Moving on...

Hi, I'm not feeling so negative anymore. Even though this rain is depressingly relentless, and I have 6 photo sessions to edit (with 3 more to add to it this weekend), my hair is a frizzy humid mess, and my house is perpetually hurricanish. No, ain't nothing gonna bring me down! I've been making some big photographic decisions lately, and I couldn't be more pleased. I'm about to start working with a very talented wedding photographer here in St. Louis, and the upcoming wedding season is about to explode into craziness. I love second shooting weddings, the lower stress, less work, creatively free, and chaos of it all is good to me. You show up, shoot all day like a crazyhorse, do a rough edit, and pass off the dvd to the lead photographer. Done and done. And though I'm booking smaller weddings on my own, I've decided that being a second shooter (and sometimes accepting my own weddings) will allow me the time and finances to really pursue my portrait work. I'm excited about this place I'm at, it really opens up possibilities and relieves some stress. I was so worked up about getting my own wedding site up and running, booking away, and calling it a day, that I hadn't really thought of other options. Maybe I don't have 40-50 hours a week to dedicate to the wedding photography industry. And it's ok to not make that decision right now. No, I'm happy where I'm at. I'm busy where I'm at. I'm home schooling 2 children and filled to the brim with busy-ness and schedules and meetings and photo sessions and editing as it is. It's a long run-on sentence of a life right now. I can take my time.

So, my friends, I will. I will slow down, stop rushing, and allow myself to be a portrait photographer. Sure, it's less money than weddings, but I love it. I ran into a mom at the playground yesterday that was over-complimentary of my work. "How do you get your pictures to look that way?" she asked me. I laughed, because I love that she asked that. I love that she wonders if my camera is magical. Listen, I know there are amazing photographers out there, and I'm not trying to be egotistical. I'm just feeling proud. I've been honing my skills and absorbing knowledge and following trends and observing photoblogs and working in the field for over 8 years now. I want to make beautiful images, I want to make them appear magical, and I want to keep improving.

And I want people to wonder how I do it. Because frankly, I'm still trying to figure that out.

Failing at Life

So Easter has come and gone and I definitely think I failed in the "crafting with your kids" category. All we did was dye eggs and make a egg pendant for the window. Lame-o. In fact, I find myself becoming lazier with the activities with the kids and forcing them to simply play. Am I terrible? I know children learn so many great things through play, but when it was just Syl & I, we were very project-oriented. And I know how much she loved it, and I know Easton would enjoy it too. Me? I'm kinda over it. The mess, the chaos, the fighting that ensues, I'd rather be doing something else. Maybe it's the over-abundance of rain and tornadic weather, maybe it's the yearning for outdoor springtime play, maybe it's my desires to send Sylvia to school next fall (even though I've done nothing to make that actually happen), maybe it's my own cabin-fever, maybe it's my workload, but I'm feeling very lazy about my parenting. I said it, don't judge me. Does everyone go through this? The kids seem happy, what the hell am I worried about? Why can't I ever "be here now," dammit? No need to answer, I'm really just yelling at the universe for making me such a "grass is always greener..." type of person.

Today

~the sun has just emerged in time for my later afternoon photo shoot

~the kids are destroying my house, and my sanity

~the yoga pants are staying on, despite not participating in any yoga today

~the coffee needed to be refilled, and never was

~the morning field trip was short, sweet, and simple

~the nap may have to be forced

~4 loads of laundry sit (cleaned) on my bed, waiting to be stuffed into drawers

~the floors are swept, ready to be mopped, but probably won't happen

~the eggs are hard-boiled and ready to be dyed

~the eggs have made my house stink, is this the smell of Easter?

~I will get a moment of silence

~wishing I could poke a hole in my tummy to release the bloat (tmi?)

And here we go...

This sounds rather ominous after that last post about possibly wanting a third, but fear not! No babies are in said utero, and the idea will be in discussion for many months to come before a decision is made. Actually, I think I'm too busy to conceive, so there. My schedule is my birth control (not really, I'm not that naive).

Anywoots, I took one look at my calendar on the iPad last night and my heart fell into my big toe. I've been wondering why I feel rather relaxed lately, and now I understand. I haven't been too busy. Yes, I've been getting emails, phone calls, and FBs about jobs, but the finicky St. Louis weather has been uncooperative to say the least. So I've been telling people that waiting a few more weeks is best, but I really should have been booking ASAP because a few weeks is upon us and shit is about to hit the fan. In a good way, of course. Easter weekend alone, I have 3 shoots lined up. It's great, it's fantastic, I love it, but it's about to get crazy. You see, I still second shoot and assist for 2 other photographers. So not only am I booking my own stuff, but I'm agreeing to stuff that's not my personal work. Hey, in this economy, a job is a job is a job.

