The Ever Talented and Indomitable Karen Custer Thurston

"We ought to dance with rapture that we might be alive... and part of the living, incarnate cosmos."  ~D.H. Lawrence

My mother--the indomitable and multi-talented--Karen Custer Thurston continues to be one of my very favorite people to photograph. Over the years she has hired me to capture various aspects of her long-time career as a fitness trainer, instructor, Turkish-Egyptian Dance Instructor, Choreographer, Performer, and Bollywood choreographer and teacher. 



It has become a tradition that we do every couple of years….and each time I photograph her it's a unique and magical experience. As we are mothers and daughters, there's always lots of hem and hawing over what we each think her make-up and outfits will look like but we've developed a fantastic symbiosis and over the years she has ultimately learned to trust my artistic vision and judgment. 

I think these photos speak for themselves. My mother is one of the most beautiful people I know both inside and out. Her spirit and strength are radiant and she has a magnetism that the camera always seems to love. She has also taken incredible care of her health and her body…many people have seen photos of her over the years and think that I have somehow photoshopped a little extra, making her slimmer and giving her bigger muscles. 

But make no mistake, my friends. This is all very REAL and the muscles and incredible definition she has are all her own. Thanks to being a daughter of farmers and then a very, very hard working fitness trainer and dancer her whole life she has become a role model of men and women of all ages to be in the best possible health and shape that they can. 



I am so incredibly grateful to be on this journey with her and have no doubt that it's only a part of a much longer and wonderful journey we have together. 

Mama, you have been and will always continue to be an infinite source of inspiration to me and I am so honored to be on this journey with You. 

xoxo Raquelita
Hija De La Chihuahua

Enjoy both of the slideshows! I had so many wonderful photos from two parts of our shoot together (fitness and then dance) that I decided to do two separate slideshows and celebrate these two aspects of her career. 

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Photo Shoot With Children's Book And Fiction Author JZ Bingham

*Please make sure to check out the slideshow below!


I first met JZ earlier this year at the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference and was quickly drawn to her warmth and candor. I've made some really wonderful friends with fellow writers over the last ten years of my involvement with the conference and it has been a special treat getting to know Jasmine (as her friends call her). Besides being a talented author of a hot-off-the-press series of The Salty Splashes Collection of Children's Books, she's a stunning, radiant woman on the inside and out.




Before our shoot she kept warning me that she's traditionally been uncomfortable in front of the camera and doesn't consider herself photogenic. As soon as I started shooting her, it was immediately apparent that she's quite the opposite. She's stunning in person and a total natural in front of the camera. 


This was so much fun to do with her. She wanted to show some other more candid shots of herself as the multi-dimensional author that she is. 

I'm blown away by how her radiance comes through in these photos…the light was sublime. It was a magical shoot and I can't wait to photograph her again!

You can check out her websites here….and her books, of course, make wonderful holiday presents as well!

Let's do this again, Jasmine!

JZ Bingham Author Website
Salty Splashes Collection of Children's Books

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Kathleen Barry's Celebration

This was truly a special occasion for Kathleen. For the past couple of years she has been grieving the loss of her husband of 23 years and after so much pain....this is her year to SHINE. She is stepping out from the shadow of grief and embracing the world again in a new skin as an independent and radiant woman.

As the light became more golden and her bottle of bubbly flowed over, our connection and her comfort grew even more beautiful. Serendipitously we ran into a woman who was celebrating her pregnancy and was also doing a photo shoot. Out of the blue she presented us with a beautifully hand-crafted wreath of eucalyptus leaves, lavender, and a pink rose as if knowing that Kathleen was also celebrating a very special birth of her own. 

The Universe indeed works in beautiful and unexpected ways.

Here's to living life large AND OUT LOUD, Kathleen! May you step into your new power and beauty with every day. Looking forward to being a witness to that!

 

Vega's Gorgeous Pregnancy Photos

There is a magic that happens to us as photographers when everything comes together at once in perfect synchronicity....the ethereal light converges with  perfect softness and vibrant color....and we are connected with the people we're photographing in that moment in time and space in complete perfection.

It's something that we aspire to everytime we shoot and feel incredibly blessed when we achieve. It's a sense of ecstasy that is captured in mere seconds but immortalized forever.

I had all of these feelings throughout my entire shoot with Vega....our lighting and venue were perfect and we worked together and understood each other perfectly. She was willing to trust my vision while also having an empowered and liberating sense of herself and her body. She has a femininity and electric magnetism that translates so well through the lens. It was an absolute joy to co-create this shoot together!

She was fearless and open to trying just about everything we both could come up during the time we had. One of my specialties and favorite types of photography is Goddess Photography in which I celebrate women of all shapes, sizes, and ages throughout the various stages of our lives. What more amazing way to celebrate Vega's "Goddess-ness"than to celebrate her body's ability to create life and to watch her transition from Woman to Mother.

