Karaoke/Tattoo Party

Yesterday, my sister threw a karaoke/tattoo party at her house. It was BYOB, so I brought my karaoke machine and  a bottle of wine. =) Good times with cool folks. I decided to bring my camera to snap some shots of the festivities. (Click photos to enlarge)

                                ^My big Brut chillin. Everyone loves him. =)

 Bohemian Rhapsody always gets drunk karaoke folk pumped!

                             ^Blaine getting inked.

                              ^A shot with me for good measure.

                  ^A party just isn't a party without projectile vomit, I always say. haha.

That's all folks.

Liaisons of the Red Queen

My piece for an upcoming gallery show... pst for info.

Shoot from 8/15/09

I love this girl. She's gorgeous and happens to be a very great friend. =) Make up by the super talented ValC. Shot at one of my favorite houses in Venice Beach.

Downtown Santa Barbara

I was able to test out my new Nikon 70-200mm lens by snapping a few shots with it while shopping around Downtown Santa Barbara. Note these are considered snapshots because I didn't stand there and take the time to compose the images very well.
^Balloon Guy- I wanted him to fashion me a guitar for a shoot, but I haven't even decided on a model for my Rock n' Roll clown. Haha. God, time is flying. Gotta get started.

^I thought this was funny. "Asians r the shit!" on his guitar. Reminds me of when I was a dumb kid, writing nonsensical Asian Pride propaganda on my property. Smh. Ironically, the boy doesn't look asian at all. hmm...

^Moped gang. You wouldn't wanna be stuck walking in a dark alley with this group of badasses.
^Cheesy flower shot. I know. I think I'm entitled to at least 5 cheesy shots a year, ok? Shoot. I'm still a girl and I still like flowers. pfsh.

It was sprinkling on and off so I had my camera hidden under my jacket most of the time then just bust it out to snap a few shots here and there. The verdict- I love my new lens!

Brutus

A New Member of the Family
"Have you got a Labrador. Know anywhere you can get a Labrador? Then SHIUDDUP!"

Anyways, I'm going to take a break from writing about Ojai, so I can introduce my new buddy, Brutus! We decided to get a rescue, because it's really nice to be able to give a dog in need a loving home. It feels good to give a dog who went through a lot of trauma, a new lease on life. lol.

He's actually a pure bred chocolate lab with all his papers. His previous owner pretty much neglected him and when he was rescued he was near starving. He was super thin, his ribs were showing like crazy.

My top name options were Thor(god of thunder), Loki(god of mischief), or Brutus. We decided to commit to a name after we saw his personality. He is HUGE, and powerful, but a bit of a klutz due to his massive size so we chose Brutus. I like the name- Reminds me of popeye and he was actually responding to the name quite quickly.

Brutus is about 3 years old- bit older than we requested, but it doesn't matter. He's very well behaved and intuitive. He'll learn easily with a few good training sessions. I really love training dogs. I'm so stoked!
^Look at his eyes! We were really happy that they had such a gorgeous and sweet chocolate lab available so quickly. His foster mom is a really sweet woman who let us have him early so long as we agreed to take him to his neutering appointment next week.


When it comes to training, Brutus is the first big dog I've ever worked with. I think the only thing I'm scared of his massive size and strength in public. He's like a bear/horse. lol. He is in no way aggressive, but he is curious and he can really pull me around if he wanted to. When I walk him I really feel the power in his muscles. I have to learn to control him right away.

^Some of the goodies we bought for him before he was brought over. =)^He's gained a lot of weight since the first pictures we saw of him were taken. He's so handsome!

I couldn't be more happy with the instant connection that he's already made. His stomach might be a bit sensitive due to his previous trauma, but it's something that we are more than happy to work with. We love him very much already. He's going to make the perfect long term buddy.