And friends, I won't be available for any Saturday for the rest of the year. Pretty much. But Wednesday is like my Saturday, and very few photo shoots actually happen on a Wednesday. Maybe I should corner that market!!!

Honestly

This is a post that is both personal and individual. If you could care less about me and my uterus, move on. There, the riff-raff is gone. Anyway, I have an issue that has been plaguing me over the past few months and I'm now going to write a post about it, because honestly, it helps to put things out in the universe. I said it, blogging helps me. I rode the small bus. Blah and blah.

Anywho, as a collective crowd of mostly ladies, tell me when you knew you were done. And by done, I mean done having babies. I've been (and that means just me, Dave is not on board) contemplating number three. I know, I know, I'm crazy. We all know this. But seriously, how do you know you're done having kids? Let's face it, I'm 33, my youngest is almost 2.5, my eldest nearly 5. And I have been getting baby fever lately, out of the blue, nothing directly triggering it. Just like, wake up, drink coffee, wrangle children all day, and BAM, maybe I want a third child.

Listen, let's be honest, it's totally irrational. I have rather unpleasant pregnancies, plagued with lots of indigestion, high blood pressure, bed rest, PPD, big babies, yadayadayada. But I don't know, am I done? How do you know? When do you cut yourself off from the idea of another baby? AHHHHHH!

Again, Dave is soooooooo done. Me, I'm not so sure.

Depth

If you've ever seen any images I've photographed in the past 2 years, you've noticed that I'm obsessed with shallow depth-of-field (or d.o.f.). This technical camera term can be defined best here, but it layman's terms, references the precise area of focus to blur. The smaller the number (1.2 in this photos case), the more shallow the area in focus. I can literally focus on a child's eyes, and their nose will be blurry. I love it. I can't get enough of it. I specifically spend tons of money on prime lenses that have the ability to go super open (or smaller number, wider aperture). Every lens has a d.o.f. number, and most kit lenses are 4-5.6. And that's great for most people. That captures lots in focus, room for error is little. People want speed and convenience, I want lots of blur with attention to specific things.

And do you know why? Honestly, it's how I see. I'm very blind without glasses or contacts, my vision has always been crap. At night, when I take out my contacts, I can see things very close to my face, and the everything else drops to total blur. I have natural bokeh, and I think it only fair to photograph exactly how my eyes/brain are used to seeing things. I struggled for a long time to achieve this look, and realized that prime lenses are right up my alley.

My point is this= it's hard to achieve the look of shallow d.o.f. without a lens that has a super wide aperture setting. People ask me this all the time, so that is the answer. Your welcome.

Almost 5

One month from tomorrow, my eldest will be 5 years old. This just hit me like a ton of bricks tonite when I was uploading some recent photos and I realized how grown up she looks. I know, I know, she always looks so grown up. But she's still got such childish features. The things she says are sometimes mind-blowing, and sometimes exactly like that of a 5 year old (or 2 year old, for that matter). I'll hold off on a full birthday post till next month, but know that I will be spending the next 31 days crying over the growing up of my tiny little baby.

Signs

Not really, but this sign was up at the show I was at last weekend and it made me laugh.

New Lights & Kid Portraits

Over the past few weeks I've been pushing forward in the business front. I've been accepting weddings and preparing for a busy season ahead. One step towards this was to make a purchase of some portable power and lighting, which just arrived today. Of course, my models were a bit unimpressed that I made them sit still while this bright light blasted them, but what good are kids if you can't test things on them?

I'm still only accepting smaller, more intimate local weddings. But I'm hoping by fall I'll be ready to book like crazy for next year. This will mean a new website, new branding, new marketing techniques, and really putting myself out there. I absolutely love portrait work, but honestly, it's too few & far between to be completely profitable on it's own. I need to work long days and get paid more so that I'm able to supplement with portrait work. I feel this will be the best option while homeschooling the kids, and I know I can handle it.

Of course, I shall keep you posted here and on FB. But I can't express enough how excited I am about my future in the photography business. And friends that are engaged, email me! I'm still in the stage of building my portfolio (though I've shot well over a dozen weddings) and my rates are still low (especially in this market).