My past weekend..

So, what a crazy weekend! It was a really nice weekend, and I LOVED every minute of it, but it was also (and this is going to sound stupid) but it was life changing! ha ha. I'm not even joking.

On Friday, as you will read in the post below, I went to Borders, one word, amazing. Then on Saturday I went to work and me and the this girl I work with Meg, watched Christmas music videos which lead to watching The Christmas Shoes, a Hallmark movie everyone should see. While watching this movie I had an epiphany, ha. There is a part when the grandmother picks up a picture of her son when he was a boy, and you can see it touches her, she stares at it and remembers that time in her life. Well it got me thinking.

This whole year I have been wondering where I want to go with my photography and I think it would be really cool to take pictures for families, seniors, weddings. I know, crazy. But, I would rather have my pictures mean something to someone like that grandmother in the movie, then my pictures end up in a trashcan or on a girls wall for a few years with them striving to be skinny and beautiful like the models in the pictures. I would rather have my pictures mean more to someone personally, then be a blimp in the entertainment world for a month, and then disappear.

I'm good at networking, and I think I have the personality for it. As a family portrait photographer and wedding photographer, I could bring in pretty good money, and still become famous for it down the road. I have this idea that instead of making photos of models for girls to strive to be, how cool would it be to take (for instance) a regular senior girl or whoever, get to know them and what they want, and take a portrait of them, but in a fashion magazine manner. For instance, setting up, not just a white background for a normal senior portrait, but setting up elaborate scenes in a type of Americas Next Top Model manner. So they can be their own fashion spread. All you need are good ideas, collect props and scene items, even think of locations, and that's it. I would market my studio in a way I haven't really seen done before.

I mean, when your working for a fashion magazine, a lot of times, your photos really aren't what you could be as an artist. Fashion photography is really not art, but a form of advertisement, good advertisement. Thats all. And the photographer really doesn't have free reign on their own pictures because the whole time they have someone over their shoulder and editors to crop and pluck the photo to their leisure.

As a portrait photographer, it would be my control. I would make it my duty to get to know the person I am photographing, and give them the opportunity to get an elaborate shoot done they wouldn't have the chance to do anywhere else. Instead of them looking at fashion spreads or picturesque family scenes in O-magazine and Vanity Fair, they could be their own. I mean all it takes to get those pictures are good clothes, good photoshop editing, good placement and a good idea.

I just think I could do something with this. Allowing someone to be their own fashion spread. Not just the typical senior picture of white background, fake letters, fake outdoor scenery with fake lighting. My studio would go to cool locations, set up elaborate scenes for each individual person, go to wherever that person feels they are as much themeselves, using natural light as much as possible. There is a photograher Michael Franzini, who published a book, One Hundred Young Americans. His portraits are amazing of these teenagers, but its because he allowed himself to understand them. I wouldn't just be another senior portrait photographer, but I would want to understand exactly who they are. Go to the link below, look at the pictures of these teenagers, I just think they are great, but so simple.

http://www.100youngamericans.com/home.htm


I don't know, what do you all think?

SOME QUOTES!!

So this past Friday I had no events for my internship, nothing planned and I wasn't really tired to take a nap. So I took advantage of this opportunity and did something I haven't done in FOREVER.

First I took Kapper for a walk in Forest Park, because he needed to get out, and then second, I went to Borders, grabbed a few quote books and wrote down some more quotes in my own quote book I have had since High School. Me and my friend Kelsey use to do this, and it was so calming. I was at Borders for 6 hours all by myself, but it was absolutely amazing!! It was so nice just to step back and relax. Something I haven't been able to do with so much on my mind in forever. BUT ANYWAY, I thought I would share some quotes with you that I found...

"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific"

-Lily Tomlin

"We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship"

-Gen. Omar N. Bradley

"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children."

-Charles R. Swindell

"You never know when your making a memory"

-Rickie Lee Jones

"Since God made us to be originals, why stoop to be a copy?"

-Rev. Billy Graham

"I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You don't get to choose how your going to die. Or When. You can only decide how you're going to live now."

-Joan Baez

"Yesterday is experience. Tomorrow is hope. Today is getting from one to the other as best we can."

-John M. Henry

"One reason a dog can be such a comfort when your feeling blue is that he doesnt try to find out why."

