Portra 800 – Withjulespham

Hidden in the hills of TN

The city has many comforts but the wilderness, it calls to me.

Our trip to the Smokey’s couldn’t have been timed better.

Don’t get me wrong. Charlotte is a great city. We’ve been enjoying it.

But it’s a city. A really big city. The biggest I’ve ever lived in.

And we I desperately needed to get away to the countryside.

Why?

I like to think that I deal with stress pretty well.

However, add the stresses of moving to a new city, new state, new job, and new house…it all adds up and I was quite frankly overwhelmed.

I felt off.

I listened to my soul and knew I needed to be immersed in Mother Nature.

The deers in my backyard were not going to cut it anymore.

Enter Song Sparrow Hill.

This Airbnb by Tiffanie on her family’s 16+ acre property wins the award for Most Unique and Original.

It’s tucked away in the hills of Tennessee near the North Carolina boarder.

When I saw pictures, I knew it was where I wanted to recharge and refocus.

So we were lead to our campsite by the family’s sweet and protective two dogs, Mangus and Boy.

Apparently the owners bought Boy to tend to their chickens. But once he visited the campsite, he decided to stay there. And so they had to bring another dog to fill his intended position.

I don’t blame Boy. You’ll see why.

Below is the outhouse complete with a solar bag shower, “running sink water”, and a composting toilet. It was nothing short of charming.

Oh! I should mention that ALL of the wood was logged and milled from their property! The craftsmanship is sublime.

Our hosts even baked us “sweet bread” and had fresh eggs waiting. It was meant for breakfast the next morning, but it didn’t last very long. The bread was our dessert after dinner. It finished nicely after our grilled steaks.
I mean look at this freakin’ badass tent!!
We gathered around the campfire until it got too cold.

Y’all it was so perfect. The crisp night. The fire. The warm cup of tea. The stars. Shining brightly above the silhouette of trees surrounding our tent. Perfect.

I didn’t get a photo but there was also a wood burning stove inside the tent. You can see the smoke from the chimney in the photo below. It kept us very toasty throughout the night.

I think the best thing about this lovely retreat was no cell phone service.

You may laugh, however I’m not kidding.

Honestly, Khang has been extremely busy with work. This is the most I’ve ever seen him work even in college.

Always talking to his team, responding to emails, or catching up with deadlines and this is all after physically leaving work. He was bringing his work home and I was sick of it.

While talking well into the night, I teary confessed to him that I secretly wanted to stay there in the enchanting forrest disconnected from the world because our current routine at home wasn’t making me happy.

I mean, I don’t need that much attention, but the man was working too much.

He agreed and we came up with a solution together.

Things are thankfully better. I don’t know how many trips we could’ve taken out there. Hah!

This last photo was taken with Hans “freelensing”. It’s a technique where you detach the lens from the body of your camera to get different focus points.

Khang said it looks like a painting. I think that’s good haha. Regardless, I love the results and will experiment more.

Until next time, Song Sparrow Hill.

Thank you for being just what we needed and more.

Thank you for reading and following

along with me,

Jules.

One year! Yay!

So Khang and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary last week in Austin, TX!

Taken with my Nexus camera phone.

Y’all, it’s been awhile since we celebrated a “first-anything” so I was very excited during the days leading up to June 25.

We decided to write a letter to each other every year on our anniversaries.

Not only will it be wonderful to read the letters down the road, but I also picture our grandchildren reading them.

And well that’s something worth cherishing.

I won’t blog my letter, but I’ll express my feelings on our marriage this past year.

Fair warning, extremely mushy-gushy reading ahead.

One year.

People asked me countless times,

“How’s married life?”

“Any surprises about Khang you didn’t know about before?”

12 years in and I’m still learning new things about Khang and I expect that to never change.

Marriage has (so far) been sweet bliss.

Everytime I think about my love for him, I marvel about how much it has grown since Day One of “puppy love”.

I’ve wondered if my love will ever stop growing because I love him so so much.

And in those moments couldn’t imagine to ever love him more.

When I was writing my letter to Khang,

I realized it’s his love that forces my love to widen and grow.

His love has and will never stop growing.

It constantly forces my heart to shift and expand to hold all the love he has for me.

And it’s the most amazingly beautiful thing to look forward to the rest of our lives together.

