I swear, I’m not dabbing in this photo – goodness knows I’m not cool enough for that – I’m just tripping on the train tracks.

My friend, Amanda and I went on a final trip to our favorite restaurant, The Local Taco, before we head off to college, and afterwards, we couldn’t think of anything to do. We drove around for a while listening to 2012 throwback songs (“Bottoms Up” by Trey Songz is still such a bop, by the way) before finally deciding to go for a walk at a nearby nature preserve.

Interestingly, the place where we went, McConnell Springs, was actually the location of both of our senior portrait sessions. It’s such a beautiful place –  not too many trees as to be distracting, and a paved path that was easy to walk –  meaning we both went into photography mode, scouting out the best locations and the best lighting for taking mainly mediocre and occasionally very nice pictures of each other.

I mentioned this in a previous post, but I rather like those friends who are cool with taking lots of photos together. Maybe it was the way I was raised – as a kid, I remember my dad often carrying a camera along whenever we went places – but I love being able to capture memories and events with the click of a button.

For a while there, I was pretty self-conscious of taking photos out in public; in fact, when Snapchat was first getting started, I was dismissive of the whole concept because it relied upon taking selfies while out and about. Taking a selfie in public? To 14 year-old me, there was no greater social faux pas, and no greater display of narcissism.

But I’m over that now – after all, I do have fashion blog, and where would I be if it weren’t for the public displays of narcissism that I put on every day taking my OOTD photos?

Anyway, along our little nature walk, we encountered some trees, a cave, and a graffiti-covered wall that made for good photo spots, but by far, our best photos were taken along a set of train tracks.

Being on what I assume was a still used train route, I was a little nervous taking photos there. Granted, there was plenty of room for us to get out of the way should a train come rolling by, but “don’t play near the train tracks” was, for whatever reason, a lesson that was as heavily stressed in my formative years as “don’t take candy from strangers” and “don’t walk out into traffic” – despite the fact that I lived nowhere near any trains.

I always get a little nervous near them, but I think the cool shots we got were worth my panicked glances every time I heard a sound in the distance. But hey, what’s life without the constant anxiety of death to keep you on your toes?

I’ll see you in the next one! Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

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