Movers and Shakers

We have moved once again! Shocking, I know, but it's true. We knew when we moved from Washington that we would be living in our tiny little vacation cottage just for the winter. So for the first time this move wasn't pulled completely out of thin air. Since we've been together, Les and I have moved five times.

Upstairs Lady's cat, taken from the doorway of our basement apartment.

The first time was from an awful basement apartment to a small house, both in Price. We weren't really expecting to move, but we got fed up with the slumlord ladlord being trying to sell the house out from underneath us and generally being ridiculous.

We only lived in that small house for four-and-a-half-months. We had intended to stay longer but Les was offered a job in Vernal and we felt it was important to his career to take it. So we packed up and bought a horrible little house that we kinda hated. But more than we hated our house, we hated Vernal. It was a town rigidly divided between hardcore TBM locals and "oil-field trash." Neither of whom were very friendly or open groups, both pretty hostile to outsiders. We simply didn't have the right last name or wear the right underpants to be happy in Vernal.

On top of that Les's job was heinous. He was working the jobs of three people and only getting paid for one. He was working at least 75 hours a week, usually more and went nearly a year and a half without sleeping on Monday nights. When he was hired it was with the title of editor, but his boss wanted him to use the title of associate editor for a two or three months to ease the community into the change. 15 months later he was still being referred to as associate editor and we found out his boss was bringing in a new guy to be the editor, without talking to Les at all. So we decided it wasn't worth staying in a place we hated just so he could be treated like crap. So he started applying for jobs all over the western United States.

Within a month he had accepted a position in Yuma, Arizona. We made plans to take a trip to Yuma to find a house. But before we left on that trip, Les got another job offer, this time in Chelan, Washington. It was a better job than the one in Yuma, editor instead of reporter, and paid more. So we changed our scouting trip to Yuma to a scouting trip to Chelan. We liked it, it was so much better than Vernal. By this time Les had officially been out of the Mormon church for nearly two years and was overdue to live outside of the beehive state. We packed up our car and a U-Haul truck and drove from Ogden to Ardenvoir in a single day with the help of Les's awkwardly silent father and new sister-in-law.

We planned to stay in Washington for several years. Les liked his job, I loved my job, we both loved the community. The only problems we really had was a landlord who was a little too full of himself. But he was in another state so it wasn't that big of a deal. But after about two years the company started having problems. Little things like bills not getting paid on time and services getting cut off. Add to that a hiring freeze and a pay freeze which meant once again Les was doing two jobs and only getting paid for one for more than a year. The company cut off medical benefits with only a few hours of warning, forcing a lapse in coverage for everyone but the owners, who knew it was coming. Les decided it wasn't worth going down with the ship.

We talked about it and decided that if he didn't find a new job soon, he may very well be out of one. Having come to that conclusion, he started looking for jobs anywhere. And I mean anywhere, he applied for several jobs that would have kept us in Washington state, one that would be a commute, but would probably even allow us to stay in the house we were in. But also in at least 15 other states, probably more. Several of them went nowhere because of proximity. But the one that worked out was in western New York state. So, yet again we packed up and went. But I already wrote about that.

Our new house in Mt. Morris

Finding a place to live from 2,800 miles away is no easy task. So we wound up with a lakeside vacation cottage for the winter. We knew it was only until the spring. Now we have a house in Mt. Morris and, while we pulled the entire move off in just two days, it was the most planned one we've ever done. And with any luck we'll be here for quite a while. We keep saying that we're staying put and then taking off at the drop of a hat, the goal is not to do that this time. I don't mind it, I grew up spontaneously moving all over the country, but Les's parents still live in the same house they bought the year he was born (one of the many things about his family I simply can't wrap my head around). So I think it's harder for him.

The Landlord's Game

House hunting is the biggest emotional roller coaster I have ever had in my life. Sure finding a job sucks, and dating is kind of hard, but I have never in my life been so up and down, excited as all get out one minute then completely depressed the next, as when trying to find a new place to live.

