Ok folks, welcome to my new photo blog! I have been meaning to do this for a couple of months now and, finally, I am. Woohoo!
I have started on a new adventure and I would love some audience participation. Portraiture has always been the main focus of my photography but I am moving into a new arena and getting in touch with my more artistic side. Exaggerated environmental portraiture is the name of this game. Here are my rules. (These, of course, are never adhered to very strictly. I am fully planning for them to twist and bend as I develop my new strategies.)
I want to take portraits of people exactly how they are. Here's the catch. No one has just one side to them. All of us are complex, changing individuals. I want to take YOUR picture and show all of your different fascinating complexities.
I've been working on this slowly. I am putting up some pictures of the progression that took me to this point. I have lots more in my head that are waiting to come out and they keep evolving more and more. So basically, I need models. Of course I have a family and, as summer hits, not a lot of time. So to solve my problem I am holding a contest. If you would like to be involved leave me a comment with 5 things that make you you. What do you love? What occupies your everyday? etc....
If I have already taken your pictures I am just fine with doing it again, so don't hesitate. I will draw a name from the entries that I get and post the winner next week. Please tell anyone you know to check it out as well. Thanks!
11 comments:
Darn, I guess i'm out of the running for this one. Great idea Elise.
:-( Too bad I live so far away!
So....what makes me who I am? This is deep Elise! I have to think...okay..got it.
1.It's really easy for me to get lost in my own head. What does that mean? I love stories. I think thats why I LOVE to read. Well sometimes I create intricate and elaborate stories in my head. On a long road trip or waiting forever in an doctors office or anytime really, I will go someplace else in my head. I will just create a story and be so lost in it that everything else fades away. It sometimes drives my family crazy because it's hard to get my attention when I'm thinking!I've always wanted to write a novel but just don't have time.
2.I love preserving memories. Scrapbooking, taking pictures, journaling, blogging, saving ticket stubs and other little random momentoes from my life.
3.I'm a worrier. I worry over things that just aren't important. I realize that it's not important in the grand scheme but sometimes I can't stop worrying. I worry over things that I have ABSOLUTELY no control over. I worry about things that are so far in the future that it's pointless to go there. I worry about things that are really improbable that they will ever happen but they COULD happen, so I worry. It's ridiculous. It's the trait about myself that I hate the most. It's such a waste of time.
4.I love to laugh. I love things and people that are funny. I guess that's what attracted me to Joey. He makes me laugh ALL the time. I love funny movies and jokes. Sometimes I laugh when it's not appropriate to laugh (funerals, church) and thats not fun in any way. It's embarrassing. But for the most part I love laughing...the deep belly laugh that makes you cry!
5.Probably the biggest part of me is the "mom" part. You can't have four kids and not be totally consumed in their lives. Everything I do everyday in someway revolves around nurturing, providing, nursing, calming, encouraging, helping, feeding, organizing and loving my family.
In the photo of Tom are you showing the farmer side and the thirsty side?
Can I be your subject some day?
Mer, I was actually going for the farmer and slob at the same time, but we just kind of threw it together super fast and it could use some work. I am going to do another one w/ him on the tractor at the skate park w/ his golf clubs. That one should be more fun.
Like I said, the pics I have up are a progression to what I am really wanting to do.
I would love to have you as a subject. I just need to get up to OR. So be thinking what makes you you.
You too Darilyn.
1. I love to read and watch movies. I like to get lost in someone else's story. It makes me forget my own drama.
2. I love food! It makes me happy. I get excited to eat out. I especially love desserts.
3. I love to exercise. I'm weird, I know. But it helps me clear my head and gives me something to do that is just for me.
4. Like Alisa, I am also a worrier. This has led to insomnia. I worry about the stupidest things.
5. I love my family. I love being a mom, being a wife, a daughter, a sister...I'm a social person, and i love being around my family especially.
1. Well, first, I am so damn beatiful and am not sure your camera can handle my natural, shall I say, perfectness. Needless to say, this makes me very humble. J/K.
