Burnsed Wedding | 5.04.13 | Athens, GA
People say that rain on your wedding day is ironic good luck. If this is true, Joel & Liza Burnsed are about to be one of the luckiest couples anyone I have ever known. While the rain might have put a damper on some couples’ special day, the newlyweds and everyone involved took it all in stride. Not a single beat was missed. The bride-to-be and the bridesmaids prepared for the big day on a breakfast of mimosas and lunch of giant slices of supreme pizza inside the beautiful Demosethian Hall on the University of Georgia Campus. Maybe that was the secret to them staying so composed all day.
Liza is a high school friend who I have known since my first day of high school. Over the course of the last year I have been honored to get to know Liza, Joel, their family, and friends better while planning for this day. It all paid off. I wish Joel and Liza Burnsed the BEST of luck in the future and I hope to keep capturing memories for their families for years to come!
You can view more high-definition images and buy prints of your favorites here
30 minutes at Harbin’s Body Shop
I’m a procrastinator.
WHEW. Finally got that off my chest
I always have been and for the most part, always will be. Ask anyone that’s spent a decent amount of time with me. My girlfriend? Yup. College roommate? Definitely. Parents? Of course. Unless I am extremely passionate about something, chances are I’m not going to do it at first opportunity. Heck, I’ve been on Reddit as long as I’ve been staring at this blog post. (opens twitter).
Where was I? Right. I’ve been this way for pretty much forever and I’ve gotten by reasonably well so far. It’s not the best way, but it’s my way. And recent reports make me feel less horrible about procrastinating and slightly worse about the pressures of modern day society, but that’s a different post fo– nope. Let’s be honest. I’ll end up drafting maybe three sentences and leaving it to rot in the ‘drafts’ section for the rest of eternity.
With that said let’s rewind back to Wednesday night. I settle down in bed knowing that somehow I had to come up with a 10-minute multimedia presentation based on an interview I hadn’t even thought about doing yet. “I’ll get up early, there’s plenty of time in the morning.” After sleeping through my first three alarms and suddenly realizing that my procrastination was going to finally catch up with me, I decided that I could actually wait no more. I got dressed (yeah, I wasn’t even dressed to do anything productive yet), hopped in my car and set off on my search to find someone to interview.
Luckily I didn’t have to go far because for me, like so many others who have found them in a rough situation in Snellville, Harbin’s Body Shop was open in the best sort of way. Harbin’s, a Snellville staple for 35 years is an small auto repair shop with a fantastic reputation and for good reason. I walked in an explained my situation and Tim White, the shop manager who also mans the front desk at Harbin’s, was more than willing to help. In the middle of the day he put down everything he was working on and sat down with me in the lobby for a 20 minute conversation that ranged from our high school days to Pintrest fails. He bailed me out. When I asked to take some photos he gave me full access to the property with a gentle “be careful” warning before settling back down at his battle station.
I have never been so miraculously bailed out as I was that day. I chatted with the workers, took some photos, and hurried back home to assemble my presentation. I have no idea how I made it on time and had better presentations than some people who had started this project when it was originally assigned (#humblebrag), but I did.
Unfortunately, I defeated my procrastination again meaning it will soon rear it’s ugly head and we will face off once again. Hopefully I’ll come out victorious again.
What I Saw: February 16, 2013
In an attempt to remind myself to take more photographs and carry my camera around more, I’ve started this series, “What I Saw:”, documenting parts of my day. Usually without context but sometimes it will be there. Like the rest of this blog, ridiculously informal.
What I Saw: February 14, 2013
This gallery contains 13 photos.
In an attempt to remind myself to take more photographs and carry my camera around more, I’ve started this series, “What I Saw:”, documenting parts of my day. Usually without context but sometimes it will be there. Like the rest of this blog, ridiculously informal.
What I Saw: February 12, 2013
In an attempt to remind myself to take more photographs and carry my camera around more, I’ve started this series, “What I Saw:”, documenting parts of my day. Usually without context but sometimes it will be there. Like the rest of this blog, ridiculously informal.
