These were the clouds outside the window of Kari’s car as she drove us to a lecture we attended the other night. I’ve been revisiting my annoying habit of taking my camera everywhere, and it’s starting to pay off.

Another night, I walked around campus, looking for light leaking out of windows in interesting ways. This is of the Blue House kitchen:

I also took my camera to a recent show by Science Heroes, a group made up of two Gutenberg students who rock way hard. They had really cool lighting:

If I keep this up, hopefully I will have more photos to share with you soon. Cheers.

Both of my windows are looking out on gorgeous flowering trees right now. Despite the fact that it is bizarrely cold here, spring truly has arrived.

I am sorry for my absence. It turns out that life is not always easy to bottle up, classify, and set on a shelf for scrutinization. Because of this, and because said life has been incredibly busy, blogging of all kinds has had to take a back seat of late. But I am still here.

Hello, friends. Once again, I’ve been neglecting you; there’s something about Gutenberg that uses every last drop of my writing-thinking-philosophizing brain… I’ve come up dry every time I’ve tried to draw something out for this blog.

But although I may be short on words, I am not short on pictures; in fact, I have two photo-related pieces of news I would like to share with you:

One: This is primarily for people who know me in real life, but I’ll share with all. Gutenberg is hosting its annual Student Art Show next weekend (on the 8th), and if all goes according to plan I will have some lovely 8×12 photographic prints for sale in that show. I have not yet decided how much they will be (any suggestions?).

These are the four photos I will be showing:

Anyway, I just wanted to let anyone who might be interested in owning an Erin Julian original know that this is their chance. (Of course, you are perfectly welcome to purchase prints of my photos from me at any time, but this will be an especially convenient and fun opportunity to do so. )

Two: As you know if you have contacted me about a wedding or portrait session in the last month or two, I have not been doing a particularly good job of juggling my photography business and the demands that going to school (and just living life) have placed upon me. I apologize deeply to those who have had to wait so long for replies to their emails; but I am very hopeful that this time of delayed responses is at an end. My dear friend Kari (She’s in this photo; I will have to post a better one of her soon) has offered to help me out with some aspects of my business.

So, if you were to email Erin Julian Photography sometime in the near future, you will most likely receive a reply from Kari, who is a delight to work with and talk to. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to have her joining me. (By the way, any inquiries regarding Erin Julian Photography should now be directed to info[at]erinjulianphotography[dot]com rather than to my personal address.)

And on that note, Erin Julian Photography’s website has undergone a few changes itself; it is now much simpler, and I believe, more elegant; I would love it if each and every one of you went and checked out the new slideshow featured there.

That’s all for now! I hope you have all been having a lovely February, and that your March is splendid as well. Talk to you soon.

Winter, I’ve decided, is just a difficult time. The drop in energy and motivation among my fellow Gutenberg students and I has been palpable; we’re (almost) all coming to class with droopy eyes and not-quite-finished homework. Not to mention the fact that it is just downright cold; my little room, in particular, seems to reflect the temperature of the outdoors. (I was warned.)

All in all, winter is a tough season to get through. But it is also home to, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful light available to a photographer. Because, although I have heard winter decried as being too dark or too wet to serve photos well, I personally love the portraits I have taken under winter’s overcast skies or in the kind of cold, clear, sunshine only it can offer.

For example: two weeks ago, I went to the home of Marianne and Andrew. Marianne graduated from Gutenberg a couple of years ago and now lives in the Portland area with her husband and their two sons, Søren and Elliot. I did not know Marianne very well while she was at Gutenberg, but I was nonetheless excited when she contacted me about a family portrait session. It turns out that excitement was well founded, because she and Andrew are both incredibly kind and welcoming, and they and their kids were a blast to work with.

It rained much of the day we had their portrait session, but we were able, during a brief break, to shoot outside in the soft, beautiful light that the overcast sky gave us. And, because Marianne and Andrew have big, beautiful windows, we were able to take advantage of the winter light indoors as well.

And so, although winter is, on the whole, a dreary season, we really must give it credit for having such beautiful light. It’s just hard to remember that on some of those droopy-eyed-classroom mornings—but I will try.

