So far I’ve managed to separate my ideal and the real. Since a few months ago, I decided to start doing my own shoots entirely for myself, and they were the most fulfilling shoots I’ve ever done. But to pay the rent I’ve had to work full time at a grocery store, work that is entirely unfulfilling to me. Balance has allowed me to keep my sanity the past year, but I’ve begun to see how short term this balancing act has to be before I lose it. I can’t work at a grocery store forever, no matter how awesome of a grocery store job it is. My idealism won’t allow it. And yet my recent foray into personal portrait shoots solely as a creation of art has ruined commercial portrait shoots for money in my mind. It’s not that I don’t want to do any at all, but doing the amount I’d need to do to try and make a living off of them, I would certainly burn out quickly, compromising my ideals to the point that I wouldn’t even want to do my own shoots anymore. And that’s the last place I ever want to be. So if I know that much, where do I go from here? After a lot of thinking, I feel I’ve come to what might be the best solution.

Weddings. I’ve done a few weddings in the past, but I told myself I’d never be a wedding photographer. So much stress, pressure, and I always felt like all wedding photos pretty much looked the same. But I realize now that weddings have an aspect that I love about photography. It’s not about trying to “sell” the person you’re photographing, as it is with bands or fashion. It’s documentary, but with an artistic, classical portrait twist. Wedding photos don’t try and present people as something else other than what they are at that moment. Yet, unlike straight up documentary photo journalism, you have those shots where you get to direct the person, shape the shot into your artistic vision, and present a view and feel of the person through your own eyes. My idealist nature loves that about wedding photography. And yet, the realistic demands of life can be met too. Weddings have a bigger “bang”. A single wedding shoot pays more than a standard portrait shoot because it’s like several shoots all packed into one. Because of this, I can do fewer overall shoots spaced out and still have enough free time that I don’t get burned out on all photography, and I still have time to do my own portrait shoots without worrying about getting money involved.

Of course, this is all easier said than done. It will take a lot of work to get to the point where I’m getting enough wedding shoots to quit my normal job. But this feels right. So I have to at least try. I’ve already completed the first step of creating a standard pricing and package list for any potential clients. Marketing is something I feel like I’ve never been good at, but I’m hoping to learn. I’d like to start building a more current wedding portfolio since it’s been almost a year since my last wedding. I’ve got a wedding in July I’ll be shooting, and possibly one lined up for September. But I’m hoping to find some more ways of building my portfolio like second shooting. So if any of you photographers out there are looking for a second shooter, please contact me. For anyone else, if you or someone you know were recently engaged and might be interested in me shooting your wedding, please feel free to contact me and I can discuss with you more about what I can offer.

This is Laura. Yesterday we braved the cold along with Michael to take some photos in the snow. Laura owns a ton of vintage film cameras that don’t work (though I suspect some still do). She doesn’t have any winter clothes despite being from Chicago. And she’s probably the first “Faces” person I’ve done that was more excited about the Polaroid popping out and seeing it than I was (and I was pretty excited).

Laura is an incredible photographer who I was very happy to meet. The first time I saw her photos, I thought they were so good that I might as well just quit right then. After finding out that she’s only been doing it for a little over a year, it pretty much sealed the deal.

See her photos at http://dartphotographie.com/

1. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
2. St. Vincent – Actor
3. Volcano Choir – Unmap
4. Mew - No More Stories / Are Told Today / I’m Sorry / They Washed Away // No More Stories / The World Is Grey / I’m Tired / Let’s Wash Away
5. Passion Pit - Manners
6. Jónsi & Alex – Riceboy Sleeps
7. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
8. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
9. David Bazan – Curse Your Branches
10. Ramona Falls – Intuit
11. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
12. Asobi Seksu – Hush
13. Atlas Sound – Logos
14. Paper Route – Absence
15. Do Make Say Think – The Other Truths
16. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
17. The Antlers – Hospice
18. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
19. Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
20. Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us
21. Sufjan Stevens – The BQE
22. Tiny Vipers – Life on Earth
23. Harlem Shakes – Technicolor Health
24. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
25. Kings of Convenience – Declaration of Dependence

“…it’s a way of saying something without having to say something literal. To say something that can be both abstract and simple. I get a bad feeling when people talk about ‘capturing’ something with photography. That way of thinking seems lazy and false. For me it has much more to do with the impulse to pretend or to remember something creatively. Seeing something real and wanting to imagine how that real thing would be if it were a fake thing. Alienating and distancing. Putting the artifice of a lens between myself and reality. Forcing the present into the past, and so on.”

//photos and quote by Dusdin Condren

(via feaverishphotography)

Soon after taking Allison’s portrait for my Faces project, I asked if she’d be willing to do a test shoot with me. I’ve been wanting to do a shoot at Cheekwood for months since I’d seen a photo by Kate Pulley on Flickr. Lately I’ve been inspired a lot by photos like that. Photos that are somewhat surreal, unsettling, eery, but also magical. And then there was something about Allison. It’s one of those things you can’t quite put in to words about a person. She had this look, this “aura” if you will, that I just felt like would go well with the photos I had been trying to develop in my head. And so I asked her to do this shoot. Allison was a pleasure to shoot with and was willing to go out in the cold and the threat of rain to get the photos.

Mamiya C33
Kodak Portra 400VC
Fuji Provia 100f

Polaroid SX-70
Polaroid “Fade To Black” Artistic Time Zero

This is Aaron and Lindsey. I went to college with both of them. Aaron is starting an organization called Ensigo, which will fight to break poverty in developing nations through music. He let me hear some of the initial tracks of musicians from a developing country paired with a musician from the states, and it was blowing my mind. Definitely keep up with Ensigo and everything they’re doing. Some incredible things just might be happening in the years to come.

This is from my shoot with Rachel Petrillo a couple months ago. Rachel is a musician in the process of recording an album, and these photos will likely be part of the artwork. I did a mixture of digital and film. Most of the film ones I already posted on my Flickr, but here are some of the finals she chose (with the exception of one being my own personal choice).

The struggles with ATZ continue. I’m not really happy with my final entries for Polaroid Week, but such is the nature of the beast. ATZ wasn’t necessarily the problem. I think I just had a hard time finding things to take photos of. I had one really good photo that I took yesterday that I think would have been really interesting (at least it was through the viewfinder). But it ended up severely underexposed. I was pretty depressed about that.

It’s odd though, because I’m sure there will be some people out there who really like these photos. And I think that’s great. It’s not that I think they suck from an objective standpoint. I kinda like the second one and it came off pretty close to how I wanted it to. But the first one isn’t even close to what I had in mind, and the third one just isn’t where I’m at artistically right now. I know, we’re always our own worst critic. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be upset as an artist that what I envisioned for my art didn’t translate into reality, even if people still like it. I kinda see that almost like an “ends justify the means” type of argument. I’d rather make a piece of art that is exactly what I envision as an artist and communicates the exact message I want, and no one like it, than the opposite.

I will likely have some “outtakes” from the week that I’ll post tomorrow on Flickr.

This is my friend Anna. She likes to knit things like ice cream hats and baby Chuck Taylor shoes. She will celebrate anything and everything that she can.

I intended to have more shots for today, but the Polaroid gods were not working in my favor today, and I ended up taking two shots that turned out less than desirable with my first pack of very expensive Artistic TZ film. Oh well, I hope to have more luck tomorrow.

I decided to take a break from Faces for Polaroid Week. It will probably be back tomorrow.

Also, tomorrow I’m planning on going out and shooting my first pack of TZ Artistic film. I’m so nervous! At nearly $30 a pack for only 8 shots, it’s a bit scary to shoot with.