Austin - March 26, 2010 - 9lbs 14oz - Birth Day!

Here is a baby shoot I have not shared yet, with my blog followers!

Austin is, my sister, Hope's boyfriend's nephew(ha! long description!). As a gift to Rob's brother, Todd, and sister-in-law, Jenny, Hope and Rob offered my photographic services. I thought it was a pretty cool, and rare, opportunity to be able to do a newborn shoot while baby and momma were still in the Hospital. In fact, I got to shoot on Austin's Birth Day!

Needless to say, it was a pretty awesome experience and Austin was an awesome little model for me - He slept, he was alert, he even yawned for me! Well, ok, I'll show you! Thanks Jenny and Todd for allowing me to intrude on you so soon after the birth. I hope you think it was worth it!

Introducing Baby Austin(or "Little Fella" as big brother, Dylan, calls him):

Jakey - 3 months - March 21, 2010

As Promised, here is little Jakey - Thanks Joe, Jenny, Little Joey and Jakey for a great shoot! Have fun in Florida!

Spring Break

So I've been on spring break all week and taking more of a mental break than anything else. I've needed it. I've been so burnt out creatively lately, going nutty over every single photo assignment. So I've been spending my days either playing Super Mario Bros. on Wii, watching my brother's wife, Hana, and Yassine play, working out, or shopping... I've also been thinking a bit about some of the projects I have coming up as well as shooting.

I've had two baby shoots within a week's time and have another baby shoot shortly.
Here are my favorites from the first-



and a sneak peek of the second-




I've also booked a wedding for early April and all the jobs mentioned are paid so, thank God, I'm surviving financially. I'd really like an assisting/second shooter job, right about now, but all in God's time.

I've been getting better at work flow, so hopefully, I'll be posting more often. There are no promises tho seeing as Midterms and Finals are coming soon and are quite close together. So Anyway, ciao for now. :)

ps. H|Photography has reached 141 fans on Facebook!! Thank you to those of you who follow, I really appreciate your support!

breaking point

missing travel. no, the constant nomadic back and forth between my house and my sister's does NOT count. i miss airplanes, and airports, and having an 18hr excuse to look like crap in public, authentic food everyday, people who are naturally hospitable, and being surrounded by inspiration daily. i miss culture.

aye. college.

all i'm saying is that spring break is going to have to do a lot of rockin'.

east coast, anyone?

What I've been up to:

Studio Assignments

3 lights



and

4x5 View Camera w/ a Fuji back.

Typical

It seems to me that I've become a once-per-month blogger. It's so funny that pretty much every blog I write starts out with how bad I am at keeping up, yet I still try.. Ha! You'd think that maybe one of these days I'd just get over it already, but I guess today wasn't that day. How typical of me.

So anyway, since my last post I've been introduced to the studio, reintroduced to Photoshop, and officially became an adult. Yes, I turned 21 and I don't feel much different, for the record. Also, typical.

I remember long ago, in my teens when I could NOT wait to turn 21. It was this HUGE deal. Now that I am I feel like, while there are a few things I can do now that I couldn't (ie. have a horizontal drivers license, like everyone else...), nothing has really changed. I feel like being a Sophomore has changed me more than becoming an adult. Is that weird? I mean, having been through two semesters of photo, I feel like I can tell the Freshmen how to check the temp of the water in the development sinks and final fix prints with confidence. It's so silly, but I realize that I am helping those kids more and more every time I am in the darkroom. Even through my own struggles getting reintroduced to b&w development, I feel like there is something that I can offer to my peers in terms of experience. And even though, sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be intruding into their learning experience, it's a really nice feeling knowing that I have the ability. Is that cocky? Maybe, but it's also humbling because it just reminds me of how I felt walking up to the fix and wash the first time and it is SO typical of my maternal instincts to kick right in, telling them what to do.

I am learning SO much this semester, it's great! I've been really busy, keeping up with everything, so glad that I'm only taking 4 classes! I cannot even imagine what it would be like to have 5 with the two shooting classes! Omgoodness! that's not a pretty thought. Studio is proving to be really interesting and hard, but rewarding. I know I will be able to do SO much with it once I am out of it, I have the best teacher too!! Bill First. He's tough, but awesome, and so nice. I can def say I'll be taking him for view camera and for studio 2! the hardest part about Studio right now is probably the printing. Traditional black and white printing is such a hassle, esp in the winter! But, oh well. I think I'm going to get back in there the next few weeks and try split filtering again. I know I do MUCH better with that than regular.

My other classes, aren't really all that exciting. Well, digital is cool, but very basic. I love that I can shoot digital in there tho, instead of film and scanning. At this point, it's a HUGE relief for homework and financial purposes. They teach a lot of really useful stuff tho, saving and printing formats, as well as photoshop techniques. I do find myself saying, "I can do this so much easier/better in Lightroom" a LOT, tho haha! Needless to say, I hate Adobe Bridge.

I'm going to try to get up some albums of homework photos soon. Scanning negatives and prints can be so time consuming, but there is a lot of film work that needs to be digital. There are also a few digital files that I can share, but we haven't really done anything too interesting photo wise in that class yet.

Horrible blogger

Well, everyone, I guess you can say that I am a horrible blogger and I apologize to my followers for not keeping up.

I really have no other excuse than being incredibly busy and when I'm not incredibly busy, I'm incredibly tired...

Ah, the life of a college student...

Well, I'm back for an update! Can't say that I'll be back often, but we all can hope, can't we?

So many things have been going on in my life lately! Between school and shooting, last semester was a crazy four months, but I'm happy to say I came out on top, with straight A's to show for it! As I continue on in my study of photography I am upholding my Dean's List status, and hoping it will pay off in the long run. I have a feeling it will, but even if it didn't for some reason, it sure does feel good NOW!!

Yassine, is also keeping up with a 4.0 GPA in his MBA: Marketing Management program! I am so proud of him.

We, together, are doing very well and while we have faced a few hurdles we are pushing through and pressing on.

As I said, last semester went well, even though I didn't love it. I really only liked one of my teachers and he was a writing professor. It was not my favorite class; but, he was definitely a very good instructor. So Columbia students, take Steven Teref if you get the chance! :) My final in his class was a 15pg paper about photographic integrity. I learned a lot while researching it, but I'm glad I got through it alive!! (Steven, and my sister, helped a lot with that.)

My photo classes were on foundations of color. There was a lot of shooting and a LOT of printing, but I'm glad I now can see color casts and know how to fix them! :) My final for that class was on Fashion and Architecture. That was a hard one, but I rocked it out! Ultimately, I felt fulfilled and accomplished at the end of that whole shooting, printing, editing, and bookmaking process! See photos from my final - Here with password- hphotoblog.

As soon as the semester ended I got a call to shoot a wedding. Since last summer, I have been really busy, both shooting and editing weddings, as well as other shoots. I am gaining confidence in myself as a photographer and in my skills. I just think I need a faster long range lens - say a Nikkor 70-200mm F/2.8, hehe.... I wish! But really, I'm thankful, to God and my amazing family, for not only helping me succeed in business, but for believing in me to do so! God is SO good.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm keeping uber busy! I have also just begun working on my official "H|Photography" website! So, hopefully, in the near future I will be posting a link for a site, complete with photo gallery!

Well, that is all for now. Thanks to all of you who have patience enough to follow my blog!!

Hopefully, I'll talk to you all soon!