I had a moment during every milestone, every life change, that I was “growing up.” I moved out of my parents’ house at 19. I lived on my own when I was 22. I got a “real job” when I was 23. I got married at 24. I started a business when I was 25.

And yet now… I don’t feel grown up. Any time I look back on these reflections, it’s like it happened to some other person. She pays the rent. She covers her own health insurance. She cooks meals, balances the budget, has her own credit card, knows how to drive, can apply mascara. Who is this woman?

Sometimes, I see myself as others might see me. I sing along to NSYNC in my car (loudly). Whenever I get into an elevator with a mirror as part of the wall, I always stick my tongue out at my reflection, like I’m five. I collect sparkly nail polish and reward myself with cookies after a heinously bad day. I still have acne, which makes me wonder if people gauge my age as “teen” instead of “late twenties.” I got carded when I went to see Black Swan.

I’m 27 years old and some days my spine sags and I feel like I’m 47; some days my spine feels spry and limber and I feel 17.

How is one supposed to feel at 27? What is the “right” way to feel? to act? to be?

I have no answers and I suspect there are none. Even my friends who are my age, who have children, act the same way I do. They hold down jobs, they take care of their lives, and they raise their kids, while blasting NSYNC and eating cookies and sometimes acting like kids themselves.

It’s just something I’ve been thinking about as my life is prepared to move forward again, as I reach another big milestone. We are only as young as our spines feel.

My first gradient. Light pink base is OPI’s “Kiss on the Chic.” Darker rose is “Dress Me Up” by China Glaze. I love gradients! They take a lot longer to create, which means it’s a much smellier experience, but I love the effect.

Life is currently…

Big happy things. Little happy things. Life is a-changin’, my friends. Oh yes.

Talking with my grandparents-in-law last week, I learned that it was their 60th wedding anniversary. They went out, bought a new TV, then came home to drink martinis and eat Chinese takeout. I want to be as awesome as they are when Walt and I are 84.

Maybe you missed these blog posts this week - 
It’s Not About the Gear
Spring 2012 Book Post!

Hi, America!

We had some ups and downs this week, didn’t we? From the passing of Amendment One in North Carolina (boooo) to President Obama’s support of same-sex marriages (hoooooray!), I felt like we as a country were full of changes. I think it’s only poetic that this weekend I will be photographing my first same-sex wedding ceremony, in Good Ol’ San Antonio, Texas, and I cannot wait to share photos of it with y’all.

Love is love. I feel like I should start a little wall of photos of White Knots I’ve had at many of my weddings so far. I love that my heterosexual couples acknowledge that there needs to be marriage equality for everyone. Here are two to get us started (one from Liz and Steven’s wedding on the left, and Rachelle and Stephen’s on the right):

The last time I wrote about books, I had a list of titles I wanted to read. Sadly, I have not finished any of those. Dazzled by my new Kindle, I ended up downloading a bunch of stuff for free and read to my heart’s content. And now that I’m finally getting to my paperback stash, I can happily say that I’m actually a quarter into Patti Smith’s Just Kids, which is fabulous so far.

Getting a Goodreads account has also made me a little more competitive about reading. Everyone else is finishing books faster than I am! I need to step up my game! Add me as a friend on Goodreads if you want! :)

I did a lot of Jane Austen reading the first part of the year, if you remember. It was pretty… um, obsessive.

I read Persuasion for the first time. I’d never attempted it before, for some reason, but I’m glad I’m expanding my Austen bubble from just Pride-Prejudice-Sense-Sensibility to include Persuasion. I admit, the beginning was difficult to get through. P&P hooks you with its wittiness. Going through the lineage of Anne’s family from the very start was a bit tiresome. But the end…! Yes, worth it. I also enjoyed the movie adaptation starring Sally Hawkins, because dang, that Captain Wentworth, played by Rupert Penry-Jones, was so handsome!

Little Women: I’d watched the movie before, and always lamented the fact that (spoiler) Jo and Teddy don’t end up together. After finally reading the book (I never finished it when I was a child), I am now convinced that it was for the best. One of the problems with watching the movie before reading the book is that the movie colors your view of the narrative. Of course you want Winona Ryder to marry Christian Bale! But the book set me on the straight path.

The Help: I’d been meaning to read this ever since my friend and fellow wedding photographer Christy talked about really enjoying it… And the evil thing about the Kindle is that you can browse titles and download them instantly, even if you have a physical bookshelf full of things you already want to devour. I know the author, Kathryn Stockett, got a lot of flak mixed in with the praise for this book, but personally I really liked it. I judge books in different ways: do they make me think? Do they make me forget where I am? Does it make time pass by quickly? Can I put it down? I didn’t want to put this down.

