Wedding Dresses and Homeless Shelters––Week One of #VirginiaSwift

In the last month change has been rapid. I graduated from college (mostly), moved out of my Lary Potter Under the Stairs room in Ventura to an actual apartment in Fredericksburg, drove across the country, left the people I love most in the world, ate some really good Christmas cookies and got some really encouraging news about things to come in the future.

After spending New Years in Vermont, I moved to Virginia. I live above an Irish Pub & Restaurant with another photographer, Adrian Elliott (his work is incredible, checkout it out HERE ). I've found it really comforting to be back in a (relatively) small town. Fredericksburg has just under 30,000 people in it, over four times as many people as the town I grew up in... but small by California standards.

I began my internship with the Free Lance-Star  on Monday. I shot a few assignments this week and was rather frustrated with the images I was making until last night when I photographed a wedding dress fashion show. I'm really looking forward to the next few months here, I think there is a lot of room for me to grow as a photojournalist and I'm really excited to be working with such a talented staff!

Anyhoo, here are some pictures I took this week.

Brittany

Brittany's shoe

Snacks before the runway

Katelyn Pankoke of Project Runway was the dress designer

This dress costs $15,000 because it is sewn with gold thread

Sandy sleeps at the homeless shelter in Fredericksburg

Meet Gene

Gene is 18 years-old and homeless

This is Chance, he also stays at the shelter sometimes

Dog show's are strange

Crossfit is also strange

One of these days I'm going to learn how to take a really good sport photo... or just a good sports photo, I would settle for that