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.)

I have a real, honest-to-goodness, more-than-three-sentences-long post about something other than photography coming soon, I promise.

But in the meantime… I finally posted some highlights from Sarah and Zeb’s wedding. So go check ‘em out!

(WARNING: This post contains a picture that might make you throw up a little bit in your mouth.)

… I will go the extra mile. I will throw myself into the effort of getting that perfect shot.

Sometimes more literally than others.

It’s funny how, when one is so focused on capturing the perfect shot of the bride and groom leaving the building, one can completely miss the existence of a step down from the sidewalk to the driveway.

It’s also funny how, when such a moment of neglect occurs, the sidewalk can decide to take a chunk out of one’s knee as a keepsake.

See? It’s pretty:

I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want to see that. But you know what? I didn’t really want to fall down those steps and rip my black pants that I payed $26.50 for at Old Navy. I know exactly how much I paid for them because the receipt for them is still sitting on my desk—because I bought them last week.

But, as I told all of the concerned onlookers at the time of the incident, at least my camera was fine. As long as my camera was alright, I was alright.

In case you haven’t been keeping track, I am developing quite a knack for falling down while carrying expensive equipment. And you’ll notice—none of the equipment has been damaged YET. So, to anyone out there who might have been thinking about lending me their expensive camera equipment: BE ENCOURAGED. I will die before it will.

But if you’re thinking about lending me pants? Um… Not so much.

P.S. I should mention the fact that this wound was acquired at the amazing Friday the 13th wedding of two dear acquaintances who are some of the most truly awesome people I know. So it was for a good cause.

Would you like to see the very best picture I took at that wedding I told you about? Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? You would?

Okay, here it is:

Obviously, I am joking. This picture cannot possibly be the best picture that I took at that wedding, because it is a picture of a slug. Granted, it might be a nice picture of a slug, but it is still a slug. If this was the best picture I took at a wedding, I would not let the bride and groom pay me. (Unless they really loved slugs or something.)

No, no, I have very many much more lovely pictures from Zeb and Sarah’s wedding—photos that they have not yet been able to see, even though I promised to deliver them last Monday.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Erin, isn’t that highly irresponsible and unprofessional of you to be late with a couple’s wedding photos?” And the answer is, “Yes, it is.”

However, this brings me to a fun little story called, “Backing up your data will make your bones stronger and your eyes more vibrant and your teeth whiter—also, it will save your life and prevent you from looking unprofessional in front of the entire world.”

Now, before anybody freaks out, I should mention the fact that I have fastidiously backed up the originals of every single wedding I have shot. Never, at any point in this story, were the originals from Zeb and Sarah’s wedding in danger. So that’s one teeny-weeny sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, there are other things you can lose in the event of a disaster, such as, oh… three+ days of work on processing photos. You see, Adobe Lightroom, as wonderful of a program as it is, has this little thing—it doesn’t like its catalog to be messed with. It is very particular about how it reads the data held in its catalog (meaning all the alterations I have made to any photos within Lightroom), and if it gets bumped into or jostled, well… it gets… moody.

And that is exactly what happened on Monday afternoon when my computer, just as I had finished my work in Lightroom and was moving into Photoshop, rebooted itself for no apparent reason. This is just the sort of jostling that makes Lightroom grumpy—so naturally, when my computer came back on it stomped off into a corner and refused to speak to its catalog anymore.

This is the point in the story at which I had to lie on my bed for half an hour with a hot pack on my forehead in order not to hyperventilate. But after I got done doing that, Dad and I poked around online to see if there was any way we could talk Lightroom back into showing me the edits I had made to my photos.

What we found was a savior—a man who works at Adobe and who had offered to take in people’s injured Lightroom catalogs and show them how to reconcile themselves with the program. By the end of the evening, he had emailed me back my catalog, right as rain. Unfortunately, though, I had lost the whole rest of my day to this adventure; and seeing as today and yesterday and the day before were all already filled with plans, this rebooting incident has set me back considerably on Zeb and Sarah’s photos.

So, kids, as you can probably already guess, the moral of the story is: BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP. I know you don’t want to; DO IT ANYWAY. And after you’ve finished backing up? BACK UP AGAIN. Because you never know when one of your programs is going to throw in the towel.

The end.

One more thing… here’s a little story that I hope will make you giggle as much as it made me:

I just recently ordered some test prints from this company, because I am planning on using them to fulfill print orders for my clients.

The UPS tracking information said that they were supposed to arrive yesterday afternoon. The UPS truck often does not reach our house until late, though, so I knew I probably had a wait ahead of me.

At one point in the afternoon, I wandered listlessly by my Dad’s doorway and, looking for all the world like I was horribly distraught, sighed, “Dad… I really wish my prints would come.”

…

Then, as I heard the words replayed in my head, I laughed and groaned, “Not like that!”

Dad just looked amused and said, “Someday, someday.”

(P.S. All kidding aside, the prints are awesome. I’m really excited to offer these to my clients.)

Dear Boston: See these people?

You might recognize them. They flew in over your borders early Monday morning; I thought I should let you know that they’re going to be with you for a while.

That one on the right is my brother. He graduated from Gutenberg several years ago, and so did his wife; that’s her on the left. He always wanted to go to grad school, but he had a few things to do in the meantime. Now, though, he’s going for a PhD in Philosophy and an MA in Classics—which should set him up perfectly to come back and teach at Gutenberg. Which is great. The only catch is, he had to go to… well, to you to do it. And you are just a little farther away from Oregon than any five-year program which my brother is attending should be.

So take a good long look at them, because I have a very important job for you. I need you to take care of these two. I want you to make sure that they are fed, clothed, educated, encouraged—make them at home, but not too at home; comfortable, but not too comfortable. (After all, we do want them to make their way back over here at some point.) Make sure that Brian does well in school and that Melanie finds a job she likes—and make sure that they both can feel the motherly, fatherly, and sisterly love emanating from this little house on the other side of the country.

Oh, and, Boston? You just received a couple of first class folks. I hope you know that.

Sincerely,

Erin

Finals week has me in its grip right now, so I don’t really have time for words. I just wanted to share this photo, taken a few weeks ago on a brief jaunt to the river, which has been gracing my desktop and making me giggle ever since:

I think this shot sums me and my friends up pretty well.

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?