Inspiration

January is a quiet time where, for the newly engaged, wedding planning tends to go from some vague futuristic concept to a panicky, real urgency for this year's engaged; the sun hides and it rains out, and I shoot a bit less; and everyone seems content to curl up with a book or the tv remote for most of the month. However, I still have a LOT on my plate and am loving the puzzle of what to do on which days.

(since this is a photo blog, I'll sprinkle some random shots throughout:)



The beauty of working for yourself is the process of deciding if today's the day I post a new shoot to my blog; submit more shoots to my stock agency for editing; work on promos for my favorite venues and vendors; call one of those vendors for lunch; brainstorm some more shoots; etc. I appreciate the time to work on all of these things, and wish there were more hours in the day, but I'm also anxious to get back to shooting (and will be, in the next few weeks) and get outside!



When I have more time to think, I find myself with more inspiration, so I'm balancing getting things done with scribbling madly in a bunch of notebooks and planning new projects and shoots. Here are some things that have been inspiring me this week:

-Eugene Richards' National Geographic spread, "The Emptied Prairie", about the exodus from North Dakota's tiny plain towns - see it online here. Just beautiful, heartbreaking stills that capture so much without any people in most of the images.

-Sesame Street Old School Vol. 1 and 2 (okay, I haven't actually watched them yet, but they're on my queue and I am so excited! I could sing you the "me and my llama, goin to the dentist" song right now... lucky for you you can't hear me...). Creative, weird, unlike anything else.

-Music! - greats for 2007 like Tegan and Sara's "the Con", M.I.A.'s "Kala", Digitalism, Simian Mobile Disco, LCD Soundsystem's "Sound of Silver", Iron and Wine's "the Shepherd's Dog", Hot Chip's "the Warning", and (is this embarrassing or cool?) NPR's All Songs Considered.

-So many colleagues' and friends' photography!

-a TON of design, wedding, photography, and random blogs. Some recent favorites:

Brooklyn Bride

Blush

Style Me Pretty

Oh Joy!

SF Girl by the Bay

Fashionist

Frolic!

-buying some beautiful, vintage-reproduction fabrics from Reprodepot.com to use as funky, rad portrait backgrounds... so hard to choose, though!















-No Country For Old Men, because of the unique and beautiful slooooow and quiet but totally nerve wracking cinematography and storyline, with big empty spaces and silence, even if I did have to keep glancing at Devon to get a wee break from the bloodshed! (second best: confirming that Josh Brolin indeed was Brand from the Goonies, Devon's all time favorite movie!)

-going through cookbooks and planning recipes... I hate to say it, but I'm not really inspired to actually make much other than cakes right now! I'm planning to make a silly honey birthday cake from a "Winnie the Pooh" cookbook I have from the 1970s... we'll see how it goes.
Okay, back to work! :)