September 24, 2010
Goddess Shoot With Kris Oster...Afro-Brazilian and Cuban percussionist, researcher in mythology and rhythm, and the founder of "Gaia," a women's conference in Santa Barbara.

Serendipity comes sometimes when we least expect it. Just around the time I decided to switch my business name from "Rachel S. Thurston" to "r.s.thurston photography" and to focus on Goddess Photography, along comes Kris Oster, another sign from the universe that I'm going in the right direction!





I've been drumming with Kris for the past year or more with the performance group The Djun Djun Mamas and knew she was a gorgeous, multi-talented goddess but had no idea just to what extent her goddess roots went! Besides spending the last handfull of years completing her doctorate in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute and regularly leading workshops and classes in goddess mythology and drumming, she's also a radiant Mama and wife. To top it off, she comes from a family of percussionists and has been drumming professionally and recording since she was twenty.

Which makes her all the more of a rock star in my eyes!



And then she tells me that she's running a goddess women's festival this coming fall called "Gaia," which celebrates the divine spirit and that she'd like to have some beautiful, goddess-like photos to promote the festival and her own work.

Voila!

So I continue along this goddess path...having the opportunity to photograph incredible women who are divine inside and out.
We played with the light, the shadows, and a few fun wardrobe changes. Best of all, Kris really feels a deep connection with the tree goddesses and I've been wanting to take more sensual photography of women wrapped up among tree branches... I really love what we created together!

I'll let the photographs speak for themselves.

Here's to Kris and all that you continue to create, my love!
Hoping that our goddess paths continue to cross and overlap....

much love,
Rachel

August 8th, 2010

Baby Photo Shoot With Erin, Javier, and Mateo
Santa Barbara, California

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.
~Woody Allen

I first met Erin and Javier through a mutual friend and we hit it off immediately. Turns out Erin is a Hoosier--born and raised--just like me and Javier is an Argentinean...so what's not to love? Mateo is growing up bilingual in a super loving, joyful home and has Queso as an energetic, playful canine playmate.

We had such a blast doing this shoot together that we toasted to it at the end of the afternoon!
Mateo, like his parents, is a super mellow, happy kid who has infinite patience and smiles when large cameras are being pointed at him and grown-ups are making funny faces and noises with every possible type of of rattle and stuffed animals. Sometimes I wish had a photographer documenting the interactions between me and the parents when we're trying to elicit sweet responses from babies....it's probably one of the most entertaining behind-the-scenes moments of baby shoots.

As the shoot went on and little Mateo became more and more tired of our grown-up tricks, we got goofier and more creative...using bottles of tequila, bottles of vitamins, and stuffed gorillas to entertain him. I still wish I had a recording of Erin, Javier, and me all trying to make our best monkey and cat calls~

And I was especially stoked to discover one of Erin and Javier's favorite songs by John Lennon that really speaks to their journey with Mateo....Here it is. Enjoy!

July 25th, 2010
Santa Barbara, CA

Co-Creating The Journey:
Photo Shoot With Lisa Beck and Budhi Harlow of Panzumo
West African Dancers and Drummers

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
Ursula K. Le Guin.

I don’t’ even know where to begin with explaining my relationship with Lisa and Budhi. Friends. Mentors. Co-creators. Teachers.




We perform together. We dance together. We drum together. We commune together. And we occasionally sing together. It’s difficult to separate out the levels of relationship that we have together. But one of the most cherished of these relationships is as their photographer. In the past ten years, we’ve had several photo shoots together which have unintentionally archived our journeys as artists from their first music cd around nine years ago with their first band to their connection with the ocean and Lisa’s growth as a dance teacher to this summer during which our creative energies only seem to growing without abandon and Lisa has become something of a mythical creature…graceful, gorgeous in a very unself-conscious way, strong. There is so much that I wanted to create with her photographically this time around that we decided to do a separate photo shoot of her as goddess portraits (to be released soon) and another of her and Budhi shining in their musical elements….