And we even have it easy this time. We're here. The last two times we've moved it's been from a different state. We rented the house we're in now from nearly 3,000 miles away, sight unseen. Before that we moved from Hell on earth Vernal to Washington. We found a house listed online, drove to Washington one weekend, took a short tour, signed the papers and moved in two weeks later.

Both times, and even before that when we moved to Vernal, finding a place was instrumental to huge life changes. If we didn't find a place to live we weren't moving and weren't taking new jobs. We would stay where we were. Now that isn't an option. We have to move. And nothing else is changing, our jobs will be the same, there are no giant life changes coming with this one.

Since we moved to New York in September we've been living in a fully-furnished lakeside vacation cottage. It's tiny but nice, but we knew when we moved in it would be temporary. Come June the amount we pay per month will rent this place for a weekend. We are grateful to have found it, but we are really looking forward to using our own dishes again, sleeping on our own bed again, sitting on our own couch again.

You never know what you're going to find when house hunting. This beautiful house is in Canaseraga and wasn't even the brightest one on the block. There was also a yellow one, a teal one and a baby-blue one. I couldn't not take a photo.

We have this nice two month window, from the first of April until the end of May, to move out of here. That is actually causing problems for my mental state. We find a place that would work but isn't perfect and torture ourselves trying to decide if we just go for it or wait to see if something better comes available.

In two weeks we've contacted dozens of people, through Craigslist, newspaper ads, from driving around looking at signs on lawns, and have found roughly 5 that will take our dogs. This is incredibly nerve-wracking, and makes it even more tempting to take a great house even if it is probably too far away. It makes it so I get incredibly excited every time the phone rings with a local number, even though it's usually just someone calling to say they don't take pets.

We're on several lists, which is always depressing to hear. If there are people ahead of us who don't have pets, they are more likely to get a place than we are. But then we get an email two weeks later letting us know that all the people ahead of us have fallen through and are we interested? And I'm ecstatic again, this place is close and nice, but it's more expensive than the great house that is far away.

I feel like I'm going insane.

So, Apparently God Is An Insecure, Vindicticve Asshole

Natural disasters are just that, natural. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and tornadoes happen because of plate tectonics or atmospheric conditions, not because god is pissed.

SENDAI, Japan (March 12, 2011) An SH-60B helicopter assigned to the Chargers of Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron (HS) 14 from Naval Air Facility Atsugi flies over the city of Sendai to deliver more than 1,500 pounds of food to survivors of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami. The citizens of Ebina City, Japan, donated the food, and HS-14 is supporting earthquake and tsunami relief operations in Japan as directed. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavy/5523450134/

I get disgusted when I hear religious people spouting off that some horrible natural disaster that costs human life is all the result of sin. Just in recent memory I've heard sinners (often the gays, but sometimes sinners in general) are the cause of earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Japan, New Zealand and China; tsunamis in Sri Lanka and Japan; Hurricanes in North and Central America and countless other natural disasters.

This bullshit abounds after every natural disaster from all corners, the televangelists, the cable news sociopaths, even Facebook has this inaccurate pile of crap floating around.

"Sept 11th (NewYork) Jan 11th (Haiti) and March 11th (Japan)........Luke 21:10-11 Then Jesus said to his disciples : "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes', famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. 'Jesus says for behold I come quickly,' So ask yourself r u ready? Sad to say, many won't repost this message"

Assuming that all of these things occurred on the 11th day of a month (they didn't), they all occurred in different months and in different years, with no noticeable pattern, what does that have to do with the passage quoted? Luke isn't the 11th book of the Bible, it's the third in the New Testament. It isn't the 11th chapter of Luke, it's the 21st. The only correlation is that the 11th verse references bad things. Grasping at straws much?

There are two things that piss me off so much about hearing this every time something bad happens. The first one is he basic principle of it. God is pissed off at one group of people, and instead of punishing those people, he kills innocents? Does he just have bad aim? Is he that petty? Every one of his attempts to "send a message" fails and the world hasn't ended yet. I thought god was supposed to love all of his children, why does he keep trying to kill them off?

