{san francisco} real live photobooth

Also back in January: Sean and I went to Musée Mécanique to have real photobooth pictures taken of ourselves! And I mean "real" as in you could still smell the chemicals from it being developed inside the machine!

I love photobooth pictures. I know it seems cliché nowadays (thanks in large part to Amélie, one of my favorite films), but I do. I'd always wanted to go to one and then Sean and I discovered one in a restaurant during out first year of dating (around Valentine's Day of 2007 when we went to Comic-Con in Orlando, Florida). Those were in color and weren't done with real black & white processing, but I loved it all the same and consider it to be one of my most cherished possessions. And so I was thrilled to discover, many years later, another one here in San Francisco!

PS. This post was made possible by Laney's discovery of the photobooth during her own trip to this amazing city.

{san francisco} a long-awaited update

I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted! I'm slowly trying to figure out what I'm doing with this blog, my photography, my new life in San Francisco, and how it all fits together. I can't believe I've been here six months! Everything is rather normal now. I have two jobs, both of which compliment each other very well and which I feel comfortable doing (retail work at Williams-Sonoma and much easier, more laid-back work at a flower shop on the same street). But everything still has that luster, that tiny bit of excitement of newness which I doubt will ever fade. I even still enjoy taking the bus (or buses) to work almost every day; I'll probably always associate it with something from a movie, it will always be something foreign to me, no matter how habitual it becomes.

Anyway, Sean and I hiked part of the coastal trail back in January and, lo and behold, I actually took my camera along! Here are two of the shots I'm actually pleased with. All of the other photos I took seem so ordinary. Maybe that's why I'm having such trouble here: I'm trying to capture a city that can't be captured or, more likely, trying to capture a city that has been overly captured.

In any case, I finally got five rolls of black & white 120 film developed from my Holga and I'm rather pleased with a lot of the shots and I can't wait to share them here! None of them are quite as magical as some of my previous Holga productions (case in point), but I'm extremely pleased with some of what turned out. I just ordered a very nice, high quality scanner for both mine and Sean's artwork, so I'm just waiting for that to arrive and then I can scan to my heart's content!

{personal} the goggled hero

My fiancé recently created these awesome "action figures" by first sculpting one in Super Sculpey, then creating dozens more by casting them with silicone and resin. The figure is Krumm, hero of the Smacked in the Head web-comic that my fiancé writes and draws. His talent awes me...

PS. If you're interested, you can read more on his process and see more behind-the-scenes pictures here (as well as the final painted outcome).

{san francisco} study in black & white

And finally: a decent picture of the Bridge. From a few weeks ago, but better late than never. I'd still like to take a picture of it that doesn't just end up looking like one that's already been taken before. But I believe that's probably impossible.

I need to find a place to develop my 120 film. Stat!

{looking back} bricks and things

Do you ever look back on something you created, such as photographs, and find that you like them better than you did before? At the time I took these polaroids, over five years ago, I thought they were okay. I liked them but didn't think they were anything special. Now, I kind of love them.

What generates the change in perspective? The time that passed? Or my own change in aesthetic preference? Or did I just need to get away from them, not look at them in hopes of something better until one day I stumble upon them again and they are better simply because I forgot what I was going for in the first place? My memory being wiped of whatever my preconceived notion was?

Regardless, I love them and the feeling they give me. All that old brick... it was such a neat place! Taken in Danville, Virginia. March 2006.

{san francisco} the bay

I still can't believe I live here...

{san francisco} enter here

I thought when I moved here I'd have a mad rush of creativity. And yet... most of the pictures I take, I don't really like. They're just normal. Ordinary. Boring. So I ordered some black & white film for my Holga and have been shooting with that a lot lately in hopes of getting more magic like this and this.

Of course I haven't given up on digital. So there's this little railing shot that's the entrance to our apartment. Nothing special. Yet, it's the best thing I've shot in awhile.

{san francisco} fire in the sky

How lucky I am to be sitting in my apartment, spot this rare blazing sunset through the trees, and then be able to rush across the street, camera in hand, to stand on the beach and capture it!

{san francisco} what i need to do

Well, it was a long weekend for me as I spent two full days at the APA Photo Assistant Basic Training workshop. I've been meaning to join APA and I finally got around to looking at the site last week and that's when I noticed the workshop coming up a few days later. I can't convey how perfect the timing was! Being new to the area and wanting to work with photographers, I couldn't have been presented with a better opportunity.

Assisting photographers is something that I was encouraged to do back in college but never did. Now, college was four years ago and I find that I don't really know what I'm doing. Sure, I've done a few freelancing jobs and I worked as a full-time photographer at a printing company. But I was the only photographer there and, for the most part, I felt like I was stumbling along doing things the only way I knew how, getting out of practice, creating bad habits (i.e. not using a light meter or incorporating light ratios), and overall not learning from anyone. 

