Posts tagged photo
While hiking a trail in Griffith Park we came across this old water tower. Xander was *super* impressed with it; he thought it was a really cool thing to find in the mountains ;)
When Xander and I made the trip back to Michigan at the end of his Christmas break our flight got in late so we got a room near the airport. The next morning I woke up super early, ate something, got cleaned up and piddled around until Xander began to wake up. I was laying next to him watching TV when he opened his eyes and said ” Mom I woke up before you..I woke up before you”. Then he put his arm over his face and fell back asleep for another hour :)
He’s so funny.
<3
Our 60D arrived and one of the first features I wanted to try out was the articulating screen. I was planning on getting the 5D Mark II but since this camera was going to be Mike’s first chance to really play with DSLR I “compromised” and got the 60D. Why? The articulating screen, a simple feature that apparently makes Mike feel a little more comfortable shooting on a DSLR. I guess I can’t complain too much, we saved a chunk of money by not getting the 5D Mark II. My only complaint so far is the speed, but I kind of expected it to be a little slow in reaction.
I harassed some friends with it today and am editing the images now, I’ll save my opinions on those until they’re finished.
Last week I made a routine trip to Michigan to pick up Xander and bring him here to L.A. Our time for this visit was less than 10 days. I can’t begin to express what has been happening the last couple of years, struggle after struggle, brick wall after brick wall, and now we’re at this point in our lives. I think Xander, Mike and myself have dealt with a lot of nonsense together and while, unfortunately, we’re still dealing with it I’m proud of us. I’m proud of Xander B. for being such a smart, kind, funny and sweet little man. I’m proud of Mike for all he’s done amidst the craziness that has been our lives lately, and I guess I’m proud of myself for not going completely insane. ha.
I know that my concentration on my photography lapsed a great deal. I think my anxiety about not being creative sent me into a self-induced, spiraling depression. I’ve spent many, many hours beating myself up about it and wasted a lot of time. Now I’m past the point of caring if anyone else sees that as lazy or unfocused and I’m past the point of caring to listen to the part of me that wants to tell me I’m not good enough. I am on the exit ramp of a hellatious 4 years of my life. On multiple occasions Mike encouraged me to talk about it, write about it or try and share and connect with people in some way. I think he thought that would help me get through things. Of course I like to do things the hard way so I ignored that advice. In reality I think I was just shaken to the core from losing my Mother, finishing school, legal fights for Xander, losing my Grandmother, losing my 9-5 job, and then the move to L.A. and some more legal battles over Xander.
I’ll be honest, I expected this blog post to be laconic as usual with some images attached. It was beautiful, as always, to spend some time with Xander. He’s growing up so fast and every time I take a photo of him he looks more and more grown up. This realization sparked a panic in me and I might have been a little overbearing with the camera this time, as you can see by his disapproving face in a lot of these images, but he lived and is virtually unharmed.
I picked some of my favorites to share, hope you all like them. The light in my kitchen and bedroom is fabulous as well as in the back of our building. It’s all natural and filtered and warm. The alley behind our place is where I shot my recent self portraits. Now if I can just pull Mike away from his computer long enough to shoot him too.