The second is the insensitivity of it all. At the time these asinine statements come out, there are usually thousands of people dead and more homeless and without the basic necessities of life. Instead of worrying about ways to connect the people you hate with horrible disasters, you "love thy neighbor" which I'm told is a lesson from Jesus, and have some compassion and decency.

Little Stinky-Pants

I don't hate all kids. But I generally don't like children all that much and I particularly dislike babies. And just because I'm not a fan of small people who are constantly leak from every orifice doesn't make me a bad person. I understand that I am different from most other women, especially those my age. So I am willing to make mommies happy by saying things like,

"Yes, your baby is beautiful, gorgeous, radiant even. It's gender is completely obvious. It bears no resemblance to neither alien nor monkey. And, yes, it's a genius too, that cooing sound and it's fascination with bright colors are a sure sign it will be doing calculus by the end of the week."

I know mothers see their offspring through rose colored glasses, I know "it's different when it's your own." And I'm willing to fib to you to keep up this illusion. But there is a line. One I will not cross, and if you cross it, all bets are off. That line is shit.

Your baby's shit, is shit. It will never be cute, it will never be adorable, it will never be amazing to anyone but you. Even that baby won't want to hear about it once it knows what you're talking about. And it stinks, you may say that you don't notice, or that it smells good to you, but you're wrong. It's shit, it stinks. PLEASE, please stop talking about it!

This photo is proof I don't eat babies (like I have been accused of in the past). She was two years old in this picture, she handed me the book and climbed in my lap without any prompting and we read the whole thing together. Her mother, in a state of complete shock I'm sure, grabbed my camera to document it.

Religiosity

Lately I have been thinking a lot about religion. I think the reason for that is my attempt to learn more about Les's family. A few weeks ago I made the mistake of questioning one of their family traditions, I was honestly trying to understand. The responses to my questions and the subsequent conversations led to me just completely giving up on trying to communicate with them in the least. Les has been explaining the dynamics of his family to me and I have spent quite a bit of time reading up on Mormonism and ex-Mormonism.

This has lead me to compare how I grew up  with how he grew up. And made me realize how much my perceptions have changed, since being with Les, about religion in general and about religious people. 

I grew up in a completely nonreligious household. As a child I was completely unaware of the idea of god. My father, while he has no formal education, has always had a very keen interest in science. We would occasionally go to church as a way to pass time, or with friends, but it was never presented as fact. As a child in that situation, I always assumed it was something like story-time for grownups. It seemed very similar to the story-time hours I spent at the library. 

When I was around 10 I began attending a Mormon church with a friend, I now realize it was because that was the only way her parents would allow us to be friends. My friend was the oldest child of seven at the time and attending church with her and her family was somewhat of an ordeal. There were always children running everywhere and more often than not the two of us would wander the halls rather than attend the three-hour-long meetings. Her parents were always talking about me being baptized but I brushed them off. They always wanted my dad and brother to come with us to church, but I always made up an excuse because church was my time to have fun with my friend. 

I sort of knew my friend's family was weird, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. For example, I thought it was odd that they had a special bag hanging from the ceiling in their laundry room for their dirty underwear. My friend told me the underwear was too special to be mixed in with the other clothes and was never supposed to touch the ground. I assumed she was joking and didn't realize she wasn't until several years later. I finally stopped hanging out with that friend when her parents gave me a poster to hang in my room that listed a bunch of rules I was supposed to follow. It had things like not wearing clothes or listening to music that would "offend the lord." I never got a satisfactory answer to my question of why these things were offensive to the lord. When my friend's parents continued to ask if I had put the poster up in my room and if I had made the commitment to follow the rules, I decided they were too weird to hang around any longer.

My entire experience with the Mormon church, the only church I had any long term exposure to, was more like a childhood friendship gone bad, as childhood friendships tend to do. It wasn't until I was older that I realized the role Mormonism had in my relationship with my friend. When I first realized it a few years later, I only saw it as the reason the friendship ended. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized we never would have been friends at all if I hadn't gone to church with her. Her parents set out to convert me and my family, there was no other reason we were friends, no real relationship. 

