they lived in Washington State. They fed him and took him to the Vet and loved him so much. They almost kept him but at the Vet's they did a scan and saw that he had a home. So they called us and told us they had Benny and he was safe. They also told us they just so happened to be taking a trip back through Arizona in a couple weeks. I admit I was overjoyed but I wanted him back more then life itself. So the wait was agonizing but the reunion was life affirming and our family was hole again. I had my boys back! 

    I ended up making it to Brooks 6 months later and graduated with a small few at the top of the class. I was not totally healed but well enough to hold a camera and there is a very good reason for all of this because it catapulted my spiritual journey in so many ways and I got to spend most of my time in Santa Barbara where Brooks is with some of the areas leading spiritual teachers! I would not be here without them! People like Sara Kane, Rama Seltzer, Huda AlHasheem (Starfire), and so many more, gave me the gift of Source in my life and I could never thank them enough. 

First Official Blog!

Well Hello World!!!

Welcome to the making of my first blog! I'm excited to finally have figured this whole thing out! Let's hope that you all like what I have to say and that we can have some fun with this! Because that's what it's all about right! Having fun and finding your true path in life! Finding what makes you the most happy and the most content is not the easiest thing at times when others are telling you that have to be rich and you have to follow everything that they did or did not do in their lives! For me it has been extremely difficult to find my path and I am still in what some would say are difficult times, so we are on this journey together! In fact I am currently living in a tiny little room with nothing except for a bathroom, a small window, a few mats to sleep on, a teeny little TV, and my husband and our cat! But we have each other and we have our computers and clothes and are doing pretty great, well most of the time lol! We do have to deal with whatever his mom makes us for our meals and I have gotten used to the loud banging from constant construction, always travel with ear plugs haha! But I have learned that it is in these times that you find yourself, and what you are really made of. It is the journey, not the destination! And I know now what that actually means. Finding the good thought instead of the bad one when the bad ones are so fast and furious all the time. What good does that do though? It only keeps me struggling and stagnating in a place I don't want to be instead of aligning and attracting all the things that I do want! So this is my journey and I hope you will take it with me! And see what changing your thoughts can bring when you take yourself from a tiny little room in the middle of Northern Tunisia to who knows!! The sky is the limit and I am setting no limits for myself! I hope you won't either and we can have a lot of fun setting goals and thinking good thoughts and having good feelings of what our amazing dreams will be made of! I would love it if you would share with me what your feeling today and how you would like to feel or what your true dreams are and how we can come together and create, feel good and manifest our dreams!!!