The Future Mr. and Mrs. A

First, Super thanks to Chantal over at LA BELLE BRIDE for featuring these photos today!

Second, I am blogging this from COLONIA, URUGUAY!  It´s one of my new favorite places on earth.  It´s magical.  I am having an amazing time, and cannot wait to develop all this film and share with you!

Now...Mr. A and Mrs. A...I could say a lot about this photo shoot, and my challenges and lessons this time around.  I could tell you about my new thoughts on post processing, and color.  But instead I just want to tell you about them, because these two...these two are special people.

They're hopeless romantics, they're dreamers, they're in love, and they're high school sweethearts.  I've known the future Mr. and Mrs. A since college.  They showed up my sophomore year and everyone was a buzz- are they or aren't they?!? It was such a mystery.  You see- these high school lovebirds had big college dreams- DIFFERENT big college dreams.  But life has a way of showing you your dreams are wrong, and you're not dreaming big enough.  Even though they didn't plan for it they somehow ended up at college together and didn't know what to do about it.  Years, breaks and reunions, college transfers and transfers back, changes of major, plans and broken plans, and what seems like a whole lifetime later these two are finally going to get married.  Their dreams have become one and now they dream together, and dream bigger.  I could not be happier for them.  Seriously world- look out for these two because they will be an unstoppable force.  He is currently serving with the peace corps in Nicaragua, and She's an ivy league girl getting her masters, but spending the summer interning with an NGO in..yes...you guessed it...Nicaragua.

When the future Mrs. A emailed me and said Mr. A would be back from the peace corps for a week and she wanted pictures while he was home I packed my bags and flew straight back to Philly for the job!  Not literally...but ya know...I was super excited to get back to my beloved Philadelphia for a visit.  I loved catching up with these two as we explored some of their (and my) favorite Philadelphia spots.

Thank you both SO much for sharing your dreams with me.  I can't wait to watch them all come true for you!

This last one was taken later that evening at their engagement party, where Mr. A made some spectacular food- loved his apron.

AN EMPTY SUITCASE IS WAITING

Last night I couldn't sleep.  I had spent the day up to my eyelashes in hosting options, domains, nameservers, ftp information, AND it wore me out.  So why could I not sleep?  Well I suppose it had something to do with the fact that I was about less then 48 hours away from 17.5 hours of travel, had bills to pay, money to transfer, furniture to finish painting, a website to buy, hair to cut and dye (vacation photos mean- make sure your hair is in shape), packing to start, emails to send, packages to send.  I sat in bed and made a to-do list on my iphone.  Then our bedroom door decided to slowly creak open of it's own accord, so I convinced myself robbers were in the house, woke my husband up, and made him go double check our front door was locked. 

I'm trying to be a calm traveler.  I'm usually pretty good at that, and confident in my ability to navigate airports, train stations, and any kind of public transportation I'm faced with.  I love flying- I love to travel, but something about this trip seems bigger and I'm nervous. 

All I really need is my travel companion aka husby, my slick new lesportsac bag, and my camera.  Oh, and my sweet new purple and orange nike kicks, duh. Oh, and of course film for the camera- on the list!

I can't adequately communicate what this trip means to me.  It's about siezing a moment in our lives, about letting go of burdens, about having an adventure, about re-learning how to enjoy life, learning to love one another more each and every day.  It's about shutting off the day to day and just looking around and breathing.  AND, It's about so much more then that.

For some reason in addition to the million other things I was trying to get done before our trip I decided to buy a new website- and start designing and branding a more official space for ELM.K. on the world wide interwebs.  I know how to navigate the internet, but when it comes to setting up domains, ftp, hosting, servers, etc I'm a little out of my league, and I hate being out of my league.  I spent most of the day watching video tutorials, reading up on the subject matter, and live chatting with a host of lovely and patient tech support people.  It was good to learn more, and I'm excited about the things to come for ELM.K. Photography. 

Please not for the time being elmkphoto.com will not take you to the client galleries, but go ahead and click the link above "THE CLIENTS" and you'll be taken right there. 

I will be attempting to stay away from the internet while on our trip, with a potential few exceptions.  I will not be sharing any FILM FRIDAY treats while I'm gone, but rest assured I will have tons of film to share upon my return. 

FILM FRIDAY 3: TODAY IS OUR 1,000th DAY OF MARRIAGE.

This week was jam packed.  I'm exhausted- in a good way.  We had an awesome barbeque on the Jul 4th holiday.  I met with a lovely photographer out in Pasadena.  We continued to unpack, and prepare for BK's sister to move in with us.  As well- we have been preparing to take a BIG TRIP to URUGUAY.  There has been a lot to contemplate this week, and lots to photograph.

I had high hopes for my photos from this past week, and was really excited to pick them up from the lab.  BUT, when I saw them I felt under whelmed and a bit sad.  There are lots of the same typical mistakes- poor focus choices, poor composition choices, and not nailing the exposure.  As I looked through them with my husband he could tell I was not happy.  When I told him I was just disapointed he said, "Don't worry- you'll take better photos next week, and the week after."  (Then he brought me a grilled cheese sandwich, and chicken noodle soup to my desk for lunch- he's a keeper) It was good to be reminded this project is about growth.  I am reminded this project was about exposing the cracks, the flaws, the weaknesses in my photography.  This project is all about- "practice makes perfect."  This means the first few weeks are going to be tough.  It's hard to face your flaws- but that is why I am doing this!

So- with that in mind- I took a more analytical look at my photos from this past week. 

I learned:

1. I need to stop being scared to get closer.  I like my new 28mm I've been playing with the past couple weeks- but it's so much more fun when I get closer.

2. The meter on my FE is an average meter, NOT a spot meter.  I need to either carry a spot meter with me to help me get a more precise exposure in some situations, OR think a lot harder before I take the picture.

3.  In recent years when I've shot film it has been with my holga, or my lomo fisheye.  When I shoot with these cameras I tend to just shoot, and hope it turns out cool.  That was part of the fun with those cameras.  I can't do that with this project though- I want to put more care and thought into these photographs.

To see all of the photos visit my FILM FRIDAY GALLERY.  They're not that great- fair warning.

With that said- there were a few photos from the roll I did like.  

Same as before:

WEEK THREE

CAMERA: NIKON FE

LENS: NIKON SERIES E 28MM F2

FILM: FUJI SENSIA 400

LAB: A & I Photographic

One afternoon my Husby and I took a nap on the floor.  I love taking naps on the floor.  I woke up and made a few photographs of us there.  The photos show us in that moment in an honest and simple way that really captured a nice moment in our day.  That's exactly the type of photograph I want to take.  In a week where lots was going on, we prepared for our first big overseas trip together, and we marked our 1,000th day of marriage I really value that moment and these photographs.