I vividly remember the afternoon this past January when I refused to shoot Zeb and Sarah’s wedding.

I had just finished the blood-, sweat-, and tear-ful process of editing and delivering the photos for Dane and Morgan’s wedding while starting a new quarter at school—and in my usual relentlessly all-or-nothing fashion, I had sworn photography off altogether.

“It’s too stressful,” I told anyone who would listen, “I can’t do it and school at the same time! I might as well give up!”

And that’s when my sister-in-law Melanie let me know that she had just given her friend Sarah my number. Sarah was getting married in June—I knew what that meant. And what’s worse, her wedding was right before finals week. “No ma’am, no way, no how!” I told Melanie. I was good and done with shooting weddings.

And then my phone rang. It was Sarah. I answered, fully prepared to deliver the bad news. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” I could hear myself saying, “But you’ll just have to find someone else.”

Ten minutes later, I walked back into the room where Melanie sat with my head hung low. I threw myself into a chair opposite her and, as she looked at me expectantly, I muttered, “Well, goshdarnit, I said yes.”

Turns out I can’t give up on something that I love as much as photography quite that easily—as soon as Sarah started talking about the plans she had and how excited she was and the kind of photography she wanted, well, wouldn’t you know it—I couldn’t imagine giving up the opportunity to be a part of that day.

And the rest is history… or will be, soon. I had a blast shooting an engagement session with Sarah and her fiance Zeb in February (you can view a slideshow of that by clicking here or on the photo above), and am stoked to shoot their wedding two days from now.

And yes, I’m beginning to remember how insane shooting a wedding right before finals week is—but if life has taught me anything, it’s that a little insanity never hurt anyone. Right?

This one is for all you mp3 player—iPod or otherwise—owners out there who have ever faced the dilemma I am about to describe.

Picture this: you’re listening to your music. Alone.

It’s a fun, groovy little time for you, right? But it’s—let’s face it—a little bit solitary. What happens when you suddenly think to yourself, “Gee. I would really like to share this rocking Decemberists song with three to five of my closest companions.”

Up till now, if you didn’t have a pair of speakers with the proper connector handy, you were out of luck. But NOT ANYMORE! Now, all you need is your iPod, your earbuds, and—are you ready?—your mouth.

That’s right, folks! Your God-given oracular cavity is a perfect sound chamber to transmit your tunes to those standing immediately around you. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Turn on your iPod-like device.
2. Choose a rocking song.
3. Crank the volume.
4. Rest your earbuds on your lips, and close lightly around them. (Adjustment may be required to produce fullest sound.)
5. Watch your friends ooh and ah in amazement!

I know, I know… only a Gutenberg student could discover something quite so awesomely revolutionary. And trust me—there’s more where this came from.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, a girl and her friend made a picture. Then that girl innocently posted that picture on flickr, just like she does with all her other pictures…

… and two days later, it exploded.

Last night before I went to bed, I was pretty excited because my photo of Teal in her Princess Leia costume had about 300 views on Flickr. This morning, as I stumbled out the door to walk to classes, I met Teal, who was on her way back. “Erin!” she cheered, “It’s at 1500 views!”

Wow, I thought, Flickr’s “Explore” system must have really caught hold of that photo.

An hour later, after my first class, it was up to 2500. Now some of my classmates were starting to notice.

Throughout the day, as I revisited my Flickr page between classes and appointments, my jaw dropped lower and lower. I discovered that my photo had been picked up first by Reddit and then by Digg, two sites that together command most of the internet’s attention. By dinner time, almost the entire school was wanting to know “How many now, Erin??”

It is now 11:30, and my photo of “Princess Leia” and the R2-D2 mailbox has been viewed over 65,000 times. 65,000, folks. That’s 10,000 more than our local football stadium holds. Holy. Cow.

Needless to say, it’s been a fun day for Teal and I. So, what is the purpose of this post? Well, here’s the thing about Teal. She is really super smart… an MIT graduate and one of the finest nerds I have ever met. She has also, as it happens, just gotten a step closer to her dream of attending the University of Cambridge in England in the fall.

Here’s the catch. Although she just found out that Cambridge accepted her, they will not be providing her with any scholarship money—bringing her expenses for her first year to a whopping $41,000.

One of our friends joked, when he was visiting this evening, that if we had a dollar for every person who viewed our Star Wars picture, Teal’s expenses would be more than paid for.

And that idea sounded almost crazy enough to work.

