Yea, it's been a while. I had a feeling that was going to happen. Oh well!  Let's see if I can do better from here on out.

So yesterday was my 1-year workiversary. I can't believe it's already been a year! But at the same time it feels like it's been longer. Time has really flown by this past year. Hopefully this next coming year is even better. I'm hoping to be able to do some more shooting for White Honey, and also do some shooting for myself. It's about time I do some work for me and build up my portfolio!

Other than that nothing really all that exciting has been going on. Which is probably why I haven't written in so long.

On a personal note- I saw Chicago on Broadway this past weekend. It was really good! I still think that Wicked was better, but how can you get better than Wicked? Except to see it with the original cast. I can't wait to be able to see it again! Too bad the tickets are so darn expensive.

Also, when will winter be over? I am soooo sick of the cold weather! It's almost officially spring, it shouldn't be any colder than 45º outside. This whole, 60º one day and 25º the next is just plain awful. Plus I'm really sick of taking the subway, I just want it to be warm enough to take the CitiBike every day now.

So that's it for now, until next time!

So I finally did some shooting on my own for work! I did two shoots. They're small things, nothing too complicated, but it's a start! It felt really good to be back on set shooting. It's what I love most. I can't wait till I can get the time (and energy) to do some shooting for myself. I have a few ideas, so hopefully I'll be able to do some stuff soon. I'll post pictures of the stuff I did once they're released.

It's my boss's birthday today. Happy Birthday Heather!

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So I just finished reading the Divergent book series, and I just want to vent a little. I won't include any spoilers, and if I do, I'll make sure to give fair warning. I have to say I was actually kind of disappointed. I was turned on to this book by another patient at my physical therapy, and she told me it was similar in style to the Hunger Games (which I LOVE). So I started reading it, and for the majority of the first book, I felt like I was just waiting for something to happen; I just kept waiting for the plot to come together. It did eventually by about the last quarter of the book. I enjoyed Divergent for the most part, even though I felt bored for a lot of it. Then there's Insurgent (book 2), which had a lot more to do with the plot, there was a lot more action at least, but I still felt like there was something more that was waiting to come. Then in Allegiant (book 3) the real purpose of the story finally came out. It was definitely interesting, even though it probably could have been done better. 
And here's where the ranting comes into play... I have never been so disappointed, depressed, let down and empty from the end of a book ever. I feel like the end of this book was done so wrong. I don't read a lot, but when I do, especially since I read a lot of Young Adult books (i.e. Harry Potter and the Hunger Games), I want to finish the book feeling happy, or at least content and satisfied, with how it ended. I don't want to read something, and finally get to the end of the story and feel the way I felt with this book. It just made me feel downright bad. I don't know how I feel about going to see the movies now, because I know how it ends, and I don't like it. This is one time where I'm looking forward to the movies being different than the books, even though it's not like they can change what happened at the end.
Sorry for the rant, I just had to get it out there.

And speaking of the Hunger Games, I am very excited for Catching Fire to come out this weekend! I loved the book, and I hope that the movie does it justice.

Until next time! Which will hopefully be a smaller gap than this last one.

So I figure it's about time to update this thing again. I had a feeling this was going to happen. I start off good, get a few posts in there, and then I just stop. I don't want to bore you all to tears, so that's probably why I haven't really written anything lately. 

I can't believe it's already been over two months since my last post though. Time is flyyyyyyying! Even though it feels like it's been no time at all, it feels like I've been here forever. 

I can't believe that a year ago I was still in retail; dreading the holiday season coming up. For the first time in four years though I'll finally get to enjoy the it! Being in retail, I feel like the holiday season gets lost. You kind of hate it because it means work gets more hectic, and crowds get crazier. I'm hoping to get all of my shopping done early and get it out of the way, so I don't have to deal with the crowds. They tend to make me a but claustrophobic.

I feel bad for all of my friends in retail though. I've been hearing that the malls by me are opening up at 8pm on Thanksgiving Day to get a head start on Black Friday. This is pretty ridiculous. Now employees don't even get to enjoy the day off to be with their families, because consumerism is out of control. Like we really can't wait the extra 8 hours to start shopping? The whole fun of Black Friday shopping was to get out to the stores when they opened at 5am. 

So that's my little rant, sorry you had to sit through that.

In other news, Halloween is only 3 days away! This year my boyfriend's mom had a zombie party, so the BF and I had a fun time doing a little bit of some special effects makeup. Pictures down below. Just a note out there to everyone: fake blood will stain your skin. I went out to breakfast the next morning, then when I got home, I looked in the mirror, and it looked like I had been punched in the face! So just make sure you're able to scrub it all off, or cover it up, before you go out again, so you don't look like a victim of abuse.


