stina's post

Winter is fighting us to the death this year in Vermont, but we've had a few tiny glimpses of warmer weather to come lately. While I'm back to being a little grumpy today because it's cold and gray again, I had a moment of clarity yesterday. I closed the gallery and walked down to my car and caught a great sunset, one of my favorite times of day. The melatonin kicks in and I start to relax a little. Watching other things wind down has always had a calming effect on me. If a day where it was just warm enough to feel like you could loosen up for a minute were a sentence, then the sunset was a nice dot, dot, dot at the end of it (…)

I've seen some blogs before about artist Chris Jordan, but a friend at work emailed me this link this morning that shows his work as I've never seen it. There's a good collection of images there to look through. I never realized the scale that he was working with.

Last night was the annual cribbage tourney at Joe's house. It was a night of cut-throat card playing…

Robbie has another bad hand…

Abbey playing at the weird board…

Interesting design…

Ladies, this one is mine. I don't know where the plastic glasses came from but Jason rocked the green pair…

Such intensity…

Kevin rocks the pink pair…

Joe, the hostess with the mostest…

Christina getting tips from the hubby…

The tally…

Emily and teammate Peter took the prize for last place and each took home a fabulous Renuzit air freshener (for the stinkiest players)

Team Jason and Kevin blew their lead and fell to Robbie and Scott. Maybe next year boys.

So, I honestly don't know how I would survive without the internet. Really. I used to think I would be pretty good at survival in a mad-max kind of world were that ever to happen, but now I'm thinking that I might have a melt-down without my beloved internet. I have a real life that I enjoy very much, but I've realized that my cyber-life adds such a level of efficiency, personal interaction, education, sharing, opportunity, entrepreneurial advantage, etc., etc., that it really adds a richness to my life.

Take for example the wealth of information available. I'm like a sponge when it comes to learning new things or teaching myself how to do something. Geeky, yes. I've come to learn the value of a good online forum, especially when it comes to photography. There's so many different ways to do things and equipment can be so expensive that it's extremely useful when learning the how-tos and avoiding the mistakes of others.

One of my favorite new forums is the opensourcephoto forum. I only recently joined, but it seems like a really honest and knowledgeable and helpful community. I'll soon be starting a list of good forums to link to in my sidebar, but this one is a great place to start.

Here's a few pics from an engagement shoot I had with Christina and Josh over the weekend. I'm thinking that I probably should ask her if her friends call her "stina" for short so I know to expect personal confusion ahead of time!

Although I'm super sick of winter at this point, yesterday's icestorm was visually stunning. As I played trivial pursuit with Jason in the light of our headlamps (power was out), I was also thinking about all of the photo opps I would probably miss because I knew I wouldn't get my butt out of bed early enough to seek them out. The problem is that my life has become so jam-packed that I don't have time to take photos just for the sake of taking them! I hardly have time to play trivial pursuit!

I didn't get up early this morning and by the time I drove in to open the gallery, most of the ice was gone. I managed a quick shot from the gallery door, but it's not the most inspiring photo I've ever taken. Or is it…

It does inspire me to not take photos like it anymore, to not miss photo opportunities, and to get my priorities straight. It's about something bigger than capturing a pretty picture, it's about taking the time to do things that make me happy. I recently went to a wedding photography seminar with David Jay (posted below) and his ideas and business practices all revolve around that concept. It's freedom! While creating more personal freedom may not be something that happens overnight, I resolve to work towards it!