How to Work Better by Fischli/Weiss (1991). Love this! I’m thinking I may want to print this out on a really nice bold colour background and frame it.

yeah, i’ve been pretty quiet lately. work has been sapping my time…and energy. i do have lots i want to talk about though - lots to share. a recent trip to ireland means there are some photos to share although i haven’t even had a chance to look through them yet. in the mean time, here are some interesting sites/links to check out.

for real news about what is going on in zim, this is a great blog:
This is Zimbabwe

gotta love this:
Young Me - Now Me

things are getting more asinine for photographers just trying to enjoy themselves:
Verboten

this cracks me up. “how do you answer that?” well, exactly:
Hillary can’t answer

gotta try kuler now. veerle gives some great colour tips:
Adobe Kuler update and color tips

Meet the Robinsons came out last year and looked interesting but for whatever reason it was only the other day when we finally decided to get the DVD and check it out. I’m not sure what I was quite expecting, but the movie far surpassed any of it. I was thoroughly impressed and really enjoyed it. More than anything, I really enjoyed the overall theme of the movie - Failure can be a learning experience and lead to great success. The tagline of the movie really sums it up: “Keep Moving Forward”. One of my favourite scenes is when the main character, a genius boy Lewis, fails to fix the peanut butter and jelly squirt gun which results in a huge mess and the entire Robinson family is covered in peanut butter and jelly. The family erupts in exclamations of “What a wonderful failure!” - not quite what you, or Lewis, are expecting, and it really makes a great impact.

Failure can be a stepping stone to success. It all depends on how you deal with it really. I love the idea of looking at failure as a good thing. A learning experience that will allow you to get closer to success. Admittedly, I often roll my eyes at the in-your-face morals that Disney movies seem to throw at you, and in all honesty the moral of this story is just as obvious, but in the setting with these characters and story it worked perfectly. Definitely a movie I recommend.

On a completely different note, we are off to Ireland for a few days. Hopefully I’ll have some good photos to share when we return.

I’m no expert but I’ve dabbled in some food photography and I really love it. I’m hoping to do more in the coming months. As with all photography genres, there are a lot of different approaches and styles to food photos. The aim of course is always the same - make people want to eat it!

I’m not big into a lot of the tricks you hear about when it comes to photographing food (I actually like to eat a lot of what I shoot), but I’ve learned a few things:

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For the last few years (over 8 now) I’ve worked as a freelancer/contractor. For some time I was hired by a non-profit as a contractor which basically meant I worked from home, but according to their hours and rules with set pay. During this time I was still working on building my own business, Dynamic Vantage, as well as running Expressions. Last year I decided to sever the contracting cord though. It was a tough decision. The contract guaranteed my rent and bills were covered each month, and although I didn’t get any benefits at all, I wasn’t entirely out on my own. I had that safety net.

Cutting that cord was a scary moment. I had debated doing it for the longest time and had even cut down my hours to just 3 days a week since DV was bringing in so much work. I finally realised though that I wasn’t going to build my business while having to spend so much of my time elsewhere. My husband and I work together for ourselves now. It’s still a scary thought at times, especially when you worry that you won’t have enough projects lined up, but I’m still so glad I took the step. So far, things have been going brilliantly and the projects continue to come in. We are fortunate to work with some really fantastic clients, so it’s an exciting time.

Recently, a friend asked for some advice about going freelance and starting up her own biz. I’m not sure I’m really qualified, but I think I’ve learned a lot (sometimes the hard way) over the years. If I can give anyone advice on starting their own design business, it’s this:
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