Now, just so you know, I really really hate people asking for money—probably more than I should. But when the entire internet is crawling all over my blog and many thousands of dollars are standing between my friend and her dream… well, you can’t blame me for seeing if a few of you might have a spare dollar or two lying around. So I am providing a link on the sidebar over there —> which will allow you to donate to Teal’s “Send Princess Leia to Cambridge” fund.

… OR you can ignore this, totally guilt free!

Either way, even if she doesn’t make a penny, Teal and I are pretty stoked at the success of our little geektastic adventure—we really never imagined.

UPDATE: Aaaaand the numbers keep climbing. You really have no idea how excited Teal and I are that even one of you decided to donate… let alone enough of you to bring her total to almost $60.00 so far. You should see our house… there’s a giant chalkboard in the middle of the living room, and on it we have a running tally of both her Cambridge fund and the view count on Flickr… and it’s getting updated pretty often.

Some completely valid questions have come up in the comments, which I showed to Teal, and here are her answers:

What will Teal be studying at Cambridge? Short answer: Math ed. Long answer: International perspectives in math education. Why? Because Teal has tutored countless kids and adults whose enjoyment of math have been ruined by bad teachers, scary educational experiences, or bad textbooks, and she wants to help reform math education in the U.S.

What about taxes? We haven’t looked into this, honestly. Teal is planning to report this income and pay any necessary taxes on it, but we’re both wondering: are there other factors we need to take into consideration?

“I’ll give you $50 if you promise to wear that costume once a week while you’re at Cambridge and post a picture of it to Flickr” Hahaha. We got a kick out of that one. This was probably a joke, but Teal did say that if 200 people pledged her $50.00 to do this, she would.

What if Teal doesn’t get enough money? I do not think that either of us are expecting this “Send Princess Leia to Cambridge” campaign to cover all of Teal’s expenses (although that would be awesome), but if she does not manage to put together enough money on top of her earnings here to go to Cambridge, she will donate what you have given her to World Vision International.

I will update this post throughout the day as I can… thank you again to each and every one of you who has donated! We owe you.

I think I have finally arrived at an analogy that satisfactorily describes my writing process. (And perhaps, by extension, my creative process in general.)

When I am beginning a column or a paper, I am like a sculptor facing a table on which I plan to create a masterpiece. The table is empty; no clay in sight. I can sit there and stare at the woodgrain for as long as I like, but it will not do any good. I have nothing to work with.

But over the next days and weeks (and sometimes months), inspiration will strike at unexpected moments—someone will say something to me that starts turning wheels in my head, or a particular phrase will suddenly sound just right—and if I can manage to capture those thoughts in writing, they become lumps of clay I can add to my empty table.

In this way, I add bits and pieces of raw material to my growing pile, until finally I have enough random scraps that I can sit down and shape them into something entirely different from any of the individual parts.

All this occurred to me because it is the only way I can explain how I nibbled at my latest 20 Below column with very little success for well over a month, and then wrote it all tonight in one big swallow.

Of course, the fact that my latest deadline is tomorrow morning at 9:00 am may have had something to do with that, as well.

… So maybe this sculptor works best under pressure.

For some reason, my subconscious feels that the best time…

… to start designing my photography website is the night I have a 20Below column due.

… to redecorate my wall with pictures and paintings is the night before my synopses are due.

… to have lots of deep thoughts that must be written in my journal is the night before my Greek and Euclid finals.

But don’t imagine that I’ll do any of those things when I actually have time for them.

Heavens, no! That would be far too sensible.

Don’t let me down, camera.

Don’t let me down, weather.

Don’t let me down, mind.

Don’t let me down, hands.

Don’t let me down, eyes.

Wish me luck, all.

(P.S. Figures I would pick today to majorly break out. At least I’ll be on the right side of the camera, eh?)

Wes, our art teacher, started class off on an unusual note today.

“Okay, class,” he said, “I want you to get out a piece of paper. Now I want you to write down one to three words that describe an idea, a belief, or a feeling that has been really important in your life recently. Either something you’re struggling with, or just something that matters to you.”

We were all a little bit bewildered by this.

Wes left the room to let us ruminate. I pulled out a piece of paper and almost wrote down “photography” before I stopped myself. Wait, no, I realized, That’s something that matters to me, but it’s not the kind of “matters” that Wes is looking for. Besides, it’s not an idea, a belief, or a feeling.

Then I got to thinking about what I have been struggling with recently. Images of the mornings that I am always late for school, of the nights when I just can’t get ready for bed, of all the countless times that I just refuse to say “no” to myself flashed through my head. I wrote down “Self-control.”

Five minutes later, Wes walked back in carrying two large brown paper bags. “Do you all have your idea? Good.” He grinned as he began pulling packages of modeling clay out of the bags. “Alright. Now I want you to sculpt that idea.”

