Amelia Strauss Photography Blog » Amelia Strauss >> Southern California Editorial Photographer / Destination Wedding Photographer

In the event that you don’t find photography fascinating…go back to the basics and check out the camera obscura. Abe Morell has been rocking out some awesome stuff based on exploiting this basic photographic process: “As the world of photography grows ever more digitized, Morell offers a glorious and surprising reminder of its classical roots. The well-known Cuban-born photographer essentially turns a room into the interior of a camera. He blacks out the windows, leaving a pinhole opening in one of them. Because of the nature of refracted light, the scene outside the window is projected upside down into the dim room. Morell then captures the room on film with a large-format view camera; exposures can take eight hours or more. The juxtapositions in the book’s 60 duotones are eerily beautiful: New England clapboard houses hang serenely on the walls of a child’s bedroom strewn with toy dinosaurs; Times Square throws a patchwork over the walls and bed of a Manhattan hotel room; the cityscape of Havana spreads across the crumbling interior wall of an apartment.”
Editors of Scientific American

On the blog again…I can’t wait to get on the blog again. Okay, that does it for the musical puns today. I think I may be getting the hang of this. Apparently I ramble way too much, but to be honest I ramble inside my head too - so I guess it just comes out that way. Feedback so far has been encouraging in spite of my poor writing skills and lack of focus or direction at this point. All two people who have looked at the blog thus far have at least claimed to really like what I’ve done so far. Now granted those two individuals are my husband and a really close friend, but I’ll take whatever I can get. Hopefully I’ll start on photography information and client profiles soon. For now, all you’ve got is just me and my disorganized thoughts. Too bad. But hey, the best is still to come!

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I spent a few hours this afternoon exploring the range of KM’s numerous dramatic facial expressions while shooting around with a new fun lens. This proved to be a great way to temporarily avoid my computer and all of the work that I really needed to do today. The thing about this crazy digital age is that there comes a time in each photographer’s day when they need to just say no, and slowly step away from the computer. Well, three dear friends came by and managed to give me the opportunity I needed to step away from the internet and remove all the software and image files dancing through my brain. Sure I have pressing projects, but sometimes winding down is what you need to wind it out.

So I somehow end up applying make-up to KM’s face for absolutely no reason at all. There is no explanation for why that turned out to be relaxing and fun, and yet it was. It turns out that I give a potentially great make-over, depending upon where you’re headed when you leave with my cosmetic masterpiece plastered on your face. The really crazy thing is that I was capable of applying make-up to someone else’s face at all. That was entirely unexpected. Anyone who knows me has inevitably noticed that I’m not exactly keeping the cosmetic industry in business of late. Let’s just say that make-up and I haven’t been at our best this decade. We’ve seen better days and I still have some fond memories, but over time we grew apart. The more I shot, the less I wanted make-up on my face. Eventually I found myself in a place where I have to think hard about applying the stuff, especially the dreaded mascara. All said, I was suprised to find that apparently I have the necessary skill after all, just not for my own face. So no help to me.

After the make-over we shot around for, again, absolutely no reason at all. KM was all done up and game to be the subject of the ‘play around for fun’ shoot, which moved indoors due to a heavy thunderstorm. There was some discussion that the shots might be used to update her FB profile, or even to go a step further and rotate them through as an application on her page to keep her ‘emotion/mood’ updated with her actual facial expressions instead of words. I had the motivation of just loving to shoot and getting to play around with a new fixed lens. But what about LDA? How could it possibly have been fun to be the make-shift studio girl, holding reflectors and speedlights for a impromptu faux shoot? Somehow it ended up being one of those ridiculous times with your good friends, where even the situation was seemingly hilarious. But I’ll tell you what really is hilarious…the facial poses of our lovely model! Show me some emotion KM!

And then it was all said and done, wrapped as quickly as it started. The friends had to go hame. I had to go back to my work. The silliness passed, and the night moved on. And now I find myself sitting here in front of my computer, repeating the Reagan mantra in my mind and yet incapable of just walking away. I wonder what kind of effect the age of digital photography is going to have on me in the long run. Which will be more greatly impacted - my work, my posture, or my eyesight? We’ll call it a toss-up.

Anyway, apparently I needed to dive into the internet head first and in overdrive. I have no idea what this first blog was even really about, but no matter. There are much higher hopes for what this site will become and the purposes it will serve, which far surpass my scattered ramblings. But the point is that I wrote something even if it was nothing. In theory, from here we shall see the shaping of a client-oriented personal blog. Truthfully, I’m not sure what in this world this project is actually going to end up looking like once it begins a life of its own. So here’s to the first blog, silliness, great fixed focals, and the inspiration to wear my make-up again!

So let’s see if this thing actually happens. Will it post or not? To be continued…?

So here comes the blog…