My only other experience with religion came in middle school. I became extremely interested in mythology. Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, Norse and any others I could get my hands on. I spent hours at the library studying different myths and legends and ancient cultures. I decided at this point I wanted to be an archaeologist or anthropologist when I grew up (I actually started college as an anthropology major). By this time I had become more aware of Christianity but didn't fully understand the impact it had. I remember sitting at the library reading about the time-spans different deities were worshiped in Greece and having the realization that the old myths and legends were once serious religions, the same way Christianity was a serious religion in the modern day. That set me on a track of thinking of religion the same way I thought of the mythology I had been studying. But I never really studied Christianity because I found polytheism much more interesting.

Being a teenager in Utah and not a Mormon is an interesting experience. Especially when you look like I do. I am white, with long blonde hair and tend to be rather shy. Mormons assumed I was Mormon, nonMormons assumed I was Mormon, it sucked. So I started wearing a cross. I didn't mean anything to me, but it was an instant way of setting myself apart. I actually started telling people I was Catholic, I had never heard the terms atheist or agnostic and since I was wearing the cross and religion always seemed to be a topic of conversation, it was just easier. I played that role on and off all through high school.


I even played it at the beginning of college, but soon realized Carbon County was different. I wasn't always assumed to be a Mormon even when I wasn't wearing the cross. And when I said I was Catholic, people were actually interested, they didn't immediately shut down the conversation. So I started really thinking about belief. I also started reading books and the internet and discovered that I had always been an atheist, I just never put it into words before.


Part of the reason I was doing so much reading was my boyfriend. When we started going out, he was an inactive Mormon (I never saw myself dating a Mormon, but I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, I spent most of my childhood in Jackson County, Missouri and Northern Utah and now I'm living 30 minutes from Palmyra, New York, did I really stand a chance of avoiding Mormon influence in my life?). But he was becoming more and more jaded with the church he was raised in. We would sit up late into the night and talk about how drastically it was going to affect his family to find out he was dating me, and then later to find out he was leaving the church. This was an emotionally draining, several-year-long experience. In that time Les did leave the Mormon church, going so far as to have his name removed from the records. And as I found out more about his childhood, I found out more and more about Christianity and Mormonism.


The more studying I did and the more I talked to current and former believers, the more I realized I never really understood religion, in fact I never understood belief, I still don't think I do. In all of the studying I had done it literally never occurred to me that religious people took their beliefs seriously. That may sound a little odd but it is the only way I can think to describe it.


Obviously I knew there were religious nutjobs out there who protest everything and think the earth is only 6,000 years old, but I always assumed those were just the crazies. It wasn't until I met and sort of got to know Les's family that I realized the regular, everyday people out there think the stuff from the Bible or the Book of Mormon is real. I sort of understand spiritualism to a certain extent, the idea that there is something out there bigger than you that you don't quite comprehend. But the idea of a magical man living in the sky who created you and loves you but only if you follow certain rules, who is interested in the intimate details of the lives every person on earth, I never truly understood that people actually thought that was real. It goes back to that idea of church as story-time, I enjoyed story-time at the library as a child, but I never thought the stories were real, they were just stories.

So there it is, my entire history with religion. In a way I'm glad I've married into such an uber-Mormon family, it has opened my eyes to the way people around me see the world.

Thoughts on Being "Back East" From a Western Girl

Having been in western New York for a few months now I thought I would share a few observations. I have lived in the east before, as a child. But really I'm a western girl at heart. I was born in California, practically raised in Utah, most of my family and friends are in Utah or Washington and I do love the weather in the desert better than anywhere else I've ever been.

