I used to be opposed to “iPhone Photography” before I actually owned an iPhone. I thought it made the whole photo process from shooting, to editing, to sharing way too easy. Now I am a fan, mainly because of Instagram… it is addicting. But recently while scrolling through my Tumblr I stumbled upon this iPhone Rangefinder case. I hate to hate… but there is a certain point where you should just give in and buy an actual camera. If you need to spend $100 on a case to make your phone look like an old school camera, that is a bit over the top.

More looks and info after the jump.

Upcoming on February 24th I have a few friends featured in a massive art show entitled “These Friends Three” at the THIS Los Angles gallery. If you happen to be in the area I highly recommend coming out for the opening from 7-10PM at the gallery on 5906 N. Figueroa St. Los Angeles, CA. With over 100 artist featured including Any Mueller, KC Ortiz, Pose, Chris Pastras, Steven Harrington, Travis Millard, Natas Kaupas, Mike Perry, Jared Eberhardt, Geoff McFetridge, Cleon Peterson, Chris Bettig, and many many more there is bound to be something you find interesting. Check out the Facebook event page for more info.

So my mom called me from Vermont almost in tears letting me know that her friend John, who runs a local tea shop “Vermont Liberty Tea“, is going through some tough times. During Hurricane Irene that hit the east coast pretty hard, his tea shop, where he blends his own teas himself, was flooded with about 2 feet of standing water. As you can imagine water and loose tea aren’t a good mix if you didn’t intend them to. This natural disaster forced him to move his shop out of the building and put him out of commission during his normal busy season over the holidays. Now that he finally has his shop up and running again, but it is back in the slow season for the area, and as you can imagine is making things a little tough on him.

His shop in boxes after the storm.

I normally wouldn’t do a post about like this, but I myself have gone into his shop several times to buy tea. John has always been a very happy go lucky guy who is very passionate about his craft. It would be very sad to hear that this guy went out of business from something completely out of his control. And since I have access to different media outlets I figured I would reach out to all of you suggesting that you head over to his online store and purchase some tea. Not into some tea yourself? Pass the link on to a friend/family member that is…. or if you are feeling generous buy some for that person yourself and surprise them with it. This isn’t just an act of charity, you end up with some delicious tea in the end.

Thanks for listening to my spiel.

-Laura

This past new years my friend Jared and I decided to do things a little differently, we set out on a five-day road trip from Salt Lake City, UT to Big Sur, CA. Along the way Jared had to shoot a video for this clothing company, SLVDR, so we made frequent stops at anything that looked remotely interesting. Which was perfect for me because while he was doing his thing, I wandered off with my camera glued to my eyeball. Making only one overnight stop in San Francisco, we spent the rest of the nights in a cabin at Big Sur. Besides coming down with food poisoning on New Years Eve, which put us both down for the count that night… it was a pretty amazing trip, Big Sur had been on my list of places to go for quite a while.

Check out my photos and Jared’s video after the jump… they will tell the rest of the story.