Engage Brain

I often tell my children that they need to think about the consequences of their actions BEFORE they act. In fact, I sound like a broken record when it comes to the subject. Think, think, think I say. Use your head!

I should take my own advice.

Yesterday as I was walking out the door to take my oldest to school a tall youngish gentleman was standing on my porch. He started rambling something off to me in perfect English but with a very think accent that I didn't recognize.

I kindly blew him off because I needed to get my child to school. He asked if he could come back in an hour or so and I said yes just so I could get away.

But I should mention we had had a big storm early that morning and it was cold outside and this guy was in shorts and a thin polo shirt.

As I am walking down my driveway with him he is prattling on about being unprepared for Utah weather and I so I offer to go back in my house and grab him something to warmer to wear.

I rush in and grab the first thing I can find, because I am in a hurry. I dash back outside with one of my husband's coats and hand it to him. He puts it on and goes on on about how it feels like paradise and thank you so much and he'll be back later.

He did in fact come back later, at which point he gave me his whole sales pitch for over priced children's books. I listened politely (because his accent was amusing-oh he was from Latvia) but then declined his product.

As he was packing his stuff up to go he asked me about the jacket-in as much as the sun had still not come out and he was on bicycle he was offering to purchase the jacket. He said he had looked at some at Walmart recently and they were around $20 so he would pay me that for the jacket.

I knew I had paid only $9 for that particular jacket because of end of season prices and it was really just a cheap coat anyway. Seriously. This is not the type of coat you would take skiing. So I felt bad taking money since so I implosivly just told him to keep it. He was a bit taken aback, asked if I was sure, and then proceeded to thank me profusely.

I guess since he figured I was a sucker he then proceeded explain to me that he would be selling his books through the end of the week and then he would be back delivering personally all that he had sold and that he only had his bicycle and did I know somebody who may need a little extra cash who would be willing to drive him around to deliver his books.

Once again, acting without thinking, I gave him the name and address of my bishop. (The local leader of my church congregation.) In my head he would know all the people in the neighborhood who were out of work right now who may be interested in a small odd job like that.

At that point this guy apparently felt quite comfortable around me (and yes he was in my house, and no my husband wasn't home and no I don't typically do that!!!) and so he asked if he could use my bathroom.

Of course I said yes.

It wasn't until he left that I suddenly realized all I had done.

I gave away my husband's coat!!!!! Yea, sure I bought it on sale at the end of the season a few years ago but we're going into the beginning of the season and it was going to cost me more than $9 to replace it for the upcoming fall.

I had violated my bishop's privacy by giving out his name and address.

I'd let him in my home.

I am not one to be overly scared about things but suddenly all those emails my mom forwards me about con artists and people pretending to be door to door salesmen who are really burglars just casing the joint flooded into my head.

Plus I gave him my husband's coat!

I believe it may be time to get a No Soliciting sign. Because even though I did manage to throw the Kirby salesman out on my front porch (I should blog that story someday....it's a good one!) I don't always exhibit wisdom when it comes to the door to door types.

Memories

Today I've been watching Jasmine Star over at creativeLIVE as she shares with the world her knowledge and experience as a wedding photographer. (And tomorrow she is going to shoot an actual wedding live.)

I say I was watching, but really I have 3 kids who need to be fed and cleaned and entertained and picked up from school and there's laundry to fold and bills to pay...but it was running in the background all day and I caught bits and pieces of it as I went about my mommly duties.

So you'd think I'd want to write a post tonight all about what I've learned or about what I think of Jasmine or a how I'm going to be a better photographer now.

But really I'm going to write about something totally random.

You see, at one point today they actually stopped chatting in the classroom and started shooting the bride and groom. Jasmine took the group outside and wandered quite a ways from the building were they had all the equipment set up for the live streaming.

As the group was all finally coming back they had a quick shot of one of the tech guys and somebody in the booth commented how he was dragging around and keeping tangle free 250 feet of camera cable.

And then I had a flashback of my college days.

I was a broadcast journalism major and had an assistant professor who got fed up with the camera cables being constantly tangled. He preached to us how in the professional world that would never be accepted. Because if you need the camera NOW you do not have time to unravel and tangled cable. And so that day he took us all out into the hall and showed us the proper way to coil a cable so that it would quickly uncoil at a moment's notice. And then we spent the rest of the class time coiling cables and then, while holding onto one end tossing the cable down the hall in order to uncoil it, the idea being that if we had coiled it correctly it would uncoil easily, no tangles.

Seriously. The entire hour he forced us to repeatedly coil and uncoil the cable. This is what I paid good tuition money for!

And yet as I watched the tech guys chase down Jasmine and crew today I'm sure the cameraman was EXTREMELY happy to have somebody on his team that could keep his cable tangle free.