That's it for now. Until next time!

Have a Happy and Safe Halloween! Eat lots of candy!

Zombies!!!

Zombie love <3

After my fist attempt of taking the make up off

Got my Day Life life palette today! Came with a free travel palette too! Can't wait to start using it!

Which life palette do you like best?

I am happy to announce that I can finally talk about this huge project we've been working on since April! It's is Michelle Phan's fabulous makeup line called em cosmetics. We did all of the product photography (with retouching) on the website, and it looks beautiful, if I do say so myself. Seriously though, Michelle is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. I am so happy for her that she was able to achieve this dream. Not to sound like an advertisement, but her makeup really is great. I've been using it here and there when we had it here while we were shooting, and I was lucky enough to get some already, and I love it. And this is coming from a person who almost never wears any makeup. She had her launch party last night that everyone from the studio went to, and I had to watch one of her videos to figure out how to do my eyeshadow. But it ended up coming out great, so that just goes to show how easy it is to follow her videos! 

The launch party was a blast! Michelle and two lovely L'Oreal ladies made beautiful speeches, and it was just so exciting to finally see everything come to life! When we got the email saying that the website had launched, the whole studio was on the page for a while just admiring all of our (and everyone else's, because a lot of people worked their butts off for this website) hard work. It really just gave us all this great feeling of accomplishment seeing the finished product. I can't even imagine how amazing it was for Michelle, who has been working at this for over 2 years!

So you can share in my excitement and cosmetic wonders, I am going to post links for Michelle's website and YouTube channel. By the way, that was how Michelle started out, making tutorial videos on YouTube. And it is how great they were that caught the attention of some fantastic and visionary people at L'Oreal, and this great dream of hers started.

em Michelle Phan
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

ericalynfrancavilla.com is finally back up and live! It has been so long since I've had something up. Things kept getting screwy, plus I didn't have time to create my new site, but it's finally back up. My website builder, Weebly, did help a lot though, because it made it much easier and faster to create my site.

I will hopefully be changing my domain name soon though. Apparently they're making a whole bunch of .whatevers, instead of just .com/.net/etc, so you have have .anything, which is pretty cool. I just hope no one steals the domain that I want before I can get it! 

So now all that I have left that I want to do with my website is to re-edit all of my photos. It's been a while since I've worked on them, and I feel like I've learned more how-to's since then. I also need to shoot more stuff. I have a few ideas for some projects that I want to work on, so hopefully I can get to that soon. And I should probably update all of my social media stuff so that it's actually current. That would probably be a good idea. Hopefully I can get to it all soon.

Until next time!

Hello again! So I finally stopped being lazy and am getting my website back up and running! And the website builder that I found has a built in blog page, so I can start blogging again easily and quickly! Woot!

It's been a while since I've had anything up, or updated, and a lot has happened since then. I'll just recap so I don't bore anyone to death.

I finally got a full time photography job! I was so insanely excited when I found out that I got the position. So I am now the Studio Manager at White Honey. And I love being here. I've actually freelanced here a couple of times (with WH and Vis Vitae, the other company in this studio) so I knew everyone here already. I just love being here. Sometimes I still stop for a second and am awed by the fact that I'm at this job. I finally got out of retail, I'm in photography, it's full time, I always have my weekends off, etc. 
And we have some fantastic clients. Everyone is so nice. And I don't have to deal with customers at the mall anymore who make me want to tear my hair out!

I love being in the city too. I love having everything I need at my disposal whenever I need/want it. I love just being able to walk for a few minutes to get something. Or if it's farther away, a quick subway ride. Or ride a bike. I got a CitiBike membership, so I rent a bike when I can. I get places faster, and it's easier on my knees, since they're about to bite the dust. But I love it. I love the fresh air. Except for the fact that a few weeks ago it was almost 100º everyday for a full week; I felt like I was in that Evian water commercial where everything was melting, it was gross. But other than that it's great.

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On a personal note, Monday is my 25th birthday. I wish someone would tell my body that though, because it thinks it's turning 95. My boyfriend, Max, and I are going to Atlantic City for a few days. We're going to go to the casinos, the beach, the shops. And late Sunday and Monday nights, there's the Perseids meteor shower, so we're going to go try to find a dark spot to watch the skies. Last year we were upstate to see the shower, and the view was incredible! Being from Long Island, there is so much light pollution, that it's really difficult to see many stars, so to see the whole sky lit up with billions of stars, so bring against the black sky, is really just an amazing thing to see. So if you want to see the meteors too, the best time to go out to see them is at about 1-2am, after the moon has already set in the sky.

So I think I've sufficiently bored you to death enough for one post. Until next time!