Golden

last night... 

Our city was flooded with golden light. 

The last traces of a warm sun on an unusually cheery winter day. 

Trees became silhouettes and rooftops were on fire beneath its touch. 

It was beautiful. 

   

Things we love about | Photography

I suppose this is technically things I love about photography (I, being Jess). But I'm sure Rene would agree, so we'll pretend it's things we love. I could list a lot of clichés about capturing moments and love and sweet things like that. But I won't. Not to say that I don't mean them, I do. But you've probably heard them before so I'll save the fancy spiel for my website. 

The thing I love most about photography is not the fact that you can capture a moment, but that you can create one. 

Photographs have a dream-like quality to me. They always have. The light play. The short depth of field. The grain of film. The blur of a long open shutter... We can't see those things with our own eyes. They don't exist in our world at all until they're brought into existence through a lens. And with a camera, we can create and control them. We can imagine and commemorate a dream world all our own. 

So with those thoughts, here's another one for Laura's weekly photo challenge...

I'm curious... whether you consider yourself a photographer or not, what are the things you love about it?

A ghost town and a photo challenge

Let me preface this by saying, I love my job. But it has been a long time since I have done a photo shoot just for fun. for creativity. for friendship. I think that's what every session used to be before I knew what I was doing. And while I'm very grateful to be able to now make a living at something I thoroughly enjoy, I still miss those days. 

So I'm extremely excited to share this image (and a few more tomorrow) from a session that was just for fun. An opportunity to explore and pursue adventure. And laugh. Laugh a lot. 

My gorgeous friend Shelby told me about a place called Centralia. 

In short, it's a ghost town deep in the heart of the coal mining country of PA. It was evacuated due to an underground coal fire that's been burning underneath the town since the 1960's and is still burning today. It's caused parts of the highway to be completely unusable. You can even see smoke coming up through the large cracks in the asphalt. 

CRAZY. I know. 

Who knew this stuff actually happened outside of movies? Not californians, apparently. 

Well we decided it would be the perfect place to do a photo shoot. So here's Shelby standing on a broken highway with a fifty year old coal fire burning beneath it...

This one is also perfect for my friend Laura's weekly photo challenge. The theme this week is "broken". (You can see her sweet blog and read more about her photo challenge here).

I'm going to be honest, we didn't plan this. In fact, I didn't even know about the challenge until a few days after I took this image. But I doubt I could have come up with something more appropriate if I'd had months to plan and shoot! 

Be sure to stop by our-reflection.blogspot.com and say hello to Laura for us :)

More to come from our crazy Centralia shoot soon.

Look what came in the mail

I spy something furry... 

Oh look, it's an Atticus. 

No, I didn't get a kitten in the mail (though that would be awesome). But a present from mom did arrive today. 

Now, the current contents of the box is much cuter than the actual item that arrived. But I am nonetheless extremely excited about it. I've been using my dad's old backpack of a camera bag for the last three years. It's quite nice, just much too large and bulky for my little 50mm lens. I use a shoot sac to hold my extra lenses, so I was just in need of a nice little something to tote my beloved 5D along on portrait sessions. 

Isn't it so pretty? Oh and functional too. I suppose that's important. 

My mom came across Janine King Designs on etsy and sent me the link. I told her I loved it and then a few days later this came in the mail! I know, I have the sweetest mom ever. (thank you mom!) It's the perfect size and matches the print of my shoot sac exactly! I feel like a real photographer now that I can lug my gear around in a fashionable manner. 

Oh and by the way...

 While I've taken these pictures, edited them, uploaded them, written this post... 

Atticus? 

Still in the box. 

Never buy your cat a bed. It's a terrible idea.