So this is seven. . .
What once pooled around her little bitty legs, is now well past her knobby knees. We are certainly at the half way point for Miss V here.
Happiest of birthdays to this fearless, funny, feisty, phenomenal little lady!
09/08/07
3:27 am
7 lbs.
I know you thought that this was THE year. The year when you put on the dress and it fit exactly how it was supposed to. Your disappointment was a high as my relief (sorry, kiddo). Every time you put it on, every time you see that it isn’t pooling around your feet as much as it did the year before, your face splits into that sweet, sweet smile and laughter spills out of you. Despite having to hike the neckline into a respectable place, you do your best to convince me that it fits. One day, it will, but for now, let’s just enjoy the process.
Happy, happy birthday, sweet C!
When I was getting ready to launch my website five years ago, I wanted the landing page to have a strong visual impact. “I love my hair. It’s my signature. It’s my favorite accessory.” That’s what I told Jeff Glotzl of Glotzl Creative Imaging, the team behind the fun landing page for my website.
Click here to see an amazing video to see the full length step-by-step creative process video for this award winning project*.
Photography: Jeff Glotzl (locks of hair), Ariel Skelley (portrait photograph)
Check out other incredible creative imaging done by Jeff and his team at www.glotzl.com
*Winners of the Richmond Show Interactive (Micro Site) Silver Cannonball 2013
Vivian is a name taken from Latin, meaning alive or full of life. Who knew that when choosing your name, we would get it so right. You came into this world your way and have been doing things your way ever since. Sweet, sassy, silly, six! Happy birthday, sweet girl!
The list of interview questions from the photography blog, Click It Up a Notch, has been my constant companion for a good long while. These are a series of photographer interviews that I read about and decided to challenge myself to answer as a way to understand myself as a photographer and how I can use that information to grow into the best version of that person.
*photographer interview questions courtesy of Courtney Slazinik of Click It Up a Notch.
What Would You Do If Your Weren’t a Photographer?
I came into the photography came fairly recently, as in within the last 10 years or so. Before that, I tried my hand at a number of different jobs, hoping something would give me the some sort of satisfaction besides a paycheck with some zeroes on it. Between the time I graduated from college until I completely embraced being a photographer, I worked as a high school English teacher, an executive assistant for an internet site management company, a personal banker for a national bank, a booker/talent for a modeling agency, an event planner, and a student – I did several semesters in both graduate school and nursing school. My liberal arts degree has really been put to use, can I tell you?
Each of those aforementioned jobs (and they were jobs, not careers), fit with what I thought I should be doing as a college educated adult. They were traditional 9-5 gigs with health plans and steady checks. They were challenging, but I was operating on autopilot for most of them. Get up, go to work, come home, repeat.
A friend of mine, who had studied photography in college and knew that I was interested in it, asked me to be her back-up shooter for a wedding. I had recently gotten a DSLR camera and had been taking hundreds of photos of M and C. I was shooting whatever I could to familiarize myself with the camera and the lenses. I knew how I wanted my pictures to look, I just need to figure out how to make that happen. Through self-study, hands on experience, and class after class, my skills grew and so did my client base. I formed a photography company with my friend and we booked weddings and family portrait shoots.
Shooting gives me so much joy. I’ve been able to capture such fantastic memories, not only for brides, new parents, and the like, but for my own family. On what would be the last visit with my grandmother in 2012, I took some quiet portraits of her with the girls. It would be those photos that I would linger over after her death two weeks later. I set the camera aside and picked up my pen and began to write, managing my grief through words. What began a list of shared moments between generations became a seed of an idea that with careful tending grew into “Maggie Sinclair“.
I’ve been writing since before I could write. My first story, “The Apple and the Tree”, I dictated to my mother when I was 4 years old, and yes, I still have it. I wrote poetry in second grade after inhaling all of Shel Silverstein’s books. In middle school, I started my first novel, a poorly disguised take on Star Wars featuring action, adventure, and romance between grown-up versions of myself and my friends. In high school, I returned to poetry, submitting to the school literary magazine again and again. I took so many English and Creative Writing classes in college, my friends were so confused when they learned my major was actually Psychology.