Run (The Hunted): I downloaded this because it was free for Kindle and the reviews were good, so why not? It was a quick read, but the protagonist didn’t have a strong voice and I ended up not caring what happened after the cliffhanger (well, not enough to pay for the next in the series).

What are you reading? :)

A common grumble among photographers is that they spend ages learning their craft and how to get better, only to be told, “Wow, you have a nice camera.” Sure, good gear is a worthy investment, and a reason why pros sink so much money into their gear is because they need it to be reliable in all circumstances… but if a photographer can’t visualize the shots that s/he wants to make, or know the gear well enough to make the most of it, the shots turn out… pretty mediocre.

A few weeks ago I decided to test this theory by inviting over two of my friends, Eran and Lori. Neither are photographers. Eran agreed to hold the camera; Lori, to be the model. I handed Eran my D700 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens on it (keeping it nice and simple) and told him to take photos of Lori in an adjacent lawn. The camera was set to Auto. “Use the environment,” I suggested, and sat down to look at the grass while waiting about 8 minutes.

The results were predictable. Eran, who admitted to me that he knew how to point and shoot (or — tongue in cheek, photographer’s joke — spray and pray), snapped typical shots. It was about 5pm and the light was just beginning to shift, so our model was too dark in the shadows (as the automatic light meter in the camera saw the sunlight in other areas and adjusted to be straight down the middle); and although I wasn’t really watching them when they were shooting, I could hear Lori’s constant question: “What should I do?”

Eran’s contact sheet (all shots, no editing, just the RAW files, used with permission):

I had my 8 minutes after that. I’m not saying I’m the best photographer in the universe, or that I don’t need to double-check my exposures sometimes, or that editing isn’t important to image production process (because… let’s be real), but I would hope that the difference is discernible –

My contact sheet (all shots, no editing, just RAW files):

And a few quick edits:

When someone says, “I have a good camera so the picture will turn out” (in not so many words), it kills a photographer on the inside… we’re like Tinkerbell that way. If you don’t believe in the talent/vision/education/experience/artistry of a photographer, we wither a little bit. The camera doesn’t do all the work. The camera is a tool.

Big thanks to Eran and Lori for helping me with this project :)

These are my Sailor Jupiter nails. (Sailor Jupiter, you know, green and pink?) Green is “Don’t Mess with OPI” from the Texas collection. Ring finger is “Excuse Moi!” from the OPI Muppet collection. You can barely see it because this polish is a dud, but the green has a light glittery overlay of “I Juggle Men” by OPI. It’s such a thin glitter coat that I can barely see it in real life, either.

C’est la vie.

For the first time in a while, I actually feel like I have a regular rhythm of blogging going. I have posts lined up in my head, churning out as fast as I can shoot them. On the other hand, my offline to-do list keeps getting longer and longer. I need to design things, order new supplies, and actually sweep my office.

On the blog -
Austin Wedding Photobooths! - super fun and super awesome!
Photos for Eva – Cystic Fibrosis Awareness - for those of you who aren’t wedding or portrait clients, I’m going to have fine art prints available in a public online shop next week (or so is the plan) :)

Have you ever wandered around on Youtube? I call it Youtube surfing. I pick a video of a song I like and listen to it, then hop onto one of Youtube’s recommendations. You can get lost in a rabbit hole of artists you’ve never heard of. I found these all in a row:

After reading comments on the Youtube pages, I wondered if I was now a hipster. But then I shook it off. I like what I like! What music are you digging lately?

That’s the kind of person Eva was. I met her through a friend of a friend on Livejournal, of all places. She was smiley and spunky and my first impression of her was a spindly-legged girl sharing photos of herself dancing in a public bathroom. Her journal was open and she wrote candidly about her life — family, friends, boyfriend… and illness, malnutrition, breathing tubes, waiting for a transplant. Eva had cystic fibrosis and when I “met” her (for we never talked in real life, just followed each other’s journals and sent snail mail letters back and forth) she was suffering from declining health.

Over the years of communication via Livejournal and the occasional letter, we cheered each other on. She urged me to quit my job and follow my passion. She instructed me on the best way to dress up as Leeloo from the Fifth Element, having done it before. She listened eagerly to my wedding plans and crowed when I shared my photos afterward. She waited for a transplant, and in the meantime, became the star of a documentary about cystic fibrosis, called 65 Red Roses.

The crew was on-hand when her beeper, signifying a pair of donated lungs was ready for transplant, went off. We friends of hers — thousands of us, from around the globe — watched her come out on the other side, able to breathe. We were with her as she happily gained weight, experienced running and then participating in races, and as she became a huge spokesperson for cystic fibrosis awareness. She was charismatic, genuine, always positive, and so selfless. People, moved by her personality and enlightened by her story, signed away their organs on driver’s licenses.

