Where to begin!?! Life has been quite surprising!
A Chair's Photography - For so long I had been looking through windows of what could possibly be (with my photography in particular), but God just hadn't allowed those windows to open... until now. It was somewhat discouraging, but I tried to be patient. I got little glimpses of hope, with people like Joel Eckman Maus contacting me about working with him, (which I still hope to do someday)! Some of you may remember that post in January about him and another wedding photographer George Sillas. Well this week I was contacted by George Sillas's sister
Susan Whitney to be an assistant photographer for a wedding in June! I'm totally excited. And how she heard about me is short of a miracle or
maybe it was God. ;) His fingerprints are all over this stuff!
Anyways, I'm sort of getting ahead of myself, going back to that post about the wedding photographers. It was in that post that I made the declaration that I wanted to do whatever it took to be a professional photographer. I looked into a photography degree. Even researched some books that might help me organize a business. (I never purchased them and just today Joshua sent me a link to one of the ones I thought of getting. Seriously the signs are everywhere that someone upstairs wants me to pursue this!) But it seems that since I've made that declaration there has been a snowball effect in regards to my photography.
I originally went to this bridal fair because my friend Rashaell asked me to take pictures at her wedding and reluctantly, as well as being scared to death, I agreed to take her wedding pictures. The wedding was March 2nd. And I was happy with the way some of the pictures turned out!
In the middle of March James (from work) sent me a link to the
Steampunk Tree House. James is a fairly new employee of Alliance who also loves photography. He's invited me to join a photography blog and group. The Steampunk Tree House was his idea of the groups first photography outing. The Steampunk Tree House originates in Northern California but they are bringing it down for the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals. The more I thought about it, the more I realized seeing it during the festival won't be much fun because I'm sure it will be crowded. I emailed the project manager and explained my desire to see and take pictures of the Tree House and asked if there was any way it would be open to the public outside of the festivals. He said that it would have minimal access during the festival for liability reasons and he may be able to get me in to see it sometime between the two festivals. After a week or so of no confirmation I emailed him again and asked if he had given it any more thought and sure enough he's opening it up for me on May 1st!!!! I'm totally stoked!
Shortly after that I heard George Sillas was looking for another assistant photographer. I already told my brother about what I thought of his work the day I came back from the bridal fair. Sure enough Brian knows his sister from an old job and his friends, Eirik and Angie are good friends of the sister and they recommended me! This is how it all came to be that she called and asked me to be an assistant photographer. Networking is an awesome thing but I haven't seen it work for my benefit so completely!
The day my brother called and asked me if I'd be interested in being an assistant photographer my coworker asked me to take a family portrait for her and she was willing to pay me. This was shortly after my successful photo shoot of my (at the time) pregnant friend Brandie. I am confident in my abilities to take portraits, or I should say I feel more comfortable with taking portraits. And we have a tentative date scheduled for the last weekend this month.
I spoke with Susan Whitney yesterday and she's invited me to join her for a couple engagement shoots! I'm excited for the experience! It's also going to push me to prepare and study before the shoots. One is going to be done in Vegas at 4am! I'm excited by the challenge night shots will be and what I can learn. Another is scheduled for Pasadena next Sunday. I've already told her I would like to go. She gave me the details of the wedding and what she's expecting of me. Honestly this is the best way to learn! I'm so excited that I get this opportunity to take some great shots without the stress that all the responsibility is on me. I would definitely love to assist more!
Then just yesterday my friend Turtle called me as I was leaving work and asked if I would be willing to be the photographer at his reception! He asked my rate and I told him I would get back to him. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that he's a friend, it's not the full ceremony and being that I was already going to the reception meant I was already going to bring my camera and already be taking pictures! So I kept the price low. I'm excited for the experience! It'll be a gothic style so it should be quite fun to shoot!
Moving - So I dropped off our 30 day notice to our landlady tonight. Yup, just like that we're moving. Last Friday on my way up the hill I spoke to my sister about Misty and Jeremy moving out of their place and them needing replacement tenants ASAP and how it's the perfect place for me, Brian and Mike. It did sound nice. Five bedrooms (Mike sleeping on the couch just isn't cutting it anymore and Brian needs an office to work out of), it's a nice neighborhood, we'd each have our own bathroom, and rent was reasonable considering we'd be moving to a nicer place with more space, A LOT more space! Saturday I went and got my hair done at the Salon and Brian stopped by. He was meeting Jeremy to go check out the place. At this point I realized he was taking it seriously. Sure enough we had a meeting at our place that night and decided to pray about it because we had to give them an answer by Monday. As my first sentence indicated we all felt it was the right choice. Now I get to start packing. Yay!
Well I think there was more that I wanted to share but this is becoming a large post. Goodnight!
Labels: A Chair's Photography, Inspiration, Photography, Rambling
posted by Charity at 4/12/2008 02:43:00 AM 
