HERE'S TO LONGING | 60

|| #60 ||

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAYLI SAMIMI. QUOTES BY HER & HER LOVED ONES;

NEW PIECE UP EVERY FRIDAY, READ MY MANIFESTO FOR THIS PROJECT  here.  SEE THE ENTIRE BODY OF WORK here. 

this blog post is here to ruin your day.

i absolutely hate to be the bearer of bad news. maybe most of you have already heard about all the national parks closing down. and the tons of parks shutting down in CA. this is really hard news to take, and i kind of feel like things are getting so out of control and there is nothing i can do about it. i hate to feel this powerless and to feel like slowly our world is getting harder and harder, with less connections to God and nature around every turn. frankly, it freaks me the hell out. watch this trailer about a doc being made of a crew going around to all the state parks before they close.


The First 70 Trailer from Heath Hen Films on Vimeo.


find out more devastating news about the California state parks closing here, included is a list of parks to be shut down. how does this make you feel? what do you think will happen to the parks once they're shut down?? i really have no idea. will we still be able to go visit? will jerkfaces totally demolish and vandalize everything? what are your thoughts??

wishlist on LEIF

my love for bright, delicious colors cannot - and will not - be denied. so obviously, when i found the brooklyn based online shop called LEIF, i died and went to materialistic heaven. i haven't put together a wishlist of goodies on any sort of blog [remember, i have three] for a long while now, so i thought it'd be okay if i did it now. tell me these aren't the sweetest finds - and tell me it wouldn't be amazing to eat some dank kale/brown rice/lemon & garlic tahina dressing/ tofu bowls out of those sorbet bowls with the twig chops?? i mean, come onnnnnnn.

| these boxes |

| twig chopsticks !!! |

| reusable coffee cups |

| batik salad servers |

| shades of grey dip dye cup |

| pastel sorbet cups |

HERE'S TO LONGING | 59

|| #59 ||
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAYLI SAMIMI. QUOTES BY HER & HER LOVED ONES;
NEW PIECE UP EVERY FRIDAY, READ MY MANIFESTO FOR THIS PROJECT  here.  SEE THE ENTIRE BODY OF WORK here. 

sorry no HERE'S TO LONGING this week

"Be not the slave of your moods, but their master. But if you are so angry, so depressed and so sore that your spirit cannot find deliverance and peace even in prayer, then quickly go and give some pleasure to someone lowly or sorrowful, or to a guilty or innocent sufferer! Sacrifice yourself, your talent, your time, your rest to another, to one who has to bear a heavier load than you -- and your unhappy mood will dissolve into a blessed, contented submission to God." -Abdul'-Baha

 find it in your hearts to forgive me. but i think you understand. [swooon]

GOING BACK TO MY SOUTH DAKOTA HOME

i'm going home to south dakota for a week, and am honored to be doing so, for a really exciting project for my dear friend, colleague and world renowned National Geographic photographer and Native American advocate Aaron Huey [you may know him from his TED talk on Pine Ridge/the Black Hills/ Lakota people here]. I will be assisting him in helping the Lakota people tell their own stories with their own words - so that there is NO misrepresentation of Pine Ridge or the Oglala Lakota. It is such an exciting, amazing opportunity and I feel like I am the perfect person to go back home, my Lakota family, to my golden prairies and cornflower blue skies & marshmallow clouds, to my tree and that wind. I am so blessed and so grateful.

you can watch a short video where Aaron is speaking at a Knight Talk for Stanford more about the project:



you can follow my trip on instagram under the handle "samimi_extremie" to see my journey back home - the beautiful land & people through my eyes.  and of course, i'll be taking lots of film shots, so stay tuned for when I can get them developed.

I am so excited I can barely contain myself.

HERE'S TO LONGING | 58

|| #58 ||

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAYLI SAMIMI. QUOTES BY HER & HER LOVED ONES;
NEW PIECE UP EVERY FRIDAY, READ MY MANIFESTO FOR THIS PROJECT  here.  SEE THE ENTIRE BODY OF WORK here. 

laylisamimi photographs for GOOD magazine

me at the GOOD launch party, with my work!

hey ya'll! i have been wanting to share this exciting news with this here blog. a story that i just shot for has now officially come out in print - in GOOD magazine's quarterly print publication!

this isn't the first time i've been honored to shoot for GOOD, but the second. the amazingly talented journalist liz dwyer wrote a seriously legit piece on the education of children of migrant workers and i was fortunate enough to shoot the photos to accompany the piece. as with print photo jobs, they only select a limited amount of your photos - you shoot TONS of photos and only a couple get chosen. here are some of the photos [along with some that didn't get published] which i feel are such a good accompaniment to the piece which you can read here. or you can pick up your own copy on newsstands now!

HERE'S TO LONGING | 57

|| #57 ||

photography by layli samimi and quotes by her & her loved ones; 

new piece up every friday. read my manifesto for this project here. see all of them here.