I have to add that there has been more serendipity involved between Vega and me than this shoot. We met around twelve years ago through mutual friends and had such an unforgettable conversation I never forgot about her. It was the time before Facebook and social media and cell phones were just beginning to be used and we either lost contact info for each other or never asked for it. I never forgot her and always wondered if she still lived in Santa Barbara. There are many people we meet throughout our lives and never forget and Vega was one of them. Over the years I wondered where she was and if I would ever see her again.

Fast forward to a few months ago when I was shooting an event with Association For Women In Communication and there she was again....twelve years later. I was so excited to reconnect with her and was happy to know she hadn't forgotten me either. I didn't realize it at the time that she was pregnant and was overjoyed when she asked me to be her photographer for the final leg of her pregnancy.

Life has a funny way of connecting us at just the right moments. I so look forward to seeing Vega become the amazing Mother that I know she will be....and I definitely hope I have the opportunity to continue photographing her throughout her Motherhood.

Wishing her a sublime and beautiful birthing experience!

Life is truly magical.

*Please make sure to check out the slideshow I posted below of our shoot together. There's a comment thread below as well~

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Ann and Amanda's Beach Photo Shoot

❤Ann and Amanda's Beach Photo Shoot

*Please make sure to check out the slideshow at the end~

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

The relationship between mother and daughter, in my opinion, has the potential of being one of the most rewarding relationships in our lives as women. And as a photographer that relationship is one of my favorite to celebrate and honor!

For about a year my girlfriend and fellow Djun Djun Mama Goddess Ann Luan and I have been talking about doing a photo shoot with her and her daughter. And after multiple conversations and life changes, we arrived at just the perfect evening for the photo shoot. We all three agreed that it couldn't have been better timing in any possible way....

What happens when you mix perfect lighting with gorgeous weather, a beautiful mother and daughter, the Pacific Ocean, lots of PINK!, and a violin?

Magic.

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*If you'd like to order prints, you can click on visit gallery and individual photos from there. 

"The Magic of Mermaids"
Photo Shoot with Local Mermaid Goddess Kris Oster

by r.s.thurston photography

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
― Anaïs Nin

Since late last summer I've been dreaming and obsessing on mermaids....spending hours online collecting mermaid photos, paintings, and even creating a Pinterest Board dedicated to these magical, feminine sea creatures...completely transfixed by their long, lustrous hair and gracefulness in the water....tails and tendrils swirling beneath the water.

It's incredible how mysteriously our creative minds work....A few months later my good friend, fellow Djun Djun Mama and past photography client Kris Oster called me. She had purpose and intention in her voice.

"I know this is going to sound strange, Rachel, but I have this really wild idea that I want to manifest with you and I think you're the perfect person for it."

Even before the word slipped out of her mouth I knew what was coming.

"I've been thinking about mermaids. Would you be interested--"

"Of course!!!! Of course!!!" I screamed before she could even complete her sentence.

It would be absolutely perfect to work with Kris on my first mermaid shoot. The last shoot we had done together was one in which we had manifested her connection to a tree goddess. Everything had come together so beautifully when we worked together.

Kris began the search looking for the perfect tail and we met a few times to go over her wardrobe. We even enlisted our good friend Ms. Lisa Beck (leader of the Djun Djun Mamas and also a favorite muse and photography client of mine) to assist me in keeping Kris in perfect mermaid form and in moving her along the sand (as mermaids are quite the aqueous creatures but not so adept at moving around on land until their legs have grown back).

We ended up doing two shoots one in freshwater and another in the ocean. We couldn't have asked for better conditions when we shot along the ocean. The light was sublime as the sun set over the Pacific....she looked like an absolute goddess perched along the rocks as the waves broke over her feet and the receding foam wrapped around her legs like perfectly sculpted clouds of meringue.

I had to keep pinching myself. What a joy to be photographing such a dear friend while being helped by another.

Kris is an absolutely amazing being. She is strong, graceful, nurturing, incredibly bright and creative and has zero trace of any ego so often associated with highly successful people. She is a percussionist, an academic, a leader, a teacher and to top it all, she has an entire background in the field of marketing. She's currently promoting her Elite+Fabulous Marketing Sessions to local entrepreneurs.

Anything Kris Oster touches becomes gold. She is a fabulous creature and epitomizes the idea of a goddess. She looks like a true creature of the water in these photos effortlessly manifesting these water deities.

I hope you enjoy these photos as much I we did doing these shoots together. I have to believe that there's a higher power at work during shoots like this. And I certainly hope that this is just the first of many more shoots to come of mermaids and other magical sea creatures!

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❤"Love Letter To My Mother"

Photo Shoot with Ms. Karen Custer Thurston....my beloved Mamacita!

by Rachel Sarah Thurston Photography

It’s hard to express how grateful I am to have my mother in my life. She has become more than that. We are sisters, best friends, travel partners and champions of each other’s passions and creative pursuits. I think it’s so much easier seeing the beauty in those we love than in ourselves. The same is true of my mother. She is radiant, stunning, strong, sensitive, supportive, creative, bright, kind, generous, funny (yes, you really are, Mama!), and overall fabulous. I don’t think she necessarily sees these things in herself all the time and I’m sure I struggle recognizing my own talents and assets. That’s what sisters are for, right? To point these out to each other all the time~

It’s been a dream photographing my mother over the years. She’s the one who gave me an artistic sense of composition. Who taught me to dance when I was only three…something which continues to be a passion of mine. She patiently taught me to sing when she thought all was lost and that I might actually be tone-deaf like my father. Turned out I wasn’t after all. To this day, singing with King Bee is a great joy in my life. She taught me that life is too short to not wear the fun, sparkly things! And she taught me to love and to support women in our journeys to a greater love for ourselves.