(If you’d like, you can visit my Flickr stream to see a few more photos from this session.)

Here we are, already at the end of a year which feels as if it has hardly begun. Thank you all very much for your support and encouragement this year; I’m sorry I have not been as faithful a correspondent as I might have.

Here are twelve images from 2007: each one either carries particular significance for the month it was taken in or is simply a favorite of mine. Enjoy.

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

2007 has been a great, full, and character-building year for me; I wish the same for you and yours in 2008. Happy new year.

Hello, old friends. It’s been too long. So long, in fact, that to be completely honest I feel terribly out of practice and have been stressing out a bit over what to post here first. So, to break the ice while I attempt to rediscover my blogging voice, here are some photos from this quarter:

(Click on each photo to see a description of it at Flickr.)

Today was one of those days. The kind of day where it was sunny outside but foggy in my head; where every glance at my piles of laundry and scatters of papers was not a reason to take action, but instead a reason to furrow my brow and feel sorry for myself. It was the kind of day where every single molehill, no matter how tiny, seemed like an everest-sized mountain to climb.

And I have oh-so-many molehills.

That’s the problem with these kind of days; they find me when I need them least. This is, has been, and I fear will continue to be my pattern for dealing with life. I roar ahead full throttle on projects that I care about until the details of my life come knocking at my door and my to-do list grows too long—and then I shut down. I can’t answer emails, I can’t work on photos, I can hardly bear to lift my head off the pillow in the morning. Wake me up when life is easy, please.

It doesn’t work, of course. This perverse determination to procrastinate is not the least bit relaxing; it gives me chills and makes me nauseous and feels like a hundred-pound weight on my shoulders. Please, Lord, hurry up and make life easy.

I won’t pretend for a moment that I’m proud of this behavior. It is sick and wrong and irresponsible. (If only correctly labeling it as such made it easier to stop.) But the sick, wrong, irresponsible truth is that my broken spirit often reaches this point of desperation; the point at which doing nothing seems so incredibly much easier than doing something.

And it’s at that point that I realize how much I need help; how much I’m not going to crawl my way out of this canyon on my own—little, tiny, powerless, human me.

Thankfully, we tiny, powerless humans are not alone. Which is good, because I don’t know if you noticed, but life doesn’t really get easy. But even though it’s not easy, it’s time… time for me to pull myself out of this mire of self-pity and sloth, brush myself off, and keep moving forward.

Please, Lord, help me keep moving forward.

Yesterday evening, I worked my very last closing shift at my anonymous retail location. I helped my last customer, I made my last 10-minute announcement, I answered the phone one last time. And after three years, even though it was not always my favorite place to be, I can safely say that I will miss the place.

A large part of what made this job fulfilling (in addition to many great co-workers) was the fact that my brother worked there with me for my first two and a half years. Our time working together saw us develop a unique bond (at family gatherings, we never tired of swapping work stories), but it also saw Brian tirelessly chipping away at my immaturity with his constant encouragement to do a good job even when I didn’t want to. I really can’t thank him enough for taking the time to chide me when necessary; I truly believe I am more responsible because of his efforts.

So, why did I leave? The short answer is: it was time. It was time because I had worked there almost three years; it was time because I am moving back to school in just a few short weeks; it was time because my photography business is picking up and I intend to pursue it with all the gumption I can muster; it was time because I can’t do that and work at a store during the school year.

Oh yes, I really am going for “this photography business,” as I have taken to referring to it. It has been at the forefront of my mind through the entire summer, and lest you think I haven’t been taking pictures just because my Flickr stream has not been updated, I can assure you that I am sitting on all kinds of delightful photos that I can’t wait to share with you. Patience, friends. Patience.

But for the time being, I am editing like crazy and taking care of mundane (but kind of exciting) business details—and trying to absorb the fact that I am no longer “employed.” I’ve called life “an interesting ride” many a time, and it seems like the next year will not disappoint. Hold on tight.

I kicked and I screamed.

I plugged my ears and hollered at the top of my lungs.

But sooner or later, you have to give up…

… and admit that you are getting a cold.

*sigh *