Collaborative Creative, a collaboration for all artists.

.... i'm so nervous, i'm shaky just typing about it, but tonight there is something really cool going on. a few weeks ago i met a girl named melanie at the bijou market. we got to talking and she told me about how she and a few of her artist friends are working to establish a regular gathering of artists, so to speak. read about the whole idea on their fancy website here. you see, melanie has this idea of uniting the variety of artists here in ut rather than stroking the old flames of cut throat competition (because, yes, even artists can get ugly about that sort of thing). i liked melanie's idea. a lot. who wouldn't? so when she called me up about a week ago, and asked me to fill in to speak for someone way cooler and more popular than i, cough, justin hackworth, i was a little taken aback, but before i knew it, there i was agreeing.

crap.

now here i am, a few hours before the event doing my best to put together an entertaining 10 minutes on the subject of inspiration. completing this project  might require a second bowl of ice cream.

my point in typing all of this is that you should COME. not to hear me speak. not to make me feel more nervous by increasing the number of faces in the room, but because as artists, are cool, and if you are one, its a good idea to surround yourself with other artists. duh. and even if you can't come tonight, you should head on over to their website to read more about it because this is going to be a regular get together kind of thing!

so wish me luck, and i hope to see you there!

bright

can i tell you why i love to do simple sessions one more time? why i so much want you and your family to come and spend a half hour or so in the studio with me? for me the simplified location (white, white, white, one room, lots of light) really allows me to focus on how your family connects, how your family is together, without distractions. how you tickle--how you make each other laugh, how you move, the subtle way you position yourself in a room. and nothing distracts from that. marty and i created the kind of place that would foster memory making in the most natural way possible outside of your home. the goal, the hope is  to capture all the sorts of organic moments that you really will want to remember always. so we try and try, and its not always easy, because things never go "perfect." but that's really what makes things perfect in the end, isn't it? p.s.  at the end of this session i wanted to make this family my new best friends. bri is an awesome mama, photographer and blogger here. too bad they moved to st. louis for the summer. i'm so lucky they got a simple session in first.

see all photos from this event and order prints here.

sofia and her family

i would see that name pop up now and again on in the comments section on the blog  from my very first days as a photographer---the one i loved so much, the one i wished was my name. sofia. so pretty. sofia. i'm such a name person, and to me 'sofia,' feels soft, light, elegant, strong, and true. such a perfect combination of connotations. she was one of those people i friended from a distance--do you know what that's like? you know them, casually, through others maybe, or through some connection, but not really directly. still you think of them as someone you get along with, someone with whom you share a connection that's maybe never been acted on. the connection was in part this--sofia worked at the newspaper at byu-hawaii about the time i got hired. the newsroom had a computer with all of her music on it. she left soon after i started working there, and i took over that computer along with her itunes library. so so so many good bands. and also during our college's "guitars unplugged," event, sofia participated, while i watched shyly from the audience. she sang a song while playing the guitar (!!!!). with her eyes closed. i couldn't have adored her more.

then here she was a handful of years later, commenting on my blog, throwing bits of much appreciated support my way. she knew i was doing photography because she and her husband had developed a friendship with my sister in law, darcie and her husband. (all four of them are musicians  comprising the bands canoe, and adam and darcie, respectively,, and you should check out their beautiful music here). so when sofia contacted me and said they were coming from portland to ut, and would love some family pictures, my heart leaped. finally a chance to pay her back for all of those hours of listening to rad music.

(these photos are a mixture of digital and film. 5D mark ii, contax 645 and canon eos3, portra 400, fuji 400h).

i bijoued didjou?

i just don't get why, when on the subject of the amazing bijou market, and i start to hum the theme song from the ever popular kids show  calliou, substituting, obviously, bijou for calliou, no one, absolutely no one thinks it is funny. add it to my queue of unsolved mysteries (along with how in the world is their two ue's in 'queue' ).  i mean, do do do do do do, do do do do do do, do do do do do do....BIJOU!!! comedy gold, and ridiculously catchy.  i'll just have to let it go. luckily, martin had the task of coming up with the signs we used for pictures at the bijou market. his cleverness was way better received than mine. and even more lucky than that, was that the amazing ladies of bijou even had us out the the lovely market at all. oh who am i kidding, we totally invited ourselves, but wouldn't you? a million amazing adorable handmade items being looked over by a million amazing ut residents? it was a "i'm so jeolous of that girl's red lipstick, and way better cowboy boots " kind of event for me, that's for sure.

because of some cruel ut april weather, instead of posting ourselves outside on the sidewalk to get portraits as bijou goers came and went, we may or may not have completely blocked an exit as we huddled in the doorway. i would like to extend my apologizes to all of the people who had to inconveniently exit through the entrance in order to successfully avoided my camera and me, but, i don't know, looking at the photographs, i kind of think it was worth it. don't you?

lastly, watch for a photo of bearded uncle marty that he begged me to take. what can i say, the camera loves him. but not as much as i do.

some of my fav bijou vendors and/or pretty displayers: pink peach cakes (above left),  ea (above right), and birds of ashmae (below).its kind of hard to see it in the photo, but this lamp had such a rad newsprint shade. good purchase lady.i hate to knock my photos, but they don't do justice to the total cuteness of the displays at this market. i was blown away by the creativity. i mean, origami? you can't go wrong.heads up, a few portraits of the cute bijou founding ladies are coming up....many of the kids and grown ups if you want the truth, were kept in good spirits with yummy mini cupcakes from pink peach cakes.twins that bijou!

above is a photo of my brother! holding a photo of my brother! (himself)

and i wanted to end with the ever so lovely charla, who is incredible and charming, and who helped me track down email addresses for all of the fine people in the portraits above. she was an angel, and such pleasant company. thank you charla.

not all of the portraits taken at the market posted here, of course, but they should all be emailed out for free, yes free, by the end of the week! also, if you were at the market, don't forget your coupon for $50 off of a yan simple session! come see me at the studio, we'll have such a wonderful time. =)