I saw this trend on TikTok, but I don’t make TikToks, so here we are!!
It was so fun going back through my photography Instagram account @lauraclaypool_photo and thinking about all the amazing memories I’ve had through photography. I also learned that my engagement truly peaked in 2017, and I’m only in like 30 out of the 1,200 photos I’ve posted.
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TAKEN IN MARCH 2019
I texted my friend Charlie because I wanted to shoot at this park in East LA. Not knowing that he was coming from East LA, he drove all the way to my apartment in Mid-City and then we went back to East LA during rush hour. Luckily, the hour in the car was worth it! We made it in time for sunset and there weren’t too many other people there to get in the way of photos. Charlie climbed up the gate and jumped off, and we got this shot. I honestly don’t know how this picture got so many likes since I don’t have very many followers, but I’m not mad about it!
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TAKEN IN APRIL 2019
I graduated a semester early in December 2018 and started my full-time job at Initiative in March 2019. For about two months, I worked in LA during the week, and then drove to Orange County on Friday night and slept over at my friend’s apartment so I could do 2-6 senior shoots every weekend. My friend Lauren Belzer is also a photographer and thankfully she agreed to wake up early to take my senior pics before my client showed up for her 8am senior photo shoot (lighting is everything). I had two outfit changes and we were done in probably 30 minutes. I love how they turned out!
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TAKEN IN DECEMBER 2018
Is there a photo that screams Seattle more than this one? My sister and I took the bus to downtown on New Year’s Eve for a sister bonding day and went all over the city. We stopped by Pike Place so I could take the ultimate Seattle pic. I got a Starbucks and wore my Mariners hat and Patagucci #PNW. We also took my Instagram profile picture this day, the red wall is the exterior of an adult shop lol.
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TAKEN IN APRIL 2019
My friend Christina is a photographer from Ohio and she slept at my apartment for a night while she was in LA to photograph an engagement session. We woke up at sunrise, put on dresses, and went to Elysian Park to take photos on the swing. She has a Canon camera, so she could take double exposures. She took a photo of me on the swing, then took a picture of the I-5 traffic below. After, we went to a cute cafe in Echo Park, and then I drove to work and she hung out at the Coffee Bean in my building.
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TAKEN IN SEPTEMBER 2017
Somehow by the grace of God and a pretty serious application process, I landed an internship with the Television Academy Foundation. I was assigned to work at Endemol Shine North America as a social media and marketing intern and spent two months commuting from Orange to North Hollywood every single day. The coolest part of the internship was getting to attend the Creative Arts Emmys! My friend Dory Ann was my plus one and we wore dresses from Amazon and Target on the red carpet (love that for us). Our feet hurt so bad from our high heels, but we stood at a table drinking little bottles of Fiji water and watching all the celebrities roll in before going inside. Dory Ann fearlessly asked for a photo with Gordon Ramsay, and I will never not miss a chance to bring that up. Our other friend was a seat filler for the show, so we met up after the awards for dinner at LA Live.
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TAKEN IN JUNE 2019
Hey! I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22! If you know me, you know that I love Taylor Swift, so of course, I was looking forward to my 22nd birthday! I had purchased the iconic balloons the night before on the way to a different friend’s birthday party, and wore my Taylor Swift t-shirt, then had my friend Katherine take my photo at the parking garage of my neighborhood LA Fitness. Then, I got brunch with my friends at Met Her at a Bar and hung out at Abbot Kinney. Later that night, I had breakfast at midnight at Mel’s Diner to match the song and just had a great time. It’s kind of crazy to think I won’t be celebrating my birthday with friends until 2022.
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TAKEN IN APRIL 2017
Gabby was a couple of years older than me and we worked on a group project in my advertising class when I was a freshman. She asked me to take her senior photos a few years later, and it was so fun!! She wanted to take photos in the stadium bleachers and it was my first time shooting there too! I miss doing senior shoots.
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TAKEN IN MARCH 2017
This was my first time going to the Infinity Room! My friend Hunter was big into art and we had been trying to plan a trip to The Broad for a while. We finally reserved tickets sophomore year. They’re free, but you have to reserve them a month in advance. We got to the museum early on a Sunday morning so we could get into the Infinity Room. You only get about 45 seconds inside, but it’s kind of awesome. The lights flicker on and off and you’re surrounded by mirrors and water. I wish I could spend 30mins in there.
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TAKEN IN JUNE 2017
I was and still am a fan of the photographer @brandonwoelfel, and so I did a few photo shoots in his style. One day, I met up with my friend Niki at Santa Monica Pier and had her wear some fake glasses and I brought my fairy lights. We shot in the arcade area, but I really like all the pics we took outside at blue hour. I learned how to use Adobe Lightroom to edit this shoot, and it was an absolute game-changer for my photography!
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TAKEN IN OCTOBER 2016
Of course this blog post couldn’t be complete without me mentioning that I studied abroad!! I went to Prague for my first semester of sophomore year in 2016, and we had a week off for fall break. Before getting to Europe, I had booked a trip to Greece with a tourism company that would take me to Santorini for spring break. This trip was actually kind of awful because I didn’t know any of the other 50 students on the trip and took every form of transportation with very little sleep, but at least I got some good photos out of it! I took this shot on the ferry from Athens to Santorini and I’m still pretty shook it got so many likes because it’s just water??
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TAKEN IN JUNE 2017
Another birthday pic! We celebrated my birthday a day early, on National Donut Day. My friends and I went to Krispy Kreme to pick up a box before heading to Coto de Caza for my party. My friend Emma hosted it at her house and she decorated and prepared such a cute night for me! We had pizza and smore’s, and I used sparklers for the first time. Another great night!
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I LOVE this post and getting a sneak peak of what happens behind the scenes!!!
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Thanks so much Kerstin!