For the longest time, I didn’t believe that I could be a writer, that I needed a real job, and that writing was hobby. Thank goodness I was wrong.
Writing is a release for me. When I put in time to write, real time, not just snatched minutes here and there, I know that I have done quality, meaningful work. When I make the time to write, all those mornings of getting up at 5am to pound out 620, 940, 1756 words. . .I am wrung out and wholly satisfied. My corner of the blogosphere doesn’t take up much space, but it’s enough for me to stretch and flex my creativity in ways photography does not.
I love that I can move between two creative means of expression. Being able to take the pictures that paired up with the descriptions of “Maggie’s” hairstyles in my book was incredible. Being able to marry the words with the images, both of which I created? I actually don’t have a word for that level of satisfaction, pride, and thankfulness.
If I weren’t a photographer, there are a number of things that I would do, but there’s only one thing that I want to do — just write.
What Would You Do If You Didn’t Do What You Do Now?
Tell me about it in the comments!
To share or not to share, that is the question. Truthfully, I’m questioning how this particular inquiry fits in with the other, photography related questions. Whatever keeps me writing.
*photographer interview questions courtesy of Courtney Slazinik of Click It Up a Notch.
What is Something Not Many People Know About You?
Yet, another question in this series that has me jiggling ideas around like coins in my pocket. I wonder if I’m reading too much into this question. Should I look deep within myself, and tick off some of the insecurities that follow me around like Pig-Pen’s dust cloud?
Maybe this is a more superficial type of situation? Should I talk about how, when a particularly sick, beat-laden song comes through my headphones as I’m working out, I construct elaborate music videos in my head where I’m the star in order to get me through the set or the next mile? With the right budget and wardrobe, I’d crush the VMAs.
I don’t think there is a right or a wrong answer here. For the most part, I consider myself an open book. There are some things about me that I keep to myself (my weight, my bank balance, whether or not I really did burn a hole in the floorboard of my mother’s car with the cigarette lighter when I was ten), however, it’s not in my nature to be secretive or mysterious. Honestly, I kind of boring.
What you may not know about me, though, is that when it comes to photography, I approach shoot as though I am the client.
Family portraiture is an investment in time and in money.
Most people reserve having professional portraits done for special occasions like graduations, engagements, weddings, and births. More recently, that circle has grown to include milestone birthdays,sport portraiture, and seasonal family portraits. With the holidays upon us, more people opt to have professional pictures done for their Christmas cards as well as for a keepsake for the year gone by.
Creating a pocket within your schedule, most likely on a week-end, where no one in the family has anywhere to be is like trying to find the Holy Grail. Now, add in coordinating outfits, haircuts, finding a good location (or having the house tidied up if you choose to shoot at home). I snapped the girls’ pictures last week, but my pressure is up remembering the orchestration it took to get it done.
Family portraiture is an investment in time and in money.
My wedding album is a Gutenberg bible sized, white book filled with the highlights of June 23, 2001. My knowledge of photography was limited to admiration of the style I would come to know as photojournalistic. Aside from specifically asking the photographer to recreate an image from my parent’s wedding album, I left the styling up to him. He was a traditional photographer and big on staged poses. I know now, that was a mistake, but how does the saying go? You don’t know what you don’t know.
When I look at some of the group shots from my wedding photos, it looks like there is a light fixture growing out of groomsman’s head because of where he’s standing. But for the photographer to telling him to step down or to the left, it wouldn’t be something I focus on Every Time I See IT sixteen years later.
It’s that photo that I think about when I’m behind the lens. I would never want a family to look back on their photos and see tiny flaws, like a bra strap that is showing, or a twisted collar, or a light fixture growing out of their head.
