Self Portraits (are awkward)

Self Portraits always make me nervous... not that I'm not comfortable in front of the camera... not because I don't like the way I look... but because I don't know what expression to make. I believe that in this regard, women must have it easier: Short of doing "the duck face" ladies score an easy win when it comes to selfies. (btw, whomever invented the duck face should be promptly beaten with a stick.) A fantastic example of successful selfies is anything that +Carolina Yocom makes. For me, I feel that I end up being way too serious or completely loony with my intangibly dim-witted smile. Alas... I usually go for "serious."

Today, I was playing with lighting setups a bit and I, of course, was standing by and ready to be my own subject. I always try new lighting setups in the privacy of my own company (I tend to avoid complete humiliation that way) and today I decided to find a use for that blue gel that comes in our strobist kits. You know which blue.... the one that makes even the most boring science lab so interesting you want to jump into the photo and help the chemist mix something in that beaker... But I've been watching more and more film noir lately... I have that "look" in my head. Granted: If I were to completely dump digital and go for this look I'd probably be shunned by the entire photography community again... (what do you mean 'you don't use photoshop but you shoot digital?') Hmm... Maybe that's my next ticket... Ahem.

Anyway I have two treatments of the same photo today and I can't decide which one is "better" so I'm putting it to ya'll.


A)

B)

PS- Yes I love HopeCon, Bettie Page, and this IS my favorite shirt. So... there.

PPS- I treated these in the same way that I do most of my work... My blacks are common, whites are rare, and "black and white conversion" doesn't mean "desaturation."

Dude, where's my life?

Hello, all 3 of you.

Things have just been crazy lately. I started a new day job which has been taking up quite a bit of my time... Well, not so much the job... but how I've had to rearrange everything and get used to a new schedule:

6:30am - Alarm goes off... I hit the snooze button.
6:45am - My wife calls me from her work and tells me to get up.
6:50am - My mother arrives to watch the kids
7:00am - Leave for work
7:05am - Forgot my wallet, keys, brain... head back inside to collect them.
7:10am - Leave for work
7:55am - Arrive at work in Boulder
5:00pm - Leave work
6:00pm - Arrive home
6:10pm - Eat dinner with the family
6:45pm - Play a game with the kids, Usually Scrabble or Candy Land in Deutsche
7:15pm - Kids get sent to bed
7:30pm - Kids tucked in
7:35pm - Kids retucked
7:40pm - Medium-sized-kid retucked
8:00pm - Talk with the wife
8:30pm - Watch a movie or The Colbert Report with the wife
9:00pm - Wife goes to bed since she has to be up at 2:30am.
9:05pm - Work on lots of photo projects that need lots of attention
9:15pm - Realize that I don't have lots of photo projects that need lots of attention
9:30pm - Realize that I need to promote myself better so that I have more projects
9:31pm - Realize that my client base is now in bed and my opportunity to promote to them is gone for the day
9:32pm - Get depressed
9:35pm - Read about what other photographers are doing and how busy they are
10:00pm - Watch YouTube videos and Flickr streams for inspiration and entertainment
11:30pm - Android Sleep tells me it's time to go to bed

That has been my routine for weeks now. I got tired of it so I made fresh flyers to put up at King Sooper's bulletin boards and Starbucks. Made 1/4 page flyers to pepper the neighborhood around a local high school. I put myself on "sale" which is a double-edged sword; People are interested in hiring me all the time, but only jump on it when I have a special running. It lets me be busier, but it makes me feel cheap.... I hate feeling cheap. I work my ass off for less money.... Most people would quit their job if their boss told them to take a 20% paycut... That's what I do to myself when I have a "sale".... I hope my clients realize that... I love them, but it's hard to communicate how crazy things are when you own your own business instead of punching in and out for your check: When I go on "sale" I literally take a paycut.

Anyway, enough loathing: I was able to schedule a shoot with Cassie a few weeks back. That girl is awesome! We had a plan to borrow a wedding dress and go up the hill and do some sunset/bride/whatever-we-can-think-of shots. Instead, it was mucky an rainy and not what we wanted so we went to Plan B.... Plan B was to put her in a tub and cover her in black... I wanted noir and although I didn't push the noir genre at all we definitely got some cool shots out of it. One them is above, but you can check out the rest on my site: bit.ly/JCPnoirbath I hope all 3 of you like them.

I struggle with telling a story... OR "f8 and be there" ain't working for me.

(Hey! Look at me! I uploaded a vertical shot!)

I'm not sure what's been wrong with me lately. I feel like I can't create anything new. I feel like I'm not taking steps forward with my photography. I feel like I'm actually moving backwards.

Winter is always the slow season. Everything slows down except for retailers. Since don't normally book any clients for when it's Below Zero in Colorado I decided to start a new project this winter just to keep moving things along... to keep shooting... to try to work on my story telling. I'm starting the project later this week when an awesome model, Melissa, sits down in front of my camera... But I'm feeling like I'm lost. I want to tell the story of someone I've never met, and Melissa is giving me that opportunity. I can't help but to feel that I'm disconnected somehow.... That I'm completely missing something right in front of me.

