For Lent I gave up listening to business-related podcasts. I only listen to a few, but I could feel that all that business talk was affecting my work. I wanted to clear out the business brain and focus on what was at hand, both for my work life and personally. Let me begin by clarifying what I mean by work. I have one primary part-time work-at-home job as a researcher and writer. I also take portraits, do some real estate photography, and sell stock photographs through my business, and my …
33 Things, Halfway There
Six months ago was rough. I know I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again: I was feeling totally lost. I had spent the summer hustling my buns off, taking on as many photo sessions as I could manage, and it almost killed me. It was totally unsustainable, and I got sucked into the mentality that I had to start my business a certain way and I had to keep up and keep pushing myself. Even though I told myself a million times that I shouldn't compare my beginning to someone else's middle, …
A Brief History of My Life with Film (and Random Photos from March )
I shot my first roll of film in August 2010, and I fell in love. Before that, I hadn't shot a film camera since college before digital photography was the norm. I took a film photography class and learned that I was terrible at developing my own negatives, then put the camera away until 2010. By then I was totally smitten with photographing everything and wanted to dip my toe back into the world of 35mm film. It was so much better than I remembered. At first it was kind of awful. The …
What I Read | March Edition
March was filled with more books than I expected, but not more reading. I listened to one audio book while traveling (I liked the listening, but audio books are long!) and read one slowly aloud to my daughter (I can't wait until she can someday read it to me!). I'm still kind of feeling burned out from all of that reading last year, which I hope wears off soon. I've thought about going on a reading fast to help cure it. A few years ago when I worked my way through The Artist's Way, I fasted …
365 | February and March Favorites
Here we are, three months into the year, and my 365 project is still alive and kicking. I'm going to be honest and confess that I've missed a couple of days, but I'm also going to admit that I'm not sweating it. The thing is, when I'm done with this project, I'm going to have a huge collection of photographs that tell the story of this year and missing a day here or there (or being lazy and totally phoning it in some days and taking yet another self portrait in the mirror) isn't going to make …