It’s that photo that has me talk specificity with my clients. I won’t simply show up at the appointed time and start firing away. I want to know what they like, what they don’t like, poses they want to try or to avoid. Do they want to be more relaxed or more formal? Do they want direction or do they prefer to do their own thing? Some people come with very fixed ideas, which is great. Others, not so much, which is okay, too.
It’s that photo that drives me to capture memories that can be shared, not for likes, but for long-lasting admiration.
Family portraiture is an investment in time and in money, but also in your family. It’s a way of saying that we are choosing to celebrate us. We were here, together. When we are older and parted, we can hold the framed print in our hands and remember.
I am getting back into the routine of writing. After months and months, the elusive time and space that I’ve been craving to set my work life to rights has materialized. I have an office. I have a desk and a comfortable chair. I have sorted through the water-logged bits and bobs salvaged from my old desk, filing what’s legible and casting off what isn’t. I’m revising older posts to see if some old ideas can jumpstart the creative engine.
As it turns out, I’d started several drafts from the five blog buckets I made for myself several months ago. I’d chosen about five areas that I want to cultivate on the blog: Writing, Family Life, Fitness, Self, and Photography. Notice that those same areas are the ones I write most about on this blog.
The old goal was to choose a bucket each day and spend time reading, brain-storming, note taking, and creating. Each day, I’d gotten sidetracked by Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. Eventually, I’d redirect myself back to my keyboard and start writing. Just as I’d be hitting my stride, someone it was time to pick someone up from some activity.
In order to bypass the pre-work foolishness and get down to business, I’ve scaled down the plan. In the past, I’ve touted quietly setting goals, but I want to share how I plan to get from A to B because I know I’m not the only one trying smash some goals out here. There are so many motivational quotes about how to reach your goals, how to persevere, and how the whole thing is a journey to appreciate not a race that has to be won. All true, in fact. For me, though, when I think about getting myself for here to there, one poem always pops into my head.
Illustration by Shel Silverstein
To get from goals to achievement, you need discipline and consistency. One bite at a time, just like Melinda Mae.
So, I’m back to work. First up? The list of interview questions from the photography blog, Click It Up a Notch. These are a series of photographer interviews that I read years ago. I’m a little more than half-way done. If I’m perfectly honest, it was starting to feel a bit like homework, but now, not so much. More of a getting to know you (or me, as it were) exercise.
*photographer interview questions courtesy of Courtney Slazinik of Click It Up a Notch.
If You Had $5000 to spend on photography gear, what would you buy?
If I had $5000, photography gear would not be the first thing on my mind. That being said, if the money was specifically earmarked for photography gear, there are a few things on my wish list.
- A new camera body. I’ve been using the very first (and only) camera body that I bought. It’s time for an upgrade. Plus, I’d like to be able to switch between camera bodies while shooting instead of breaking flow to remove and replace lenses mid shoot.
- New lens(es). If I make the switch from Nikon to Canon with this new camera body, I’ll need some new glass to go with it, preferably a 50mm f1.8. That’s my favorite lens besides my 18-55mm f3.5. Oh, and my 70-200mm f4!
- Editing software. Again, I’m working on an
oldervintage version of LightRoom that probably doesn’t even exist anymore. - Photo Printer. I still print my photos and put them into albums. It would be so nice to breakup with the photo by mail service and have a quality printer in my office.
- Childcare — so I can take classes! There are dozens of workshops available that provide instruction on everything from camera basics to shooting portraits to understanding editing software. I’d take a class on shooting with film and developing in a darkroom. I’d like to do a long week-end immersion program or a photography trip where your destination is the classroom. Your subjects are the locals, the architecture, the culture. I’m a visual learner who would appreciate having the opportunity for a hands on experience.
Until that 5k comes in, I’ll shoulder my Nikon D5000 with my “nifty fifty” to snap photos of my kids which I’ll tweak in LR before sending off to Shutterfly. This routine has been so good to me for so long.