Rachel S. O'Hara

From the Waffle Stop birthday party to actually going to Jim Elvis' Chinese New Years party to the Shake, Rattle and Soul competition I think it is safe to say that Elvis and I have become well acquainted in 2014. The Shake, Rattle and Soul festival was pretty entertaining. The Elvis tribute artists were REALLY good and I even got to meet the guy who made Elvis' famous sunglasses with the EP on them. I covered the Saturday portion of the competition and got to see an awesome black Elvis (who also does a James Brown impersonation) and a little eight-year-old Elvis who had some sweet moves. The crowd was mostly women from Elvis fan clubs from around the state. I was bummed I didn't get to photograph the woman who does an Elvis tribute, but I did get to meet her.  Here are some shots I took for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune at the Shake, Rattle and Soul competition that took place a few weekends ago in Sarasota.  Jason Baglio from Independence, Louisiana was one of the eight El...

January was a busy month and February is looking to be even more busy. "Season" is officially upon us. Driving anywhere takes twice as long, there are double the amount of things to cover and doing anything outside of hiding inside the comfort of your own home is basically torture. Oh, and apparently even though our weather is WAY, WAY better than up North, Mother Nature has decided to cause freeze warnings and many stressful mornings for of us Floridians as we go rooting through our closets and drawers looking for a sweater or anything warm to wear. Seriously, folks, I have been wearing the same six sweaters on repeat. But I really can't complain. I am happy and have had so many fun times with my coworkers before, during and after work as well as with my old pals and even some new ones already this year and we are only a month-and-a-half in! Here are a few shots from a couple of different assignments I have had for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune over the last few weeks. I h...

Sometime in the early part of 2013 I learned that the Waffle Stop, a fabulous Sarasota diner with an Elvis theme, did in fact hold an annual celebration for The King's birthday, I was determined to make sure I didn't miss it in 2014. So at the beginning of 2014 I looked up Elvis' birthday and realized it was January 8 and immediately started dialing the Waffle Stop to get the scoop on what was going down. Luckily, Dolly, the manager, told me that yes they would in fact be doing something and that I was more than welcome to come. My awesome boss was down with the idea and told me to block off part of my Saturday to cover the event. Thus last Saturday was pretty epic. Jim Elvis Reese is not just an Elvis impersonator. He isn't playing Elvis circa 1960s. Oh no! He is the exact same age Elvis would be today is Elvis were still with us. That's 79, folks. So Jim Elvis says his impersonation is more of a tribute than anything else because no one else can actually be The Ki...

Meet Betty. Betty is a 12-year-old greyhound who was a rescued after being a race dog for two years. I met her today when I was at an assignment. It was meant to be a portrait of a couple, but one half of the couple wasn't there when I arrived so I bided my time by bonding with Betty. Plenty of scratches behind the ear, some petting of her long snout and a big belly rub made me a pretty awesome human in Betty's eyes. She reminded me so much of our family dog Ivy that I just couldn't help but photograph her and snuggle her up. I posted these to my Instagram account earlier in the day. live. laugh. love. -rso-

So it wasn't as epic as other people's and I apparently took two too many photos in the 52 weeks, but I did it and I'm proud to look back at the photos and have the memories of how 2013 went down for me. It was a pretty crazy year full of life changes and decisions. I'm hoping all that happened in 2013 has built me up to have an epic 2014. Here are 20 of my favorite shots/memories from the project/the year of 2013. To see all of the photos and the info that goes along with them visit my tumblr . live. laugh. love. -rso-