And she has always supported me in my artistic pursuits. She is my greatest champion. Period.

Over the years she’s learned to trust my eye and my vision when we shoot together. She’s even grown to trust me enough to change her make-up or earrings when I don’t think they’ll “jive” with an outfit.

She’s one of my favorite muses. The camera seems to drink her up like a cool glass of water on a hot summer day. She has a fierceness about her that’s cut by a deep vulnerability and innocence. And burning through it all is a bright light…her passion for life which I thankfully also inherited.

I love you, Mama.

The greatest gift from you this Christmas is to have you in my life. I’m so excited to spend the holidays with you~

Raquelita

★ Enjoy the Slideshow!

Goddess Pregnancy Photos

by rsthurston photography

*Feel free to leave comments below the slideshow~

September 20th, 2011

"To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and undoubtedly inhabited."

Anne Buchanan & Debra Klingsporn

It's crazy to think that not only are some of my oldest and dearest Santa Barbara girlfriends now married and with kids but a few of them are on their second and third little ones. It's a beautiful thing to watch a fellow woman grow from who she was as a single entity to growing into a wife and mother. My dear friend (who wishes to remain unnamed but is pleased to share these artful images with others) has been in my life since the first year I moved to Santa Barbara. I was fresh off the river from years of living in a tent...my Chevy Blazer packed to the gills with most of my living possessions.

She had just moved here from Oregon and was beginning an equally exciting adventure and chapter in her life.Those were the days when we didn't know the difference from the Eastside and the Westside or the Riviera from the Mesa. We were just happy to have a roof over our heads and a little piece of green out our backdoors. I lived off of plastic plates and ate on a coffee table stitched together from plywood and bricks for the first year. My girlfriend "G" and I paddled outrigger together, partied with sailors, went to music festivals, and lived the free-spirited lifestyle of 20-something women unfettered by commitment, mortgages, or a biological clock.

In short, them were some fun days...

I look now at how much our lives have changed. I definitely couldn't fit all that I own into an SUV anymore and I'm a lot pickier about the plates I eat off of and the neighborhood I live in. She's married now to a sweet engineer with a Midwestern raising and taste for travel and good art. They're on their third child now but seem to maintain a closeness with each other as if they were just entering their first year of marriage together.

While we both acknowledge the incredible times we had here during the "good ole days," I doubt either one of us would trade where we're at now. I've discovered a serenity and blissfulness here in Santa Barbara that I never knew when I was moving every three months and living out of tupperware.

And my girlfriend has grown into this amazing, radiant, calm, and collected wise, sexy wife and mother. To see the woman who I once danced on bartops with and lost at a music festival in the High Sierras becoming this pregnant goddess is truly an unimaginable transition yet it just feels right. Girlfriends like her are blazing the way for me in the next chapter of my life...

We're blessed to be the women that we are. And as the old saying goes...."You can never step in the same river twice." But why should we? It's a magnificent, heart-wrenching, and beautiful journey this life of ours....and I wouldn't trade any of it.

The adventure of motherhood awaits....

We had fantastic timing, by the way, with this shoot. "G" gave birth only a week after these photos were taken....her precious little one was born on a Sunday morning...hence the title of the soundtrack I chose by Maroon 5 which I thought fit the mood purrfectly....Enjoy!

August 12, 2011

Photo Shoot with Cynthia Ziemer

Friend, Superstar, and Fellow Djun Djun Mama~

by r.s.thurston photography

"There is just one life for each of us: our own." ~Euripides

*Feel free to leave your sweet comments at the end of this entry~

It's a dream to have the chance to photograph more girlfriends and among those a very special group of women: the Djun Djun Mamas. I've photographed both Lisa Beck, our leader, as well as Kris Oster another phenomenal woman in her own right.

Each of the women in this group are extraordinary. Accomplished. Creative. Kind. Generous. Wise beyond this life. And radiant.

Cynthia is all of these and more. I continue to learn more about her through moments together like this shoot. How she is capable of giggling and smiling most any day of the week. How she loves bringing coconut water to our Djun Djun Mama potlucks. How she adores driving her '64 Red Corvette (which has a story of its own). How she loves music concerts and volunteering locally. And how gorgeous she looks in jewel tones like purple, green, and turquoise!

We had originally planned this shoot b/c she'll be featured on the back of an upcoming issue of Casa Magazine with her company Prospect Mortgage.....but it gave us the opportunity to have way more fun with it and get a little more artsy.

And not surprisingly through the process of working with her, I learned that Cynthia is truly a beautiful woman inside and out.

And now for the slideshow...

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Enjoy!