-The National Enquirer

"Failure is an event, never a person."

-William D. Brown

IM BACK!! THIS IS A BIG ONE!

"Music is my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness." -Maya Angelou


I haven't been on here in FOREVER!! As my friends say, I have fell off the face of the earth. Which happens from time to time with me. I know how to disappear, and I don't mean to do it, but I do. I usually disappear when I've had a busy week, because usually its me trying to catch up on sleep I missed. It's been a long past two weeks!

I had two tests, Chemistry and Biology, and I actually think I did okay on them. I also took Kapper to the vet, which was an interesting experience. He did okay, but gave me the most pissed off looks...ha ha. That dog has the craziest personality. But I love him. The vet I take him too is open till 2 a.m. which is really nice and is right the down the street from where I live. Its pretty convenient.

I also signed up for classes for next semester, which is going to consist of A LOT of photography classes and a German cooking class!!! Hopefully it will be a lot of fun, better than this semester!

I'm still doing the internship at ALIVE and its going well. I hopefully will be able to get more out of it like maybe shadowing photographers more and touching up photos, so I can get ready for maybe assisting a photographer here in Saint Louis, yes I said it, I will mention that in a second. But ALIVE is fun, you get to meet people you wouldn't be able to anywhere else, and I am going to stay with them for another semester. Just yesterday afternoon we (the photo interns) were offered the chance to go to a radio station here and photograph Will Smith, first to respond got it, but my phone didn't get the email till 2 hours after!! So I wasn't able to do it! I was really bummed!

About the whole finding an assistant job here in the lou, yes, I'm probably going to stay here for a little bit after I graduate, and by a little bit I mean a year or more. I kind of had a little break down with my mom about finding a job, how I was going to do it, because I'm not able to focus my attention on me finding a job like everyone else is. My two science courses are causing this cloud.

But I was just stressing out because I had no idea WHERE I was going and HOW I was going to get there, especially with the economy we are at now. There are just NO JOBS for photographers unless your a wedding photographer, especially in the midwest. All the jobs are in New York and LA, and I would love to just up and go, but at the same time, I know how unresponsible that would be and I'm just scared to do it, bottom line.

A photographer came into my professional developlment class and he had moved to NY and came back, but assisted a famous photographer in NY who had done alot of Time Magazine covers. He was saying how assisting isn't that bad of a gig, because you learn alot, and network alot. He said he usually gets 3 shoots a year, and only got 2 this year, and he has a pretty big resume, so I could only imagine how it would be with someone just entering the field!

It just stressed me out, but I thought about it, and I REALLY dont feel comfortable doing a photoshoot all on my own! The way the guy put it, as a photographer for a magazine, your handed a celebrity, and given a day to shoot, they put the whole thing in your hands, which can be fun, but you need to know what your doing! I have only taken one studio class and i really dont think I know enough to just go out there in the real world and do something like that. I would really screw up things and could screw up my name and reputation. SO.

I have decided that the more responsible thing to do, would be to stay in the lou, and find a assistant job, since I have a great internship to find those type of connections, why not use it to my full advantage! Plus cost of living here is alot cheaper, and I may still be struggling to get a place to live or a job, but atleast here I know bad neighborhoods from good and all that. Plus as an assistant I will be able to learn more and get more comfortable with my photography. Im young, most photographers dont even get to Annie Leibovitz level till their 30's, I still have time.

Its just good to know that I have a direction to go in know, my future is not totally a blank. I know I'm going to stay here, I know of places I already want to live, and I know some prospect photographers and studios I can ask to assist. BUT ANYWAY, that's been my past two weeks, in a nutshell of course.

I know I say over and over I'm going to get on here more often, but I really will! I just needed to get some stuff straightened out, which I did, and now I kind of know what I need to do. Hopefully I can now find the time to get to this thing and update once in a while! I HOPE EVERYONE IS DOING WELL!! And keep checking my blog every few days! Dont give up on me and not posting, I will try to get better! Its just been a crazy semester! I guess thats what happens when its your senior year! The road you see keeps going out of your college life, and you have to struggle and find how to drive into it and what direction to take, ITS ALOT TO TAKE ON! :) especially with an art major (photography) like me, but i cant help my passion and pray for me that I can make it and find my niche!!