I finished watching (parts of it...missed the beginning) Chase Jarvis Live for his talk about building a portfolio and getting it reviewed. I really felt that I was on the right track to getting some new work done to be able to send to Zack Arias and Chase Jarvis (and possibly others that have no idea it's coming) in order to see if I had taken a step forward since my creativeLIVE experience (you know, the one I'm always talking about because it was life-changing...). Watching the talk today I realized that even now I have further to go than I thought... That is road I'm on won't lead to being an "expert photographer" until 3 months before I die of old age. I'm going to be struggling with this stupid light-tight box until I'm dead... but for some reason I had the delusions of grandeur that I'd be really good right now. My clients are more than happy... but for me that hasn't been enough. I'm not happy yet. I need to push harder.

Other photographers could hold the measuring stick up to me and I'd fall way short in their eyes. I shoot darker sets... I don't light from every possible angle... I don't want "happy" photos.... I don't shoot photos that are perfect... I don't run them through the photoshop mill until they're unrecognizable. What's worse is that newer photographers think that they're good when they're awful. This new society of photographers is a mess. It's awesome, but everyone thinks that they're the next (your favorite photographer here). Am I awful and I just don't know it? Knowing how exposure works and how to get an image from my camera to print is one thing... but telling a story and communicating what I'm talking about.... it's so much harder. It's become apparent to me that I need to tell more stories... I need the practice... I need the depth in my photos.

Shooting Models isn't going to give me depth in my photos. I need to shoot Actors. Models might be able to stand there and look cute, but I need people who can emote... who can cry... who can feel something while I'm shooting them.

What will help me? I need to find regular people with stories to tell... but most people are SO FREAKING HESITANT to tell their stories! I mean, who wants to tell a story about what they had for breakfast? Who wants to tell a story about how they ripped their jeans on the way to work? Who wants to tell a story about the time that their house got broken into and their hard drives and electronics were stolen of their infant daughter... the same infant that was just diagnosed with a terminal disease? Some stories seem to mundane for people to even remember. Other stories are so painful that they might not want to think about them...

I'm lost. I know what I'm doing, but I don't know what I'm doing. Being able to push a shutter button isn't enough. I'm not moving forward from this point until I figure out where I should be headed.... even if where I'm headed isn't where I end up. I need to do something unexpected.

Create. Share. Sustain. NSFW

One thing that Chase Jarvis has always seem to promoted is this: Create, Share, Sustain. I have an easier time with the "Create" part than the other two. I don't share well with others and I'm barely sustaining. I struggle this all three ideals in some way.

Create: Since I've baby-stepped into photography this past year I've been working on getting a TON of personal work done. I've been shooting the things that I've been wanting to shoot and planning the stuff that I think I want to shoot but haven't worked the details out yet. I have a little notebook that sits at my bedside that I scribble notes into on a regular basis. I sketch out drawings or ideas that I'd like to see done but I haven't figured out how to do them yet. The ideas have problems that stand in the way of completion, but they are still viable. Maybe I'll take a photo of it sometime if someone is interested.

Share: I'm always ALWAYS nervous about sharing. It's not that I don't want people to see it. Quite on the contrary: I want people to see my work, but critique is hard. You know what's worse than critique? Apathy. I would rather someone tell me that my work is worthless and I'm never going to make it as a photographer than have someone look at something I've created and just say "meh" or even worse: Move on without saying a word. It's half the reason I barely show my work to my wife: She says nothing often. I have to coax and goad her into commenting on my work, but often I only hear something about the photos she likes, but she's quick to tell me when something in the photo is distracting. It's helpful since she gives me the perspective of a potential client. I have photo buddies that can tell me what's wrong technically, but the client perspective is just as important to me.

Sustain: This is barely hanging on for me. I'll put together a shoot and I'm getting better at logistics, but only because I'm trying to take bigger and more complicated projects. I used to be able to barely hang on with just me and the subject. Now I've worked up to the occasional Location scouting, booking, MUA+H scheduling, client confirmation, and managing to throw some personal work in the mix of all that while I have everything lined up. But I'll be honest: It's exhausting. I can see why the bigger guys have crews and teams and indentured servants to take care of some of this for them. I exhausted myself so thoroughly leading up to and during a shoot that I made myself sick. Not Cool. It's hard to feel free to create when it feels like someone mixed concrete in your gut. The photos turned out great, but I was definitely in need of some down time when the job was done.

So what should I do about this stuff? If my ideas I want to create are viable I need to plan them out and shoot them. I need to get over my fear of everyone ignoring my work. I need to take better care of myself while I'm ramping the stress from these jobs up.

