Everything that moves in Florida is poisonous...

 

The temperature has finally begun to warm up and there is a sudden explosion of colors outside where only days ago everything was a different shade of neutral.  I took a walk on a wooded trail a few days ago, just to get some time away from my apartment and away from the weight of too many final projects.

As always, I chose a wide trail—I like to view nature from a little bit of a distance, or more accurately, from a vantage point where nothing actually brushes against me. Yes, I am squeamish and I am from the Northeast where the things you find outside are less likely to be poisonous.  In fact, I am certain I saw a black widow spider in the exterior hallway of my apartment complex the other day and I've been thinking about it ever since.  On my walk, I saw the interesting—and gargantuan—insect pictured above sunning himself on a leaf.  I immediately took some photographs and pointed it out to my boyfriend, who burst my bubble by saying it was "one of those bugs that spits in your eye." As I said before, poison, poison, everywhere... But before I made haste back to the interior sanctuary of my apartment I did manage to find a little beauty in the natural world.

Wedding archive

This weekend I was finally transferring files from my last laptop—a Macbook Pro with a casing cracked so badly that the wires are exposed—to a new portable hard drive. (I will tackle the old desktop unit next, but I need a break.) As these things always go, I spent an inordinate amount of time looking through all those impeccably organized folders. I know what is there, and more or less where to find what I need, but I still relish the opportunity to study old images with the excuse that I will be a more productive person at the end of the process... it's more or less true.

Reminiscing aside, the point is that I revisited the pictures I took at my cousin Rene's wedding last year. It took place in early January in Upstate New York—and if you've ever been there in winter you know what I'm about to say—it was unbearably cold. Anyway, I spent several days, upon request from my aunt, shooting images at parties, rehearsals, and the reception. It was entertaining enough, but served as a great reminder why I don't, as everyone always asks me, "just shoot weddings." I had my aunt hire another photographer for the ceremony and all the posed, requisite shots of the bride with mother-in-law, bride with bridesmaids, groom with parents, guests standing behind their tables, bride-and-groom-kissing, and, well, you get my point. Instead, I just got to hang out with my camera and shoot whatever seemed interesting, without having to know who the groom's fourth cousin was, and why she needed to be included in a shot with his great-grandmother, sister, and second cousin... I left that stressful mess to the other photographer for sure.

Anyway, following is a selection of 20 of my favorite shots.

Writing it all down

So, hello anyone out there...

I took my inspiration for this first post from my friend Krista. She has been blogging about her life and design business for quite some time, and I thought it was about time to try it out myself. We both went to art school, and both recently left jobs that were stifling us to pursue something a little different. For her, that has been devoting all her time to her clothing line, which she produces herself and sells on the indie fashion circuit. For me, it has been returning to school to pursue another graduate degree.

That said, I miss producing art, which I used to do quite prolifically, and I miss writing about things outside an academic setting; it has been awhile since I really made anything for myself. My friend Christina has been suggesting that we procure a residency and work on a couple of collaborative projects, like we used to do in graduate school. It's a good idea, and one that I have been putting off for a few years now, mostly because work has taken precedence in my life for quite some time (and all my creative design work has been focused in that direction). In the interest of making time to create things, I am going to begin by posting something here each week. Eventually (maybe this summer) I will make time to work on those collective projects.

So, why should anyone out there care about any of this? I'm not really sure they should, however, this is the first step to reclaiming my time and redirecting my efforts; making it public is what will hold me to it. Here's to writing it all down... or at least some of it anyway.