Things are looking up..

I am pretty gosh darn excited. Yes, I used the words "gosh darn." I have to say that I am excited for things to come. People are noticing my photography, albeit slowly - which I prefer over quickly. I am at that weird stage where I have people contacting me on Facebook asking about my photography, people being referred by others who are wanting me to do pics for them, and contacts being made through friends and family, but I am scared to death. I'm scared that these people, or clients if you want to call them that, will be disappointed by my lack of skill. I am no professional photographer, I am a chick with a SLR. Yet, people keep praising me. Do not get me wrong, I love every second of it. I just don't think it's deserved yet.

I think every artist is their own worst critic, doubly so in my case. I am beyond thrilled to be learning the techniques I am, and earning the oppurtunities that have been presented to me. My worst fear is failure though, and I am afraid right now. A few months ago it was all fun. Ask a few friends to model, snap some pictures of my dogs. I never dreamed anyone would see my photos and like them, let alone want me to take pictures for them! So right now is kind of a strange time for me, but as the post is titled "Things are looking up.." - they really are!

I have made my decision to go for a graphic design and photography degree at Stark State College. I was enrolled as General Education, just to get things started, but I think this whole hobby/obessesion of mine came into my life for a reason. I am so motivated to learn more that I am extremely excited at the prospect of getting a formal education in this field. So there you have it. It only took me 10 years to decide what I wanted to do with my life.

Another bit of exciting news, I recently bought my first "pro" lens!

 Ahhhh! I know, right? The thing dwarfs my poor little Rebel camera, and that is shown without the lens hood! Please excuse the cruddy quality of the picture, it was taken with my P&S in a pretty dark room using, gasp, on-board flash!

The lens that I have plunked on my camera here is the Canon 70-200mm f4 L. The "L" stands for Luxury. That just tickles me. I thought my Nifty Fifty (Canon 50mm f1.8 II) was sharp, I have found sharper. See that red ring on the end? That's evidently what differentiates the Canon "L" glass from other lenses. These lenses have superior quality glass elements, and are the prefessional standard for Canon shooters. I think personally I just like the sexy black and white stripes! I'm way, way impressed by this lens. The two images of my dogs below were shot today with this lens, I think they speak for themselves.

I know, the right side of Watson's photo is all blown out - but c'mon man! Check out that bokeh!! Holy $#%! I cannot wait to take this thing through its paces.

I have had some other pretty neat stuff going on lately too, the photo at the top of the black and white JRT is Hank, he is one of three dogs I just did a shoot of a couple weeks ago. Some of the pics from that set came out really cute, other ones - not so much. It was 90-some degrees and the dogs were hot and panting.

 So we are gonna meet up again in the fall when it's cooler out to see if we can get some more photos of these awesome, plucky little dogs and their big sister.

Although I have been doing a lot of pet photography lately, that's not all I've been doing! Jessica and I had an amazing shoot at our local park here, and we got some odd looks while we were shooting. I wonder if it was because of the big lightstand with the umbrella, or the flash, or the big camera, or...

Yeah, I think it was the hot girl dressed in vinyl, and covered in blood. Which, of course, was fake. Jess wanted a vampire themed shoot, and I was more than happy to oblidge. I got to use more off-camera flash, which worked really well for the time of day we picked to meet up. I was so happy with how these pics turned out, if only they could all turn out like these.

We didn't bust out the blood right away, and I managed to snap some fashion-y portraits of Jess, sans blood. Found an awesome backdrop (that I know I will be using again in the future) in the form of this awesome brick building that was casting some shade on one side.

These portraits by the building are some of my favorites from the set. It didn't take us long to bust out the fake blood, cover Jess in it and go mucking about in a creek though.

Let me tell you. Walking into this creek with no shoes on, camera in hand was completely nerve-wracking. I was so scared I was going to fall in and ruin my camera! We managed to get the water shots without incident though, thank goodness!

Jessica and I have a few more shoots in the works, and I cannot wait to see the results!