a grand passion

"Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of Solitaire. It is a grand passion"

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can visit Ernie, pictured above, and the 12 other beautiful horses of Icssoma Farm.
For more information visit the Well Trained Horses website and Icssoma Farm blog.

For more photography visit joyhamel.com

cheers!
joy

Ocean Spires & the words of Chase Jarvis

ocean spire joy hamel 2011

I just read the inspirational words of Chase Jarvis (his recent blog post is FANTASTIC, go read it now) Its time to leave the status quo behind!

"This is not a fluff piece. This is truth: there are a bazillion photographers in the safe little ‘status quo’ bubble that will keep the status quo quietly marching along. So many that, in fact, it will be just fine without you.

Which is precisely why you should leave it behind."

~The Status Quo Will Do Just Fine Without You by Chase Jarvis

following that gypsy spirit again...

I decided almost exactly one year ago, that I was going to change my life. I quit my well paying, some what stable (and utterly hopeless) job, left the house I had lived in for 5 years and still owned, to follow my gypsy spirit to where it needed to be... Northern California.

YES! I am completely crazy!

I left a job, during one of the worst job markets I’ve seen in my adult life
and
left a house for sale in one of the worst housing markets I’ve seen in my adult life.
I did it all to find epic bliss and finally start living life on my own terms.

The decision to leave the midwest had been lingering in my soul for years... I left California in 1999 and I’ve been trying to get back ever since. The timing was never right... there was the house, the job, the family.. blah blah blah...

So here I go, journeying into the woods, getting lost, and finding my own way out (again!). The last year has been emotional. I've felt the worst depression of my life and found pure happiness. Maybe there will be a book, a few short essays, or just a visual discovery of my journey from one extreme to another... my life.. a work in progress

Time to be myself, bye bye status quo!! It’s not you, it’s me. I have been trying to live unconventionally in a conventional world for years. Watch me fall down and get back up. I will share every part of the journey with you as I build myself and my business (both I have been working on for years). It seems that a shift in geographical location is just what my spirit had in mind.

My first challenge. Acknowledging my own worth.

I hope you will feel inspired to share your stories of transformation with me, bits and pieces via comments, or privately via email. Know this, you are not alone and with transformation comes renewed life.

Cheers! To the journey!
joy

A weekend of inspiration at the 2011 Harmony Festival

a picture says a thousand words.. here are but a few... for more images from the amazing Harmony Festival be sure to check out joyhamel.com and my flickr set.

enjoy the show...

Following My Gypsy Spirit

As I sat pining away in my cubical cell, lost in the Midwest. I followed the happenings at the 2010 Harmony Festival, remotely via the awesome power of social media. I vowed that I would be there next year...

Well in the immortal words of Polexia Aphrodisia “It’s all happening!”

As I walk into the festival, photo pass in hand, I will be living the dream of my gypsy spirit. Entering fully, into something that was but a dream just a year ago.

2011 Harmony Festival

For 32 years, Harmony has been a leading-edge lifestyle festival that celebrates the latest trends in health, music, arts, ecology, and spirituality. Created and seasoned in the trend-setting North Bay Area, Harmony is the original festival to appeal to the green lifestyle market.

The Peoples Parade... via HarmonyFestival.com

This is my tribe. An all ages community of free spirits coming together to celebrate, music, art, spirituality, healthy living, and the environment.

First, I will be documenting the festival with my camera... Eco Rally, Steampunk, Goddess Grove,... etc...etc.. the list is amazing... I can already feel the power of all this visual inspiration coming to life thru my lens.

My goal is to capture the community spirit of the festival, and maybe get a shot or two of some of the headliners this year... like... Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, The Flaming Lips, and local boys, PRIMUS! For a full line up of all 3 amazing days check out the Harmony Festival website.




mint, emerald, verde, lime... its all green


Bring your own reusable, water bottles, coffee cups, plates..etc... There will be recycling stations, compost stations.. water stations.. and a green team if you need a little help.

The goal is Zero Waste! What an amazing message that could send to the world!

http://www.harmonyfestival.com/greening.html


tweeting live

As I am shooting and experiencing all that is the Harmony Festival I will be tweeting and posting live candid shots from my iPhone, with my groovy new download Instagram.

Follow the fun @HarmonyFestival @MysticTweets or simply search the hashtag #HF11 (although recent research shows that @HollandFestival in Amsterdam is currently using the same hashtag, stay tuned for updates). You can also like Digital Mystic on Facebook for words and images from this years Harmony Festival.

Just to be clear... The festival runs from June 10-12, Friday-Sunday. Sadly my passes are only for Saturday and Sunday.... That just means I have more to look forward to next year.

cheers,
joy