This is more of a "I am in dire need of help" blog post. I need people to photograph, and am having a difficult time finding interesting people to shoot. I'm offering FREE photography services to build my portfolio. I would love to shoot athletes, dancers, musicians, artists, anyone interesting or with a unique collective obsession like owning 300 little cherub statues or something or someone with a disorder, or someone of a religious belief. I mean there is very little I'm unwilling to shoot i.e. don't ask me to climb into the hayloft of a barn in the middle of whothehellknows with no cell phone service or people in general around.
I've put listings on Facebook and Craigslist and NOTHING. So, please, all I'm asking for is several hours of someone's time, s/he or they get some nice FREE photos on a CD, and I, hopefully, get good photos to include in my portfolio. If you or anyone you know may be interested, just send me a message or leave a comment on this blog post. And as always, if you want to investigate my capabilities: Flickr!
Sunday is my lazy day. Sleeping in, watching mindless television. Fascinated lately by G4's Ninja Warrior. Amused by the wipeouts, balance fumbles, and Japanese narration (though I don't know any Japanese).
Doing any activity requires a motivation that has been spent on my Friday and Saturday. Leaving the confounds of my room means likely having to spend money and put on underwear, neither of which seems appealing when I wake and transition into my morning groggy state. The highlight of today came around five when Triell and I finally readied ourselves enough for a public venture to eat at Majestic Grille. And yet, there is a list of ambitious endeavors I should be working towards.
- Reading and editing the novella I completed from Nanowrimo
- Plotting my departure for hopefully next winter
- Trying to find people willing to let me photograph them to develop more of a photojournalist style
- Reading...those things called BOOKS...gah, how I fancy an ignorant self-mind these days. Though I'm engaged currently with Rushdie's Satantic Verses. Thirty pages in and I'm feeling somewhat discombobulated but I blame that from my previous assumptions of the novel's context.
- Seeking an acupuncturist. I want to be able to run again. What doctor tells a person with working legs that perhaps she isn't built to run?
- Yearning for a trip to Yellowstone. Montana bound I desire to be sometime this summer, but the agenda seems a bit unfeasible due to other pursuits.
- Actually completing tasks on this list!!!!
I find myself lacking a desire to return to school. I feel an education can always be acquired in the future. A desk, a tuition, and a teacher can be found at any institution requesting money. What about the education that lies within a new culture, a serene forest, in the eyes of an untamed animal? Books have kept me bound to a place for so long. In my blood there is a hunger. All these months I tried to keep it subdued. Thought I could be satisfied with a different life. And how inclined I am to throw a good job and comfort of friends and family near for something unknown, undiscovered, untouched. I'm tired of reading a book that is not my own. Tired of hearing the stories of others that I wish to be my own. My thread in this life has being coiling up in one place too long. I want to weave a life story of adventure, hope, vulnerability, fear, triumph, joy, love, obstacles, so much more.
I feel sorry for those who read my facebook, myspace, and vox blog because this will be the third time, although more elaborate posting, that I am announcing a second place finish in the Charleston City Paper's annual photography contest in the category of Things aka Still Life. I think I keep following it up with a more tactful term because in my head when I say "Things..." it sounds almost dirty, like that thing in the corner of the fridge with mold sporing on it that I don't want to touch...yeah, so manifest that disgust when saying the word "things" and that's how my mind is projecting it.
The call came Monday midmorning. The City Paper minion calling to inform me that my photograph had placed, but omitting the exact placement because after all, let not the surprise be ruined. He seemed surprised when I told him that I was an amateur with no professional background. And my half quirky, babbling responses were spurned into more eloquent prose in the CP, but I am always applauding their writers. I figured my chances were for Honorable Mention, but I always think a little low not to be too disappointed, which is probably a bad habit. My boss also shares this bad habit and said I'd probably only win $10 from the liberal crap publication and that my pic would probably be next to the stripper ads and eat wings and get drunk promotionals. It's that kind of sincere and uplifting attitude that I'm sure has helped the acquisition of a spouse and all the other great karma that has come to fruition in his life thus far. But later he said nicer things like maybe I got the cover and skimmed the other winners online because he wanted to critique them, and wondered why I didn't place first in the category. Perhaps a smidge bi-polar?
No, I didn't get the cover. And obviously I didn't win my category. But, I am nonetheless elated. It is a nice confidence enricher and a great compliment to be somewhat validated by professionals. There's also $100 in the mail...how come I never believe anyone when they say the check is in the mail?
I actually took the picture several days after my first meeting with my photography tutor, Kayla. At that point, she had banned the use of automatic setting, taught me to adjust ISO and aperture (yes, how I ever got a decent shot before was pure luck...and f-stop took another two days to find on my camera), and to use my camera to create the image I want. That was a weird perspective for me; to see that I was active in manipulating or creating the image, simply just not snapping what is there before my eye. But as I learned, not even my eye can always be trusted! And this all of course brought a new perspective on the concept of Maya, and I felt like Lord Shiva is in the background laughing at my folly, applauding my long delayed insight into perception, imagination, and creation. And that is my new thought with photography, I am now aware of the power I have in the existence of Maya. I'm no longer capturing what is simply in the realm of my lens. I am able to use tools to find something within things that goes unseen, to focus on an element ignored, to pull out colors overshadowed by other hues and so on. I am using Maya to my advantage and delight.