I'm going to start putting on my resume that I know how to keep a camera cable untangled. Maybe then I could move to Seattle and work for creativeLIVE someday.

non-sequential

I'm a sequential kind of gal. I like things to go in order. One then two then three. It bothered me that they made the Di Vinci Code movie before Angels and Demons because as books they came the other way around. I refuse to start watching a television show mid-season. Dessert always comes AFTER dinner.

This need for order is a detriment to me when it comes to blogging. When I stop blogging for awhile but want to start again I have a NEED to catch up in order. For some reason I can't just jump right back into blogging where my life is at RIGHT NOW. I have to "fill in" all the missing parts from when I wasn't blogging. But then the task of "catching up" seems so daunting that time consuming that I put it off and put it off. So then I just may as well give up blogging all together. (This is the same reason I don't scrap book!)

But I saw something today that was too funny. So I'm just putting it out there. Out of order! And I'm surprisingly at peace with that.

I drove past a day care today and their sign out front was missing a VERY important letter!

It said "Great Rats! Come take a tour today!"

Great Rats? At a day care? And you want to advertise that?

(I believe it was meant to say great rates.....)

I was laughing hysterically. I so wanted to take a picture. But I was driving. And had to pee (which wasn't helped by the fact that I was laughing) and I had perishables in the back seat. So I resisted to urge to drive around the block so I could take a picture.

But it made my day just the same.

And look!!!! A breakthrough! I blogged non-sequentially! This opens a whole new door of opportunity for me!

Photography as Life

Note from Nicole-I have decided to cross post this at my other blog, Naptime Optional since so much of what I learned at PhotoCamp had to do with my relationship to my kids. For you crazy readers that stop by both blogs (all 3 of you) sorry for the repetition!


I probably should've Googled that title before using it. I'm pretty sure somebody has it Copyrighted, because that is all the rage these days. Ever since the days of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten it seems everybody is taking whatever it is they like or are good at and make it a metaphor for life. I'll be the first to admit that it's a bit "Chicken Soup for the Soul"-ish. Canned stories that are meant to force emotion out of you. I hate forced sentimentality. Which is why I almost talked myself out of writing this blog post.

But I the more I pondered on it the more I felt it needed to be written. I had an amazing day today at PhotoCamp Utah and I am bursting. I need to take a moment to reflect on and be grateful for the time I spent. I need to take a moment to be still and to really internalize the messages the universe sent me today or else by tomorrow it will be life as usual.

The biggest lessons I took away from PhotoCamp today have very little to do with photography. I did learn about light modifiers and speed lights and composition and photoshop-and these things will help me be a better photographer. But I learned so much more, that if I let it, will help me be a better person.

Today's first lesson came from the morning's first keynote speaker, Bruce Hucko. He was talking about spending time with the Navajo years ago, teaching art and photography to kindergarten students. He showed a picture of a young child jumping high in the air and talked about how all the mesas in the landscape and how the children would run and jump and how when friends would come visit him they would watch the children with worried expressions and say "Aren't you going to tell them to be careful?" Bruce's response was "Why would I put doubt in their minds when they know they can do this? They've been playing on these mesas since the time they could crawl."

And that's when it hit me! Doubt is a learned trait! A child thinks they can do anything! Every child thinks he is a great artist, a great singer, a great story teller, a great climber, a great dancer, a great photographer. I quickly took stock of the ways I may be planting the seeds of doubt in my own children. How often do I force my own doubts and fears upon them? And why do I do that? I teach them to compare themselves. I teach them to second guess their abilities. I am the one who teaches them they are "not enough". And I don't want to send my children that message anymore! Because they ARE great!

The next lesson I learned came during the "Take Hot Shots not Head Shots workshop taught by Todd Keith and Renee Lee of BellaOra Studios. Renee was talking about photo composition. She was talking about all the extraneous stuff that ends up in our photos because we aren't paying attention. She said "If something is not adding to your photo, it's distracting from it." That hit me like a ton of bricks! How often do extraneous "things" end up in my life because I'm not paying attention? I've been feeling run down and worn out a lot lately. I keep promising myself I'm going to cut back, slow down, simplify. But not going to this will hurt so-and-so's feelings. Not finishing that will let so-and-so down. And so on and so on. But to what end? Anything not adding value to my life or the life of my family is distracting from it! Things have GOT TO GO. If they are not fulfilling or leading me to the life I really want to be living they are merely a distraction. It is beyond time to simplify and get back to what is important.

While all of today's presenters were awesome in their own right and I learned so much from each one I have to say that the highlight of the day was keynote speaker Zack Arias. I can not think of enough superlatives to describe his presentation. But on thing in particular that he spoke about stood out for me. He showed example after example of gorgeous pictures and then would tell us that just to the right of frame was a dumpster. Or that just behind was lovely wall of vines was broken bottles and that the whole area smelled of urine. Or that spitting distance from a lovely green hill a couple is standing on is a massive construction site. As I listened to him talk I realized I walk through life with a MASSIVE wide angle lens. I focus on the dumpster, the urine, and the mess. Motherhood really is just one giant mess. And most the time that's exactly what I'm focused on. I walk into a room and see the crayons strewn all over the floor and miss the one of a kind art project that is lying next to them. I walk out into the yard and see the sand from the sandbox dumped all over the patio and completely miss the imaginative play my children are engaged in. I look at childhood and see all the mess and miss all the magic. I need a change in perspective. I need to focus on the beautiful.

