Dear Tristan,

Let's snap back to where you were last year. You were happy last year, correct? Good. Do you know why? Don't allow me to answer this for you, you know exactly why. Now get back to that point again. I want to you stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself, because it will not make things better. Fix yourself. You have a lot of things that you need to work on. A lot of these things you will deny at first, but take the time to look into them. Stop holding back, and be honest with yourself. You are a good person, but you are not perfect. You know this better than anyone. I want you to have Jesus in your life, more than you ever have before. You are NOTHING without him, and nothing good will ever come if you do not have him. Forget the things that you long for, and let him do for you. He only wants what is good for you, so do not be afraid to let go. You will be blown away by the abundance of life you will receive. Embrace the people around you, because they WANT to be around you even though they necessarily don't HAVE to. They are there for a reason, do not push them away.

Please Tristan, listen to me. Lately you have failed to do so, and I am getting tired of it. I won't give up on you, but you have to meet me half way. Promise me now, that you will start meeting me half way. I'm telling you all this now. It's nothing but talk. I want you to take what I'm telling you, right now, and get the ball rolling.

No one can do this but you.
NO ONE can do this but YOU.

Sincerely,
Your Gut


P.S.
Stop being so soft and harden the hell up.
Grow a backbone.
Learn to say "no".

New Doors

A couple of new doors have opened for me in the world of photography. As photographers, we can only do so much of the same work, that often times our work becomes redundant. This isn't always a bad thing, but it can lead to just being a one or two dimensional artist. Lately I haven't been feeling as creative or motivated as I should be. Usually when I take photos, I get two or three shots that I'm very happy and proud of. That hasn't really happened in awhile; this was changed inadvertently.

First things first. I usually photograph live shows at least twice a month. When I first started a little over a year ago, I took images and got results that I couldn't even fathom. Of course, as time went along I shot more and more shows, and my photos began to look more and more the same. My satisfaction with my images began to drop lower and lower..until one night, March 13th to be exact. It was the night of the Smokers of Lyrics and BABY BABY concert at the Alley Cat. S.O.L. was up first and I began snapping away. I was coming up with the same old pictures that I usually get; I had a feeling of extreme discontent. Despite the feeling, I kept going. Later on BABY BABY went on. Something happened, and it was a complete accident. For some reason the exposure on my camera was set to 3 seconds. I took one photo, and was more or less puzzeled at what I got. It was a stream of lights, with the drummer in focus. A light bulb went off in my head and I began to experiment. I upped the exposure to 6 seconds, and adjusted my aperture to 6.3. I hit the shutter button and "painted" out the streams of light for the first 5 seconds. On the 6th second, I aimed my camera at the bassist, pointed my external flash at him, and came up with one of the greatest shots I've ever taken. I did this several times with each of the band memebers of BABY BABY (Fontez Brooks, Grant Wallace, and Kyle Dobbs). I've always read about long exposures, and even tried it once or twice, but I never got images like these. Door Number One:

We FINALLY began to start working with film in my Photo II class here at school. I've shot film before-35mm with a Canon AE-1. I've never developed my own film before though. I finally got to, and it was a long, exciting process. Out of 12 exposures, 3 came out well. Here they are. Door Number Two: