Honesty

If there's one thing I never get tired of, it's photographing my nieces.  They are by far my favorite subjects.  They're very expressive- some of the looks they come up with have me wondering why they aren't Baby GAP models!

I like working with them for a lot of reasons.  A teacher I had once told me the worst compliment you can get on a photograph of a child is that it's 'cute'.  Well, of course it's cute- babies are hard-pressed to be anything else (frustrating, yes, but ugly?  That takes finesse).  To get a photograph of a baby being something more than 'cute' is the real challenge.  Alyssa has such intensely blue eyes and such a dramatic personality, I am constantly running for my camera when I'm with her.

I want to get the shot that tells a story.  I know there are twenty other people in the room with point-and-shoot cameras who will get the 'cute' shot, and that's important.  Everyone wants cute pictures from their childhood.  And certainly I take those, as well.  But my favorites are the ones where there's something more.  Something deeper.  Emotions they probably don't even fully understand yet.

I guess, I want to try to capture all aspects of reality.  The happy and the sad.  The hopeful and the forlorn.  Everything we feel, from birth to death.  Maybe that's the photojournalist in me?  I just... want to show things the way they really are.  No crazy set-up, no contrived facade, just... people captured honestly.

Making do.

Today is the family reunion, and it's raining.  Well, if I've gotten good at anything, I'd like to think it's making do with what I've got.  I almost never use professional lighting- I depend largely on sunlight and what's available in my settings.  The photo I took here was in a poorly lit bedroom with sea-green walls and piles of clothes.

When I'm not having fun with my digital-manipulations, I do try to avoid excess altering.  I don't mean lighting and color- I fiddle with those a lot, but I almost never add or remove objects from the original shot.

With this one, obviously I did a lot of work.  I took out the piles of clothes and shelves to her right, I changed the color of the wall and a few other little things.

I doubt I'll be doing all that with the pictures I take today- probably just color correction.  We'll see how it goes.

Catching Up

Wow, what an exhausting past few days.  I've been helping a friend move, shooting, trying to keep up with editing, meeting people in my department at Temple, watching my nieces so my sister can teach her natural childbirth course, dealing with a lot of personal stuff and trying all the while to keep my head screwed on straight.

On a positive note, I finally put up shots from Baroque on my myspace.  I edited this one just for the heck of it- I guess this would be one of my "digi-graphs".  Nothing crazy, just having some fun.

This Saturday, I shoot the family portrait.  We're a big, Irish family, so it'll be an interesting challenge to see how this all works.  Organizing photos has never been my strong point- I'd like to think I'm better at capturing candid moments.  So if nothing else, this will be good practice for me.  We'll see how it goes.  If I like the result, maybe I'll put it up here and y'all can see my gigantic family.

Suck it up- we're not as great as we think we are.

I've shot so much in the past few days, it's a bit overwhelming to keep up with it all.  This is a practice self-portrait from today- procrastination by means of creating more work for myself.  Hooray!  I have tons of work from Baroque to edit, as well as some portraits and animal shots from the zoo.  Fast approaching is the family reunion I agreed to shoot, as well.  And I'm coming out of retirement for a hair-model shoot, 'cause what the heck- who doesn't want a free haircut and style just for the fun of it.

Someone made an observation a few days ago about a photo I'd taken of my niece.  My favorite photo I've taken of her, actually.  The comment was that it was a bad photo.  Now, my initial reaction was defensive and a little hurt- after all, I obviously feel quite the opposite.  But in retrospect, my reaction was out of line.  People won't always like your work.  Hundreds, thousands, millions of people will either not like your work or never care enough to look at it.  That's just way it is.  It's nothing personal.

I still like the picture though!!!!

Creep

I look at photography and digital manipulation as two entirely different arts, and they really are.  I'm constantly going back over old photos and editing them new and different ways, just for fun and to practice.  Generally I don't do anything too crazy.  But now and then it's fun to tweak a picture just beyond believability.

Much to my mother's chagrin, I tend to err on the side of 'creepy' when I do this.  Yes, I take plenty of sweet, happy pictures of sweet, happy moments.  I love doing that.  But for whatever reason, I just get this immense satisfaction out of making something a little unsettling.

It's pretty funny, because I am the worst at watching horror movies.  I'm so squeamish and I have nightmares for weeks afterwards.  I think there's something about being part of the creation that enthralls me and allows me to forget my fear.  Maybe I just like conquering that fear through my own work.  Maybe I just like freaking you guys out.  =P