the end.
when i realise where i live..
because you can quickly forget to see the beauty around you.. it all blending in with the rest. with the dull. with the grey. but only when you open your heart and mind.. and eyes-to look closely enough. you'll find it. you always will.
last night i was talking with the talented roberta cotter. (you might remember her from the photos i took, of her and her horse)
she mentioned that she had a wedding in galway today, and invited me to come along if i wanted-that it'd be good for practice.
how crazy is this?! so…i did another wedding.
there's so much more of a difference when you're the second shooter-the pressure isn't on to get THE shots. plus, i was really there to watch someone who has the experience-see how she interacts with her clients…
it was amazing.
the wedding was absolutely beautiful. the bride and groom were so wonderfully in love.
i am SO happy that i said i'd go, even though the nerves fluttered around in my belly… i'm proud of the photos i came away with, and the experience.
(even though i really shouldn't add more photos until i have my first wedding edited. i have a feeling that i'm going to have to get mighty cozy in this computer chair!)
*****
i was too excited… i have to share a few pictures from today.
around a year ago, or wait.. was it two? caroline mentioned that she was getting married…she was shopping for a photographer when i piped up and said 'oh i could do that!'
i had no idea what i was thinking at the time. i didn't have a portfolio, the pictures that i did have for one weren't good enough… the under taking of a wedding? oh my..
but she was so relaxed about it… she went on about how i had plenty of time-that i might even shoot a wedding before hers.
she had complete trust and faith in me.
isn't that scary?
hahaha…
but goodness… she has been so absolutely wonderful.
their wedding was beautiful, so many friends and family attended. so many new traditions that i have learned. (not only was it my first wedding to shoot, but also my first irish wedding to attend… and er.. some of the traditions are different)
still going through the *cough* thousands of photos i shot…
rubbing my sore muscles.
coming down off of the anxiety high of trying my best to capture their special day…
i have such a new found respect for people who shoot weddings every weekend, and do a beautiful-flawless job at it. i kiss your tired muscles, and cramped hand.
i'll give you a link to their sneak peek in a few days time when i actually get to a few more of them.
When I was little-we received the National Geographic magazine every month. And every month I would carefully turn the pages-looking at all of the pictures, from all over the world. I'd study the eyes of the girls in tribes far away from me… wondering how different my comfortable life was-to theirs… I saw pieces of the world that I probably will never see with my own eyes-whales swimming gracefully, Arctic peaks, Mongolian gypsies…
I had decided to become a photographer for National Geographic. I was going to be the one to travel across the globe, to remote locations…capturing the wisdom and stories in those little girls-who stared back at me from the magazine. I was going to climb the mountains and take pictures of the sun when it shows its first colours to the world, I was going to be the one to capture history as it unfolds…
I wanted, very much, what I aim to take photos of now–the emotion, the…reality, the secrets that we carry and show the world-but never tell. I want to always tell your story through my lens.
I'm always interested in checking out the latest of history making photographs-here are the ones for 2008 part one, part two, and part three.
What is so hard for me to understand, now, is how disconnected it seems-that photographers that capture this history can be. I just don't think that I could ever give myself permission to be able to take some of those photographs… I know how haunting it must be-to these photo journalists-to live in dangerous places, to see terrible things day in and day out. They are simply trying to give a VOICE to what is happening-to show, as graphically, and raw to the rest of the modern world, who live so very comfortably–just what it can be like in other places in the world. To educate, to spread understanding-or even to give another idea of beauty to our mind frame.
Some of the images make my stomach sick, others bring tears to my eyes… I am so very grateful to those photographers who can continue to raise their camera lens to capture what the rest of us cannot-and-couldn't stomach to see…
As I have gotten more comfortable with my camera, more confident with my art-I'm starting to push myself, to give myself permission to take the photos that beg me to capture. I'm pushing myself, this year-to tell those stories that I watch in the world around me. To capture some of the history of now… To be brave-because those stories told in remote tribes, on top of mountains, in the deepest seas-are all happening in my back yard too…
