my love affair with film

I discovered One Love Photo yesterday and have been reading through their archive nonstop. I'm telling you this because reading their blog has reminded me how much I love shooting film (even though it's hard to find developing I can afford these days). If you remember, I may have a problem in that my cameras are overrunning me and taking over my life. I really need to start shooting film again, if only to make my stash dwindle a little more.

There really is nothing quite like shooting film. It is not instant gratification at all; there are no assurances that what I've done will come out. I love to shoot expired film, which just adds to the surprise when I get it developed. Picking up a roll of film is like graduation: I get to see the fruit of my labors and celebrate what I've accomplished.

All of these photos are from 2008. I scanned them all as soon as I got the prints from the lab.


























There was even a period of time where I had no digital camera and shot exclusively film.









I also shot my first wedding exclusively with film. I am so thankful to Kat and Derek for giving me the opportunity to experiment and having faith that I would deliver amazing photos. (Shooting their wedding was part of my gift to them.)

a good day

I wrote on Twiiter a few hours ago "if, at the end of the day, my feet hurt but my soul does not, it has been a good day."





These are not the shots I went out for; they are the shots that wanted to come home with me.

perfection

I was going through my flickr, tagging all of my photos, when I came across this one. This was taken on a beautiful October day, right after I got my nifty fifty.

It's just perfection. Looking at it takes me back to that lazy afternoon, spent relaxing in a hammock. Oh, the sexiness that is that perfect bokeh. And ooh, how exquisite that tiny bit of hammock texture that is actually in focus. I am madly in love with it and thought you might be interested in seeing it again.

it's not what you see but how you see it

I was playing with these photos last night when a friend walked in and starting asking questions. The biggest question for each one was "where did you take that?" Every time I answer that I took it on the walk to Publix (less than a quarter mile away), he expressed a slight bit of dismay. He's probably passed these trees a million times (in his car) and never noticed what I captured yesterday. It's not Photoshop magic; the trees are magical enough just as they are.

I was told, long before I got seriously into photography, that I had "an eye for composition." I think I just see things as they could be, instead of how they are. When you're always looking for faces and stars, you see the hidden potential in everything to be a face or a star. It's my sense of wonder, combined with my eye for composition, that makes me so happy when I go through my photos.

I also think it helps that this is how I see myself.

I'm somewhere between an intrepid adventurer and a wannabe hipster. In other words, I am totally 'that girl with the camera.'

Ava's tea party

Dear home,
I considered not blogging this. I have a hard time writing about Ava's tea party without getting all choked up and having tears come to my eyes. My mom and aunts know. I couldn't ask for suggestions about what to do without bursting into tears.
But on the other side of the coin, how could I not blog it? I gathered my friends together for a tea party in the arboretum, which I have always wanted to do, and we sat around laughing and talking and drinking tea for an hour and a half. I said I was doing this for Ava but in a lot of ways, I was doing it for me. I wanted to drink pink milk and eat cupcakes with my friends and be able to appreciate what I have and where I am before I launched into another stressful school year. I think that may have actually been part of Sheye's intention in starting this. I see it less as 'let's have a tea party because Ava never got to' and more like 'have a tea party so you can look back later and remember that you did and it was wonderful.'


my glass slippers, just in case I wanted to be a princess








I submitted this photo to the Ava's tea party Facebook group.


I'm not sure this is the kind of party the super princess would have chosen, especially the part about sitting on the ground, but I know it's the kind of thing that my 3 year old self would love. Especially the part about my hair being purple and the cupcakes being rainbow.

beach fun [I heart faces]

This week's theme over at is beach fun and I knew just what photo I wanted to enter.



This is one of my favorite photos of Doug because he was just there--with me--in one of the most calm and lovely moments of my college career.