Guess that's all. Thanks for all the nice messages, and what have you. Hope you all had a great weekend. xo

Throwback

I've been really busy working on the calendar. I couldn't be more pleased with all the ideas I got for the 2011 calendar from the giveaway contest that I'm throwing on my FanVixens Blog. The contest ends on the 10th, so you can still enter if you haven't.

I was actually planning on doing a review and comparing Providence, Melisse, and Sona, since I ate at all of those restaurants last week, but I don't have the time or energy atm.

So to leave you with a bit of content here are a few photos from a set that I shot with my sexy girl, Brit. This was at my Venice studio in September.




guess that's all for now.

Vima FanVixens Miss January 2010

More of Vima on the FanVixens Blog.

NYE 2010 in Aruba! (Click photos to enlarge)

^The goods... sweet baby Jesus...
Growing up, I've always had a bit of a phobia of fireworks, ever since my mom traumatized us with horror stories of her friends losing hands playing with fireworks when she was a child. Eck.
^what we had to work with...the clear evening sky.

Fireworks make me pretty antsy, but they were able to convince me that everything would be safe and that they were just going to shoot everything toward the water....I was able to stay out to watch a few. I had my camera and tripod set up not too far from where they were lighting the first rocket. They light it and I turn around to see everyone running behind me! LOL. My tripod was set low to the ground, but I got up and ran with them. The rocket ended up exploding into the ground shooting lots of debris right at where I was crouching. Then Diego says, "Oh maybe you shot it upside down!" I'm like, "Oh hell, no! Safe my ass!" haha

Here are some shots we were able to get. Although the covered much more of the sky. The camera was just set up way too close, but this does give one the idea of the danger I experienced. lol.

^Lol. in the last shot it looks like my sister was inches away from meeting her demise.

After letting of 3 huge ones, I'm not talking your bullshit disneyland fireworks and right above my head... I saw shit falling on everyone and I pretty much just boned the fuck out- straight to the house. I actually felt like I was in a war for a minute cuz there were loud blasts and bright lights exploding right behind me. lol. I ran and didn't look back until I crossed the street. I looked up and I still felt like the fireworks were way to close. haha. Yeah. I'm a big vagina, but at least I had the guts to stick around for a while, even though I already had a pre-existing fear of fucking fireworks. I'm much more content watching them from afar. No, I did not feel safe lighting some crazy chinese fireworks with a bunch of amateurs in a foreign country. Sue me. lol.

Happy New Year! Back from Aruba =)

To be honest, Aruba was pretty much more like a combo of work/vacation, so it really wasn't a completely relaxing retreat, but I'm happy I was able to go. On top of that, I was really stoked that I was able to have my sister and her bf flown out to spend NYE and some leisure time with me in Aruba. Hey, it wouldn't be an NYE celebration without her. =)

We stayed in a 2 bedroom house in a nice little area called Malmok. It was right across from a nice beach and snorkling area.

Here I am doing my usual self-shot portraits with the good old remote. I was right outside our house.
^You can see the remote strap looking like the outline of a flaccid penis. lol

^The comfortable ass hammock I claimed throughout the trip. I slept on this a lot.

^The weather in Aruba was perfect for me. About 8o something degrees Fahrenheit all day. Nice humidity. The itching I was suffering from here in LA disappeared immediately. If the weather here in LA permitted, I'd lounge in bikini's and sun dresses all day. I thrive in tropical weather.
Directly across the street is this...
^The snorkeling was amazing. This is an area where boats would dock throughout the day so tourists could jump into the clear, calm water to snorkel and it was right outside our house! I must've seen thousands of sea creatures. Different schools of fish floating around, Angel fish, squid...we even saw a huge triggerfish on my last day of snorkeling. It was following us a bit and I sorta freaked out. lol. My friend would bring artificial crab meat and feed the fish. We would be surrounded by so many fish and they would just eat out of his hand. It was such a trip!
To the right...
^Candid shots of my sister and Blaine.


I guess I'll write more about Aruba and NYE later.