Unfortunately, her body began to reject the transplanted lungs. A month before she died, Eva posted a farewell video on her blog. She passed away in March 2010, 4 days before her 26th birthday.

I know that this wedding photography business and blog of mine are usually happy, pretty, lighthearted things, and I know I’m disrupting that by writing about this. But it’s May, it’s Cystic Fibrosis awareness month, and the documentary about Eva, 65 Red Roses, is FINALLY being shown in the United States today.

So I had to post about it.

Again: Tonight — Thursday, May 3 — Oprah’s O.W.N. network will be airing 65 Red Roses at 9/8c in the United States.

(Check your schedule.)

I’ve never seen this documentary. I’ve been looking for it online somewhere, anywhere, but only Canadian websites would stream it. So I’m looking forward to seeing this. Even if it means finding a friend who has cable or viewing a livestream of it on the internet.

I miss Eva. Some days, when I’m in a bad mood, I try to remember to step back and count my blessings… because I can pull air into my lungs with no effort at all, and she had to fight for every breath. Every other issue seems so minor when you think about life that way. I started my business in May 2010, a little after she passed away. In all honesty, I’m certain that that is what spurred me to actually make the leap, do what I want to do, take risks and put myself out there… because life is short, and there is no point in wasting the time we have.

All proofing galleries are active — even the ones that have previously expired — for the rest of the month. 65% of all profits from print sales made in the month of May will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (Austin Chapter).

If you’d rather donate directly to CFF, click here. For those of you who aren’t wedding or portrait clients, I plan to have some fine art prints available in a public online gallery next week, so just sit tight.

Let’s help find a cure. For Eva. #4Eva

65_RedRoses OWN Trailer from 65_RedRoses on Vimeo.

I offer photobooths for weddings so that (potentially) every guest can have a fun, funky, hilarious, or serious photo of themselves with great studio lighting and props.

Photobooths are…

A great add-on if you have a large guest list. It’s difficult to get flattering candids of every guest if the party is jumpin’! This way there’s a dedicated camera taking photos of your friends and family.

A fun source for new Facebook profile photos and other avatars for your guests. I offer free web-sized downloads as early as the day after the wedding. The couple also receives high-resolution files!

Created with photographer-supplied studio lighting, fun backdrop, and a box of props. Basically it’s like getting professional studio setup in a corner of your wedding, for amazing high-quality photos of you and your guests.

Here are a few more photobooth photos from Diana and Michael’s wedding!

Hooray photobooths!

We got our new stove so I’ve been making as many things that require a frying pan as possible — including eggs and a protein oat pancake with berries (nomnom)! – This week was the 2-year anniversary of picking up our kitties, so I thought I’d take a photo of fat Scout, who is a Chubby McChubberson – as I mentioned earlier this week, I did a project with my friends Eran and Lori, and Eran took this photo of me lookin’ all professional – my new Kindle case is ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE AND AMAZING!! I’d been using an old knitted cap to house my Kindle for a while, since this case came from an Etsy seller in Thailand, so the create time + ship time was about a month! SOOO worth it, though! I get so happy looking at my little Totoro poking out of my bag.

On my nails: China Glaze’s “Stone Cold” (a matte charcoal grey/black from the Hunger Games collection)… I was really disappointed in this formula; after a few days, even with a matte topcoat (Essie’s Matte About You) it chipped like crazy. As you can see, I Frankenstein’d my thumbs a bit (first photo: Designer… de better from OPI’s Muppet). I took off Stone Cold, let my nails breathe for a day, then applied OPI’s “A Oui Bit of Red.”

Posts you may have missed - 
Lori & Eran – just one photo from a post-project photo session
Diana & Michael | DIY Crafty Wedding at Mercury Hall – LOVE this wedding!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

How do I even begin? Diana and Michael’s wedding day was beautiful: there was some rain in the morning for good luck, and then wonderful overcast skies graced us for the rest of the day. For April in Texas, it was amazingly comfortable. And in the end, people went inside of the lovely Mercury Hall for refreshments, cake, and taking photos in the photobooth, but spent most of their time dancing under lanterns and string lights on the lawn. It was laid-back, it was fun, it was full of Austin Beerworks‘ beer and Diana’s hand-crafted details… In short, it was amazing seeing these two people that I’ve known for years get married and celebrate in a way that absolutely reflected their personalities.

Here are just a few of my favorite photos from Diana and Michael’s wedding.

Venue: Mercury Hall
Second photographer: Anne Marie Carson
Wedding planner: Kristi Treadwell of Joyful Details
Florist: Pollen Floral Art
Dress: Unbridaled for bride; Urban Outfitters for bridesmaids; shoes from Anthropologie
Catering: Pink Avocado 
Makeup: Rhea McCarter
Hair: Jenna Harrington
Cake: DIY by Alberto Nuche (friend of the bride)