Budhi is a phenomenal musician, composer, teacher and performer. And in the past ten years, Lisa has not only blossomed as a highly talented musician and dancer but she has become one of the most gifted dance teachers I’ve ever known (up there along with Vanessa Isaac and my beloved Mamacita). Her humility, grace, unending ability to combine her multiple talents have helped make her such an amazing leader. Together they have helped to create a truly beautiful community of drummers and dancers in Santa Barbara over the past several years and one which I consider to be one of the many amazing blessings of my life.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. There is a beautiful synergy that occurs when creative spirits come together with a similar vision and you can almost taste it in the electrical texture of the photos….This is the path that I have envisioned for many years to come. It’s difficult to imagine having more fun than we did together on this shoot but, after years of experience with them both, I know it’s always possible! ;)

June 28th, 2010
Whirlwind Summer Solstice Weekend....Scantily Clad Drumming, Dancing, and Celebrations!

Wow...so I've survived another Summer Solstice Celebration in Santa Barbara! I've just finished a whirlwind weekend...a Friday Night Pre-Solstice performance of drumming/dancing/singing with the Djun Djun Mamas, dancing with Panzumo's Summer Solstice Ensemble on Saturday in the Parade, threw a bridal shower on Sunday, more celebrations on the beach, then watching another awesome episode of "True Blood" with good friends on Sunday night.

Dang! Now that's a great weekend!

I'm so happy to be on this creative path and to have a life that is so abundant in music, dance, drumming and creative fulfillment with amazing people. Here are a couple of videos of the weekend. The first is a clip of the Djun Djun Mamas...a group that I've been with the past two years. We worked on this piece for about six weeks and are really proud of it!

The second clip is one of our Panzumo Summer Solstice Parade Ensemble dancing several West African Rhythms in the Parade.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k3B2O_Xmmg

June 7, 2010
Ahhhhh...The Joys, Trials, and Tribulations of Camping~
Absolute Spot-On Treatise About Camping by The Stuff White People Like~

Okay, I rarely put up links to other websites here unless they absolutely stun me with their wit or manage to provide sufficient entertainment to distract me from my actual work....and this one succeeds in both!
If you haven't yet discovered "The Stuff White People Like" then you've got to take some time and check it out. It's truly brilliant and super flippin' funny~

Their latest post on "Camping" especially struck a chord after a recent camping trip with friends and family down the Kern River. I've grown up camping, lived in and out of a tent for several seasons of my life as a river guide/outdoor instructor, and will continue to camp as often as I can...but still...has anyone ever noticed how much work it is to pack/unpack/organize?

The masochist in me enjoys it. And apparently, a bunch of other White People feel the same way!

Check it out~ Spot on!
And as they say at the bottom of this post:
Note: This works for all races!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/

Weekly Teaser....
Here's the first shot I've edited from my recent Goddess Photo Shoot with Lisa Beck~
LOVE IT! More to come....

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Kern River Trip With Family And Friends~

The first river you paddle runs through the rest of your life. It bubbles up in pools and eddies to remind you who you are.
~Lynn Noel

For those of you who have known me in my pre-Santa Barbara Days...I spent many blissful years living and working on rivers. For nearly five years I worked as a park ranger, a commercial river guide, and as an Outward Bound Instructor (yes, I made many young teenagers occasionally cry but was compassionate all around!) throughout the American West (California, New Mexico, Utah/Colorado, the border of Texas and Mexico, and along the border of Minnesota and Canada.

Those were some of the best years of my early adulthood...seasons spent running rivers, living out of tents and tupperware, living into the strength of my body, pushing my physical and psychological comfort zones, basking in the intense desert heat, and living as a nomad through the winters when I traveled throughout Latin America and Australia.

It is true that you can never step into the same river...twice. The same goes with revisiting those years lived on and along the river. But like any river rat, the river continues to have a sweet spot in my heart with deep roots. I still have occasional midsummer night dreams of navigating whitewater in some foreign wilderness. And every time I visit the river I am a different person living out a whole new chapter of my life...but yet the river remains some constant unchangeable force.




I was fortunate to recently return to the river on an incredible trip with family and friends. Although it has been years since I went down the river and even longer since I gave an impromptu "safety talk" or lesson on reading whitewater, it felt so encouraging to know I still had the chops! All those skills came immediately back. I was in absolute heaven being on the water again. My heart sings on the water and I feel like I am home again...all the rivers seem to be one and to contain the same fluid energy.

I'm so grateful to the Abbeys for putting together another Amazing Trip and to the rest of the Rousseau Clan and to my friends Richard and Michele for making the weekend into such an amazing trip! I can't wait to go back to the river and the Sierras with good friends and family~

Life continues to move quickly along...at sometimes speeding up...but when I'm on the river, something seems to have stayed the same if only for a brief moment in time.