All in all I think this move has been good for us. Les has a much better job and my job is almost as good as the one I had in Washington. Putting some distance between us and our families has been interesting. It doesn't seem to have any effect on my relationship with my family except that my dad is much more excited to come see us here than he was in Vernal or Price. And why shouldn't he be Niagara Falls (something he's always wanted to see) is way cooler than Starvation Reservoir or Scofield. It is straining our relationships with Les's family more. My attempt to relate to them based on actual thoughts and feelings through email has done nothing but cause problems. I think especially his parents much preferred the relationship where we came to the house and all conversation revolved around the church, the happy past where everyone was Mormon or the weather. In the big picture I think it has been good for Les to have some distance from his family. he's sometimes had a hard time in the past separating himself from them and I think some physical distance will help him figure out who he really is and not who he is expected to be, which is a very big part of most exmormons' lives.

But that isn't what this post is really about (but can you tell it's been on my mind a lot lately?). There are some major differences that I've noticed, some good some bad, some just different.

First, population density. Until I moved to Price when I was 17 I was a city girl, through and through. I am to some degree, see the post from last March about that, but small towns have grown on me. While there are small towns out here, they are all so close together and so close to a big city that the "small town feel" like in Price, Entiat, Chelan and even Wenatchee is gone. The small towns around here are more like slightly isolated suburbs. There is also very little open space or public land, a pretty big change from Utah, where the federal government is the largest landholder.  This means there are more things to see, but less of it is accessible. It's sorta putting a kink in my photography.

There are a ton of things to see around here. We are only a few hours away from New York City, Philidelphia, Pittsburg, Boston, D.C. and a ton of other historical and cultural centers of America. On one hand it feels older, like there is more history here. On the other hand the history I enjoyed so much in the Southwest is actually older and I love the mystery surrounding it.

Then there's the coffee. Living in Washington I was in the heart of coffee lover land, you would think I would have found the best coffee in the world in the birthplace of Starbuck's. But that isn't the case. I have found it here, in western New York. To be fair it comes from Canada and I could have gotten in it in B.C. but it would have been a few hours drive. It is Tim Horton's, I am officially addicted and I love it! It puts Starbuck's to shame, the coffee is MUCH better and it's about 1/4 of the price.

But the best thing is that even people's attitudes are different. The biggest example of this I can think of is the reaction I get to telling people I am childfree. Not one single person has said to me that I will change my mind, no one has asked if I hate all children, no one has even asked why. IT IS WONDERFUL! The closest I've been to being bingoed is when a friend and coworker said after meeting Les, "I really hope the two of you change your mind about having kids. You guys remind me of me and my husband and your kids would be the biggest smart-asses in the world, kinda like my kids." I took that as a compliment. In Utah I stopped telling people that I didn't want kids because I was constantly harassed and either told I was a bad person,wrong or both. I met people in Washington who respected my choice and even a few who shared it, but even there about half the people I told reacted like the people in Utah did.It is so nice to share something about myself and not be treated like some kind of freak. So maybe putting some distance between us and Utah will lead to both me and Les leading more authentic lives.

Eastman House, Rochester, NY

Today we explored one of the coolest things about living this close to Rochester, The George Eastman House. It is divided into two section, part of it is George Eastman's mansion he built in the early twentieth century and was his home until he died in 1932. Since the forties, it's been a museum and in 1989, the addition opened. The house has been restored to almost it's exact state during Eastman's life (he took thousands of photos in his home, which have been a benefit to restoration). The newer portion is the exhibition area.

We took a guided tour of the house and saw four exhibits in the newer portion. One called "Looking at Trees" did not impress us, the photos were only okay and the print quality left a lot to be desired.

But we really enjoyed "Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock ’n’ Roll Photographs Selected by Graham Nash" which featured more than 100 photos from the Experience Music Project in Seattle's Space Needle. We regret not seeing the Experience Music Project while we lived in Washington and we're glad we were able to see this small portion of it. The photos were selected by Graham Nash, so there were a lot of the folk rock stars of the late sixties and the seventies. A few more recent artists were included, there were a lot of great photos, but Nash's bias is quite apparent (there were definitely way too many photos of Bob Dylan).

We liked the permanent exhibit of the history of the camera. We learned a lot about the evolution of the camera and it was interesting to see the different models and types of cameras.