So we cleared space on the classroom tables, and for the next half hour or forty minutes we all plied our clay in quiet concentration.

At first, I did not know how to capture “self-control” in clay. But all of a sudden, this image popped into my head: A person standing in front of some larger than life, tempting object blocking his path. I wanted to capture a thin, teeter-tottering slice of time that would leave you wondering: Is he going to move towards the object? Is he going to move away from it? Is he going to reign himself in or let himself go? And I did not want the piece to give any indication as to the answer. As I envisioned it, it would be like a balancing act—a stare down between a person and the decision he has to make.

Now, I don’t pretend that this is the greatest piece of art that ever existed. We only had a limited amount of time, and I am no sculptor. But here is what I came up with:

Part of our assignment in class was to talk about our piece after it was finished. I stumbled through my explanation, feeling frustrated because I did not think I really got across the gist of what I was trying to say.

Classmate Joel, who was sitting across the room from me, spoke up: “From this angle it looks pretty funny.”

“Why?” I asked, worried that he couldn’t see the perspective correctly, and ready to move the figures so he could see them better.

“Well, it just looks like he’s thinking, ‘Man, there’s that damn apple again.”

We all burst out laughing, and my tension was immediately relieved. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

I can’t remember whether I mentioned it at the time, but way back in August some good friends of ours hired me to be one of three photographers shooting at their wedding.

I still remember how thrilled I was when they asked me—I had just recently purchased my fancy pants digital SLR camera, and I was beginning to discover more and more what joy photography brought me. This was my chance to prove myself.

The wedding was absolutely gorgeous—highly photogenic, and I enjoyed myself more than I ever expected to. I drove home that evening satisfied that I had captured some truly unique moments, and that the bride would love my photographs.

But here’s the catch. Because of our very casual agreement, the bride and I never set an expectation for when I would deliver her disc of edited photos to her. And because I am the busy, procrastinatory person that I am, the school year started and I still had not edited her pictures. Unacceptable, I know.

Well, I’m lucky that she’s so forgiving. But I hope the photos were worth the wait. Today, I delivered to her a slidehow of (in my opinion) the best photos from her wedding. (You can view that set here on Flickr) Her reaction as she watched it was absolutely priceless. I felt a warm fuzzy feeling watching her. I love the fact that my simple photos can remind her of one of the happiest days of her life—fantastic!

As it happens, this evening I met with another couple to discuss photographing their wedding. The bride is the daughter of some long-time family friends. Tonight, as I talked to her, her parents, and her fiancee, I caught some of that infectious excitement again. I really can’t wait for their wedding at the end of December. (And don’t worry; we already set a delivery date for the photos. )

I would be the first to admit that I am no kind of hotshot wedding photographer. I do not have the skill or the experience that the people who charge thousands of dollars do. Also, I think a walrus has more business sense than me.

But what I do have is an intense passion for capturing important moments in people’s lives in a beautiful, memorable way, an eye for detail and composition, and a growing technical skill. At the very least, I have promise. I have no idea what I will do with that promise, but… for the time being, I am loving every minute that I spend photographing people.

So, you like me, right? And you like my pictures? Well, here’s your chance to help me out.

JPG Magazine is a really cool new photography magazine that to which photographers can submit their work—and they give out prizes to the photographers whose work ends up getting published!

This month, they have a theme called “Embrace the Blur” posted on the site. The prize for getting published in this particular theme is a free Lensbaby lens! Needless to say, I would really like to win that lens. I don’t know whether I have any chance, but I am trying anyway. I think this photo fits what they are looking for in this theme:

This is where you come in. I submitted my photo, but they decide what gets in based on votes from the website’s visitors. So, if you are willing, I would be thrilled to have your vote. Just click here, and you should be given the option to say “yeah,” or “nah, next time,” about my photo. You probably know which way I am hoping you vote.

I really wish I meant that I have a zit on my forehead that is a camera, because that would be pretty darn awesome. But what I actually mean is that I have a zit on my forehead that was caused by a camera—much less impressive, and a great deal more painful.

But because I am a dedicated photographer, I still spent a small chunk of time yesterday afternoon aggravating that already irritated blemish by pressing my camera to my face. And frankly, I’m not sorry, because I snagged some priceless shots, like this one of my friend Jackie:

I’m not sure what it is—maybe the change of season, maybe the college experience, maybe the fact that the rainy weather has made it virtually impossible to shoot outdoors—but I am feeling inspired again.

I don’t know if anything will come of this, because I have so little time, but I will try to eke a few good photos out of these creative juices while they are around.