Today, I learned.
Everyone has favorites. Directors have favorite actors to work with. Teachers have favorite students to teach. DJs have favorite venues to turn knobs at.
So I don’t really feel bad for choosing favorites either. It’s okay for me to enjoy doing one thing more than another. Picking and choosing what I do based on how much I enjoy it. That’s fine. Everyone does it. It’s expected. But what I can’t do is let favoritism affect work that I’ve already agreed to do or projects I have to do.
Today I learned that I have to treat every project like a passion project. I can’t allow my self to sell other people short because their visions don’t align with my visions. If I am going to continue making photography my business and not my hobby, I owe it to myself more than anyone to give all of my projects equal devotion, dedication, and attention before the shoot, during, and most importantly, after.
And that’s okay because my one passion above all else is photography. So as long as I’m doing that, I’m good.
Daily Inspiration: 360° Light Painting Portraits
Came across this while waiting for the world to end (spoiler alert: it didn’t). I’ve always been really fascinated with camera set-ups and manipulating reality. These people do it in such a great way. I wish I had the resources to try something like this.
Check out more here
Emory Diwali | 2012
Never will I pretend to be a cultured person. I’m very diverse, I hang out and associate with a large variety of people but I’m not as involved in their culture as I would like. I love knowing people, that’s great and all, but I want to know about people.
A few weeks ago I was asked by a group at Emory to take photos at an event they were having. Being a freelance photographer slash poor college student slash passionate photographer slash lover of delicious food, I already made up my mind before doing any sort of research into the event. Soon after realizing that was a horrible idea, I read up on Diwali and became truly interested and excited about covering this event.
Indian culture can be a visual person’s dream. Everything is full of color and movement and emotion. It is something so deeply embedded into everything in their culture. It’s fantastic. This event I was asked to shoot was Diwali, a celebration of the Indian New Year. Everyone was dressed up in such interesting ways, even people that don’t usually embrace their heritage as much as they do American culture became fully involved. As one of my good Emory friends said “It’s my one day to be brown!” and I think that’s fantastic, being able to hold on to two complementing identities is apparently not as rare as I thought it was initially. This event was awesome and I’m glad Emory’s Indian Cultural Exchange asked me to shoot it for them. I love being able to branch out professionally and personally.
Taste of Atlanta | CL ’12
So I’ve been interning with Creative Loafing this fall. Again.
And I still love it.
Besides the free access to some of Atlanta’s coolest events (I promise they’re not paying to type this… or to do anything at all really.), I really enjoy the photo challenges and opportunities it provides me access to. Some of my favorite events to shoot involve lots of people all interacting in situations that they wouldn’t. I guess that’s the sociologist part of my mind.
Really though, when you think about it, well when I think about it, food and people are very similar. All sorts of different colors and flavors that don’t always go well together but once and a wh– actually, that’s way too corny.
I just love food. It’s so interesting. I love people. They’re so unpredictable. I’m done trying to write.
Here are some pretty pictures.
A couple mixes a salad dressing at one of the DIY booths during Taste of Atlanta 2012
Banansas Foster
Wild game on display at Taste of Atlanta 2012
Something delicious whose name is escaping me…
The beginnings of bananas foster.
Salmon for humans (left) Salmon for bears (right)
Seafood Gumbo
Seafood Gumbo
Joel + Liza | Engagement Photos
I’m still at the age where people getting married is a new thing. My brain has yet to move from the college state of relationships to the real world way relationships work. It’s still strange to me (even though it shouldn’t be) that people my age are at the age where people start to get married. But it’s a part of growing up and that’s cool.
I met Liza around six or seven (holy crap) years ago in our freshman year of high school. I’m so excited and grateful that in addition to taking her and Joel’s engagement photos, I’m their official wedding photographer in May. The fact that just a couple of days after her engagement in June she asked me to be her photographer means the world to me. Every time I hang out with Joel and Liza it’s a good time and I expect their wedding to be no different.
