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=|;/\, originally uploaded by speckled_beckle.

I have only seen Jacob cry twice.
It seems so imbalanced; he's seen me cry dozens of times.

The first time I remember seeing him cry was last May, when we made the heart-wrenching decision to take Brat, our cat, into the vet to have her put down. I have never, in my life, seen a man cry as hard or as long as he did that night.

The last time I remember seeing him cry was last Thursday, when he left me standing on my grandma's porch to drive to Denver, where he will remain until I join him in May.

I am only reminded of this because I just finished bawling.
It wasn't one of those good, soul-cleansing cries, either.
It was a headache-inducing cry from grief. (I just finished watching a vimeo video that I have seen before, about Oden, a dog with cancer.)
...this time is different. I don't think I have cried because of grief in the five and a half years that we've been together, without having his hug to comfort me.

I know, I know: Denver was (initially) my idea.
And I'm not an idiot: I knew that this would be hard, living far apart after living together.

This is just one of those things that I'm going to have to re-learn how to do, and then re-unlearn.

Perspective.

Perspective., originally uploaded by speckled_beckle.

The year of Dave is over. Finally.
I am just now catching my breath enough to write a post (on this blog) about it.

When Jake and I moved into my uncle's house, we did so under the guise that it would be a great favor to the family. Living together under those conditions would also be a test to see if we could stand each other 24/7 without running the risk of breaking a lease.

After a couple months of living together, I had a pretty good idea of everything I believed in and stood for: my intuition had never been more receptive.
Then, my aunt died, and I had to take a more active role in my family: grandma's care fell (mostly) in my lap. I was in charge of driving her to her errands and appointments, setting up and organizing her prescriptions, paying her bills and balancing her checkbook, and making sure that she was taken care of. Under all of this, I lost touch with myself.

Things became more complicated when my uncle was allowed to leave jail and enter the work release program.
He required picked up every morning and dropped off every night, so he had to be scheduled in around everything and everyone else. (Plus he's not exactly my first-choice candidate for person of the year award; his flaws are numerous and annoying. More on that on my personal blog.)

...but after all the complications, all the tears, all the worry and angst and anxiety, it's over. It's done. He's home.
Jake is in Denver, and I am in my old room at my parents' house.
He looks for work to lay a foundation to build our collective life on, while I look for myself. I hope these three months alone will give me enough time for introspection to regain confidence in myself. It's not that it couldn't happen with Jake by my side --it did last year-- there are just a lot of extra complications this year than there were last year.
Besides, I am used to being alone. I was an only child and spent a lot of time figuring things out on my own, so I relish and require space and time to myself.

I will be spending this time reorganizing my space, since we just kind of threw the boxes from my uncle's house in here. School is still in session, so I have to focus on that, too. Plus there are all kinds of photography gigs opening up to me. (I can name 6 between now and the end of May.) Gardening and flower-tending will also be happening over the next few months. And, since we have an entire house now devoted to crafty goodness, there will be plenty of crafting happening. So much crafting, in fact, that I may open my Etsy site.
(I'm hoping to open it this coming week, anyway, just with photographic prints.) Watch my twitter account (@beccaellaphoto) for updates on that.

It will be good to realign myself over this coming quarter. Perhaps I will even gain a new perspective between now and May.

Great news!

Remember how I said that I would like to pursue foodtography? Well, I submitted a few photos to a magazine looking for food photos for inclusion into an upcoming edition, and one of mine caught someone's eye!
It's not a for-sure thing yet, but the fact that they are looking at it with consideration makes me giddy and excited!
Stay tuned. I will definitely let you know how this turns out!

Apologies

I meant to update this earlier in the week, but this is my week to move. I will try to update this weekend, but things will be crazy so please forgive me if I don't get it done.

Second Week

Last night we had our second week in the studio with a model.
We experimented with using an umbrella on the flash unit, adding in reflectors (including one as a hair light), and then played around with a softbox.

It was so much fun.

I am loving this class!
I love learning about how to control light.

I will always prefer using natural light, though it is great to get this experience.

Here is a collage of some of my favorite shots of Holly, a friend who was our model last night.

There are more pictures of her to see. Check out this link on Facebook. Feel free to comment! =)

There are also pictures of the other model we had last night. They can be seen here.

Studio Photography

As those who follow my Twitter account know, I've been meaning to blog about my studio photography class for a while now.
It's been a struggle finding time between studying, packing, and dealing with family issues. (I'm sure that there is no one out there who understands! #sarcasm)

We've had a grand total of two class sessions, with a total of one shoot between them.
The impromptu model we had was Keith, a classmate's husband who volunteered because he 'had to drive back out to campus anyway.'

Here are a few of the shots I took Monday night:

Standard portrait. Slight Rembrandt light.

Tried something unconventional by taking a horizontal
portrait, and then cropped it.
Sad that his pinky got chopped off.

Another pose.

Serious Keith.

Admittedly, these aren't the best shots.
...but that's why I'm in this class.
To learn.

While I prefer to shoot with natural light as much as possible, I would also love to (possibly) have a studio in my home some day, which means I'll have to learn how to shoot with controllable light. This is as applicable to people shoots as well as non-people shoots, like food and still life.

As a result of me being in this studio photography class, I have joined Model Mayhem, to get in touch with people who are comfortable being in front of the camera.
I've only been on the site for 10 days, but I already have a model shoot scheduled. He's a fairly inexperienced model, but I figure that it will be a great learning experience for both of us. He requested a kind of shoot that I'm not familiar with, but I already have tons of ideas for what to do.

So does the fact that I'm taking a studio photography class and searching for models on MM mean that I am going to pursue fashion photography? No, it means that I am going to get experience and knowledge in lighting techniques and possibly work with some great people.

Monday, during our next Studio class, the model is one of my friends.
She has modeled for the other photography instructor for one of his artsy shoots, and she definitely has a unique look. She has also agreed to model just for me sometime, so you'll be seeing more of her than perhaps any other model.

So far, things are going good, I think. It's only one shoot in, and I think the more I do it, the better it will be.