25 before 25

I have a list of 101 in 1001 somewhere on this blog and I haven't looked at it lately for fear I'll become depressed at the number of things not yet accomplished (which is probably accurate). I'm also not even sure of how much time is left. **edit, I just checked, and I have until next October. Whew.** I should probably update the list as there are definitely items on it that I no longer wish to complete, or can't, or were far too ambitious. Like blogging a photoshoot once a week. Clearly I'm failing on that one.

Since I'll be 25 in a little over a month and that sounds like a terrible age, overshadowed only by 30 in awfulness, I feel like I should accomplish things, one last go at life before the age sets in. Apologies to anyone over the age of 25, I tend to be highly dramatic and I like to think that it's part of my charm (which probably means that it is only charming to me). I don't even think my parents are old (even though my dad just bought a Lincoln and was alive the same year Pearl Harbor was bombed).

Without further introductory rambling, here are 25 things that I hope to remember to make myself do in the next 40 days:


 1. Reach 1000 likes on Spindle Photography's facebook page.

(this is shameless, and we bloggers/social media addicts are usually pretty shameless anyway, we feed on comments and fake fame and being responded to on twitter. I'm surprised my husband lets me have the internet, or that he is willing to look past how opposite our views on being visible online. It's just gotta be love.)

So, if you want to help me feel happier about getting old and you don't hate my photography, you could like it (no one is asking you to love it, afterall), approximately 242 210 196 of you who don't already. I'd add some easy fancy like button but I don't know how to on blogger especially, so if someone else does and would rather donate that service than like my page I could accept that.

2. Read a book. Hunger Games & Done. Miracles.

I realize I sound illiterate, and I vaguely mentioned to Garrett that I wanted to buy a kindle kind of and he laughed and asked if it was to play mp3s and I explained that I thought I'd try to read a book by the time I turn 25 as if that logic follows. But, I have had trouble reading for fun since middle school really, I tend to busy myself with things and picking a book up long enough to read it all before I get distracted or eaten up with work of some variety has been nearly impossible. I have one on the bedstand that's been started, maybe it will be the fateful book.

3. Cook a meal dish

I'm going to allow myself a lot of leeway here, it can even be something I've made many times before, I just need to get back in the kitchen, I feel like that muscle has atrophied and I'll never get it back.

(Completed! I made lasagna last night (8-7-11) for my poor darling husband who had been eating sandwiches all week while out in Kentucky for a climbing trip. Nothing new and adventurous, but it felt good to make myself cook SOMETHING)

4. Use August to catch up! On everything!

I've only blogged 3 weddings this year. I've shot 14. Maybe number 5 should be to hire another intern. Lord.

5. Shoot and develop a roll of film. The pentax would be fine, I just need to do it.

6. Weed out old clothes I don't wear.

7. De-boxify the apartment (of at least the non-books, because I value my life and the books are not mine for the most part).

8. Take all of the old clothes to goodwill or consignment (or a clothing swap, if Molly Green has one soon).

9. Clean out the refrigerator.

10. Get all of my office papers out of the house and into my office where they belong.

11. Dust.

12. Clean everything else in our apartment up.

13.  Have people over in our newly cleaned apartment.

14. Revamp my photo blog in some way

15. Make a plan for getting the new Bham Bride up, running, and functional

16. Start working out regularly (a few days a week at least)

17. Buy/gather the fabric for the quilt I've sworn I'll make one day.

18. Hang up the framed photos I got for my cement-walled office (that should be fun and easy, yeah?) (DONE!)

19. Update my website with new favorite pics.

20. Photograph my grandmother, who will be turning 90 this August. (photos to come)

21. Giveaway something awesome.

22. Go out dancing (suggestions welcome, I have no idea of anywhere good to go dancing in Birmingham).

23. Do something relaxing. A movie, massage, pedicure, something. (Crazy, Stupid, Love, and DONE)

24. Make a video with my new camera (nothing fancy, and probably nothing involving my voice or any real editing. But maybe I can come up with something I would be willing to share online).

25. Do a styled shoot. Not sure to what extent, but it's time to force myself to do something different.

Coming up with 25 things was much more difficult than I would've thought, and I'm not even sure that those are all doable. Worth a shot.

Things as of late

Hello neglected blog and its straggling followers. Last year was slow and agonizing, and often I didn't blog because of how little was going on or because of how depressing the thought of doing so little was. This year I ache to blog but find myself half finishing the posts in my head because I don't have the time to commit them to text.

August is a break. The first weekend I'll be shooting a wedding (that I am very excited about, two academic types that I know could've been some of my best friends in high school, and the groom is the older brother of my intern Nancy, whom I have adopted in some sort of sorority sister type way that very well might terrify her), and after that I only have small sessions here or there. September (my mostly favorite month because of my birthday, 9-9), will turn me into an old person but also send me to Europe for the first time with dear husband.

And then it starts again but I am so smitten with the thought of being caught up and reading books and marketing again and maybe even a blog or two, possibly even here instead of just in photography land. Photography is amazing and I love it, but as an art form it is so hard not to examine yourself and find yourself to be beyond lame. Pets, cute babies, weddings, landscapes, sunsets, they aren't new or different or exciting as art no matter how many filters you put on them or how much you spend on a lighting setup. Those things are not for the world to appreciate anyway. In my estimation (after talking with my husband in depth about the matter yesterday, lest I take all the credit), portraiture and fashion are the only very genuinely new photographs, and mostly portraits, because they center around a unique person and not creating something simply pretty.

I probably sound dark today, I feel a bit dark but happy, a bit anxious. It's not like a lot of things are changing right now, I'm not on some huge self improvement kick yet, but every now and then there are a few little things that make me feel like I am becoming someone. I've begun to wear high heels much more frequently, and considered wearing something with some height for shooting, even though my clumsiness threatens that logic. I bought a pair of 5 inch heels that make me almost the height of a real person (I'm 5'2" and a half, I used to say 5'3" until I was always corrected, so please just give me that half inch).

I'm waiting right now outside on our porch balcony for the UPS man to deliver a new camera. It's one I've been dreaming about for the past few years. Every time I would see someone with it I'd feel a bit crushed that I didn't have it yet, but I also felt like it was an unnecessary expense and that I shouldn't want it. I don't know if it will completely revolutionize my photography, most likely not, but it has dual memory card slots to minimize card failure (such an amazing feature for a wedding photographer like myself), and video, which I will probably not use very often but my husband seemed excited about it. I'm waiting around like I used to for Santa Claus to come. I'd check once every hour, staying up all night, with activity books and tasks to distract myself with. This time there's a note on the front door of our building to deter the UPS man from just leaving a slip (I've never, once, gotten a package on the first attempt at this building, even though we are always home. They don't come up to our apartment, they just leave a notice, sometimes even inside the building as if to spite us. So, I'm camped out on our porch with my laptop, weeks worth of editing to work on, writing this blogpost.

I hate posts with no pictures so I apologize if you do too. I'm hoping to decide on 25 things to do before my 25th birthday (not a bucket list really, just a to do list to keep me feeling less awful about turning 25, it sounds so incredibly old to me, and I can no longer pretend to be any sort of prodigy, since plenty of people have accomplished amazing things by 25).

If you have suggestions for said list speak up.

If you seek some creative portraiture art from my new camera (see above if you skipped down to the short paragraphs and thus don't understand), comment below or something.