oh my goodness. really. I am, in fact, a photographer.
I know you (all four of you) must be very bored by my self-contemplative states, wherein I sit and have conversations in my head that I type, about being good enough, not good enough, varying levels of awareness and evaluation - and I know that while I do address you directly sometimes, I am here for me. every post has these little cathartic effects. it's perfect. and tonight, the thing happened with the flash, and I have permission to suck, and I feel *so* much better about myself. seriously.
kristin is part cat, part magic, fueled by varying flavors of diet coke. well, a bunch of other stuff too. but for the purposes of this post, let's focus on the magic part (I'm hoping too that if I keep linking to her blog, that in her abundant and copius free time, she will update). so, as you've been reading, I pick the camera back up, and I suck. everything sucks. my pictures suck. editing in iPhoto is like, practically illegal. but I push, and pull, and make okkervil river look okay, and I can still frame, and I still have impeccable timing, and I find myself not sucking but just limited by my tools. like when I was taking pictures with the olympus and it came time to get a new camera, because It Was Time. because I was better than my camera would let me be. and I posted shitty, blurry pictures, because I had to, because in them I could see all these amazing brilliant moments of the show, and I wanted to share them, even though they were fuzzy. and so came the canon, and the ensuing shots, and I stood up tall and used the manual settings and rocked out with my cupcakes out. and It Was Good.
cut to seattle, suddenly in the midst of in-studios and gigs and backstage with quasi-famous bands, and I'm falling off the bike. I'm back to suck. and I can't blame it on anything other than being rusty, and I resign myself to the fact that I'm just going to have to suck for a while, and I'm okay with it. because I still like, know how to ride the bike and everything, but like one of my old bosses said - you've got to get the rust out. and it's okay. and so I read some articles and promise myself the canon class at the experimental college and so forth. if you're here, you've been reading, and you know the course. and all the while, I keep taking pictures, pictures edited in iPhoto that are good enough to size 600 by something and throw up on flickr and the KEXP site.
then kristin brought up the nikon again. the nikon d80, the droolworthy, spongeworthy, deliciously abundant, wider range of all things the canon can do nikon d80. I remember hating her a little bit when she bought it. but it passed. and I forgave her for being so awesome, because I get sad when other people are awesome sometimes because I feel less awesome, but other people's awesomeness gives me something to aspire to. identify, don't compare. pictures of lions taped to bathroom mirrors. you know. I need her to be awesome, just like my other teachers. and so anyway - she brings up the nikon, and hesitates, and it was funny, because I thought she was going to say something mean - and instead, she said two perfectly... perfect things.
one being that me not using the nikon was the equivalent of me continuing to turn down the porsche in favor of my ford taurus. my dependable, reliable, working ford taurus. and kristin has come by at varying points since my arrival in seattle and said, "here. take the porsche." and I have responded with, "no, it's okay. I like, put new tires on the ford. see? it's great!" and she goes, "no, really. you should take the porsche." it's almost like she was saying, "take the _________." like, I knew she was offering something better, but I had guilt, and I was shoulding on myself, and - I just didn't pull the trigger.
I am here to report that I have pulled said trigger, and brought along my polaroid to throw in the glove compartment, and It Is Good.
the other thing (and this is the magic part), two, part of her having me use the nikon is - get this - it gives me an excuse to be bad. right? right??!!!?!?! come on! who gets that, and puts it all together, and translates it into a working real-time scenario? SHE DOES! and I am like, totally fucking floored. pritzkered. IT'S GENIUS! (I am now so excited, past psyched at times, that I have to go from !!!!!!!! to !!!!!?!?!?!????!!! TO CAPITAL LETTERS. omg. OMG. OMFG. so, for some reason, my head decides to register that, accept it, love it, work it, own it - and she gets out the nikon. and I get out my old detachable flash she sent me.
and now - I took a bunch of test shots this afternoon, and Oh My God is it good. it's like, real photographer good. like, jim beckman is going to want me to shoot the famous people good. between that, and the fact that her (don't make fun of me here, kids) setting that mine only ranges from -2 to 2 on goes down to like, -5 or something - all I know is that motherfucker can go real fast and get good shit with very little light and a not-totally still subject. and, we've graduated to shooting in raw.
as I saw on a license plate frame today (edited for personally appropriate consumption), "if you're headed in the wrong direction, the Universe allows U-turns."
here I come, kids. I'm the new girl. and I've got a fresh book of matches.
sick, but going out anyways because they're canadian,
VVB
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