Photography, CoH, father's day and family

Well, this last weekend included Father's Day and I think we celebrated. Sadly I actually played City of Heroes most of the weekend. I spent a little time with the family and that was fun. We took our daughter up to play in the pool and she seemed to enjoy it for the most part (her cousins pinching her toes underwater where she couldn't see them for the floating device she was in induced tears but other than that she seemed fine). Perhaps on a brighter note I leveled from 1 up to 9 over a period of about 4 or 5 days. Oh yeah, with 2 characters. Now that can be fun in that you get to have some dialog with your friends. I assume its like the guys my Dad's age going to the golf course or playing poker and watching the football game on TV and just talking shit to each other. Frankly there isn't much time to really discuss anything major as we're always running and power leveling. We don't discuss belief systems, families, politics, life goals or finances. Sometimes we'll talk about the merits of nerfing a particular AT's primary power but how much more geeky can you get?

We went with Cindee's parents to the Choo-Choo for brunch on Father's Day and that was pretty cool. I could definitely see doing a shoot down there someday. It'd take the right outfit and setup but I think it could come off looking good.

I'm pretty stressed about photography right now. It's surprising how something that is supposed to be a relaxing habit has turned into something so stressful. I really just want to take pictures but I'm so driven to take something of a caliber that others find it impressive. Now that's something to pay someone $150/hour to figure out isn't it? I don't want to just carry the camera around and take good family shots; its more than that to me. I want to take shots that move people. I want to produce art. I've labored under the impression that if I shoot enough I'll eventually learn just from having pressed the shutter release so many times and seeing what does or doesn't work. Well, now I'm at the point where I think I understand some of the physics of taking a photo and I want to explore taking a "good" photo; an artistic photo. I want to start off with an image in-mind and reproduce it so that when people see it, a large percentage of them immediately experience feelings similar to what I had when I designed the shot. How to go about that? I guess by defining some shots I want to take and then setting them up. I'm a believer that a good photographer makes a photograph but I also subscribe to the idea that more money makes the shot look better. The subject can look poor but it can take a lot of money to get the shot of the poor subject. Anyone who's read my blog for any length of time knows my deepseated angst over putting in a fashion studio here in town. I spoke with Cindee this weekend about some ideas for studies (not studios) and planning for them. Then I read an interview with a photographer whose work I find impressive and suddenly I feel like I need to be more cereberal. Sure this is artwork and I want to just point a camera at something and snap off hundreds of frames and find the one or two that look good but I also want to define a style for myself. Arggghhhhh, it feels like I'm just pissing my time away. I need to decide on a couple of studies, spend the next few years working to flesh out those studies and perhaps add more or refine those and then produce something with that body of work. Oddly for either I'm not sure how to approach getting models. I guess I could look some up on OMP but I'm looking for specific body features. Oh well, guess I should get started sketching some looks I want to capture and then go find someone to fit those ideas that are in my head. Perhaps I wanted an artistic voice and now that I feel capable of some manner of expression I am frustrated 'cause I never considered what it was that I would want to say.

I get to keep our daughter tonigth while my wife goes dancing. She really is a cool person, my wife. So is our daughter but I relate to her in a whole other universe. Relating to a wife is . . . well, you probably know as you probably have a spouse of your own. It can be rewarding and all but I guess overall I just thought I'd mention that she is a cool person and its neat to see her engaging some things she finds interesting, too.

Thanks for reading,

Kev