Julie No.2

Yawwn. I just woke up. And I'm kind of sad about that because I had the most awesome dream last night. First of all I was tall in my dream (I wish) and I was an international spy working in Africa, spying on.. chimpanzees. Yup, there was some sort of chimpanzee conspiracy that I was issued to break. The dream is quickly getting fuzzy but I remember it was cool. But even cooler, my husby is making omelettes for breakfast with HAVARTI CHEEEESE. I am a specialty, pricey cheese lover. And I love me some Havarti. Anyways, there is much more important things that I was planning on writing about in my blog this morning but now that I'm actually typing, I just want to go eat my omelette. :) ...I'll be back!
Mmm. So. Effing. Good. I am back with a satisfied belly. And I think I shall post some photos. My idea for this one was a strong, beautiful girl, all dressed up with no beautiful places to go. Ironic; a song just came on that really reflects my mood for this collection of photographs. Mein Herz Brennt by Rammstein. It's got an edgy, industrial sound but the violins give it an equally sophisticated and happy beat. Download it. It's awesome. Anyways, I've done several shoots now using nature as my background, but in this one I really wanted to go for a more grungy, city-fied look in contrast to a pretty model. And I tried to really focus on the lines of buildings, alleys, staircases. You may have noticed that I really love head level perspectives in my shoots and yes, I do that a lot. But I'm also really loving ground level right now too. It really works to draw your eye across an interesting landscape to ultimately land at your subject. In this collection of photos, I also did a lot of colour variations of b&w. I think black and white just causes less distraction and can bring a cohesiveness to something otherwise not.

I love the art of editing just as much as the art of capturing the image. To me, it's like playing with a box of crayons. I am absolutely, by no means an expert at editing - in fact, sometimes I get really frustrated not being at the ability level that I want to be at. Nevertheless, editing is so fun. With just a little playing, I can alter the mood and even the whole story behind a photograph. And with editing, I really am forced to study my image and often by the whole process, I can determine whether I truly love or hate a photograph - deeming possible fate of the recycle bin. Sometimes though (like when uploading these images), I look and wonder if I edit too much, if I over-edit. I often ask myself, 'Am I truly a creative photographer? Do I really have an artistic perspective when shooting?' ..But then I remind myself, for me, editing is a part of being a photographer and editing is likewise, a form of my artistic expression. But I definitely do look back at a photograph I did a month or-whatever-ago and think, 'Ooh, I wish I hadn't edited that way, I wish I had done blahblahblah.' As I do the same with, 'Ooh, I wish I hadn't done this when I took the picture, I wish I had done blahblahblah.'

Well, I could ramble forever. I should really give you a chance to a little more looking and a little less reading (plus, Travis is sitting on the front porch, sipping tea without me!). My model, Julie did an excellent job of pulling off the look, really bringing my vision to reality. Here are some of my faves.