The final exhibit was "A Fire in My Belly," a short film that was previously housed at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. It was "removed after protests from a religious group that found some of the content offensive" and several museums around the country are protesting its censorship by showing it. It will be here until the end of January. We found it odd and neither of us understood it but couldn't figure out what there was to censor. We tend to agree with those who protested the film's removal.

There are several gardens at Eastman House — 12.5 acres worth. Because of the bitter cold, we didn't even see the gardens' snow-covered forms. They open fully in May. In February, the house will have hundreds of tulip blooms (part of some Dutch festival). So we have reason to go back.

On a side-note, we saw the first Washington plate that wasn't ours since we were in Montana. It probably had something to do with the EMP exhibit and it was gone when we left. But it could have been a tourist just as well. We have seen a few Utah plates, but that is hardly surprising.

Leave Me My Name

A name is a very personal thing, every time I come across this I think of  a quote from The Crucible by Arthur Miller,

"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! ... How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" 

This quote is about a man signing a document confessing to witchcraft and saving himself from hanging. But he cannot sign the document knowing it attaches his name to something false. He is concerned with not just the lie, but keeping his good name in the community. His name means something to him, it has his whole life behind it, everything he has done. So does my name. Why should I give all that up? Why should I change my name to something other than what is on every certificate, award, degree I earned before I got married, why should those things belong to someone else? Why should every photo I took or story I wrote be attributed to someone who no longer exists? And my marriage is an equal one, if I give all this up for Mr. Bowen what does Les give up for me? Why is it always the woman who gives up her name to take on the man's? Which brings me to my point...

Mr. and Mrs. Les Bowen, I don't know who the fuck they are, do you? Because my name is Heather Myers, it always has been and it always will be. Every year Les's extended family addresses cards and invitations (to things they know we won't attend) to Mr. and Mrs. Les Bowen. Why the hell would I open mail from people who either don't know my name or purposely disrespect my decision not to change my identity just because I signed a piece of paper legitimizing my personal relationship to the government?

For the first year after we got married I got things addressed to Heather Bowen all the time, as well as a few things addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Bowen. To every single one of them I politely reminded the sender that I chose not to change my name. I let all of Les's siblings and his parents know before the wedding. Some of them either forgot or didn't pay attention in the first place (I'd believe both). So when it came up I was polite and nice about it for the first little while.

But now Les and I have been married for more than four years. FOUR YEARS! Plenty of time, even if I'm lenient and only call it one Christmas card a year that is plenty of time to learn my name. We were together for more than two years before we were married on top of that. That is six years! 

Six years that I have been in contact with most of these people (not all of them, some will only attend Mormon functions that I have  no desire to be associated with) and you still don't know my name? My slightly different concept of marriage isn't good enough for you? You can't accept that I choose not to change a very deep intimate part of my identity for a man who doesn't do anything even remotely similar in return? You won't even pretend to honor not just my wishes but my legal name? Fuck you then. And do me a favor, leave me my name.

Nontraditional Traditional Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving Les decided he wanted to do a traditional turkey dinner.

From November 2010

In the six Thanksgivings we've been together this has never been brought up before. While we were in Utah we always had Thanksgiving with our families. In Washington we ate with our neighbors or worked, sometimes both. But I think moving across the country and not knowing anyone is making Les homesick, even if he doesn't realize it.

I found it odd because we are not traditional people, certainly not by the standards Les is used to. We lived together before we got married, when we did get married it was in a courthouse and it was performed by (GASP!) a woman and I kept my last name. In fact our wedding was so nontraditional we didn't even get a gravy boat, as a result we had to pour our gravy out of a measuring cup on this, our first traditional Thanksgiving. We don't have kids, we aren't going to either. We don't go to church on Sunday (or any other day of the week for that matter). Completely nontraditional.

Even though this was a traditional turkey dinner Thanksgiving (for just the two of us we had a 10-lb. turkey, rolls, cranberry sauce, peas, green beans, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, mashed sweet potatoes, olives, fudge brownie cheesecake and pumpkin sandwich cookies), Les did all the cooking.

