The 20 Something Society

I was browsing another blog and they have their contributers put together a little inspiration board to visually describe themselves.  Most of us have some space online where we save things that catch out eye – be it pinterest, tumblr, our own blog, a special folder on your desktop – or all of the above!!  All of these little pieces that you have saved up because they caught your eye….in some way says something about you and your personality.  I find this idea intriguing so I decided to quickly scroll through my saved images and pull up the first ones that really stick out.

 

So what does this say about me?

As I work today, I am listening to some of my Spotify playlists.  While singing along to ‘Sister Suffragette’ from Mary Poppins, I thought to myself ‘Maybe this is where my interest in womens rights was started.’  I firmly believe that the base of who we are is set from a very young age.  This belief was only further solidified for me after watching the documentary Up series which is absolutely amazing.  Each segment begins with the director quoting “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.”

But, this thought led to another realization.  As most of you know we are planning a trip to London.  I get asked ‘Why London?’  My only answer is ‘I don’t know, I’ve just always wanted to go!’.  When Disneys Peter Pan (my favorite Disney movie) was released a couple of months ago I pre ordered it, and Todd and I were watching it together when I jokingly said ‘Maybe this is why I always wanted to go to London’.  The Darlings are British and fly through London and past Big Ben.  Today I realized that probably my most watched childrens movies growing up were Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, and Peter Pan….Maybe that IS the reason I have always been fascinated with England!

 

Be thoughtful about what you expose your children to while they are young.  It does no good to shelter them and open them up to very little.  Kids are like little sponges and their inner voice and deepest interests (in other words who they ARE as people) are being decided in their very early years.  How they are treated/ spoken to and what they are exposed to will make the biggest impact during that time!

Todd ordered the Rick Steves guide to London tonight.  I can’t wait for it to arrive so that I can read through every single page!  If you do actually want to ‘click to look inside!’ you’ll need to go on to Amazon (where I snagged this photo).

 

Rick Steves is a popular and well trusted travel guide whom advocates ‘independent traveling’ and visiting European cities more like a ‘temporary local’.  His guides are what we hear are THE guides so…thats why we ordered it!

As a follow up to the last post….after I find myself feeling that I can be doing more (and still hope to do more), I edit a photograph like this and can’t help but hear voices saying “This is my favorite picture of my grandparents.”  I know that the work I do is important to my clients, and it is fulfilling to know that when they are old and grey, they will look back to these photographs and smile thinking about their younger days.

 

I have always been the type of person who wants to help out ‘the little guy’.  I could more easily empathize with and understand groups being discriminated against than the discriminators. I think more about things I can be doing to help people who need it (though I am a living-paycheck-to-paycheck-20-something) than about more ways to fill my own pockets.  I guess I would rather fill my life with contentment and knowing that I made a difference in the world.  It doesn’t help that my husband is cut from a completely different cloth than my own, and couldn’t care less.  His views are more like – its a dog eat dog world, and he is going to worry about doing what needs to be done for us.

I love what I do, but sometimes I start getting down on myself.  I start dwelling on the thought that I could be doing something bigger with my photography.  It can be used to do good in the world.  It can be used to open peoples eyes to truths and hardships in this world that they try so hard to keep out of their conscious mind.  When this year started I told myself that during any down time in my business, I was going to make time for my own personal photography projects.  I am excited to get into more creative projects and documentary photography projects this year, I had my first creative project set for March – but it had to be pushed back to June!

On this note, I wanted to share some war photography with you all.  I believe that war photography is important.  It shows the harsh realities.  For me, it is more meaningful to see these things, than to hear numbers and statistics over the news.  It hits home much harder to actually see innocent children sitting in rubble that was their home, and young soldiers bleeding from their war wounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want a few names to google for war photography: Bill Brandt, Geoff Dyer, Horst Faas, James Nachtwey

Since we are going on a long overdue trip to the beach next month, I can’t get the sand and sun off of my mind.  So I thought I’d post some vintage bathing beauties to get stuck in YOUR mind!

Of course we are making an itinerary for our London trip, and high on that list (for me anyway) is having a proper afternoon tea!  Complete with trays of little finger sandwiches, desserts, and scones.  Oh, its going to be so good.

If there is anyone out there that reads my blog and has had a great afternoon tea in London  - let me know where you had yours!

You know how a lot of ‘local’ magazines aren’t necessarily the greatest?  Well my hometown magazine – Mobile Bay Magazine- is pretty dang awesome.  The difference is the quality of their work.  I love keeping up with the ins and outs of Mobile and the surrounding areas via mobilebaymag.com .  My Granny usually emails me when they post new things, and this morning I opened my email to this article.  ’What Makes You Beautiful?’  Head over to the site and give it a read.

What Makes You Beautiful?

For me, sometimes the focus isn’t on the product but instead on the packaging/branding.  Here are a few branding/product pieces that have caught my eye.

(the image above was made by the team over at the Creature Comforts blog)

I hope these pretties are pleasing to your eye also.

This is what location scouting looks like:

An upcoming June session will be photographed here.