some photos from the Benefit.

For Juliana

Erin and I photographed the "for Juliana" Benefit Wednesday night at 115 bourbon street.

The Benefit, like the title suggests was for Juliana Ramos, a woman who had her whole life ahead of her, who is beautiful, and had plans to get married when a puddle changed her life drastically and forced her to wait on her plans.

Juliana was in a car crash that left her with severe head trauma and is now having to learn to walk again and go through painful therapy to gain control over her body.

Her Fiancé, Chris Medina, was a contestant and "American Idol" and that's when like most of America, Erin was inspired and moved by their love story.

Erin called me after seeing the show and said "I don't know what, but we have to do something for these two. " and even though it's not much we volunteered to photograph the benefit and felt absolutely honored to be a part of it.

 Juliana's mom, made a speech during the benefit about how planning for the benefit felt like planning for a wedding, and talked about how so much had changed since the day of the accident when Juliana and Chris had just recently gotten engaged, and I knew that feeling of plans changing out of your control,  and I instantly felt ashamed that I would complain about my situation knowing that so many things could be so much worse, and I felt so much hope that even in the face of such hardships and life changing heartbreaks, Chris and Juliana loved each other so deeply that they would weather the storm together, and if for nothing else a love like that is rare and beautiful and should be celebrated. And celebrate they did. with music, songs, and dancing... 

Juliana's mom, Janet making her speech

Chris singing his single 'What are Words'  Available on i tunes.

Glinda from Wicked

Elphaba from Wicked

Carson Higgins Preforms

Ta-Tynisa Wilson

Jerome Bell

Caleb Hawley

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The Able Body Preforms

(to read more about Juliana and her story or to make a donation go to :http://www.forjuliana.org/)

To see more photos from the event click here....

F/Stop and Sue Regis Glass art.

F/stop Recently collaborated Sue Regis glass art to memorialize a student of Sue's who tragically died of an accidental drug overdose.

Sue created a piece that would symbolize Ellen and her free spirit. she said her inspiration was clouds and water because Ellen was a Hippie at heart. We photographed the piece outside at sunset as a way of bringing life to Sue's vision.

I think all of us have done reckless things when we are young, thinking that we are immortal. It's a complete tragedy that such a beautiful girl would  lose her life when she had only just started to live.

Sue is holding a gallery showing of the ellen piece as well as doing live glass demonstrations  at:

 In Loving Memory

2863 West 95th Street, Suite 151

Naperville, IL

from 12:00-4:00

To read the article on Sue and Ellen go to

http://heraldnews.suntimes.com/lifestyles/4673955-423/artwork-honors-2-lost-to-drug-overdoses.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d9df658ff2373ab%2C0

Erins Birthday!!!

Today is Erin's Birthday!

and So I wanted to write a blog about her!

Erin and I met over three years ago and even though our styles of art are very similar our personalities are very different.  I always admire Erin and her honesty and authenticity.  Erin is outspoken and will have no problem telling you she is wierded out by you, I know this because she tells me this all the time. She also has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. When we sat down and made out our business plan we wanted to  make a goal to shoot something  for free every month.  It was our way of helping where we could, and It has been Erin finding places to volunteer and  volunteering our work to benefits and coming up with ideas on how we can help people who need it. Erin makes me laugh about more random things than anyone else I know. I can always count on her to make a joke out of an awkward experience and it somehow makes the whole thing completely worth it just for the laugh. One time we were at a bar and she was helping me shoot a project I was working on for one of my classes and a woman came up out of nowhere and licked Erin's face, I thought for sure she was going to be upset about it because I would be if my personal space was invaded by a drunk woman but instead she had me cracking up about how she almost grabbed the woman's face and licked her back. This is why I love her.  Erin is also really gracious and self-less, I am in my last year at Columbia and Erin graduated from there as well and knows the demands both physically and mentally- she has been there to help me shoot projects, loan me lenses, offer encouragement, and bear a lot of the load of our work while I am in class, and I literally would have broken down in tears  weekly this semester if it wasn't for Erin being the voice of reason and offering advice.  Erin finds something good in everyone we photograph and after every session we shoot she is the first person to say "that girl had such beautiful eyes" or "you could tell how much he loves her" I love that Erin makes it a point to find the good in people, I think thats what makes her such a great photographer.

She is a great friend to those around her and I have noticed often that she will drop what she is doing to be there for the people in her life, She is a great wife always telling me how amazing she thinks Mickey is, even in his hooters hot pants. She is a strong, funny, beautiful, and interesting woman who I consider myself lucky to call a friend, let alone a buisness partner, but most of all she is a friggen Hoot!
So Happy Birthday to Erin, we love you!

feel free to leave comments on what you love about Erin or a funny Memory you have of her.

