Hopes & Dreams

My friends Sandra & Erik.  They aren't engaged yet, but don't they look like they should be?  I'll keep my fingers crossed.

The Final Countdown

Well, here it is.  The moment of reckoning. Let's see if I can get everything done before tomorrow morning at Oh-Godly-Early when my kids get up.  Wish me luck!  Until then, Merry Christmas (and Happy Festivus--the Holiday for the Rest Of Us!) from mine to yours!  

A Many Million Thanks to Sharon Hoyt for our wonderful holiday photos. : )

I'm a Fake!

Yes, it's true.  I have a fake Christmas tree this year. Something about the pre-lit/no gator-wrestling the lights/fits in my Prius/won't find pine needles in my house in June/goes in a box when I'm done with it idea appealed to me.  The kids helped decorate, so there are lots of ornaments on the bottom, and it's the craziest mix of their tastes and mine.  I think it turned out pretty well.

Song of the Week

It's an intriguing thing, my iTunes library.  I've been scouring it for songs I can use for slide shows, particularly weddings & engagements.  A friend of mine a while back turned me on to Death Cab for Cutie, and these last couple weeks I've been stuck on I Will Follow You Into the Dark from Plans.  It seems an odd title for a love song, but the premise is True Love....on the scale of The Princess Bride (for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, it's a must:  fencing, fighting, revenge, true love...all with Cary Elwes, Robin Wright & Mandy Patinkin, and directed by Rob Reiner).  And True Love gets me every time.

Luck Be A Lady

I will not say, "I never win anything!" again.  I attended my first SWOPmeets (a networking mixer for people in the wedding industry that is hosted by Sacramento Bride & Groom) Wednesday night. Not only did I get to see some fun friends (Carlos, Carmen, Allison, & Andrea) I got to meet lots of new, fun people in the wedding world and eat some really great food.   I am so about the food!  And then I won the raffle!  What a great way to end an evening.  You can bet I'll be there in January!

A Fall Blessing

I go to yoga at East Wind Yoga in Roseville, CA.  Sometimes, we finish class and find a little piece of wisdom, quote, or poem to take home.  Here is what was there today:

May the Sun bring you new energy by day; 

May the Moon softly restore you at night;

May the Rain wash away your worries;

May the Breeze blow new strength into your being;

May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.

Namaste

Miksang & The Agony of Defeat

Yes, I did borrow the phrase from the Olympics.  It happens to be the one athletic institution that I still respect.  Well, except for the recent Chinese women's gymnasts' age debacle, but that's another blog.

The Miksang conference I was so looking forward to attending has been cancelled.  While I'm terribly disappointed that I won't be going, I can still practice Miksang on a daily basis.  That's part of what I've always loved about photographing, anyway.  I get to turn my experience of what makes life beautiful into a visual translation.  So as I was shooting the Fall Carnival at Granite Bay Montessori yesterday, I also started looking around for those little, overlooked things that make it unique.  Here's something I found.  Hope you enjoy it.

All Hail the Photography Gurus!

I joined Photography Mentor the other day.  The Playground (ya gotta love it!  They know I won't grow up!)  has tons of information, chat rooms, and is a great online photography community.  And if that weren't enough, Gary Fong gave a live broadcast the other night.  He took questions, and talked about how he developed his success in the wedding industry.  Now, I realize that Gary doesn't shoot anymore; he invents stuff that makes shooting better for the rest of us.  Still, it's awesome that he openly shares his knowledge so that everyone else can benefit.  He doesn't hide his trade secrets for fear that someone else will become better than he.  Gary seems to be one of those remarkable gurus who wishes for his successors to achieve as much as they can--even if that means they outshine him.  Thanks, Gary!  

Love/Hate Relationships

I love technology!  I hate technology!  I have had the unpleasant experience of having Photoshop CS3 decide it didn't like my licensing anymore.  Apparently, this can happen when you have a trial version, then purchase the program, and then Adobe comes out with the next version and gets rid of the original public beta.  So after uninstalling and reinstalling 3 times, scouring the Adobe website for fixes, staying up way too late swearing an awful lot, and finally email support, and then running all their fixes, I'm up and running again.  I just want to say thanks to all those people geekier than me (who knew they existed?!?) that help me keep my computer in tip-top shape.  I couldn't do this without you!

Miksang

I'm incredibly excited about a photography conference/retreat I signed up for recently.  It's called Miksang.  This was started by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and is the art of contemplative photography.  It is seeing beyond looking.  Too often, we go through our lives too busy to really take in the world around us.  We start off being able to see everything when we're small.  One simply has to watch a toddler's fascination and excitement about something we adults consider mundane to remember this.  The trick becomes, then, how to see like a child.  And in Miksang, this is taken a step further:  how do I see as a child (or with beginner's mind for all my fellow Buddhists) and translate that into a photographic image.  I know that this is a place I can get to when I have camera in hand.  When I truly let go of all my shoulds and oughts to simply be present, I cease to exist.  I become everything and nothing.  I am photographer, camera, and subject.  It's a strange concept, and I have to admit, sounds a bit "new-agey" when you first hear it.  But I see it more as this:  I know, in that moment, that I am interconnected with everything in the universe, and that what benefits one benefits all; and that what harms one, harms us all.  I am perfect, just as I am, with all my imperfections.  I think this is the state that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (a professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago) describes as Flow.  

So back to my conference.  It's in LA.  Actually, worse, it's in the Valley.  And most people who know me know that--with the exception of a few tiny enclaves--I don't like LA.  For me, LA represents everything about American culture that I hate:  pretension, self-loathing, a strive to have someone else love us without ever loving ourselves, pollution, wantonness and waste.  Oh, and traffic.  I can't forget that.  So I foresee a big challenge for me.  I will need to embrace everything that I love in a setting where my feelings about that place can be the utter distraction. I need to forget my preconceived notions, get out of my own way, and see the world with the eyes of a child.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Holy Trip Down Memory Lane

I'm making a mix for my best friend.  It turns out that she and I both are huge fans of 80s alternative music.  As I'm listening to all these songs from the late 80s and early 90s, I'm transported back to my early college years.  I remember  my newfound independence (yay! no more parents!), falling in love....and out of love....and in love....and out of love....I remember the great wide open life I had before me, and all the possibilities it held.  I remember hope, friendship, happiness, and angst.  I wish now I had more photos to document that time in my life; instead, I have precious few snapshots taken with a very cheap point and shoot camera at some parties my friends and I had.  Where, coincidently, we would mostly listen to crazy music like Depeche Mode, the Cure, New Order, the Smiths and later the Stone Roses, Jesus Jones and Red Hot Chili Peppers (yes! they existed before 1995).  OK, OK, I know I'm dating myself.  But that's not the point.  Here is the point:  cherish what you have; hold it tight, and let it guide you as you meander through life.