Kayla was happy for me, but I knew that if I was winning anything or being published, she sure didn't want it for the still life category. Her quirky way of conveying honesty just leaves me laughing. And my new camera and lens has thrown me back unfortunately. The first batch of shots got the response, "It looks like...like you don't know what you're doing...like you've never met me before. This worries me." And my attempts to photograph people more is sluggish at best. I'm so used to going unnoticed and being in the background that having to suddenly make my self present and request a shoot is awkward for me. This past weekend, I photographed a friend's cousin and her newborn son along with her other two toddler aged children. Over 200 images and maybe 10 are worth something. But I get too caught up in what I'm doing to think about my edges or if the F-stop should be set a little higher, should I kneel a couple of inches lower. So though this recent batch brought back some hope, my eye and composition sound, but my lack of attentiveness to the minor details ghastly a muck. "Why does the baby have no hands? Watch your edges." "It looks like you stayed at 2.8 the entire time...you never switched?" Ahhhh, she finds me out so easily. "Can't I just Photoshop some hands in?" And her glasses slide off a bit and she gives me a queer glance...haha, oh Kayla, I kid you...not really. "I'll pay more attention next time" is all I can say in between laughing brought on by her critiques. Now having fully realized my lack of knowledge in aperture and shutter speed relationship and pairings for scene/light settings, I have a REAL assignment. Lots of objects, lined up, she suggested bottles, and each shot will involve a minor adjustment. Next, a friend jumping in front the camera around twenty times and each setting different so I can watch them blur in midair to coming into focus. I have to know my camera, and it is like a stranger I want out of my bed after a rendezvous because it is unfamiliar and not a part of my history. I have yet to rid myself of my 5.1mp because it was my India camera. My 7.1mp has captured Greece and Turkey, along with a year and half of trips and experiences. I don't part well with things like that, and I know them. I can adjust my HD5 in seconds to get the shot I want, and the live view attribute displays the anticipated image. But live view does no such thing on a SLR, my crutch is gone, but my handicap remains.
My tangent concludes. If you can't snag a copy of the CP, then feel free to take a gander at their website: Charleston City Paper. Below is the 2nd place finisher.
Likely a mundane epiphany for most, but as I changed into pajamas this evening, I came to a realization that practically had me doing my token victory dance (yes, I have one). For some reason, whatever thoughts and energy were surging through my brain synapses, I thought of my first digital camera. My teeny, and light as a feather sony cybershot from several years ago. My India camera, I thought. And then it crept up like a secret delight...I never deleted any of my photos of India from my several memory cards. Over two hundred photographs in their original, unedited and thus uncorrupted jpeg form still in my possession. Ecstatic, elated, jovial, pick one of the myriad of happy saturated words and that was me at this moment.
So, I have a second chance. A new edit batch. And better equipped am I with my new PC and Adobe Photoshop CS3. If there was a way to type how I felt...yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and big smiles every millisecond. I thought about a round of jazz hands, but too much, too much. :-)
Yesterday, the elderly woman serving as cashier at Cypress Gardens noticed the pins on my purse. She saw the one of Jesus and said, "I like you're Jesus pin. Don't know where I'd be without Him." And she said it with such a rich southern accent, gentle and sincere. I think she may have missed the print, "Jesus was a liberal," but I've always noticed those that pay notice to my purse are usually drawn to a particular one. My niece, Ann Mairee (it's spelled something other than the West Side Story Marie; and I always get it wrong) loved one of my Virgin Mary pins. I'd catch her running a finger over it, and when she found herself being noticed, she'd just smile and say Mary was pretty. So, the day before I left Houston, I gave her the pin.
In the Butterfly House, two women were sitting on the garden bricks and noticed the pins. One read aloud the Ghandi quote and said she didn't get it. Which the first button of the quote is missing; therefore, I said it was up for interpretation. Then she said, "Ghandi made rice, right?" Which, I believe she said in jest due to the Ghandi rice...or so I hope anyway.
Telling a friend about the cashier at Cypress, we started down a road of conversation on Jesus, which somehow led to a comment that flabbergasted me so much that my car swerved just like my shaking head. My friend revealed to me an unknown element in Christianity..."Yeah, that's why the Romans killed Jesus because he was rising up against the Catholic Church." For a moment, I thought that remark a joke, but then I realized it wasn't. 1.) What was a Jesus? - Yes, he was a Jew...good that that wasn't lost in translation. 2.) Who came to start what would become the Catholic denomination? - Peter. 3.) And who was Peter? - Jesus' disciple!!!!!!!!! After laying down that foundation, I went into a brief history about messiahs in Judaism and the uprising of Jews against Romans and the dilemma of Jesus' following for the Pharisees and so on. Then I said "How did you not know this?" Response, "I'm a Christian; we don't need the history to have the faith." (Now, this was said in half jest). Or something along those lines, which this friend and I have discussed the problematic nature and consequences of Christians not knowing more about the history of their tradition let alone about any others.
A friend has recently moved on the outskirts of Charleston suburbia, or basically one mile away from bum f*%$. Having missed the turn, and waiting about two miles to find a place to turn, I came across a large yellow banner nailed into the ground: Telephone Bible Study. Now there's a 1-900 number to dial up a Bible Study Buddy? How does that work? Also, I still receive newsletters from a church I went to back in high school, and skimming it, I came across the section of the sick and deceased: "We extend our Christian sympathy..." Christian sympathy? I didn't know sympathy came in denominations or styles. I extend my Lebanese sympathy or my womanly sympathy...see, something seems odd about dividing sympathy.
And some random one-liners:
"What is that? Atheist throat spray."
"I'm a recovering Christian."
"I'm drunk on Jesus."
"I'm parched. Where's some Kabbalah water when I need it?"
Oh...the religious banter...how I love thee.
