Vacation

(all I ever wanted - please don't tell me i'm alone with knowing that song)

I am SO READY for my vacation! I'm finally going to have the time to coordinate a plan of attack. Because its time to start seizing the bull by the horns :-) Time to make something of myself.. since I am the only one who can help myself.

I'll be sure to post pictures when I come back in a week and a half. Until then, au revoir!

Everyone Has Their Story

In our lifetimes, our choices shape who we are. Yet sometimes we want to break free from those choices. This is where I am now. This is where my story begins.

I am a lawyer by trade. I don't particularly like it (although, admittedly, I do occasionally find some validation, and I'm told that I'm very good at it). I desire to break free like few can imagine. I paint a pretty picture to outsiders about what its like, how interesting and fun my work can be - things that are all true for some. But I am not sure that its true for me.

I find myself freaking out over the insignificant bumps in life, and think 'I didn't used to be like this.' I am constantly stressed, breaking out, hair falling out, gaining and losing weight according to the cyclical stress of my job. My inner creative side has been suppressed - almost like living life in muted black and whites instead of vivid color. Mind you, black and white is beautiful and classic, but without an occasional glimmer of something more vibrant, it's not satisfying.

Even though I have made choices that have made me what I am today - not just a lawyer, but also a neurotic highly driven perfectionist who is afraid to fail - I am taking steps to break away. Taking steps to put myself out there for failure. I realize that when I have a camera in my hand, when I make pictures of the world in the way I see it, I am happy. There is no place where this is more true than in wedding photography. I love experiencing happiness with others, sharing in something special, feeling like I have new best friends for the day. There is still stress (what if I screw up the lasting impression from someones dream wedding?), but its the kind that drives me to do my best, as opposed to the kind that makes me cower in my office and surf wedding photography websites instead of working, dreaming that I can achieve that sort of success one day as a photographer. But its so very difficult to break away from the giant safety net of my success in law.

I am taking steps to cut away that safety net and transition to a brighter world. There may be baby steps with the occasional giant leaps, but I'm committed to this journey. I hope everyone can come along with me.

Wildfires and Hiking

A few weeks ago - the weekend before the giant fires broke out and ravaged much of the San Diego area - my husband, Brandon, and I went hiking out near Julian. We hiked up a ridge where you could see reminders of the 2003 Cedar fire - burnt stumps, large swaths of black up the hillsides in the distance, the blackend underside of dead limbs contrasting with the bright sun-bleached topsides, all contrasting with the cloudless blue sky. We spoke about how sad it was that much of the landscape was just starting to recover even though four years had elapsed. And then, two days later, we had to evacuate our house, because it was in a new fiery path. Luckily, our house survived with absolutely no damage (the fire didn't even come that close because the wind direction changed) other than being covered in a ridiculous amount of ash.

As I look at the pictures I took on the trail - I finally just got a chance to upload them - I can't help but wonder what the area looks like now. Hopefully it escaped further harm. But more importantly, the pictures of burned treetops and stumps serves as a reminder that we're not in control of the potentially devastating forces of nature.

My Favorite Subjects

Asking people to come and pose for you and subjecting them to my neurosis is a somewhat uncomfortable thing for me to do. I'm a little chicken like that, I guess. But I have two subjects who are ALWAYS willing to pose for me (and behave naturally) - my puppies :-) In some ways, they are the greatest things to practice on - they move a lot, don't really listen to directions (well, they do, but they get distracted by the camera), and are difficult to expose properly. And yes, the red one is really that red, and the black one is the blackest dog ever - so shiny black that I get little speckles that look like noise from his fur!

Time to Take the Plunge

Per the advice of the amazing Jasmine Star, who actually responded to my email (!), I am Getting Uncomfortable. This means taking the plunge to be happy, taking the plunge to enter a business that provides unending laughs and tears - taking the plunge to leave the legal profession. I'm not as brave as she, so leaving law cold turkey probably isn't going to happen. But i'm taking the safety net away, a little at a time, until I can completely be free.

AND most importantly, this means starting a blog to write about my journey into the world of wedding photography. I hope that people will come along.