right before the easter holiday i took a break. for 10 days i did absolutely no work (ok. lies. i photographed the strawberry field engagement session, and, well, i guess i photographed these sessions… didn’t i?). i have not taken that many days of consecutively for 3.5 years, not even with the birth of my children. there may have been 3 or so days taken off but there was still editing to do, website re-designs, blog updates, emailing… you gt it. i focused on my family, cleaned my house, went swimming with manatees with my babies, took a glass blowing class (ps… would you guys like to see pictures?), walked around museums, hung out with my sister’s family, and remembered why i am in the line of work i am.
it was hard… not replying to client’s emails, new client inquiries, getting teasers back to clients immediately, but it was also good for me too, to remember that there is a life outside of my work. when i did pull out my camera it was to take pictures of people who mean something to me- my family. My sister happens to be one of the most creative/avant guard/amazingly cool people i have ever met; i have looked up to her from the time i was little. my sister was an artist, i wanted to be an artist. my sister did graphic design, i wanted to do graphic design. she traveled the world, i wanted to travel the world. she did photography and shot with large format polaroids, i wanted to shoot with large format polaroids. For christmas she always got me these super unique toys/gifts that you’d never be able to find anywhere. i dont know where or how she found them, apparently in San Francisco they have much cooler shops than anywhere else in the world. they were always wrapped with the most unique wrapping paper, and usually each gift wrapped individually and uniquely, even if it was just a quirky pencil. sometimes the gifts were even too funky for my adolescent taste, i was unsure of how i felt about the crazy -felted-pompom-bag in a rainbow of colors. However, knowing from past experience that my sister was that cool and so ahead of the times, i would not give up on my funky gift and sure enough, the next year after i had matured just a little bit, the felt bag was THE COOLEST THING EVER. some of the funky things she has gotten me over the years i have held on to to give to my own children, hoping they will see the same value in The Unique. This year, she sent us gifts wrapped in scraps of wrapping paper she had sewn together in a patchwork quilt. she’s just so FUNKY. I think her influence is a bit part of who i am today and why i have the confidence to be who i want to be, even if it is a little off-beat. i’d rather pay good money for a purse of wild mis-matched textiles and fringe from a remote laotian village than a designer bag. that confidence is because i had an amazing female role-model to look up to.
knowing that she has never ever had photography done of her family, i knew i wanted to create some ‘tanya worthy’ portraits for her, but we had seriously limited time. and, as i got to the beach, i realized i had forgotten my medium format film camera…. it breaks my heart. alas, it is not the last i will see of my sis and her lovely family, so that will just have to wait. but what we did come away with was such a good mix of photojournalism and some hysterical out-takes that i’m really happy with it. and thanks to Jay (tanya’s husband) and Chet and Audrey who were so willing to participate, even when i insisted on pulling over on the interstate and running out into the median filled with wildflowers. i’m sure that’s very illegal, but we did it anyway because we are SERIOUS rebels. and sometimes, it’s just better to beg for forgivness than to ask for permission.