A REALLY Difficult Week

I hope you're sitting down for this one... 'cause I've been on one hell of a ride the last week.  On Friday 3/25 (the day after my 26th birthday), I flew to Lubbock, TX for a face-to-face interview for a staff photographer position at the Lubbock Avalanche Journal.

At the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport - I had a two hour layover.  

I spent three days learning about the city and the paper - swinging back and forth from "Yes, I want this job," to "No, I don't want this job."  After 3 sleepless nights, I'd decided that as long as I could survive financially, I could put up with any and all problems I'd have to encounter working in Texas and at a paper that everyone told me (and I saw for myself) had a lot of problems.  

The "AJ"

From the Press Box at Texas Tech - they'd opened a window to watch the game.  I'm a reflection junkie... so naturally I couldn't resist.  Would have been great to wait for a moment - maybe some cheering and game action... but I still like my reflection pics! :)

On Monday, I received the official job offer via email.  The salary offered would put me short of paying my bills $500 every month.  Maybe if things were different, I could tell you I've spent the last few days making travel/living arrangements and looking forward to my first day at a  new job... 

My responsibilities and obligations made the choice for me.

Monday afternoon, waiting for my ride home after work, I made one of the hardest calls I've ever made sitting on the side of the road outside Starbucks.  

Call me a coward, but I turned down the job via a voice mail - if I'd had to actually talk to a person, I probably would have lost it. 

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I was pretty upset.  When I got home from work I grabbed my camera and burned up 1/2 tank of gas just driving and stopping to take pictures I'd already taken a million times

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Then Tuesday came... and my inbox had a message from my local paper, The Record, asking me if I'd like to go out and shoot a couple freelance assignments for their magazine, "San Joaquin Woman."

YES!!  When life beats you bloody, sometimes it also sends you a band-aid.  :) 

I'm still working full-time doing sales/data entry/etc etc at my temp-to-perm position (which should become permanent within the next few weeks - and hopefully include a raise...).

I'm going to shoot the first assignment before work tomorrow (Monday) and on Friday I'm going to shoot another freelance assignment during my lunch break.  

Turning down that job because of money made me feel like a wage slave.  I know I did the "smart, logical, correct thing..." but I can't help but wonder if, in the long run, I did the "right thing...."

Anyway... some pretty pics to close out the post.

Flying home from Texas - I tried to sleep, I tried to do a cross word, I tried to listen to music, I tried to play sudoku... I couldn't do anything but sit there, look out the window and turn my brain over and over thinking about the job.

The scratched and smudged plane window distorted the image, but it's still a beautiful thing to see a sunset from the above the clouds! 

Horse Detail

Meet Dimples.  She's been my cousin's horse and friend for many years.  These two have a special relationship.  We took a lot of pictures, but this first one is my favorite - it captures their connection beautifully!  

Country Graffiti

Last weekend, I did a photo shoot with my cousin and her horse (photos to be posted soon).  On the way home, I drove by this train.  I was in a rush, so I could only stop for a few moments.  I plan on coming back here to shoot more - how can you resist country graffiti?!   

Finally Fog!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I give you...

FOG! (finally)

It's 10:00 am and I just came in to dump my card and recharge my batteries.  Within the hour, I'll be heading back out to do my pond and sky time-lapse.  Yipppeee!!

 

 An oak tree stands alone, isolated by thick fog, in the middle of a field off of Comstock Rd in Linden, Calif.  My recent fog obsession is credited to this amazing tree.  Every morning, I woke up thinking about this picture.  I love the tone and the simplicity of this image.  My one critic - the sun is rising to the left, disrupting the evenly diffused light.  If I choose to print this picture, I need to work from the RAW file to control the highlights - my computer screen forgives more than a piece of paper.

Early in the morning, a white crane flies through a foggy orchard off of Comstock Rd in Linden, Calif.  These are beautiful birds - but they're a bit camera shy.  White on white is never easy, so I'm especially proud of how this image turned out.  I really enjoy the branches in the foreground and that I caught the bird flying.  I had to crop this in quite a bit so unfortunately, the image will not print well.  It's still pretty though.
 

A funny thing happened when I used the keyboard short-cut to resize this image... I inverted it... and I think it looks really interesting!  :) 

Forecast said Fog...

For the last week, I've been driving into work at 7am through a blanket of fog.  Over and over I told myself I'd be out with my camera on the weekend to capture the images I saw on my way to my tiny cubicle.

The forecast said fog... but what I got was just a light mist.  :(  Oy!

I'm coming back here when I have a cloudy sky to do a time lapse.  Can you see it?  Picture it this way - the sky is a deep blue littered with chubby white clouds, the land is a brighter green and I stop down the aperture so more of the image is in focus.  It will be like a tiny strip of land sandwiched between moving clouds!  I'm so excited to get started!

I'm posting this as an example of how important speed is to a photographer.  Right before I pressed the shutter release, there was a beautiful hawk sitting here.  It would have been awesome... alas, I was not fast enough.  

Tilted horizon + low POV = a fun picture!  If I had the fog I was looking for, or a different sky, I think this picture would have been much better.  I still like it though. :)