"About" Me

i just started a business.  i followed the suggestions of some good (and impressed ;) people and i started a photography business.  what else could there be for me to talk about right now?  it was an interesting process writing the “about” section for my shop, and i was a bit surprised by what came out.  truth, of course, but which version?  every word we use has its own input, its own shade of color and as i go about excitedly ironing out wrinkles and overcoming obstacles in this new endeavor i keep coming back to these words that i wrote.

It's the Little Things

After being a song writer for so many years i've learned a few things. With exceptions, of course, when you write a really good song, you know it. You've gotten enough feedback, you've known what it feels like to open up and exhale something as beautiful and as close to truth as you've ever known. I've learned that no one can say exactly the same thing exactly the same way. 

It was a dewey morning in Bellingham, WA, at my then partner's family farmstead, when i noticed a tiny little weed in a dormant barrel planter in the yard. Each one of its tiny little arms had perfect balls of dew at the ends and it was like a magical fairy christmas tree, radiating an unbelievable amount of light and joy and beauty....to no one but me. I pushed a button, and that beauty was captured, my own story added to it, simply by being there, simply by noticing.

The joy of photography is unparalleled for me. I can feel the same kind of rush as i do with song-writing, but photography is somehow more pure. It's far less of a struggle to get to "the heart of the matter." There's no way for ego to really enter into it. The picture was already there. I just took it. 

I don't have a fancy camera. For what i do it hasn't been that important. I work with what i have, and for now enjoy being able to have a camera wherever i go. I do plenty of photographing at music shows and other events, but i shoot when i want to and can put the camera away when i choose. I'm the unexpected photographer, and, for now, prefer it that way.

It's a fine line. If i'm always in photographer mode, sometimes i can miss the experience at hand. I try hard not to regret missing a great shot. I try hard not to let photographing the life around me take the place of living it.

my shop can be found at http://www.etsy.com/shop/LetThatSongbirdGo 

A New Perspective

i recently got a new camera, after having a great one for a while and then trying to replace the great one (since three years made it SO obsolete they stopped making it) with a super duper piece of crap camera that i had dreams of throwing from tall buildings or smashing to bits with heavy blunt objects.  christmas was good to me, and i am now properly equipped with a fast-action-make-everything-look-like-a-million-bucks lens through which to see the world.  

i once wrote an email to my good friend, danny schmidt, declaring excitedly that i had finally discovered my life’s purpose.  it was around the time that i decided right before going on stage that i really didn’t enjoy performing....like, at all.  i didn’t like the jitters before playing, i usually felt nervous and clumsy when i was up there, and i didn’t like the part afterwards when i couldn’t talk to anyone without feeling like i was putting them on the spot to tell me it was a great show, and then questioning the truth of the statement and trying like to hell to learn how to take a compliment.

i wrote danny to tell him that i wanted to be a photographer, or more so, that i finally realized that’s what i was.  photography is so innocent and so pure.  photography has naught to do with ego; how could it?  it’s being a witness to life’s miracles, big and small.  nothing more and nothing less, except knowing when you see one and when to click a button.  you’re not creating anything, only sharing.  that was a tremendous relief to me at the time.  it still is.

as dramatic a moment as that was, really i was just feeling shy and scared and uncertain and noticed a whole new bright light that captivated me.  and now instead of leaving the old light behind i’ve learned to see music in much the same way.  we’re really a witness to everything, even ourselves.

a new camera feels like a new skin.  my eyes and my heart are more open.  they see things in a different light.  and they’re seeing that everything is a miracle, really.  everything is amazing.