Sometimes

So yesterday was the lovely Jessica's birthday. We celebrated in grand fashion by attending a concert in Chicago. We went to see City & Colour, again. You see, back in my headbanging days I fell deeply in love with a band called Alexisonfire. They scream a lot. However, there were these ridiculously lovely contrasting vocals to all of the screaming - that's where Dallas Green comes in, the man behind those vocals. This is his solo project. I've seen Alexisonfire three times and met Dallas at two of the shows. As you can see by photo number one below, he was extremely excited to be meeting me as well (ignore my sleazy look by the way, I just got out of a mosh pit people). Story goes... tiny venue in Chicago and my friends and I hang back to meet the band. Dallas is on stage packing up as we stand there hoping to get a picture. I ask, "Hey Dallas, can we get a picture?" Dallas says, "Sure, no problem."... a couple minutes go by and he continues packing. So I say, "Hey Dallas - picture?" and get a very disdained response of, "Yeah, give me a minute... *bleep*". Needless to say I was a bit excited to have the chance of meeting him but only ended up annoying him. Cool. Second time, Jessica and I go see Alexisonfire at The Rave. Same scenario, we hang back to meet the band. Dallas comes walking by and I reach out my hand to shake his and say hi. He stops to chat. Jessica proceeds to embarrass me by saying, "He's like your biggest fan." I respond, "Well no, I'm not your biggest fan." Face red, awkward silence... Dallas, "Well, it was nice meeting you." Looking back, it went better than the first time, right?

Anyhow, this has been our 4th time seeing City & Colour and he never disappoints. Opening acts included Daniel Romano (in the City & Colour band) and Gord Downie from The Tragically Hip. I was told that there is a strict photography policy at the venue, no DSLR's, no detachable lenses, point and shoot cameras only. Ok, bummer. We get in and how many flippin people had DSLR's??? They were everywhere, strictly enforced... We got second row and I had to shoot at ISO 800 with a Canon point & miss (thanks seppy!) Who knows how many shots I missed. Below are what I deemed worth sharing. Enjoy! AND go download all of these bands - you will not be disappointed.

...14 hours later

So this year hasn't exactly gone the way I would have liked in terms of photography so far. I began by attempting to keep up with Project 52 and shooting an assignment per week but that just proved to be too much with all I have going on in life right now. I had fooled around with my lighting before but had just been out of inspiration on what to shoot. I've been itching to shoot on white seamless for quite some time, but just don't have the room for it. So, there my camera sat...

In comes David E. Jackson with his Breaking The Rules workshop. This workshop essentially taught me that I need to shoot, and shoot some more... and then, shoot more. Not only shoot, but THINK about what I'm shooting and to innovate and shoot in unexpected places. It was great to meet such kind souls during this workshop. Below are some shots I took throughout the day. They certainly aren't perfect... I underexposed, I overexposed, I cut off elbows, I cut off fingers, but I left inspired and rejuvenated. Also, Zack Arias is right about the 50mm 1.8 - it really does look like butt on the white seamless. It left me with a blue/purple haze on all photos forcing me into a high contrast black and white. Yet another lesson learned!

save the date

Mike and I were lucky enough to have our friend Seth (www.sethalwin.com) spend an entire day with us taking our engagement photos this past summer. I had an idea for one in which Mike and I would walk towards each other and kiss when we met. Seth was able to capture my idea more beautifully than I ever imagined and thus giving us the perfect image to use for our Save the Dates! I wanted to emphasize the moment we met and kissed, so by making the background black and white and ourselves in color, we were able to really stand out. Since my design philosophy is clean and simple, that's exactly how I wanted the end result of these "save the dates" to turn out. I'm looking forward to designing as many things as I can for our upcoming wedding from invitations, table names, place cards and the programs. I'm going to be one busy girl:)