At the very end of the day, when many had already bailed out, Anna Day gave a brief but moving presentation she called Journeys and Destination. Earlier in the day Bruce Hucko had alluded to the fact that life is about the Journey when he said a good trip back home to Moab (from Salt Lake City, a 4 hour drive) takes him about a week. I kind of chuckled and secretly cringed inside a bit at the overused cliche. But Anna's presentation brought the idea into sharp focus for me. She showed image after beautiful image and talked about how this was NOT the image she had come to get. One beautiful picture of a butterfly on a purple flower she caught while desperately heading towards a bathroom. How often do we miss the MOST SPECTACULAR parts of life because we are barreling towards some specific destination? For me right now I often find myself saying things like "well, as soon as all the kids are potty trained" or "as soon as all the kids are in school" or "I can't wait until the kids can do such and such for themselves" There is always some point in the future I am trying to just survive to and in the meantime I am missing this journey. I'm missing the superheros and princesses and galactic battle ships. I'm missing the joys of mis-matched socks and mispronounced words. In the rush to be somewhere else I'm missing the now.

I feel a debt of gratitude to all the fine folks who worked hard to put on today's event, an event pulled off entirely by volunteers! A very special thanks to Jeremy Hall whose baby this really is.

And a heartfelt shout out again to Zack Arias who came out to Salt Lake on a completely volunteer basis, sacrificing time with his family to spend a little of his time with us.

********************

Archives of some of today's workshops, included Zack Arias Keynote speech, can be found at the PhotoCamp Utah website

AAAAAND last but not least-you can go here to see the video that inspired Jeremy Hall to send the email that brought Zack Arias to PhotoCamp Utah! Don't miss it!!!!!

Preparations

I am attending Photocamp Utah on Saturday and I COULD NOT be any more excited. Seriously. I'm so ready to go from "wanna be photographer" to "Photographer".

So, there are a few things I am doing over the next couple of days to prepare.

First, I finally printed my picture for the Photo gallery display. I chose this picture.



Next, I plan on spending most of today reading my camera manual cover to cover. Yup, had my camera over a year now and I still haven't done that. But I made these 10 resolutions and so it's time to get a move on!

After that I need to spend some serious time on my flickr account. It's terribly unorganized. I have not made use of sets and collections and tags like I should. I have tons of pictures that should be for family/friends only that are public. And the thought that a REAL photographer may drop by my account because they met me at Photocamp and then have to click through my thousands of vacation snapshots is a bit embarrassing to me. So-I need to fix that! Ug. How I wish I had been smarter when I first started using flickr.

S0, now it's time to get to work. Shower first though. I do have priorities.

Beating a dead horse

So-you are tired of hearing about the Studio Lighting Photowalk, I'm sure.

I recently saw the a wrap-up video shot by photographerJeremy Hall and if you are interested in photography even just a little it does a good job of showing the different lighting set ups that were at the Photowalk and is a tad interesting.

But the REAL reason I'm sharing it here is because I made it in the video! At 5:31 the classy looking photographer with the camera up to her face is me! And there's a nice view of my back in the following frame, too.

Yea, shameless, I know. But hey, it is MY blog. :)

Studio Lighting 101

Yesterday I attended the Photowalking Utah annual Studio Lighting event. And I realized it's not hard to take good photos when you are working with expensive lighting equipment and professional models. :)

Actually it was a really fabulous event. I must say that photographers are quite an eclectic bunch. But they are also amazingly giving people. There was 9 different lighting set ups and a host photographer at each setup to guide and instruct. And every single one of them was extremely patient with my many MANY questions. I learned not only about lighting but about how to use my camera better in different lighting scenarios as well as a wealth of information about how to work with models. Everybody was so kind and generous with their time and talent.

And so now this is the part where I shameless post a bunch of the pictures I took so you can all tell me how good they are. :)

In one corner they had set up a trampoline and you could shoot your subject from the top of a ladder while they jumped. It made for some fun images.





This was a natural lighting set up. The outside light from the window lit them from one side and a reflector on the opposite side smoothed the harsh shadows. No lights or flash used.



This was Rembrandt Lighting.





A high key lighting set up



This set up was similar-the white background is the same. But there is no light on the backdrop itself. All the lighting is focused on the model for this look.



I liked this set up because it used just one light. Very enticing to an amateur like me who currently owns no lighting equipment of my own.



Okay, I won't torture you anymore. (although if you want to torture yourself you can see a few more shots on flickr page)

And now that I've made you look at my pictures, you can also go to the Photowalking Utah Group Pool on flickr and see pictures from some real photographers. Including pictures of Andrew the Rock star on the trampoline.