These photos were shot last night as the sun was setting around our little neighbourhood, by me: bleary-eyed, sneezy, and all. Not going to let a little seasonal allergies get in the way of making some photos. I wonder which one of these beauties is the cause of this headache? It’s ok, huge blossoming trees: I forgive you :)
My dad is in Boston with work at the moment but I just wanted to say a big happy birthday to you today! Now somebody get this boy a CAKE!
Love you…next time, take me to Boston with you, ok? Ok.
“Just embrace the wind” – I heard myself saying these words as I fired off a few more frames and she let her hair blow in front of her face.
We organized a shoot this weekend with a few of our favourite people and I hope to have a full post with the photos up later this week. As we walked and talked and took a few photos in the Beaches, I really felt like Dave and I were stepping into our own skin in a way. Starting out in the photography field has been a wonderful experience and I wouldn’t trade what I’m doing for anything. But it’s certainly also been filled with a lot of self doubt, challenges, steep learning curves, and mistakes along the way. It’s been rewarding, but it’s also been hard. And for someone with a sensitive soul like mine, at times it’s felt like I’ve been lost in a wilderness.
A fellow photog (who I respect, admire, and love his work so so much…) tweeted the other day that he was going wedding blog free on his RSS feed. People questioned him; he clarified – he was unsubscribing to more than a hundred blogs of wedding photographers that he had been following, with the challenge to others to do the same, remove the clutter, and to create something new. (Check out Jonathan Canlas’ work right here.) I’m subscribed to a select few blogs of my favourite photographers in the industry myself (and am still subscribed today) and so although I didn’t take up his challenge, what he said did strike a chord.
It made me think about how the more you look at other peoples’ work, the more you compare your stuff to theirs; the more you try to emulate what they’ve created; and the more you just wind up with a cheap imitation of the real thing – their thing. And when your images don’t match up to theirs, it hurts your soul. It’s like a pin popping a balloon. You feel like you’ve failed a little bit, like you’re not good enough. Been there.
Just starting out and not having a clue what to do, blogs of other photographers have helped me immensely to get a sense of direction and to determine what I like and what I don’t like. But this past weekend at our shoot, like I said before, I really felt like Dave and I just sort of stepped into our own skin. We created the shots we saw in our minds; we were the artists creating our own pieces of work. We weren’t trying to copy someone elses style or shots – we were creating our own. And it started us to thinking about what kinds of feelings we want our images to evoke when people look at them, and to actively go about creating those shots that will achieve that.
I was running this morning – a difficult run – and the wind suddenly picked up at hit me in the face just as I was nearing the peak of a hill. It was almost like “argh! I’m so tired and now this wind is slowing me down!” but at the same time “ahh. I’m so tired and now this wind feels so good against my face.” It’s like the wind challenges you when it whips up and you’re running into it, but at the same time it feels good. That’s where I feel like I’m at right now as a creative: feeling like I’m headed to the peak of the hill, challenged to create my own voice now and to see my vision come through in my work, and at the same time feeling so good when I see that my images are reflecting me and my vision; not someone elses. You can only fail when you’re trying to be someone else – you can’t fail at being you.
So friends, just embrace the wind, whatever the wind might be for you.
I just heard over the weekend that my brother will be heading to Paris next winter to complete part of his degree at Sciences Po – how fast can you say trip to Paris?! Just wanted to wish him a big congrats and a fair warning that his sister is completely green with envy, knows that he will love every minute (even the tough times when you’re homesick for people you love and for things to be “normal” again), and will definitely be paying him a visit at some point while he is there…
A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face. – Jorge Luis Borges
What is it about travel that draws us in? I think it is partly curiosity, to experience something new; partly an innate desire to scare ourselves a little bit; and partly a desire to be a stranger, to leave; to take up residence somewhere foreign and see what it’s like to live another’s life for a while. Scary and wonderful at the same time.
Here’s a bit of what you have to look forward to… ah Paris.
Why is it that the best advice is often really simple? It’s usually a real “why yes, that makes total sense” kind of moment for me. I was reading up on an interview with a photographer who’s blog I follow this past week and he said it really simply: make sure to shoot for yourself.
See, I told you it was always the simplest pieces of advice that tend to cause little mini-revolutions in my world.
So earlier this week I made sure to shoot for myself. Here’s what I came home with. And can I just say…even if it’s not photography, make sure to _______ (fill in the blank) for yourself every once in a while. It’s totally therapeutic. You can also bake some banana chocolate chip muffins. Mmm. Happy Thursday!
I usually don’t post photos of social outings with my friends on my blog (to make sure that I keep my friends and keep getting invited out, haha) but hey, it’s Friday and in this case I simply couldn’t resist…I haven’t bowled in a few years and it was an absolute riot in the girls’ lane.
FYI: this is probably how not to bowl:
As you can see, the boys took things a bit more seriously and probably hit a few more pins than we did too:
And our awesome bowling shoes…Go team!
Happy Friday everyone :)
Mummy & Daddy decided not to get me fixed when I stumbled into their lives a few months ago and the vet said I was probably around three years old and had also probably already been spayed…and now, they shall suffer the consequences!
Hello, my name is Cleo, and I will refuse to leave you alone until you find me a boy cat to make babies with…meow, meow, meow.
If Ireland were a colour I think she’d be a rich and vibrant dark green kind of colour. I spent 48 hours in Dublin once and drank a few sips of Guinness, snuggled up on a single mattress with Dave, and ate at the only place in town with an open table – it was Italian. I think I may have some unfinished business with Ireland. I think I might have to make it back one day so I can race you to the waterside and from the edge of Ireland shout out loud so they can hear it in America: it’s all for you.
Until then I guess I will drink lattes with clovers floating on the top in my favourite little Irish cafe, admire all the lovely photos on their walls and dream.
I’ve been sorting through piles of my old stuff this weekend and I must say it simply blew me away how much stuff I used to know…particularly how much math stuff I used to know. Most of my old notes from high school look like gibberish to me now. Really, they do. But at one time I used to know how to do complicated stuff that involved parabolas, derivatives, and imaginary numbers. Let me say that again: IMAGINARY. NUMBERS.
I want to save it all and frame it and point to it up on my wall and say oh yeah, look how totally brainy I am…
Instead I make pies with Dave at ten o’clock at night. On March 14. Because we are geeks. And Dave likes pie. Nom Nom Nom.
Happy Pi day friends…(don’t hate!)
…I looked up.
