I took a great photography workshop this week taught by Cheryl Jacobs. You know when you are going through life and not questioning what you are doing and/or why you’re doing it? That was me. Just moving along. I feel like Cheryl made me sit up and look at things and realize that I could do them any way I wanted. It was liberating, to say the least. But what I loved most was that she is smart and funny, which is my favorite combination in a person. She even got me using my film camera again. Frankly I am sick of sitting in front of a computer all of the time. It will be nice to send the images to the lab and let them deal with them rather than spend hours in front of the computer. I think I was so infatuated with the idea that I could have TOTAL control with digital that I failed to see the downsides. I still love both, but hopefully will learn to balance the two.
But really it wasn’t about technology or medium but about message. And there was a good deal of looking into why I do the things I do. And we all know how much I LOVE to talk about ME. My favorite thing she said when we were talking about the plethora of photo forums was that it was ‘aesthetics by consensus’. It was a YES! moment for me.
So here’s one of the photos I took during the workshop of a fantastic little girl who was one of the volunteer models. This is of course a digital photo since I have not dragged my lazy self down to the photo lab (one glitch in my new plan). This little human makes me smile just thinking about her. My favorite part of our conversation was about how her mother always believed her brother when they had a fight and never her, unless she had physical proof, like blood. Ah, childhood.
Monthly Archives: February 2007
Frances England lives in SF with her husband and two kids and made this CD originally for her son’s preschool. If you have a little one, you should definitely get this cd and kiss Elmo goodbye.
It’s funny how her story made me think about what having a kid had BROUGHT to my life. Usually, I focus on the things he took away (being a ‘glass half empty’ kind of girl). But I never took photographs professionally until Ben came along. He re-ignited my love of photography. I had always loved doing portraiture, but found adults to be inhibited subjects, not to mention too busy to take time to sit for their portrait. Suddenly, I had a 24 hour/day model. What a gift he gave me. I know someday he will refuse to have his picture taken, but for now…
Look, they made a shirt just for me.
Yesterday we got a bit of cabin fever so we motivated early and took Ben to the aquarium in San Francisco. He loved it, particularly see the Nemo and Dory fish. He is obsessed with ‘Finding Nemo’. Did I say obsessed? I meant OBSESSED! The first words (aka commands) out of his mouth in the morning are daddy, bottle and Nemo. So a good time was had by all.
Afterwards, we went to the food court at the nearby mall. This makes it sound like any suburban mall, but the new food court at the San Francisco Centre is amazing. We had yummy Korean BBQ and then Ben and I shared a gelato, with him saying “I want more” even before I had gotten the spoon out of his mouth. He’s his mommy’s baby.
After we were done eating we headed out of the mall. We got off the elevator and I had a brain fart and thought we got off on the wrong level. So while I was telling Josh this in the elevator lobby Ben jumped into the elevator next to ours and the doors closed. Now I cannot even begin to describe how quickly this all happened. He was there and then he was gone. We of course FREAKED OUT. I am yelling at Josh to get security and then I hop on the elevator (there are like seven of them in a row) and am stopping at every floor. Well this monstrosity of a building has like twenty million floors. Soon I got a call from Josh who had found him back on the concourse at the food court just hanging out like he owned the world. This probably all happened in three minutes, but it was damn scary. Thank God for cell phones.
Now I know all you singletons out there are probably thinking what I would have thought. I mean, how stupid do you have to be to let your kid jump on an elevator and lose him? But I swear it was a split second. Josh summed up the whole event as being my fault for second guessing his elevator navigational skills. All I know is that I never hugged Ben so hard as I did when I caught up with him and Josh. Ben was, of course, looking like the cat who caught the canary. Little stinker.