People keep telling me that I'm a great photographer and could open my own studio, but I always say that I don't want to. I'm not being humble, it's just that I know how much I still need to learn! I want to work at a studio with someone who knows what they're doing, has worked in the industry for quite awhile, doing the kind of work I'm interested in, and who's willing to take the time to teach me. I don't want to be the photographer right now. I don't need to be. 

Looking back at my college days, I realize that yes, I should've been assisting. And now I find myself in this amazing city and it seems to be the right time in my life. For those of you who don't know, assisting is something that is very hard and scary (cold calls!) to get into. You don't make a lot of money at first, yet you still need to be flexible and not having a job right now might actually be a good thing!

So, this weekend went really well! I got a lot of questions answered, refreshed my memory on basic lighting setups, made quite a few contacts, and met some amazing women (even one who went to Virginia Tech and, like me, just moved here from across the country about a month ago). 

{for sale} 2012 calendar sets

As promised, here's the second calendar set for 2012 for those of you who already have the same images from 2011, or if you just prefer these images! I personally can't choose a favorite...

These 5x7 unbound calendar pages are perfect for sticking in a mirror or picture frame, tacking onto a bulletin board, or sliding into a book or day planner. The possibilities are endless! Best of all, at the end of each month you can trim off the calendar section, leaving you with 12 ready-to-frame 5x5 prints. Click here to purchase!

{for sale} 2012 calendar sets

You might've noticed that I've swapped out my 2011 calendar set for the updated 2012 one. It features the same images as last year, but with the new dates. (I also created a second set for those of you who already have last years, but I'll share that one tomorrow!)

These 5x7 unbound calendar pages are perfect for sticking in a mirror or picture frame, tacking onto a bulletin board, or sliding into a book or day planner. The possibilities are endless! Best of all, at the end of each month you can trim off the calendar section, leaving you with 12 ready-to-frame 5x5 prints. Click here to purchase!

{san francisco} the bay

Sean's mother, stepfather and grandmother came to visit the past few days! We showed them as much as we could of San Francisco: Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street, Chinatown, and the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove across it, which was the first time for all of us!

{san francisco} rue magazine party

There are so many amazing things about living in San Francisco, but one of the coolest is that I was able to go to RUE Magazine's anniversary party on Monday night! I think it's awesome that I actually live in a city where I can go to events like this. That just didn't happen back home in little old Martinsville.

But I won't lie: I was a little nervous. I'm shy and awkward and avoid parties like the plague. I hate being around lots of people that I don't know, I suck at making small talk, and I generally feel incredibly uncomfortable. But I'm in this amazing new place and it's a new chapter in my life, so I actually wanted to go. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone and making connections and all that... Plus, it meant that I got to finally meet Elizabeth who I've been "blog friends" with for about a year now! It was a relief to know at least one person there and not look like a loser walking around by myself.

Also, let me dork out for a bit:

I felt so cool dressed in my skinny jeans, tall cognac boots and pretty sweater, taking the bus across the city, arriving at the front entrance, having my name checked off the guest list, and wandering around the amazing space at H.D. Buttercup with (my very first) gin & tonic in hand! I know it might sound silly to those of you who consider it the norm, but it was a big deal to me. I felt pretty and somewhat stylish (despite my little freak-out of what to wear beforehand), like those girls you see in the movies, dressed to the nines and jetting around the city at night.

I might not have mingled as much as I was hoping for as it seemed that everyone else seemed to know each other: girls arriving in groups of three who happened to know other groups of three. But I would still consider it a success since I got to meet Elizabeth and Cassandra, the Market Editor of RUE. My favorite part of the night was having a poem written for me by Lynn Gentry who typed out poems on a typewriter, creating them in the spur of them moment on the topic of each guest's choosing (which reminded me of this part in Before Sunrise). I chose Astronomy and was incredibly impressed with what he wrote:

"Gazing into the depths I see
The movement of ancient energy
Shining in the infinite
Burning in my eyes
I look up to wonder
And hope someday
I realize
What stars of death
Now take form in sight
A requiem for the living
Celebration of light"

PS. For those of you who remember my gin & tonic post awhile back, here's what I thought of my first time: yum! Of course, it probably didn't hurt that it was made with No. 3 London Dry Gin, which I can only assume is super expensive.

{san francisco} magic is in the light

The living room is fast becoming my favorite room in the apartment, despite a dozen pairs of shoes lining one wall and Ed's random boxes and stuff lining the other. But in the middle is the sofa and table and big window. The walls are light and the floors are wooden and I can retreat from the guys and the noise of their games and movies and talk.

{san francisco} the sun has set

I can't remember the last time I saw the sun set over the ocean, but this past weekend Sean and I saw our very first West Coast sunset! It's even better because it was only a walk out our door, across the street, through the woods and there it was! It sets our living room ablaze every (non-foggy) evening.

We're so close to the ocean that we can hear the waves crashing and the foghorns blowing, which in a creepy/cool way remind me of the tripod sound from War of the Worlds, which by the way could totally be Sutro Tower!