Graduation

Today was the day. Graduation day for the class I started with. Dwindled down to about 1/4 of what we started off with. I think I was way too tired from the graveyard shift to be there. I wanted to cry for every. little. thing. I am very proud of all of them, and I hope they are all proud of themselves. So much hard work. So much soul poured into photos. So many details and deadlines and fuck ups and triumphs.

Nat and Dom, I will miss you dearly. You have been my family. My rocks. My counselors. My home from home. Too weird to think of Santa Barbara without you. Thank you for your friendship. You have a piece of my heart forever.

I am very grateful to have Pat here with me. Now he alone will have to encounter my meltdowns. I think he will get more photography talk too. Today I tried to explain what a HDR photo was while somewhat intoxicated

"Babe, it means high dynamic range. Its when there is a large range of exposures. The highlights are high while the shadows are deep. Alot of contrast."

I think I have to get better at explaining cuz even while saying it I was thinking, what the fuck am I saying?

I just cant help but feel sad today. I'll get over it, but it will be an unwanted adjustment. In an ideal world I would have graduated today too. But, this isn't my ideal world, so I'll just have to keep truckin. I'll find a way to graduation too.

Finished!

I have been missing in action! I am officially done with my ADV311 class. I am soooo glad its over. It was fast paced, but worth it. I started the city college in Santa Barbara this week and it nearly killed me since its finals week at brooks. I was a mess. A tired mess. But I survived and now I am going staight into work mode with my new school. This is only temporary. Since I pay for my tution out of pocket and it isnt exactly inexpensive, I am taking some time off to save up for the final stretch of school. While I'm on break I am going to be taking a couple of classes at the city college that will transfer over to brooks and take care of my general education requirements. That makes me feel better. I HATE taking breaks from school only because I feel unproductive and it makes me feel like graduation is that much further away.

Today our teacher, Paul Myer, gave a lecture on the importance of photography internships. In the back of my mind I am thinking, when am I gonna find the fucking time? I have to figure something out.

I turned 26 recently. Im getting old. But I am pretty happy with where my life is at. I am more focused than I have ever been. I've found a career path that I love. And I have a boyfriend that I love more than I can describe. Life is good.

Fiesta!

It's fiesta time here in Santa Barbara. I remember when I first moved here my roommate, Jennifer and I stumbled across it by accident. Santa Barbara turns into a big party with spanish food, music, art, and drinks ;) We had way too much fun. I pretended that I spoke spanish the entire night! That was over 3 years ago. This year, its all work. I'm working at Hotel Santa Barbara right now. It's nearly 2am and I can still hear the Mariachi band playing outside and people hooting and howling. Is it weird that I have no desire to be part of it? Im getting old. Old and boring.

I had a job interview today. I think it's gonna work out. I'll be working for a developing company here in Santa Barbara as their main photographer. It will be part time, but it sounds like I will get to do many different types of photography. Events. Products. People. We shall see how this goes.

3 weeks left of this session. How did the time go so bloody fast? That much closer to graduation.

A little breather..

Today was a good day. Just me and my love and the beach. This week has been a strenuous one. I've been stressing more than I should be but I feel it is unavoidable. I wish I had the capacity to let go and not be such a control freak because, well I can't control everything. I just need to learn to ride things out and leave it up to time. I know this all sounds vague, but it applies to many things on my mind right now. School. Work. Finances. Family. Photography. Health. I had a little breakdown on thursday after my 6 hour class. I dont know why critique made me so damn anxious or why it made me feel so miserable. It all came tumbling down when I went to Natalie and Dominic's house after the class ended and we started talking about the day and the tears just came pouring down.
I felt silly and couldn't quite place why I was crying. Do you ever have those moments? Maybe not. This is the crybaby in me, I think. I just felt frustrated and inadequate. Nothing I do is right. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough creativity. I don't have enough confidence. At least, this is how I felt on this day in particular. I am very grateful for Natalie and Dominic. They let me cry. They tried to talk me through it. The helped me tremendously this weekend with my shoots. They will always have a special place in my heart as my adopted family while in school. I am so sad they graduate at the end of August and will be leaving me. I will cherish the time that we spent together.
I worked like a madman to get most of my work done early so that I could spend at least one day of leisure with my love. We set up a canopy I recently bought for photography purposes on the beach and it was like our own beachfront room. We made a picnic. Sipped on some wine. Took a couple shots ;) I passed out for three hours in a deep and sound sleep. It was a much needed day. It was a happy day spent with the person who makes me so happy. My best friend. He leaves to Arizona again tomorrow, and tomorrow I go back to the hustle and probably wont get to sleep after the graveyard shift, but I feel that today helped to prepare me for that. Here is one of the pics from this weekends shoot.