The first step I can take right now (like... NOW now) is to start sharing some of the work I've created. I'll quit hiding behind the newbie rating and just throw stuff out there. Please, if you like my work: Tell me what you like. If you hate my work: Tell me why. If you simply feel nothing for my work: ....okay. I'm my own worst critic, but hey.... I'm sharing.

Speaking of sharing: More from this shoot (NSFW) is on my site. Oooh look at me! Sharing! <fingers-crossed>

The Way

It's been an interesting month so far:

I've made other people happy, and others sad.
I, myself have been happy and I've been sad.
I've been accused of things I did and didn't do.
I've made money and lost money.
My "day job" is getting shaky again; I've looked for new employment.
My camera has been relatively silent this month.

I sincerely think it's been one of the biggest up and down months I've had in a while. I think my mind, body, and spirit have been left confused and weary over it. Last week I cried....for seemingly no reason, yet every reason at the same time. Really it tells me that I'm not sleeping enough. The mind does funny things when you work it too hard.

I suppose the anniversary of starting my photography business should have been this huge event for me, but all it really did was confirm that I made it to one year. I just keep thinking forward to 30 more years of doing what I'm doing and I'm super stoked that I've made it.... this far. As I look ahead I realize I have a long way to go. I need people to know who I am and what I can do. I need to not come off as some arrogant ass that speaks from an air of authority, but I need to appear confident. It's a hard line to walk. Other photographers will knock you down if you talk a big game, but clients don't want a photographers that says,"I hope I don't screw up your job today!" Both of those things will keep you from getting work.

I've never aspired to be a world-renowned photographer like Chase Jarvis or Annie Leibovitz. I just want to be a photographer than can pay his bills and give his family nice things, give back to the community, and just be myself. Some say that you should "shoot for the moon" and I can hardly agree with that. Aim for something you know you can reach and then shoot just out of reach. I aimed to make my business last 6 months and I made it to 1 year. Now I'm aiming for 2 years and hoping that I hit 3.

I know that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. I've taken exactly how long I needed to take and stumbled where I've needed to stumble. I'm sure that next year's post will have the same amount of navel gazing, but I'm hoping my vision is more clear, but knowing life it probably won't be any more clear. Working for yourself is incredibly relieving and incredibly scary at the same time. It's not safe like am 9-5 job where someone else worries for the company. Working for yourself is all you.

I'm feeling the itch to go work on some stuff for ME again. Maybe I'll go play in the mud for a bit.

I just can't

I'm sitting at my desk on a Saturday night. My lovely wife is asleep in bed only feet from me. 2 of 3 children are asleep in the rooms down the hall. Last.fm is playing "Thursday Radio" which for some God-forsaken reason includes The Blood Brothers. All is quiet, and all is well.

Or is it?

I'm awake, and I'm thinking about how much I want the future to come sooner than it's ready to. I want my photography to be huge... HUGE... I want the honor and prestige it can bring, and I want it now. It's like I want to fast-forward through the waiting to get to the good stuff. It doesn't help that I'm looking through all the photos on facebook that have "Zack Arias" tagged in them.

The man is a legend. He is everything that a man with a good heart aspires to be. I envy him. Not in the WTF way, but really, the life that he has is amazing. I truly wish that I had that life too, but I'm damned sure that he has struggles that he didn't even mention during his Chase Jarvis Live Interview this past summer. I didn't know about many of his struggles until his wife, Meghan, began to tell the Zack and Meghan Love Saga on her blog (my title, not hers).

I just started to think about how all of these details of life can slip through the cracks within seconds of them being made. Then I realized: What business do I have trying to capture moments with my camera if I keep letting go of all the moments around me? I just wanted to slap myself across the face as hard as I could.

In the Onelight DVD at the beginning, Zack is talking about the idea of "fixing it later in Photoshop" is a sign that you're being lazy and mediocre and if you catch yourself doing that you need to slap yourself as hard as you can. I realized that wanting to fast-forward through all of this waiting that I'm being lazy and I'm being mediocre. I need to slap myself. Although Zack was talking about photography, I applied the lesson to myself.

I began to think about how when Brooklynn, my youngest daughter, was born... All I wanted was for her to get just a little bigger so I could talk to her; have a conversation with her. Now she's 5 and she can talk my ear off. She's getting big. Too big. I want her to slow down and stop growing so she can stay 5 forever, but she can't. No matter how hard I try and wish and plead... I can't make her stop growing. In the same way, I can't make time speed up to pass all of the worry...

I know that in my heart I want this adventure of mine to take off and grow, but in order to do that, I'm going to have to let it be what it's going to be. I can shape it, but ultimately all I can do is try to guide it. But I also know in my heart I'm incredibly sad. This is what I should have been doing 15 years ago and I'm just now getting started, but without all of this time passing exactly the way it has I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be sitting as my desk on a Saturday night. My lovely wife wouldn't be sleeping only feet from me. My 2 of 3 children wouldn't be asleep in the rooms just down the hall. Last.fm might be playing Hopesfall on "Thursday Radio" but it just wouldn't be the same.