On Display

One of my photos was selected to be part of a special exhibit at the Chicago Mayor's office... sweet! 

It has been up since May but I just finally made it there to see it and take a few snapshots... The little bug was with me but he was bored with this type of errand...

Holy Freakin Sh!t

I am just a little excited about this.  It is going to be fairly small and is only one photo BUT STILL!  When they first emailed me to say they found them on flickr and were considering them for T+L I freaked out and took a cab home over my lunch hour to be able to send them the original file... not wanting to chance that the six hours to the end of the day or the quality of a version grabbed off the web (compression and what not) would keep me in the running. 

Maybe now they will want to commission me to do a whole editorial and send me (and hubby and dogs of course) to Europe for a couple of months? (a girl can dream...)  First, let's hope they don't change their minds before printing. (yikes- that would be a downer)

Project 365 Take Two

Last year I started a 365 project, taking a photo every day for the year.  But it wasn't that much fun.  I didn't really have a theme other than to take a photograph and quickly became concerned with taking a great photo that might make the cut for a portfolio for each day... add to that a full time job, marathon training and a photography class it it was simply too much to fit in each day.  So I quietly dropped the project.  But it wasn't an entirely bad experience, I did become extremely comfortable with my camera and played enough with editing to start defining my style.

Why try it again when life isn't any slower now than it was last year? Because this time I have an entirely different purpose.  I am taking these photos for us.  To document our life as it is right now through snippets of what we are seeing, eating, doing. Some are taken with my camera phone, some are purely a snapshot and that is okay... it is real life. 

I am not necessarily going to upload these flickr as my flickr account has become something entirely different than it was four-five years ago.  But I am going to add them to this blog.  And in 2012 I will make a book of these photos.

There is a new link right under the blog title for the gallery. 

Itty Bitty Milestones

These week I left my street photography class feeling completely discouraged.  I even told Dan we should just return my camera.  But then two little tiny events happened that have me feeling much more encouraged about this whole photography hobby.

First, I had an image licensed for the first time.  Some advertising agency licensed one of my photos through Getty.  And I learned just how little the photographer makes through this channel.  But it was kind of exciting. There is a small bit of $ for it- we just will want to avoid thinking about quantifiable, hard dollar ROI calculations at this point as that would be depressing... :)

And then I had one of my street photos selected to be the Daily Photo on the homepage of WBEZ.  This I was pretty excited about.  True, the progressive ad gets prime space but my photo is still above the fold!

 So I am still not sure what exactly I am working towards with this photography hobby (ahem, obsession).  But I guess that I won't return my camera.  Even if it doesn't turn into anything other than a hard drive filled with images that I like, it is a fun hobby... though it is really fun to see someone else enjoy the images too.

Putting it out there

After weeks of anxiety filled deliberating, being non-decisive and procrasting I decided to send in my very first photography submission. 

 

It is a complete long shot, miniscual chance of being anything but denied... seriously, the information on what they were looking for was sparse at best and I am most comfortable with focused requirements. But I am still very excited to have even put together a juried exhibit submission. 

The process of doing it and putting my work out there for someone to judge is exciting enough right now. Seeing my photos actually printed on high quality paper was fun... that might sound silly but I rarely print anything and the few that I have had printed were done at a CVS (not hardly the best quality). So it was a first look at my own work as finished product.

It was kind of exciting to put together a little portfolio.  I am all fired up right now to find other upcoming exhibit submission options, maybe something closer aligned with my style.  Hmmmmmm...

Getty Artist...

So Thursday morning before we set out on our run I checked the weather through an app on my phone to see if I would want short sleeves or a tank, I saw I had a few emails and so of course had to check to see what was there... I saw a Flickr mail from Getty Images and thought that was just a random mass email to their group that you can submit your flickr photos to so ignored it.  About six months ago I submitted a few thinking "why not!?" and they were denied so I promptly forgot about it.

Then about 1pm-ish I was devouring my sandwich at my desk, doing a quick "mental break via internet" adding a few recent photos to to flickr groups when I noticed that I had a new "private" group with Getty in my queue... took me a second to think anything of this... notice I have another new flickr mail... read the subject line "An Invitation from Getty Images"... hmmmm. 

Read said mail and almost let out a little squeak of excitement!  Six of my photos had been selected to be invited to Getty (interestingly enough, none of the ones I had originally submitted).  Happy dance time in my cubicle time!!!

The rest of the afternoon I could think of nothing else.  I pestered Dan over email about it.  Read through the artist agreement info. Etc.

That evening I submitted my photos.  They still have to through a review process even if they are invited.

First thing on Friday I ran to the computer to check on the status... they were accepted and available for license on Getty!!!  Hooray!!!!

Getty has seemed very out of reach to me at this time.  It was not something that I thought my work was ready for so it made it that much sweeter to get invited.  I still have a ton of learning before I try to really promote my photography work.  This was a huge milestone that I thought was at least a year out.  Now to get more shots that are "getty worthy" to build that portfolio...

Project 365 :: April & May

 

 One thing I have been trying to accept with this project is that I am not going to love my photos everyday.  Even with daylight sticking around longer, there are still a lot of days that by the time I finish my "regular life" duties (such as sitting in a non-inspired cubicle for hours on end) that I simply don't have a lot of energy left.  But there are also days where I have one of those moments where creative energy + have camera + fun subject all come together... those are the days that keep me going on this project.  So I am accepting the late night, last minute shots as they serve a purpose too :)

April and May have definitely been the more fun months thus far.  I always fall in love with spring so adding to that constantly-looking-for-a-shot made for some fun days in this project.  Although, Dan probably loves it a little less as I started taking the camera on walks so our average pace has decreased a little with the frequent stops.  I also got lightroom at the end of April... I am still learning but love the editing power.  There are so many directions that you can take a photo with processing. While some prefer a more straight out of the camera type of shot I tend to like the processed versions.  I am trying different things and hoping to eventually define my editing style; for the most part I prefer a vintage or softer look but some shots look pretty cool with a more saturated or gritty interpretation but it seems that overall it is helpful to have a similar style for a collection.  Anyways...

I am starting a new photography course this Sunday so hopefully that helps me improve my technique.