A little nostalgia.

This will not be a whine session, but I do need to note: I have been cooped up (or quarantined, if you will) at home for the past couple of days. My enemy goes by "Sinus Infection" and his methods are ruthless. From snatching away my vocal cords, to pressurizing my nasal cavities, stomping around behind my eyes, to instigating a constant need for Kleenex. He shows no concern for my plunging physical state. 

A bit dramatic, maybe, but the I needed to make a point.

I'm sure part of my ailment has been brought on by my unwillingness to allow myself to breathe. I suppose this was God's way of saying "Helllllo....what the crap are you doing? S.L.O.W. D.O.W.N." But I'm sure God is a bit more eloquent and tactful. I never realized how hard it would be to just take it easy; I guess when you've grown accustomed to life whipping down the highway at 105mph, it's hard to hit the brakes. 

Anyway, I have slowed down (even if by force), and it's been nice. I've watched countless hours of House on DVD, slathered myself with Vick's, finished Twilight (!!!), and spent time (trying to chat without a chatter) with Ben. I've also taken some time to be productive. 

Ahh, here we go - you knew I'd get to the point of this post eventually. :)

We've been meaning to clean-up our iMac for awhile now, to free up some space on the hard drive. So I decided to knock it out, and 90 bajillion photos later, we have a much tidier computer. While I was sorting through the events in iPhoto, I couldn't help but linger on some. There were photos from our first shoots about a year ago, when we had just started our business. 

When we were first starting out, we photographed anyone who would step in front of our cameras. We needed material for our website, so if you were around us for even 10 minutes, chances were, you were getting your photo taken. I loved glancing through old images, and the whole ordeal brought forth a twinge of nostalgia. It's really cool to look back and see how far we've come in under a year. It gives me a sense of motivation for the future - I truly can't wait to see what's in store.

I pulled some of my favorites into a folder, and gave them a "fresh" editing look. Some of these photos are still up there on my omg-I-love-that-shot list. Starks Photography, kickin' it old school:

Elisha. A photographer's dream subject.

Shirl. This photo rocks my world.

Callie and Adam. They will grace this post a few times, as they were our "guinea pig" subjects quite often. :) The one on the left still holds down a spot on our website.

 

Ben. We had to practice on each other a lot too.

Shirl, again. I left this photo as it was originally edited - it was my first time messing with texture and a more "artsy" effect on an image (*tear!*).

Callie and Adam, again. This photo will be hard to knock out of my top 5.

Me. Yikes. I hesitated posting this because, well, it's me, but this was from an impromptu shoot Ben and I did at our apartment. It was kind of silly (I mean, check out that make-up), but really fun at the same time.

Shirl. Alright, alright - it looks like we really liked the images from her shoot a lot.

Callie and Adam. There's something about this one that feels like comfort to me; it invites you in.

Callie and Adam (last one). The only shoot we've ever done at sunrise. And that light was well worth the hours of sleep I missed out on.

So I wanted to post some others, but a) a few of the shoots were previously moved off of our computer and burned to discs or our external hard drive, and b) I think I may have surpassed the point of "overwhelming" on here.

I want to do this every year - sort of like a "check point" for our business. Hopefully by next year I will have learned how to keep it short and sweet. Right. :)