april was pretty darn awesome. it kicked off with durham's annual full frame documentary film festival. this year i saw documentaries on free speech ("shouting fire"), the production of vogue's biggest and most influential issue of the year ("the september issue"), self-storage facilities and why we keep stuff ("steel homes"), loving movies ("supermen of malegaon"), the biggest mall in the world and why no one goes there ("utopia, part 3"), the recording of and supporting tour for arcade fire's album "neon bible" ("miror noir"), and a buddhist monk's search for the reincarnation of his recently deceased spiritual master ("unmistaken child"). i love this festival. it feeds my soul.
shortly thereafter, i saw the incomparable songstress neko case perform at the unbelievably sweet meymandi concert hall. sublime. seriously. then i heard the hilarious david sedaris read at the swank new durham performing arts center. both events were courtesy my bestest fwiend who gave me tix for my birthday and xmas, respectively. yay!
then my mom and i went to philadelphia to see my brother perform the world premiere of new pieces for the classical guitar. it was a mini family reunion -- my dad, my stepmother, my stepsister, my brother's wife, my mom, *her* brother, and me. my uncle's presence was a total surprise. we haven't seen him in *years*, and he wanted to surprise my mom. we secretly coordinated via text messaging. mom cried. it was great. :-) the day after the concert, my mom and i took my brother's two children to the natural history museum while he did some philly guitar festival stuff. we hung out with dinosaurs, butterflies, and mummies. later, cotton candy was consumed. we were back home for less than 24 hours before mom and i took off for another little reunion. every year my mom and her sister meet up in gatlinburg, TN, for the great smoky mountains national park wildflower pilgrimage, which is several days of educational hikes and programs to benefit the park. in the past i would have left the wildflowering to my mom and her sister, but this year my cousin, who i haven't seen in ages, was able to make it, so i figured, what the hey? the freedom to see more of our far-scattered family and just pick up and go on adventures was a major reason i quit my job. so we had mother-daughter-sister-cousin bonding while learning about the flora and fauna of the mountain ecosystems. we saw bears. we breathed clean mountain air. we had pancakes for breakfast every day. we used audio equipment to track bats in flight. we looked at water bears through microscopes. we learned that the eyes of some kinds of spiders will reflect light and you can use a flashlight to see them at night like teeny blue or green gems.
it was also my one year anniversary of declaring my independence from Jobs That Suck and deciding to pursue a creative life instead. (thanks for the card, dad!).
one year ago yesterday i used my "big girl" camera (the digital canon i bought to support my ambitions) for the first time. i have since taken nearly 4000 pictures with it.
one of the first:
(blue dinosaur was sculpted by my niece, rhyana, for my birthday a couple years ago. not only is he kinda sparkly, but he glows in the dark, too. blue dino is *awesome*.)
since the inaugural shoot with blue dino, i've been steadily building my portfolio with film and digital photos. my vision has matured a great deal, and with that, my confidence and my certainty that i'm doing the right thing have grown. i've met many cool people through flickr and the art house co-op who offer support and encouragement. and i've actually had my first paying photog gig (more on that later).
to celebrate, i give you this link to a special water bears music video, courtesy of some scientist in poland: http://www.adamn.zsem.pl/Niesporczaki.3gp
1 comment:
happy one year indeed... and as much as you've done you're just getting it cranked up to do even mobettah...
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