In September, we drove up the 1 to Felton (just outside of Santa Cruz) to shoot a beautiful wedding in a redwood “cathedral”. It was a big, cozy wedding that mixed a few Vietnamese and Jewish traditions and had every beautiful detail you could think of. The most unique thing about this shoot was that they requested I shoot the entire wedding on film. I couldn’t do it 100% because of me being the only shooter, but I came damn close, using five different cameras. I worked my 645 so hard it broke in the last hour! My favorite detail was that the bride, Kim, skipped a traditional white dress for a grey floral number, but it didn’t feel that untraditional. The light through the trees was magical (albiet a bit hard to shoot the ceremony in!) and at night, the market lights made everything glow so beautifully. It was the first wedding I’ve shot that the couple didn’t want many photos of them, they just wanted to spend as much time as possible with their guests and have me capture everyone having a lovely, fun time. And that they did.

Thank you to Prestigious Planning for being so awesome to work with. Weddings with planners, so I don’t have to bug the bride all night, are the best.

Photos by Kate Miss, taken with a mixture of digital, Mamiya 645, Canon A-1, and Ikon Ikoflex  - with Kodak Portra 160 and 400 film.

These photos of our train ride to Texas are probably misleading as they were all taken within a few hours – the only few hours of beauty on the entire trip. I won’t go into the boring complaining details, but let’s just say we’re taking a train break for a while! At least this moment was rather breath-taking, and then going through Marfa and seeing the Prada store from the train lit up at night in the middle of pitch black nothingness was kind of other-worldly. If only I’d known it was coming, what a photo that would have been…

We’re headed to Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with Will’s family, I hope everyone else in the US has a good holiday!

Photos by Kate Miss, taken with a Mamiya 645AF with Kodak Portra 160 film.

I just wanted to stop and thank you all so much for the response to the new jewelry collection. I’m happily overwhelmed with more orders than I’ve had in a long time and feeling really grateful in my recent broke-ass state (ha!). Sometimes freelancing feels very “What the heck am I doing???!” and then weeks like this come along where I feel like everything is going to be just a-ok. It’s a terrifying roller coaster that I mostly really love. These photos are some random shots I took of my studio to finish a roll – a place where I spend most of my days alone singing at the top of my lungs, making a mess. It’s not perfect – it’s dirty and dimly lit and the neighborhood isn’t so great, but it does the trick for productivity and keeping my personal life separate at home. Lately I walk home during lunch and close myself in my walk-in closet and record music that I’m working on with my brother (2.0 of this!) and it feels nice to have that distinction, a hobby, dare I say. Most freelancers I know don’t have hobbies. I recommend carving time out for one if you can. Particularly one that fills your heart with passion that you can’t really make a dime off of. Rambling over, have a great weekend!

Photos by Kate Miss, taken with a Mamiya 645AF with Kodak Portra 160 film.

I’m quite sad because most of the photos I took at Feliz came back ridiculously underexposed, like I had some weird setting on I wasn’t aware of because I was shooting with a meter and it was telling me everything was fine. It was dimly lit and moody inside, but this makes it look pretty intense, ha! So I had to omit a lot of my photos as they were just too dark. This is a slightly better photo of my table. At least you get the idea: wonderful, talented makers coming together in Austin for one magical day. I met so many amazing makers and customers alike, learned a lot about my customers and brand, and fell in love with Austin. Like, a lot. Like, we didn’t want to leave a lot.

The biggest, biggest, biggest thank you ever to Abby, Natalie, Leigh, and all the amazing Feliz interns. I was equally blown away and totally not surprised at all by how beautiful the day was at your hands. And I can’t forget to thank all of my lovely students who took my classes as well. I had so much fun and I can’t wait to figure out when I can teach a class here in LA soon.

And Austin, I will be back.

ps. the new collection seen here is coming Wednesday, so the rest of my stock and samples are super duper on sale in my shop the next two days!

I went on a long walk with my new camera (old Mamiya broke, RIP) last week in the Silver Lake hills to scout for spots to shoot my new jewelry look book, which I’m shooting today with friends. This is my favorite walk, with lots of twists and turns, back alleys, and secret stairs. Lately I feel conflicted feelings towards LA as Will and I look to the future and feel sad about how we can’t afford what we want here with our current job paths. There are a lot of tough choices and sacrifices ahead, I can tell. Going to pretty places like this doesn’t help such feelings! I guess that’s how a lot of us feel lately as we head into our thirties. Why can’t we have it all, guys? Jeez.

