Dinosaurs and Brick Walls

What a month it's been! Finally, now that I'm all moved in to my new residence, I've been able to resume photography projects and begin to work on my website again. It's been a challenge with all the events to attend and keeping up with deadlines!

Today being the full Strawberry moon Lunar Eclipse, which I have been feeling intensely, I am taking this time to be reflective and really focus my energies on being solitary. The phone is off and I'm spending quality time with my new house mates and family, kittens Marten and Lily.

Yesterday I was fortunate to have the pleasure of photographing my good friend and coreographer Heather Dawn and her contact lift dance partner Rob at The Red Loft downtown. All raw wood floors and brick walls. My exposure research has paid off in spades and my digital images look fantastic! What I'm even more excited about is the two rolls of film I shot. One roll of HIE black and white infrared film and one roll of Kodak Portra 800 c41 film. I haven't shot film in my F2 since before summer 2005. Oh the anticipation! You remember, waiting for the lab to call and say your proof and CD are ready to pick up. I'm so nervous!

Which reminds me, I forgot to ask for a proof sheet. Yes, we are dinosaurs! When I walked in to Samy's Camera in Culver City to drop my film that is what the woman said to me. She said "we are dinosaurs here." Lots of photographers still shoot film, so I don't feel like such an alien now. It was funny that none of them has seen a roll of HIE in quite some time. I have never stored it properly so I have no idea how either the Portra or the infrared will turn out, but I'm hoping for a miracle.

After two plus years on serious hiatus from my photography world I am very, very happy to be back in the saddle doing what I love best.

My Life in a Box

The "box" I speak of happens to be one of my own creation. That is just how I roll these days!

For two days now I have been sitting on my fit ball at my desk redesigning the look of my website. Through tears and sleeplessness and hunger, once I realized my brain lapse into coma was from hunger and lack of sleep, I have created my masterpiece! Now I am learning to build it in software programs I do NOT know how to use. Thank God for the internet and all the tutorials and forums available to those of us who have always refused schooling in any subject or capacity outside of our own obsessive needs.

I digress. It is beautiful.

Back to the "box".

My new Camera system....Dream!

This morning while getting ready to blog I noticed the "wishlist" link in my profile and proceeded to make a complete camera package wish list for myself from Amazon.com to post here. If anyone ever wants to buy me a gift THAT is THE place to go! Make no mistake buying jewels or glitter, it is all about the gear for me. ;)

Now that I've had coffee and my stomach is screaming for food, 3 hours later, I must stop and cook my breakfast.

There is such a big weekend ahead for me: a noon birthday Q in Beechwood Cyn, out of town childhood friend landing LAX at 1pm, another birthday in Venice at 4...my cousin's twin boys' birthday to photograph Sunday afternoon. It looks like I'll have gear on my person everywhere I go, no doubt.

Another long time avoided project began last night. I spent the dusk hours into evening finally creating an Etsy sellers account so I can get my Grandmother's vintage couture photographed and online for sale. I do need a dress form, ideally, to take the initial photos. I don't really want to do self portraits or bother a friend to play hours of dress up time. You'd think as long as I've been talking about this one of my ladies would have volunteered by now, but obviously this isn't anyone's idea of a good time.

Ah, my hunger pains have gone away. Leave it to the brain to always take over and disregard those bodily necessities. That must be what has happened to my love life. Well, back to the kitchen! If you can't stand the heat....

Building a Foundation

After countless hours of trial and error coding and testing and cursing under my breath, I still am not even close to having my website re-build complete. The positive notes are that now I am more familiar with my new software: LightRoom 2.7, Photoshop CS4, DreamWeaver, Fireworks, etc. Now the real work editing my images and processing them, creating the look of my site, to label or not to watermark. There are so many decisions to make. What kinds of galleries do I show? Will I have prints available to order for clients via private galleries? The list goes on and on!

One thing I love about creating projects like this for myself is the intense saturation in the learning process. I could easily have stayed up all night and worked through delirium to the wee hours of the morning, but I chose to get a good night's sleep instead. I woke up slowly thinking about how I want my page to look the whole time, and I've found the brain work is easily as important to my photography as is the actual mechanics of the camera and my computer.

My first image edit of one particular gallery was completed and processed through LR and CS4 and saved ready for web upload last week, and it was a nice surprise to do a second edit last night and cut the gallery down from 24 images to only 11. I also know exactly which images I want to add to it from other folders I haven't even looked at or begun to edit at this point. Once I edit and process the rest of the images I want to show the rest of the re-build will be a piece of cake, and I can add the frosting as I go along. Hmmm, what flavor will the finished project be?

Back to work!

Making a Move

This morning I finalized an agreement to relocate, around the corner. I've been looking at this place, the building, since February last year, and I've been ready for this a very long time. A friend and I took a second look at the grounds last Friday and she said it looks like Disneyland! A little Pirates of the Carribean. Yes, I am going to be a Captain.

A very productive morning and midday until some less than fantastic news sat me down for a lunch break. I've been wrangled to photograph a Green Event Earth Day and have been shut down on the wire service front. Now I'm not sure if I'm interested in the project at all. I was certainly willing to give my best effort to help a vacationing friend who backed out of the event, but not that it won't be in the wire I've lost my momentum. It's an awful lot of work for a favor. I'm afraid my favor meter has reached capacity. The least I can do is forward the wire's disinterest in the content email to the client so they have time to find another shooter.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, imminent moving day and learn Adobe Lightroom 2. Perhaps I should turn off the TV. It is awfully difficult to concentrate focusing on character dialog and set design.

To Blog or not To Blog

Officially, I now have two blog addresses.  This is also the first post I've written on either of them.  So it is an exciting Sunday, sunny, afternoon.


My challenge now is to learn how to create, customize and categorize my page and posts.  I haven't got a clue what I'm doing.  My guess, well...the reality is that the page is going to change and keep changing until I am satisfied with it, and then it will most likely change again.  This is my prerogative as a woman and my anal retentive nature as a Gemini.  Thank you Mom, for that DNA.  Even my roommate will tell you I will definitely rearrange the forks into the "proper" order after he puts them away.  I digress.  Isn't that a fun word!


So...I haven't decided if I want this blog to be about photography, because I am a photographer by trade; although, I have been on hiatus the past twenty months working as a personal assistant to a business owner and Hollywood daughter, or if I want to muse about fashion and the lifestyle my friends and I share.  Do I post random thoughts and rants as they arrive, or do I create separate blogs for each subject?  I am undecided!  The solution to my confusion is to make this space available to all of the above.  


My only hope is that down the road as I learn to customize the look and layout of my page I will be able to categorize my entries under separate tags so they will be easier to find.  You know, photography posts with photo, event rantings with lifestyle and fashion, random stuff I find interesting linked together and easy to find.  I know it's possible, so I'm just going to wing it and have faith in my ability to create what I want in an open forum.


And so I begin...to blog.