WORDS TO SHOOT BY // HABIT

These three photos are the one's I shot for Words To Shoot By. This week the word was "habit". These are pretty true to myself. I can't resist shoes (and purses, but really shoes get me so much more often), photography and my addiction to the internetz. It was kind of hard to decide on what to shoot for habit because I kept thinking of bad habits but they wouldn't have been pleasant to shoot by any means. Cuticle picking, chewing dry skin off my lips, and constant cleaning. EW. What are some of your habits? 

I leave for DC this week. I'm heading over to The Lamont Bishop Gallery to see my photos in the Polaroid Retrospective exhibit. I am so excited to see this, my first gallery! I'm going there by train and am very excited to have my first long distance train trip. Photos are bound to happen now it's just a matter of which cameras to bring?! After DC I am going to hop over to NYC for a few days to work on a little project for later in the year. I am so stoked on visiting these two places and what's more is that my train tickets are less expensive than a one way plane ticket I recently purchased. If this experience is a good one I fully intend on heading to the West Coast after July. Yes, please!

I am in a bit of Easter goodies coma at the moment so I'll sign off before I fall asleep on my computer. I hope everyone is enjoying their days. Say a little prayer to the weather Gods that we can have some freaking Spring already! 

XO

TOO MUCH?

While watching a video of the Foo-Fighters playing in a guys basement I realized that half of the tiny crowd was trying to steady their phones, Flip cams and DSLR's while recording this precious event. It made me wonder if our generation is too obsessed with documenting life as it's happening. People literally stream their lives online. I can see what some of my best friends are doing minute by minute thanks to Instagram. It leaves little room for conversation sometimes. You go to tell someone something exciting you saw and because it was already shared online they say "Oh yeah I saw you posted that". Is it all too much?

I think if I would have been at this show, I would have felt conflicted. Wanting to document to remember it but also wanting to just watch and not through an LCD screen!

In some ways this is why I prefer to shoot film. You have to compose the shot just the same but there isn't that constant looking at the picture and retaking it. You really have to think about what you're shooting. Compose it well. Choose what you're shooting carefully because you only have 36 frames.  If you want to share it, that's an extra effort (at least for me. I love developing film and shooting instant films but I truly LOATHE scanning. Especially scanning negatives.)

Watching this video made me think of a photographer I admired for years that I had forgotten about. Her name is Robin Laananen. I remember frequenting her site always hoping to see new photos. She went on such adventures and she was photographing some of my favorite musicians at the time. I revisited her site and it made me think of the part of my life I spent photographing music...

What seems like many years ago I was very active in the music community where I grew up. I can't think of many shows I attended and didn't snap at least one photo of. It was really fun for a long while but when my brother passed and I realized I had hundreds of photos of bands and hardly any photos of friends and family I resented the art of live music photography and kind quit taking pictures at shows almost entirely. It was a big change for me as I had always done it either as a hobby or as a job. It was so much funner just to sit back and enjoy everything without having to think of the next frame or if I would have enough film for the entire set (yes, I'm dating myself I said FILM). I still have a hard time photographing those I love over objects and tiny moments or situated things that just make me smile or make my heart leap but I am trying to work on it. I feel a project coming. One long over due.

Portraits are so intimidating but I find myself drawn to them more and more. I am hoping to take a portrait a month. I know that's not a very big aspiration but trust me, it's going to be difficult for me. I mostly enjoy capturing life as it happens instead of sitting someone down and asking them to look dead into this fake glass eye of mine. Wish me luck on my journey! If everything slows down I also hope to scan in some of my favorite band photography negatives and put them online somewhere. That should be insane to look at now at least five years later.

XO

TIME, PLEASE SLOW DOWN

Life happens so quickly sometimes. Funny how some days drag on and others fly by and leave you standing there watching everything happen around you in a blink of an eye. I've wanted to be consistent with doing monthly wrap ups but already it's the middle of April (already?!) and I can barely touch on the things that occurred in March. I need to be more faithful to you dear little blog.

March..
- was still cold.
- brought some worry that was pretty needless.
- found me preparing polaroids for my first 2 exhibitions ever! (Bonjour Pola for you Frenchies and Polaroid Retrospective for you DC folks.)
- brought to my door my polaroids printed in Elle Girl Korea!
- took Christopher, Trevor and I to the East Coast again were many familiar faces were seen.
- was the month that I experienced The Impossible Project's new COLOR film in beta testing- the lovely PX680.
- a busy month filled with photo shoots.
- the sun started peeking out of the doom every now and then so more photos were made.
- the month when I acquired both a Mamiya Universal for film pictures and a Canon 60D for motion pictures (!!)
- brought a new little guy to our rabbit family- Seymour Pig. He is a lovely little gentlemen rabbit.

April has been lovely so far. I went to Florida for Tiffany's wedding and spent a week in sunshine, amongst good friends and rejuvenating. It was a much much needed little vacation. I came home feeling refreshed and inspired. Sometimes you just have to walk away from everything familiar to get some motivation. I feel wonderful. Such a breath of fresh air and a lovely time catching up with literally all of my girlfriends from every part of America. Daniela- you were missed!

I am excited about April. I have new cards in the shop. The weather is finally more spring like here in Chicago so I am anxious to get out camera in hand and take the city by photographic storm. I'm looking forward to days spent at the zoo with Christopher, the prospects of friends visiting and just sunny days and all the glory they bring.

What are you excited about?

XO