personal work // ego sum

ego sum hortus

Unlike my previous projects (my 365, 52 weeks, etc) where I consciously set out to do a series of photos, this one wasn't born that way. This post is a bit difficult to write about; I usually try to keep things light and inspirational here in relation to my photography, but I also want to be open and honest with my readers. Real talk, if you will.

ego sum in flore

Earlier this year, I started taking fertility drugs to help me get pregnant. This was after quite a while of trying the old fashioned way. Months of ovulation tracking and becoming an expert on my cycle. Charting absolutely everything. I hated to admit that I needed help with something that seemed to come so naturally, so easily, for everyone else around me. That in itself was a struggle for me.

ego sum a vase

The mister and I had previously been tested/checked out for any conditions that would explain infertility, but nothing was found. We are both, by all accounts, healthy and should be able to conceive....so why weren't we? The doctors calls it "unexplained infertility" which sounds even worse somehow. All it did was make me feel broken, faulty. 

ego sum viscus et cruor 

I have to admit, all of this was putting me into a mini depression. Outwardly, I appeared fine to my friends and family (at least I think so). I still went out and did things. But social media started to feel toxic to me. I checked facebook less and less to avoid seeing photos of babies and pregnancy announcements. I had no desire to blog either, or to read other blogs that I was following. I even temporarily deleted mine, but thankfully, blogger was able to restore it when I came to my senses. 

ego symbiosis

So I think making these photos was my way of dealing with all the emotions of simultaneously feeling like a failure and trying to stay positive and hopeful. I think I wanted to merge myself with bits of nature and living things, maybe as a way to feel connected to something bigger than myself. In making these images, I think I wanted to celebrate my body as still something worthwhile and beautiful and useful. Still alive and breathing.

ego mulier

It feels really good to write these words out, to share what's been weighing on me. I've been in a much better place now for the past few months. Project Make-A-Baby is still underway, but I'm blogging again, shooting more, and I have some photography collaborations coming up that I'm really excited about. I'm feeling like me again.

ego sum silvis

current inspirations

Heart to Mouth High from bart hess 

1// This creepy/fantastic rubbery take on love (as seen above)

2// This made me laugh.

3// The peculiar and surreal photography of Yung Cheng Lin.

4// I'm not usually a fan of Bon Iver, but their new song for Zach Braff's new film might change my mind.

5// These embroidered landscapes are beautiful.

taming my mammoth

Sometimes you read something so profound, and at exactly the right time, that you wonder if isn't fate. Such a thing happened to me today, when a friend on facebook shared this insightful post: Taming the Mammoth:Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think.

As I read it, my internal voice was shouting, "YES! THIS!" It's something I've been thinking a lot about and struggling with in relation to my photography. And talk about timing; just last night, I uploaded a new image to my flickr, something I've been experimenting with for months, but was too afraid to share publicly. It's a new side to my work that I feel is deeply personal, but my own mammoth was holding me back; telling me it was too risky, and what would my friends and family think?

You can see the full image here on flickr (above is the cropped version, as it's NSFW at the link), and I wrote quite a bit along with the image. I'm still nervous as all hell that I'm actually sharing this, and I know it's something I'll continue to struggle with.

But it's a step for me, and a big one, taking me out of my comfortable little bubble, and into new territory.

a photoshop gif just for funsies

I made this gif of my recent 52 weeks photo's editing process really quickly in Photoshop. Apologies for the weird cropping issues!

No skulls were harmed in the making of this image :)

buy some artwork!

Are your walls looking a little bare? Is it high time you upgraded from the posters you had on your wall in college? Are you sick of buying all your artwork from Ikea?

 Well I'm excited to offer prints of my work for sale! This is something I've been meaning to get around to FOREVER, but I finally found the perfect platform to sell my work through. I'm selling my work through Fine Art America, and their products are of top quality. All prints are produced using professional-grade Epson printers, on acid-free paper and canvases with archival inks to guarantee that your prints last a lifetime without fading or loss of color. There's also tons of other options, such as getting them framed/matted, metal print, acrylic print, etc.

