Week in review...

Ok.  I swear when I started this blog, I was going to be good about it.  I knew I would be able to put down at least 2 blogs a week.  It just didn't seem that difficult.  But it is.  It really seems difficult to put together the 30 minutes to throw a couple images online and write about what it all meant, if anything at all.It reminds me of when I was going to be the next great american author.  This was when I was about 15, and a sophomore in high school.  I took a creative writing class and by the end of that class, I have to admit, I wasn't awful.  I belted out several sonnetts, a couple short stories, and pages and pages of random thoughts not unlike this, into one of those marbled black and white composition books.  

During the class, we were required to have 7 entries a week...yep, one a day. But the caveat was this:  it did not matter what the heck you wrote, just as long as you wrote.  And being the clever teenager I was, I would write "...so, I don't have anything to write today...blah blah blah...".  It was all pretty funny until several minutes later, I was actually writing something and creating.  I never became the writer I had hoped (then) because without the discipline of the class, I couldn't write on a consistent basis, and eventually one day skipped became 2, became a week, and the next thing I know I hadn't written in years.  

Which brings me back to today.  I've come to realize that photography, and, I suppose, any creative endeavor, is one of those where just taking out the camera/pen & paper, is half the battle.  And that's why this blog has been important for me.  I am actually pretty busy lately, but when I get a chance to shoot something that I enjoy, or shoot an assignment that I can have fun with, the creative energy starts to flow and the next thing I know I'm no longer wondering what can I shoot next, and I'm putting together ideas and shooting things I'm happy with.  Just getting out of the house is so damn difficult sometimes, though.  And I'm not sure why that is. 

So the past weeks have been filled with real estate photography schedules, but on occasion I've shot some yearbook sports, and then this past weekend I shot a few assignments for The Potomac News.  And, not surprisingly, my creative juices are in full flow.  I already have some ideas that I need to make sure I write down and get in touch with some people to make them happen.  So after shooting some high school tennis, I pulled out the Cambo 4x5 and grabbed a couple of frames from the top of a bleacher behind the adjacent baseball diamond.  Not great, but there is some potential I need to get to exploring:

And then a week later, a sports portrait for The Potomac News:

A St. Patty's day parade in Manassas:  A young marine ready to line up for the parade, a girl part of an Irish School of Dance, and 3 marines walking to a restaurant after the parade.

And then finally at my alma mater's Selection Sunday Pep Rally:  People going crazy over drawing ND and Coach Larranaga conducting a TV interview over the phone...