2. I LOVE sports, and anyone who knows me, knows this. I can literally waste countless days watching sports.
3. My son and I recently started guitar lessons together and we absolutely love it. It makes a great bonding experience.
4. I love my wife. She is what makes my heart happy. I know she will dismiss this as nonsense, but I love her with all my heart.
5. Like, apparently so many others, I am too am a worrier. I also am an aspiring hypochondriac. Maybe soon enough I can turn pro.
OK so I know you already took my pictures but I don't think you were very happy with the way they turned out. So lets do them again
1. My passion is my family. I always want something to be passionate about I finally realized it is because I am passionate about my family
2. I have a vivid imagination. The first time I saw Moulin Rouge I was so excited because that is the sort of thing that goes on in my head.
3. I love sleeping. I could sleep all day!
4. i love reading. it doesn't matter what it is i will read it. Books, celeb magazine, shampoo bottles, anything.
5.I love getting all dressed up. Maybe it is because I don't do it that often
1. I am always down for a stupid, wild adventure. The more ridiculous, the better. My next goal is to learn rock climbing.
2. I love laughter, especially other people's laughter. I will say really crazy things until you get a vividly disturbed image in your head and start laughing about it.
3. I absolutely love my job teaching. I am half language guru and half teen counselor. As soon as I saw my classroom, I got rid of desks and replaced them with tables. I love the chaos of a noisy talking, reading, interacting, laughing class. I like that my students think I am crazy.
4. I am fierce about my family - all of my family. Don't mess! I will eat you!
5. I am happier in nature than anywhere else. I prefer to write poetry or read a novel in the loving branches of a tree. This has gotten me into more trouble than you know. Branches are not swings. If you need help climbing up, you will need help climbing down. Whittling is an art form, not for amateurs. Bring spare o-rings for external frame backpacks on long hikes.
6. I have to include a six, sorry. It's been vaguely mentioned here, but only in a glossing sort of fashion. I love literature - novels, poetry, even non-fiction. I read. I read. I read. I love writers who challenge reality and the limits of language. Ideas! The endless possibilities! I want absurdity and rich vernacular. Nabokov, Steinbeck, Woolf, Crane, Hardy, Shakespeare, Vonnegut, faulkner - these are a few of my favorites.
Ok, not only is this contest already over, but I don't really want my picture taken. I just wanted to add my list to all these other really cool lists. What makes me, me...
1. I am a mother, daughter, wife, sister, a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves me... I
actually really like that song "I'm a *&^%$" There is no ignoring the fact that I love my family more than anyone else. I love that I have 9 brothers and sisters and that my kids have kajillions of cousins. I love sitting on the kitchen floor laughing until it is stupidly early in the morning and can't bear to drag myself away from the love-in, laugh-fest.
2. I love to read. (This seems to be a theme among the relations) I love to read long novels, short stories, nonfiction, but will also read the cereal box, street signs, magazines, your shirt, pretty much anything but a textbook.
3. I love color! I will buy things just because they are a pretty color. Sunsets amaze me, those colors seem like they shouldn't work, but they do. Emma always tries to pin me down on a favorite, but it just won't work. I've blogged this before, so I'll leave it at that.
4. I love music. Nothing can bring tears to my eyes faster. I wish I was more musical. For leisure music, I like fun stuff. Often the more absurd, the better. Favorite bands through the years have been the Dead Milkmen, B-52's, and Barenaked Ladies for example. Which leads me to #5...
5. I love to have fun. When I go someplace new, I really want to go somewhere new. I don't like to eat at McDonald's in NYC. I want to eat in a Deli or at a corner hotdog stand. In Oregon, I want crab. I actually want crab whenever, whereever, but am smart enough to know that it's gonna taste way better in Oregon than AZ. I want to watch whales and climb the empire state building(inside of course, I'm not a dare devil). I believe that if you can't make a fool of yourself, you just aren't living right. I want to dance like children of the night and run like Satan's chasing me and I pack my personal aggravation marbles. If I'm near history, I want to touch it.
That is who I am.
I love love love this picture of Megan. you are amazing.
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