Tracy is a twenty-something
red-headed lady from the Philippines who lives for photography, and takes photos for a living.

This blog's main content focuses on photography and food, the same way this is a mix of her work and bits of her personal life — the two often occur simultaneously.

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San Diego leg: Balboa Park

The lack of a decent internet connection has made it even more difficult for me to attend to this backlog of blog entries (we had our blegh internet cut while we were in the US). But I came home today to the news of a new one, so hurrah, time to update!

The first leg of our trip was spent in good old San Diego in California, where majority of my relatives are. Since we weren’t staying long, we made the most of our stay there.

The last time we were in San Diego, the daisies in my aunt’s place were in full bloom, but I guess the summer heat kind of killed most of them off. I like daisies. :(

But anyway, the itinerary for our first day was to go to Balboa park, but I was a bit insistent on checking out Best Buy first — I wanted what I came for!

And to my delight, I was able to get it, hooha! No, it wasn’t a new camera — you all know it was my new Pancake lens! I roamed around the store after getting it and ogled at the cameras like I always do, and took a few photos to test my new baby out. I was obviously impressed, as I should be! I just spent $200 for it. Salary? What salary?

Anyway, we had some really good lunch at this pretty cool place called Stacked — more on that in a later post over at Tender Blender! And since we’re talking about it, yes, all my food posts from now on will be found on the Tender Blender website. :)

So we made our way to Balboa park, and I noticed it was chock-full of people in fancy outfits accompanied by a small group of people with big cameras — yep, so many weddings/engagement shoots going on!

Balboa Park is pretty huge, with a lot of museums! I particularly liked how the buildings weren’t your typical glass and steel structures.

Also, notice how the skies are absolutely cloudless. San Diego is almost always like that, having very little rainfall over the year. I left Manila at exactly the right time, as I didn’t have to deal with the horrible weather, and came back when it was all over!

A pretty interesting quote etched on a glass window that we passed by while walking around. Art belongs to everyone. Really nice, yes? But this of course does not mean that you are allowed to take a piece of art and claim it as your own, a.k.a. infringe copyrights. ;)

Briefly visited the Museum of Photographic Arts (again due to my persistence), and discovered their theater. It was really pretty! This was where I took this self-portrait, so you can now imagine me setting my camera down somewhere and making use of the timer function, ohohoho. I take advantage of opportunities like this, as you can see.

No photos of the exhibit, by the way, as photography inside was prohibited. But I will say, though, that I really enjoyed looking at all the pretty black and white photos. :) Made me miss shooting with film!

But anyway, after MoPA, we decided to make our way back to the car. There were a lot of interesting people scattered around Balboa park, from people playing instruments, to people doing magic tricks, to these nicely dressed gentlemen.

The day didn’t end here, as I met up with a friend from elementary school, but that’ll have it’s own entry. :)

Breakfast in Central Park

I figured I’d post a little something today. Nothing from the tours just yet, but instead a little something simpler from this morning — breakfast at Central Park!

I really love all that bokeh through the trees in the morning! My uncle Craig (my dad’s brother-in-law) had invited us to have breakfast this morning before heading out on another tour (which never happened, since we’ve seen pretty much everything we wanted to see yesterday).

We were joined by my cousin Byron before he headed out to work! I adore Byron, he’s my only cousin who’s my age (I was born just a few weeks before he was!), which is why we’re both so good looking HAHAHA. I haven’t seen him in a decade! He’s only visited the Philippines once, sometime in 2002. Even then, he’s already been so tall. When he came out of the studio to greet us, I feel like he’s grown even moooore and I feel so tiny. I don’t think I even come up to his shoulders! BUT ANYWAY. I love him.

While waiting to order food and while waiting for the ordered food to come, I took pictures of random diners. I’ve missed taking pictures like this! New York is giving me so much material, and I love it. For more, I’ll be posting stuff on my other blog, They Never Knew. I’ve posted this and two others so far. :)

And of course, obligatory shot of my breakfast. A quick shot at that, as I was really hungry, and seeing the same thing being served to my brother just made me want to attack it immediately. But I promised Kiks & Karl I’d take photos of the food I’d eat here, so here we go. An authentic(!) Belgian waffle (I say authentic because the restaurant is a Belgian franchise) with chocolate and strawberries. Seeing that item on the menu even without a photo immediately had me sold. And it tasted as good as it looked! Kind of makes me want to slip out to Central Park again in the next couple of days for more. Washed it down with an iced latte. If ever you find yourself in Central Park, this can be ordered from La Pain Quotidien, a little walk away from the park entrance near W 67th.

Aaaanyway, I’ll leave it at that for now. More photos soon, I promise! I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to make my blog posts, given the mountain of photos I’ve taken so far.

(Source: blog.tracymonsod.com)

Definitely one of my favorite shoots to date. (:

Definitely one of my favorite shoots to date. (:

Fantastic framing with the plants. (:
Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de LeonPhotography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

Fantastic framing with the plants. (:

Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de Leon
Photography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

(:
Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de LeonPhotography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

(:

Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de Leon
Photography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

One of my favorites from the Troy & Jessica shoot. (:
Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de LeonPhotography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

One of my favorites from the Troy & Jessica shoot. (:

Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de Leon
Photography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

From the Troy & Jessica prenup photo set. (:
Ah, I can finally post photos from the prenup shoot I did last January, if only little by little! Enjoy. (:
Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de LeonPhotography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

From the Troy & Jessica prenup photo set. (:

Ah, I can finally post photos from the prenup shoot I did last January, if only little by little! Enjoy. (:

Hair, makeup, and styling by Chex & Ruffles de Leon
Photography and post-processing by Tracy Monsod

Today while hanging out at the food court in Shang with Kuki & Alex, we spotted a boy wearing my Coffee shirt! It was such a proud moment for me. I did what any other person would — made like a stalker and took a photo of him from a distance.

Today while hanging out at the food court in Shang with Kuki & Alex, we spotted a boy wearing my Coffee shirt! It was such a proud moment for me. I did what any other person would — made like a stalker and took a photo of him from a distance.