 It’s been awhile since I’ve done some late-night writing, but this blog post is long overdue. I mentally gave myself a deadline of today to post this, so here I am at 10:45pm sitting down and forcing myself to put this out into the universe. You guys know I enjoy doing thrifted style posts, but I haven’t yet mentioned to the public at large that I’ve been quietly and slowly-but-steadily selling some of my thrifted fashion finds online since the end of last year. I even have an Instagram page where I’ve been posting only thrifted clothing stuff and following a lot of fashion-y types, as well as super cool boutiques and clothing re-sellers. Please go follow that page here. I promise I am going to step up my game over there and make it a cooler little place to land. Instagram is my jam, so I really want to make that page better and better, even if it will be a lot of iPhone photos. :) So, where am I selling online? You can find me on Poshmark (@abi_ruth) and eBay (abiruththeshoppe). My inventory is constantly changing, which is what I love about selling thrifted finds. Please, please feel free to follow along and shop! :) And I don’t cross-post, so be sure to check out both sites. If you’re local to OKC, hit me up if you see a piece you are interested in, and I will try to meet up with you in person to knock off that shipping fee – plus I might even offer you a discount, since I won’t be paying the fees that add up when selling on Posh and eBay. :) Now, I’ve seen a lot of the cool girls on Instagram re-selling their fast fashion clothes on Insta pages. This is not what I do. I am also not a “clothes flipper”. Well, not really. I am just a girl who loves fashion and loves spending hours digging through thrift store racks to find the cool stuff, the unique stuff, the really nice classic stuff. And for years and years, I’ve had people tell me they wished I could thrift for them. So this is a way for me to do that! If you want to read a way more in depth explanation of where I’d like this all to lead, and find out a lot more about me and the dreams I’ve been harboring inside for years, you can read this. I updated that page awhile ago, but never mentioned it anywhere. So I am mentioning it now. Please read it. :) I’ll summarize it very briefly in this post by saying I hope to one day own a thrifted boutique – a cool little shop where young people can hang out. Just click over and read the whole thing. It will give you a much clearer picture of what I hope to do!Does this mean I am quitting photography to sell clothes? Nope! I love both. I believe I can do a good job at both. And each thing feeds a different part of my creative soul. Plus, how fun that I can use my photography skills to do fashion shoots like this one of Micaliah — all these outfits were entirely thrifted, styled, and shot by me! :)God has also been rearranging some things in my life, and I am at a place where I will soon have more time to focus on selling clothes and my photography. It’s a terrifying and exciting season I am in! One that isn’t without some deep sorrow as certain parts of my life have undergone major changes recently, but I look forward with hope and expectations of good things to come! And I want to do my part and be a faithful steward of the talents God has given me, so this post is an effort to do just that. I want to rise up and move forward, not letting fear hold me back any longer.How’s that for vulnerability? Too deep for a post about selling thrifted clothes?? Nah. You guys know I like to stir it all together around here. :)Anyway, on to lighter subjects… I have to give a big shout out to Micaliah for being a fab model for me in this shoot! From changing outfits in parking lots, to walking back and forth on this silly parking block about a hundred times, she was a real pro! :) Thanks, girl. I love ya!And thank you all for reading through this. It made me super nervous to put this out there, because this is a dream I’ve had even longer than I’ve been doing photography. Like I said, read this and you’ll understand. And I kept thinking, “What if it fails and no one thinks the stuff I have for sale is cool?” or a million other similar thoughts. But you know what? Sometimes my procrastination pays off…I have been selling stuff online for months now, so that helped boost my confidence enough to just make myself share this with people I actually know. Of course, who even reads blogs anymore?? I guess we’ll see. Because this is out there now. :)Love you all, truly!
~abi~
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So, since it is now mid-June, and graduations are but a distant memory, I figured it was high time for me to share more of the senior sessions I got to do for some very cool 2017 grads. This awesome dude is Brady. I had met Brady before, years ago, at a walk to raise awareness for autism. A friend of Brady’s family had asked me to come document the day, and I was so touched by the whole experience. So I was really happy when Brady’s mom got in touch with me about doing Brady’s senior pictures. Brady is super smart, so he remembered me from that day he had met me as a child. He greeted me with a warm hug to start off our session, and I knew we were gonna have a great shoot! :) Here are some of my favorites from our evening in Bricktown.Brady has a keen interest in elevators, so I tried to find some cool ones for our session.Even though Brady’s parents didn’t plan on getting in front of the camera, I just had to grab a few quick shots of them with their handsome boy.Brady~
Thanks for letting me take your senior portraits. You are so kind and genuinely fun to be around! I enjoyed your session so much! I am excited to see what cool things you do in your future as you grace this world with your talents! :)
~abi~
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Hi, friends! Happy Friday. I wanted to jump back into sharing portrait sessions I’ve done lately. This poor old blog has been feeling a bit neglected. Every morning when I get to my office, I jot down a little to-do list because it helps me accomplish so much more each day. So, probably about a couple (or a few) weeks ago, I started gently prompting myself with a suggestion to blog. And by yesterday, my to-do list had like two things and then in giant letters it just said: BLOG BLOG BLOG!!!!!!! Dang it, Abi, BLOG!!!!!!
I actually enjoy blogging and sharing photo shoots I’ve done and tidbits of my life. However, it is a time commitment, and I have to be honest and admit that time is the hardest thing for me to give. That’s a whole other lesson God has been teaching me. But I started thinking about why I blog, or feel like I should blog. Sure, it’s fun to share pretty pics and feel like I have an outlet in this world wide web. But probably the main reason I want to share my photo shoots right now is because recently I’ve had more than one person contact me about doing a shoot and they led off the request with, “Are you still doing photography?” or something along those lines. And that made me feel bad, and like I am not being a good steward of this talent and business God has given me. Because, YES, I am still doing photography and I love it. I have scaled back some (in particular, I am not currently booking any weddings), and I do have other things on my plate that I am pouring into, so maybe I haven’t been recently focusing on my photography like I have in the past. Doing photo shoots has become such a normal part of my life over the past sixteen years that I guess I just assume people know I am always doing them. But if I’m not sharing my work, how will people know? And I prefer to share it here on my own site, with the occasional image shared on Instagram. But this is really where I have chosen to mainly post my work. So, I need to do that and show everyone that yes, I am still doing photography. :)
Now here’s some family photos of one of the largest family sessions I’ve ever done. I went to high school with these great people, and I cannot tell you how it warmed my heart to see each of them with their own families and to photograph them all together! I wish more people would do sessions like this, with the parents and kids and grandkids, the whole family. It is so special! It’s rare to be able to get everyone together like this, let alone get good photos of the gathering! :) What’s awesome is, I did another big family session a few weeks ago for some other people I went to high school with, and I’ll be sharing that soon, too. I’m hoping it’s going to become more of a thing to photograph whole families like this. I love it!How beautiful is Mrs. Alcon? So classy. :)This next photo is of my friend Jay and his awesome wife Carrie. I’m asking for prayers for them and their kiddos as Jay is deploying overseas again with the Army this month. Let’s ask God for protection and comfort for them as they’re away from each other.This is what happens when you do an early morning photo shoot… :)Four generations!    This is so funny to me, because the (grown adult) brothers at another family photo shoot I did recently did this exact same thing (without any prompting from me) when I asked to take a pic of them together! Guys are so weird. Haha!  The original six!  Beauties!!Alcon Family~
Thank you for allowing me to photograph your beautiful family! I loved seeing you guys again and catching up. You make my heart happy! :)
~abi~
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by Abi Ruth
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