A year ago I received an email asking if I would photograph someone as a gift – a single portrait of art that would capture her essence. A tall order, but one that I love attempting. I accepted, and then, I promptly did not do it. I was nervous to fail. I was nervous to meet everyone. In general, I was just being my usual scared self, when that version of me decides to emerge. How serendipitous that turned out…
Years before I got married I talked to my love and we agreed we would someday go to Alaska. We thought it would be magical – walking on a glacier, feeling the intense cold and seeing the beauty all around us. It would be something different, not too far away, and it seemed doable in our 17-year-old minds. When we were planning our wedding we hoped we could go on a honeymoon there, but being young and in college, funds…
Anytime we start a new project, we look to the horizon to see a time when things will be easier. We look for that moment, sometimes so far away, when everything will settle and our project won’t just be a small baby in the grand scheme of life. We wait for a time when we won’t have to work as hard, worry as much, or put as much blood, sweat, and tears into our ideas. Ideas come and go. They…
“Don’t let what you don’t have stop you from what you could create.” How often are we plagued with the repetitive thought that we cannot create unless we have something more to create with. A better camera, a new tripod, that awesome speed-light, or just a bigger budget entirely? There are amazing photographers out there who are able to spend a lot of cash for every photo they create, and that is a really wonderful thing to have at your…
I wanted the last class I would ever teach at After Dark to be a big one, so I decided to end it with a set design class. I went out that morning with the very kind man behind Sweetlight John and gathered sticks, leaves, debris of all kinds, soil, cobweb, and a lantern. When it came time to do the class, I nearly forgot that it was nighttime! I was envisioning everything being lit by a window. So instead…