Now don’t get me wrong, we had our trials this past year and still continue to.

However we’ve learned by now that with all the challenges bring more strength between us.

And it sounds crazy, but I get excited when we get into a disagreement because it’s another opportunity for us to understand each other on a deeper level.

I vowed my life to this man forever, so of course I’m going to put all my effort and love into it.

Which leads me to the “most surprising” thing about Khang post-marriage.

To be honest, I kinda always thought I put more effort into our relationship than Khang.

I didn’t hold it against him or anything, but I took pride in myself that I was responsible for the majority of the happy balance in our relationship.

Because I thought I was the one who sacrificed more, compromised more, understood more…

I was wrong.

I can’t explain exactly when I realize this or what made me see it, but one day it came to me and I saw it all at once.

I saw all the effort and care Khang provided and wondered in awe at his kindness and love for me, our marriage, and our life.

He puts so much of himself into us.

And I was oblivious to it.

I felt so dumb and self-absorbed to have never noticed how much work he truly puts into our relationship.

Maybe it was being married that finally made me see it.

But gosh I feel so blessed to have the best husband in the world for me.

Okay, I’ll stop.

Here are some photos I took of Khang at our AirBnB in Austin.

He didn’t really want me to because he’s not “good” yet, but me being me wanted to document our life during this time.

He’s been at the strings for a good month now and I enjoy watching him enjoy himself.

Taken, of course, with Hans.

Hope you guys have start noticing the difference between digital and film now.

Portra 800 rated at 200.

He may or may not still be playing the guitar next year, but I’ll only look back on these photos and hear the lovely and not-so-lovely sounds in my head of the misplayed and on-key notes he tried so hard to play.

Thanks for reading and following along

with me,

Jules.

My lovely Yang

There’s so much I could and would like to say about my best friend, Michelle, who I endearingly call “Yang”, but I’d never be able to finish.

Not only because there’s so much to tell, but also due to the fact that after basically 25+ years of knowing her she still continues to surprise me with her unwavering love.

Y’all, she is the best person I know.

Great, now there are tears in my eyes as I’m typing this.

Those who know her well or even just a little will undeniably agree with me.

One of the many things I love most about her is the love and care she shows to complete strangers.

There’s so much good in her.

And she doesn’t keep it to herself. Not at all.

If you’re fortunate enough to have encountered her…I would not need to tell you how lucky you are because you would just know right away what a beautiful and kind soul she possesses.

And when you’ve known someone since babyhood, things get nostalgic.

Our friendship has seen its ups and downs.

I remember a time when I had very unpleasant feelings towards her around our middle school years.

I confided our problems to someone close to me and that person gave me the advice to just end the friendship.

But after thinking about it, I decided our friendship was worth fighting for.

And it makes me feel so incredibly thank you that we both fought for our friendship because it has honestly gotten better and better with age.

So here we were on what felt like a typical day.

[She’s always supporting me and my crazy random ideas]

She’s my absolute favorite person to photograph. Wayyyy before I had this new fancy camera.

We drove around for almost an hour trying to find a good place to start taking photos.

It was just two best friends catching up on life.

Her shoot is how I’d like to “model” my future shoots to come.

Just two friends chatting it up and me capturing the natural beauty in front of me.

So simple and effortless.

Minus the ant-pile I stepped in. It was totally worth it though. Ha.

For those who have always seen Michelle as a “cute girl”, prepare yourselves.

Actually don’t.

You’d be wasting your time.

There’s no way to prepare yourself for this.

She’s a freakin’ unicorn.

Shot with Portra 800

Those to die for cheekbones.Shot with Fuji400, which is becoming my favorite stock so far. Shot with Portra 160Shot with Ektar 100

I changed these last shots to black and white because the stock and exposure I used made her skin splotchy and there was a little blur. All my fault. Not hers!

I also think the BW makes the photos more powerful and do justice to her expressions.

I love you so much, Yang.

Thank you for being … you.

You’ll never understand just how grateful I am to have you in my life.

I’m still surprised myself how you make me feel.

Last weekend, Ngoc told me a sweet story about you during your CCD days and it made me choke up with emotion.

You’re the best.

Never forget.

Thanks for reading and following along,

with me

Jules.

Oh and by the way, none of these photos were edited by me.

Processed and scanned with FIND lab.