Vibrant: pulsing or throbbing with energy or activity; vigorous, lively, and vital.

Exposure: the process of allowing light to reach light-sensitive material to create latent image; a single shutter cycle

Welcome friends and family! This blog has been a long time coming, to say the least. These two terms have multiple meanings, not only in a definition-sense, but also personally. Life is best lived when it is lived loudly, with energy and enthusiasm and excitement. It is also best lived when authenticity and truth are shared, and the darkness is brought into light.

I absolutely love the process of jotting down thoughts and feelings and experiences and have been doing so since I could pick up a pen and write. I literally have over 25 notebooks filled with scribbles, stream of conscious thoughts, detailed stories, and daily recaps of a day in the life of me. And since I exhibit slight hoarder tendencies, I have kept all essays and writing assignments I’ve ever written since middle school.  Needless to say more, I LOVE all things writing.

In addition to writing, I found my love and passion for photography in the past three years. Well, that’s not entirely true. Friends dating back all the way to elementary school would probably best remember me always having a disposable camera on field trips and random adventures, and the number of photos grew exponentially as I hit middle school and high school. The peak of capturing moments on film truly sky rocketed when I started high school. While I have countless photo albums from my cross country days as well as high school yearbook assignments, I did not even begin to understand and truly appreciate the art of photography until June 5, 2011.

The long awaited arrival of my brand new EOS Rebel T1i DSLR came on that beautiful morning. I ordered it after some extensive camera research; the desire for high quality for a reasonable price, all to start this newly established passion. It was a belated graduation gift to myself after completing my Master’s program at CSUF and up to that point, one of the hardest years of my life. (But that is another story for another day!) As I ventured to different locations to capture life behind a lens, I began to see things differently. Photography is all about perspective; a vision, a point of view. It’s about seeing and capturing the moment. The beauty of photography is that each picture has a story of it’s own. I have a story of my own.

Back to the history of why and how Vibrant Exposure came to be created! The story of how I decided on the name is a memorable one! I knew I wanted a personal blog where I could write about what God was teaching me throughout various stages of life.  But the name?! Gosh, this was going to be challenging. Fortunately, I had one of my favorite partners in crime sitting next to me on a beautiful June evening in a cute little boutique hotel named Las Brisas Del Mar in Santa Barbara. It was a family vacation and I invited Tina to come with us and I am so glad I did for many, many reasons!  I had left Fullerton earlier that week to drive up the Paso Robles for a job interview (another story, for another day).

After a delightful dinner and walk on the pier, Tina and I sat down to enjoy some wonderful fellowship and a delicious bottle of flavonoids- thank you “Bling” wine! One of my favorite traits of this dear friend of mine is that she is always down for whatever the evening holds. I wanted to just relax and catch up on our lives, as she lives in San Diego and we do not get to spend a lot of time visiting each other.  Without any preplanning, I asked if she would want to help me brainstorm the name for my blog. She excitedly agreed! As she scribbled down handfuls of words in the most unorganized but made-sense-to-her fashion, we laughed and reminisced about our high school days of story lining and running and editing. Around 1am, the name Vibrant Exposure was decided upon.

It is a name that captures the current season of my life. A blend of writing and photography, Vibrant Exposure is an avenue to share thoughts, experiences, excitements and joys as well as the challenges and fears, as I continue to grow and change. It is a space of bright life, of living out loud and learning each day how beautiful each season of life is, no matter how many joys and heartbreaks coexist. I hope you’ll enjoy and I hope you’ll continue to journey with me.