PS. While I have your attention, a few good things to support on a week full of a million emotions around this country: 1. The Occupy Sandy Amazon registry, a super easy and great way to help hurricane victims directly. 2. Two of my clients started the Make It Better Craftalong to craft and send warm things to victims. 3. A kid-friendly bake sale in Manhattan to raise money for the hurricane relief efforts. And 4. unrelated to the hurricane, Eric Smith of the book I contributed to, Live Now, has a great fundraiser going on right now you should check out.

Photos by Kate Miss, taken with a Mamiya 645AF with Kodak Portra 160 film.

A lot of us, particularly in the US, are feeling jittery and nervous today. I went on a long bike ride and now I’m listening to old Dolly Parton, trying to get back into the swing of all the work/emails I’ve been neglecting while working on getting things ready for Feliz and being in Austin – which was amazing – by the way. More on that later. There are some instagram shots to tide you over til later.

So, some random summer snaps to distract you.

Photos by Kate Miss, taken with a White Slim Angel Wide-Angle Camera with Kodak Portra 160 film.

I’m past the point in my blogging where I apologize for a lack of blog posts, but I would like to forewarn you that I have the craziest of crazy dayz ahead of me before I head to Feliz next week, so this might be it for a bit. A thoughtful thank you is coming soon for the magic that went down on Saturday, but I’m waiting for photos of SO MANY BRAIDS before that can happen. So. A few weeks ago Sara of Matchbox Kitchen made a bangin’ cake (is that an appropriate descriptor for a cake?) and many of my lady friends and I happily obliged to come to Laura‘s house and take care of that bad boy and take some photos. I mean, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do for friends. It was also right before Laure‘s birthday (and everyone’s birthday ever? Libras unite!) so we celebrated with calories. Goal to take more photos of people: sort of happening.

Because I know you will want to know what is the DEAL with this bangin’ cake (going with it), I asked Sara to share:

Between each layer of cake I put a bit of buttercream and then spread a heaping of crumbs. For the swirled colored frosting I used some extra powdered freeze dried raspberries from the crumbs and mixed it in with the buttercream.

Photos by Kate Miss, taken with a Canon A-1 with Kodak Portra 400 film

Photos by Kate Miss, taken with a White Slim Angel Wide-Angle Camera with Kodak Portra 160 film.

Out my window. I can’t help myself sometimes.

Photos by Kate Miss, taken on a Pentax Honeywell Spotmatic with Portra 160 film.

Years ago, my friend Emily had us over for dinner and being the amazing chef that she is, wowed me with her pesto that she used arugula and walnuts in, instead of the classic basil and pine nuts. I’m definitely a classic basil pesto fan, but something about the bitterness of the arugula calmed by the smooth walnut flavor remained with me for a long time. At the time I didn’t own a food processor, so the recipe slipped from my mind for a long time, until about a month ago, when challenged with having a vegetarian over for dinner (I was vegan for years, but a TERRIBLE cook back then) the recipe popped back into my head as the perfect star of the meal.

It’s ridiculously easy to make, and you can basically eat it on anything. Just plop that stuff right on any meat, veggies, toast, GO WILD! I have a very small food processor, so you can double this recipe to have leftovers or feed more people if yours is larger. This recipe was enough to top pasta with for four people.

Arugula Walnut Pesto
2 cups arugula, packed
1/2 cup shelled walnuts
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 olive oil (extra virgin will taste better, but I never have it on hand as I cook with regular)
6 garlic cloves, broken up but not peeled!
salt to taste

Heat a pan with a small bit of olive oil and add the un-peeled garlic. You want to cook them until the garlic inside is soft – the skins will turn a golden brown and start to absorb the oil. It takes roughly 8-10 minutes. Remove the garlic, but not the oil, and let the garlic cool down. Add the walnuts and toast for a few minutes. When the garlic is cool enough, peel the skins off.

In a food processor, combine all of the ingredients except for the olive oil. Once well combined, slowly add the olive oil until smooth. Add salt to taste.

The first night I made it, I put red and yellow cherry tomatoes tossed with olive oil in the broiler for a few minutes and we ate the pesto and tomatoes a top angel hair pasta. It was dreamy.

Photos by Kate Miss, taken on a Pentax Honeywell Spotmatic with Portra 160 film. Holding a spoon and focusing a manual camera takes skills I apparently don’t have all the time.