 You can take a look at my store HERE, or alternatively, you can shop directly from my website HERE.

 I don't have a ton of images in my store right now, just some of my portraits and travel images. If there's something you would like to purchase and it's not in the store, please let me know, and I can add it for you!

bits of home // june

1// This is definitely my most covered wall in my house. Some people like a sparse, minimal office, but not this girl. My eyeballs like to look at color, and art, and funny cards, and a flea market mirror from Spain.

2// I pre-ordered Wendy MacNaughton's Meanwhile in San Francisco months ago, and it finally arrived last week. It is delightful and full of illustrations, and you should buy it immediately. The cover even turns into a poster! My short visit to San Francisco last year felt like it lasted only five minutes, so this book reminds me that I need to give the city a proper visit soon.

3// This little guy wasn't doing so hot until I moved him to a shadier spot in my backyard, and then bam! Thrive city. I'm getting better at this keeping-plants-alive game, I promise.

4// I've talked about my small camera hoard before, so nothing new here. But I quite like how they look on the built-in shelves in the office.

in which I try to understand the mindset of a photo thief

Both of these photos look pretty dang similar, right? The one on the left was created by me back in 2009, as part of my 365 project, and the one on the right is the stolen version of my image. Lé Nàbis, an Italian "freelance photographer" who calls himself a "crazy dreamer" took my image, converted it to black and white (real original, dude), and passed it off as his own original work.

This is THEFT, and it makes me feel stabby. I shall insert an obligatory rage gif.

Not only did this gem of a human being plaster my stolen image on his personal flickr and facebook pages, but he also had it FOR SALE on various sites such as 500px and deviantArt. For sale! He was profiting off of my stolen work! THIS IS ALSO THEFT.

This is certainly not the first time this has happened to me, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But I'm always stumped as to what drives a person to pretend he or she made something that wasn't theirs to begin with. Is it insecurity? Does he feel that his own photography is so unworthy of sharing? Did he used to post his own stuff, but received little to no positive feedback? I mean, for pete's sake, I've got tons of photos on my flickr that I'm not that proud of or slightly embarrassed by, like that HDR phase I went through, and when I used stock textures on nearly EVERYTHING, but still. They're mine and I own up to them. It never once crossed my mind to steal someone else's work. That's just crazy, and I'm a rational, law-abiding citizen (okay I jaywalk sometimes, but let's not count that, shall we?)

When I first saw my stolen image on his flickr page, I noticed that it was getting quite a lot of positive comments from other flickr members. "Great job!" "So creative!" This wasn't surprising; when I originally uploaded mine, I received similar comments. But how could this guy read each and every comment on a stolen photo without feeling like a complete and utter fraud?? What was going through his head? Is he mental?

Or maybe this is just some ignorant teenage kid who honestly thought that by changing my photo to black and white, it made the image completely "new" and "his property" and he could sell it on websites like it's no big deal. Maybe he really had no idea that what he did was copyright infringement. Could he be that stupid? Or lazy? Or all of the above?

The upside to all of this is that action has been taken and (some)results have been made. As soon as a flickr follower of mine alerted me to the thief's shenanigans, I promptly took screenshots of my image on his various photography sites, messaged him privately, and reported the theft to the sites where he had them for sale. I also reported his photo fuckery to both flickr and facebook (yep, he had it posted on his personal facebook page). The photo is no longer up on 500px, deviantArt, or his flickr, but it's still on his facebook page.


So this whole post was mostly to vent, but I kind of hope this guy comes across this blog post and understands why what he did was SO, SO WRONG. It is WRONG to steal someone's intellectual property. It is WRONG to pass it off as your own. It is WRONG to monetarily profit off of someone's intellectual property. If you want to call yourself a "crazy dreamer," start by dreaming up your own original work. You'll get a lot further in life that way.

And I won't have to write a rage-y blog post about a complete stranger.