i'm going to africa!!

I'm so excited to let you guys know that this November, three lovely photographer friends and I are headed to Kenya!  My friends Nicole, Meredith, Lindsay, and I will be working with Friends Vision, a great organization comprised of volunteers from Kenya and around the world, working to make life brighter for kids at their Children's Home.WHAT ARE WE DOING?

We'll be bringing donated digital cameras & computer equipment with us, and teaching the kids basic photography lessons, hoping to open the door for them to our passion,  and give them a potentially marketable skill.  I really want to see these kids energized by the beauty of photography - I remember how exciting it was (and still is!) for me to take that first good shot, and to start to see the world in a new way.  Wouldn't it be awesome if some of these kids grew up to be renowned wedding photographers, or award-winning photojournalists?!?

We'll also be documenting the work that Friends Vision has been doing, through both video and stills, giving them updated images for their website and hopefully a short documentary film as well.  We also hope to shoot individual portraits of the kids for use in their child sponsorship program.  Obviously, we'll also be helping out however we can around the Children's Home, too.

(some of the Friends Vision kiddos)

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

We would be so encouraged by your support!  Here are some of the ways you can help:

- Donate your USED (or new!) DIGITAL CAMERAS for us to take with us to give to the kids.  We're looking for digital cameras in working order with all the necessary parts, if possible (batteries, chargers, cards, card readers, etc.).  It doesn't matter if they're cheap point & shoots or big fancy SLRs - I'm sure the kids will love them!  We're also looking for a few small printers - there are some travel-sized mini-printers that can print straight off of a camera.  We'd love to be able to hand out prints as we shoot.  If we can get our hands on some USED LAPTOPS IN WORKING ORDER, we'll bring those with us, too!

- Donate your FREQUENT FLYER MILES.  If you have accumulated miles that you're not going to use, we'd love to have them!  It may help us get over there a bit more cheaply.  Sign up for an account at points.com, or contact your airline / credit card company... here's some more info about transferring your miles.  If you need my frequent flyer numbers in order to transfer miles, just let me know which airline you'll be transferring from!

- Donate FINANCIALLY.  You can make donations towards my trip at my YouCaring account.    We're each trying to raise $2600 to cover airfare, travel costs, food, and lodging.  Any money raised over our goal amounts will go straight to Friends Vision as a donation, or will be used to purchase any accessories necessary for our donated cameras to be useful to the kids.

- Plan to BUY A FRAMED OR MOUNTED PRINT from me when I get back.  I'll be taking LOTS ( and lots and lots and lots) of pictures, both of the kids and of the scenery, etc, and all proceeds from any Africa print sales will go towards this trip.

- Consider SPONSORING A CHILD through Friends Vision!  If we know who your sponsored child is, we can bring extra letters, etc with us, and make sure to take plenty of portraits of your sponsored child, with you in mind :)

- Join us at a FUNDRAISER EVENT. We have some fun fundraiser ideas planned ... we'll keep you updated on the details as we figure them out!

Thanks so much for your consideration - we're all so excited about this trip, and can't wait to share more details with you soon!

paper or plastic? (boulder senior portraits)

I was recently asked by a client about my editing / retouching policy.  I hated that the first thing I had to say was, "You'll still look like you".  She nodded in relief.  It's so weird to me that there are photographers out there who specialize in making you look like a computerized Barbie version of yourself!  I want you to look like yourself, your REAL self, on your best, happiest day.  I want your friends to look at an image and say, "Oh my gosh, that's such a good picture of you!" rather than saying, "Wow... what great Photoshop work!  You look great... after all that editing!"I do edit and retouch images, but I try to be light-handed about it.   I want you to look GOOD!   We'll get rid of your breakouts, edit that stain on your shirt, and fix weird lumps in your clothing that are distracting, but I want your skin to look like skin, not plastic.  I want your face to look like YOUR face, not some weird anime version of your face.  This is why I still call myself a photographer, and not a "digital artist" or something.