From November 2010

I don't cook and I don't touch dead birds, even if they have been previously plucked and frozen. While Les was cooking I took pictures, drank rum and enjoyed a Star Trek TNG marathon on BBC America.

Before we even started the big day I found it interesting that Les, who has the big traditional family with their close ties, called his mother to ask the best way to cook the turkey. They talked for approximately 5 minutes all told and she told him to read his cookbook. So I called my nontraditional dad, the man who raised two kids on his own, yes a man. He and his wife (married a year after Les and I were) talked me through every step of cooking the turkey which I then relayed to Les. Then my dad and I talked about all kinds of stuff until my phone started to die, it was almost an hour. Les's mother couldn't talk when he called her because he had interrupted her knitting of mittens. I wonder if maybe she would have been more helpful if I had called her asking for cooking advice, as is my womanly duty.

From November 2010

Some Thoughts on Photography

I decided to do the 365 project on a whim. One of my friends had been posting his shots and I clicked on it. I had been doing nothing for a while but working and sleeping and I had been looking for something to occupy my time. Honestly I was thinking volunteering at the library or learning to knit, photography hadn't really crossed my mind. But as I got looking at the site I decided I had a camera and Les had taught me the basics of photography, so I thought why not?

I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I started that night by taking a picture of the fire burning in our stove. From then on I carried my little point and shoot FujiFilm camera (that I had purchased while working at K-Mart for $38 on clearance) everywhere I went. It wasn't that hard most days to take a picture, but as I got better I became more and more frustrated by the limited capabilities of the camera. Specially I was frustrated by the lack of control of shutter speed, I love to do long exposures of water. Occasionally borrowing Les's work camera held me over a little bit.

But eventually the time came when I needed an upgrade. The point and shoot had been dropped so many times it had terrible noise in every photo, even at the lowest ISO, and I could only do so much to get rid of it in Photoshop. And due to Les's crappy but well-paying job and my super amazing Goodwill job, we had the money for an SLR. It's low end, mind, but new and well functioning and I certainly appreciate it's functions. And really what is more important the camera or the photographer?

Now to the point of this post, a recent discussion on 365 made me think. Many of my friends and family have told me I could do this for a living, my dad is particularly vocal about it. But I just don't think I'm that good. This discussion made me think about it more. I have shot a wedding, but I did it for a friend and I didn't even think about charging her. I have done a paid photo shoot of some children, again for a friend and what she paid me was really only to cover my gas (and didn't cover the ticket I got following her around town).

From Cuevas Kids

I have thought about setting up a website to sell some of my shots, but I am certainly not going to make a living off of it. I have take pictures for friends, and occasionally charged them for it, but I am certainly not going to make a living at it. But does what I do have an impact on the professional photographers out there? Does it erode the profession of photography?

I think not. If I were to sell my stuff on a website, I was thinking prints, maybe some other related things, I don't think it would really affect professional photographers in any way. In no way more than sites like Etsy.com affect the jewelry or clothing industries. An as for the jobs, I'm never going to take jobs like the one advertised in the discussion, when I do it, even if I charge, I do it for friends, for people who approach me. Neither of the shoots I reference here would have gone out and hired professional photographers if I hadn't done it. I'm not out there advertising and offering to do senior portraits or weddings. I do, in no way, consider myself a professional. And I don't think I ever will be.

Having said that, doing the 365 project has changed my life (and I'm not even done with it yet). I am more confident behind and in front of the camera, the latter something I never foresaw. And I see the world differently, I find myself noticing things I never would have if I wasn't looking for a photo. Maybe this would have been better suited at the end of my project, but the discussion really got me thinking. I certainly can't imagine my life now without photography, It started out as something to do and not I love it and it's a huge part of my life and always will be.

An interesting side note the friend whose link I clicked posted fewer than 30 photos (nothing wrong with that, it wasn't for him), I have now posted 273 consecutive photos without fillers or cheats.