Introducing Night Portraits

The game, as they say, is on.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The rain had subsided; some final rivulets were arduously making their way through the gutters, sewers, waterways.  Asphalt, still warm from the vanished sun, sighed steam.  Detective Thompson saw none of it, heard none of it, brown eyes focused on a door across a busy street, waiting for a sign that she had hit her mark.

***

What's the use?  We've searched countless times and nothing's come of it.  Had he asked the rocks and briars for their advice, they would have told him to wait just a bit longer.  They had seen much in their time (especially the rocks!) and this particular adventure had yet some time to go before it would run its course.

***

Bad coffee helps you think.  Even though you may be thinking about an antacid and a toothbrush, you're still thinking.  And right now, Adam needed to think, needed to wander the cobblestone streets, needed the comfort of silence.  He had one week to come up with a briefcase full of monopoly money, one week to appease forces that had quite unkindly invaded his once-mediocre desk jockey life.

***

I've starting practicing nighttime shots as a fun exercise in seeing and creating interesting light, shadows, and stories.  And I offer to you the possibility of your own portraits - unique senior portraits, engagement photos, Sam Spade cosplay, or whatever else may be up one's sleeves.

Are you working on a mystery that needs some complementary imagery?  (Gosh, that's fun to say) I'd love to help you make that happen.


Get out of the TARDIS

What is it about myths that captures us?  What truth compels our fictions?

The Doctor travels through time and space in his blue police box, dialing in coordinates and traveling into the unknown.  Bursting out of the doors, he throws himself into whatever adventure awaits, often rescuing others from some evil force that seeks to destroy them.

I spent too many evenings last year watching one, two, three or more adventures of his in one sitting.  Internet streaming makes it easy to go on vicarious adventures, to pretend you're on a journey with these characters in front of you.

Story and myth are wonderful and necessary, stimulating imagination and drawing us into something bigger than ourselves.  Yet, I was often using these stories as an excuse to hide from a life that seemed to be going nowhere interesting.  What goals and desires I had were seeing little to no progress, and it was easier to vicariously make a difference through a television screen than to do the hard work of living a life in the world, of trying and failing and growing and succeeding.  Entertainment became escape.

No more.

With a new day job and a new year, I am enacting several new habits; moving forward with several new goals.  I will be honing my photography skills, practicing my writing, and trying some audacious things.  I'll be sharing how I flew to Hawaii for less than $100 and helping you do the same.  I'll be developing new photography products.  I'll be learning how to help small businesses tell their story - and I'd love to use my skills to help you tell yours.

It's going to be different for me this year.

What's going to be different for you?  I'd love to hear!

You have something to share with this world.  You can help bring light in the midst of darkness.  You can speak hope where there is uncertainty.  How will you choose to live?

Allons-y!

Supposed

No parking.  No microwaves.  You're not supposed to.

What are we supposed to do?

Much of my free time in college was spent reading books about starting a business, traveling the world, and generally living a non-suburban life.  My friends and I would photograph the world around us, write stories, send typewritten letters in reply to credit card offers, and discuss communication and design.  Much thought was poured out at Deet's Place and the Underground as we wrestled with hopes and dreams and how much they might be accomplished.

(I feel like some kind of idealist hipster after reading the above....nevertheless, that's what we often did)

Then I left most of those pursuits in southwest Virginia and started my first post-college job.  After years of doing what I was supposed to do and beginning to dream about following a different road, I began...

...to do what I was supposed to do.

Which was what?

Get a good job in my degree field with a good company that gave good benefits and a good chance of making it through any economic volatility.  Do well, move up, perhaps move to a different company, repeat.  Succeed.

To my bewilderment and frustration, this pathway to success seemed to require me to lock what I love to do in some closet in the basement of my heart, perhaps to be opened on weekends and vacations.  What is an admirable and perfectly good road for many people seemed not so for me.

So what am I supposed to do?  Do I have a God-given calling and purpose that has significance when it comes to my work and vocation?  If I listen to my life (as Jeff Goins suggests in his wonderful The Art of Work), what does it tell me about my skills and passions?

I have a sneaking suspicion I've been burying the skills and abilities that matter most to me, with which I can make the greatest contribution to this world .  

We each have only one life to give, one life to steward.  To be less than ourselves is to surrender. 

I wish to be all that God made me to be.  This year, more than ever, I'll be focused on that journey of discovery.

What race are you running?  I'd love to hear!

Fear is Lying to Us

You are not safe.  Don't ask that question.  Don't visit that country.  Don't follow your dreams.  Don't talk about topics that might offend someone.  Keep your head down.  Don't make waves.  Don't make anyone angry.

Fear tells you to stay in a safe little box of boring.

Dear Self: Shut up and climb mountains.  Sincerely, Me

I wonder just how irrational our fears are?  Are we still the 16-year-old who fears that they won't be asked to the school dance (or will be rejected) and their life will be over?  How often is our fear telling us some potentially wonderful thing will just end in disaster?

Listening to fear - not doing something because I am afraid - is getting tiring.

I'm not interested in hiding from life, but living it.

Let's go.