For some of you, your truest, most authentic beauty is found in a huge smiley grin.  For others of you, it's that wave in your hair, or a moment of intense eye contact.  Sometimes it's the expression on your face when you think I'm just screwing around,  and you laugh at me.  Seriously!  I love it when people laugh, (at me, or with me!)  Every person has their own, individual beauty, and it's my job to find that and broadcast it.  Sometimes it's a quiet presence and graceful movements.  Sometimes it's sequins and glitter, and spotlights, and neon... awesome!! It doesn't matter.   What makes you the most beautiful is when you look like yourself, loving life.

To edit the absolute  crap out of you would be saying that I thought you were maybe okay-looking, but not quite beautiful enough.  It would be saying that, "the way you look in reality is fine, I guess, but your face would look so much better made out of plastic"... which is not something I believe AT ALL.  The people I'm the most drawn to and find the most beautiful, my best friends, who I love and do life with, are REAL.  LIVE.  PEOPLE... and I love them for it!

I will make you look like a real person.  You look better that way... I promise.

* sidenote - despite the title of this post, I don't want to make your skin look like paper, either.  It was just a catchier title than "Real live skin or plastic?"  ;)

not quite springtime in holga-land

I have been busy busy lately, but yesterday was so gorgeous and sunny that I just had to ride around on my cruiser bike and play around with my new Holga (for DSLR!) lens that finally came in the mail.  I felt like a little kid, riding around on my bike (yes, it has a basket), taking pictures just for the pleasure of hearing the shutter click under my fingers.  It's refreshing to be able to look at the world in a different way.  All these shots are straight out of camera (SOOC) except for the black & white conversions <3

i still miss thailand.

Zach and I lived in Bangkok  for 4 months or so in 2006.  We were watching some Thai movies the other night and I started missing it hardcore.  So, I got all nostalgic and went back and unearthed some photos.  Most people who travel through Thailand use Bangkok as a stepping stone to the beaches or to the jungles up north and are surprised that we loved the city itself so much.  We adored Bangkok - the food, the temples, the people, the night markets, all the random little neighborhoods.  We  lived on the outskirts of one of the Middle Eastern neighborhoods, and one of my favorite restaurants in Bangkok was a Lebanese place :)

One of the things that I love about Asia is discovering all these random fruits and vegetables that I never even knew existed.  Meet rambutan.

During monsoon season, it rains in biblical proportions.  I loved it.

I took some Mandarin classes at Assumption University, which has such a beautiful campus:

One of the days it was raining too hard to go outside, I sat in the little lobby of our apartment / guesthouse and watched the Discovery Channel.  They had a show about monks in Thailand who take in sick tigers and rehabilitate them.  I was really fascinated, and then I remembered that we were IN Thailand.  So we went!

So... I'm pretty much just looking for an excuse to go back.  Anyone wanna come? :)

sarah & ryan

I'll be honest ... I don't really know how to write this one.  It's been in my drafts folder for several weeks as Sarah and I played phone tag, and it just didn't feel quite right to post yet... so here goes the original:Sarah and Ryan have been together for several years.  They've known each other since high school, and when I asked them how they met, Sarah joked about following him around until he gave in and started paying attention to her :)  Now they've fallen in love, they have an adorable puppy... and Ryan has cancer.  Everywhere.

As soon as Sarah contacted me about doing a session, I just knew it was something that was absolutely essential for me to do.  Ryan was in a lot of pain that day, but the images we got are sweet and real and wonderful anyway.  Meeting both of these awesome people has made my life brighter.  Sarah & Ryan : thank you, thank you, thank you.

As I mentioned above, I wrote this post a few weeks ago and have just been sitting on it until I got the okay from Sarah.  She stopped by the studio yesterday morning to let me know, over tears and coffee, that Ryan recently passed away.  We did the session at just the right time - within a few days of our shoot, he was in too much pain to leave the house.  Sarah, my dear - my heart goes out to you.  I know words are totally useless at a time like this, but I love you already and I can't wait to get to know you better.

If you'd like to make a donation to Sarah & Ryan's photography registry, please contact me directly.

If you'd like to join with me in making a donation to the American Cancer Society in Ryan's name, just let me know.