It's time to begin, isn't it?

In Between

Yesterday, I spent four hours in the dark room developing the prints from Katie's photo shoot, and they're finally ready to be seen!

A true photographer wouldn't have to explain their pictures, but I'm still learning so I'm going to give you a little synopsis.

In the beginning, this young girl is torn up inside, in too much pain to survive but terrified to die. She turns her body into a suicide note for her loved ones to find and walks into the ocean, ready to end it all. She thinks she knows what she's getting into, but as the waves crash over her, she begins to panic. For the first time, her emotional pain is secondary to actual physical pain. She changes her mind and reaches for the shore...but it's too late.

The words are lyrics from In Between by Linkin Park. This shoot was also inspired by Calm Under the Waves by Maria Mena and Into the Ocean by Blue October.

And don't worry, not all of my pictures are going to be this depressing! Most of them, maybe, but not all.

Dragonfly Story

In the bottom of an old pond lived some grubs who could not understand why none of their groups ever came back after crawling up the stems of the lilies to the top of the water. They promised each other that the next one who was called to make the upward climb would return and tell what happened to him. Soon one of them felt an urgent impulse to seek the surface; he rested himself on the top of a lily pad and went through a glorious transformation, which made him a dragonfly with beautiful wings. In vain, he tried to keep his promise. Flying back and forth over the pond, he peered down at his friends below. Then he realized that even if they could see him they would not recognize such a radiant creature as one of their number.

The fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the transformation, which we call death, is no proof that they cease to exist. 

- Walter Dudley Cavert

Lindsey With an 'E'

Yesterday I did one of the most beautiful photo shoots I've ever seen with a gorgeous girl named Lindsey. It was another film shoot for my photography class, and we had a blast. We went to Bethesda by the Sea, one of the few places in West Palm with nice architecture. Despite the fact that she's still recovering from a bad fall, Lindsey bravely stood on top of stone monuments, climbed trees, and jumped around, all for my sake.

I told her, "It's a bad habit of mine to ask my models to do impossible things. But they keep doing them, so I keep asking!"

We felt a little bit like celebrities when a family from Brazil came up and asked if they could take pictures with us. The feeling grew when another group of tourists tried to discreetly photograph us. (Tried being the operative word. They weren't very good at sneaking.)

Finished up the outing with lunch at Applebees and declared it a perfect day!

Where Hannah is a Trooper

This is the only picture I'm going to show you from my shoot with Hannah last Sunday. Don't want to reveal too much, but I will say this: that girl is indefatigable. Whatever I asked her to do, where ever I asked her to do it (re: the graveyard), she did it cheerfully and better than I could have expected.