That one time sue Regis showed us how to sculpt glass...

As photographers Erin and I get to do a lot of fun thing; trespass, throw snow at people, eat delicious meals at receptions, and be a part of some truly amazing peoples'  inspiring and beautiful moments. We will never complain about our job. Unless you schedule your  session the hottest day of the year and we go home smelling like if a foot could fart but even then we love our jobs we just complain about how bad we smell. (true story)

This week we got to meet the  ridiculously talented Sue Regis who is a Glass sculptor in Joliet, and she makes everything from Memorial pieces to encase a loved one's remains to glass vaginas for the "Vagina Monologues." The thing that Erin and I were completely in awe of was the fact that Sue is primarily self taught.  She said she started working with Glass when she was 18. The work is done through the use of a table-mounted torch with specific oxygen and propane mixtures for the differing techniques. Most pieces are created using Pyrex clear and colored rods finished with Pyrex frit (crushed glass).

This woman was so awesome and is not only incredibly interesting but was also kind and brave enough to let us into her studio to photograph her working. She even let me try my hand at glass sculpting. I am ashamed to admit I burned myself within the first 5 seconds and almost made her regret asking me If I wanted to give it a shot, but she was a patient teacher and encouraged me to keep going despite Erin laughing at me.

Here are our photos from our Adventures in Sue's studio and I am really lame and put them to Blondie's "heart of glass" Dont Judge me.



the pendant I made! I was pretty excited about it.



to view Sue's work go to:

http://www.sueregisglassart.com/

or

The Facebook page.

that one time we launched our website.

Yesterday we did something we have been bragging for months about!

we had the launch of our Ryan _Project designed website!

for months we were telling clients about how spectacular our website designer is and how he has weekly pillow fights with Oprah.

We built him up quite a bit and he lived up to the hype and delivered.

He also makes spaghetti as well as he makes websites so Erin and I had the best night ever.

We have a lot of plans for making the website better and more "us" but we wanted something that fit us for the time being,  until we could put all the work into making a site that had all the bells and whistles we wanted. It will be really awesome to be able to send cleints to one place though now instead of having to send them to 5 different places to see our work.  between the beginning stages of our website being up and running, the delicious spaghetti and red velvet cake we would say the night was a success.

"we're a hoot!"

Many, many, thanks to Ryan for all of his hard work, creativity, kindness, dependability, hospitality by making us dinner and a website, and patience in dealing with two girls who have no idea how the internet works. We can't thank you enough, and we can't be more excited.

to see the new website go to
http://www.fstoppoetry.com/

Creativity.

In art it seems like one of those things you are “just born with.” I have come to realize that not everyone gets handed wild imaginations and that for the rest of us that aren’t struck with 8 brilliant ideas before breakfast, we can painstakingly learn the rules so we can figure out the best ways to break them.

I read somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun. And I believe this, everything we do as artists have already been done, but I love that Picasso said “bad artist copy, Good artists steal.”

I remember growing up I would get a hello kitty lunch box and then my annoying next door neighbor Bethany would do the same.  Or I would order a Chicken McNugget happy mean with a High C for lunch and then Bethany would do the same. This is infuriating even as an 8 year old.

Now that I am 24 it still feels just as infuriating and just as infantile. Not that what I do is too terribly creative, I envy the seemingly effortless creativity of a lot of my peers, but when you scrape to find a way of doing things and a visual voice and then the next week someone who has seen your work does the same- It can be awfully discouraging and even more annoying.

Erin and I have had many conversations about this. About branding, copying, stealing and honoring.

Plagiarism is so easy these days,

Why take the time to go on a journey of self discovery and struggle through writing a book that moves people when you can just regurgitate someone elses cool blog.

Why take the time to figure out who you are and what you think and how to convey that in your work when you can just compose your image the same way as someone else?

To quote cursive- art is hard.

And it’s a slippery slope that every artist faces: when to borrow from an inspiration and when to just rip it off completely.

I say for all of us artists out there lets do some soul searching. Lets ask why with our work.

Why do we make the work we do?

Why do we care about it?

Why is it important?

Why is this representational of us and of the subject and of the concept we are trying to convey.

Why do I have to make this work

Why should any one else care.

I bet if we all started looking at our work that way we would already be well on our way to being better artists and using visual language in our own words instead of eating someone elses.