Little Corner of Ania

Ooh it's soon Halloween and while we don't really celebrate it I kind of like it! =)
I pulled out some leftover-papers I thought fit with the Halloween-theme, like the Nikki Sivils Boo-tiful papers (Like the bag in the middle front, and from which the hand cut pumpkins&adorable ghosts are from) and mostly Luxe Designs, Prima and Scenic Route papers.

The folding-technique was learned from this Cosmo Criket blogpost, and I cut my papers to 9x9" to make these (the 3" scraps were used for the roofs).

I borrowed Kine's awesome drippy goo punch and punched away during Papirfest. I did it like, whole friday - it gave me an excuse to have something to do (*cough*) and even if I ended up having like, triple amount of the roofs I thought I needed it was good - turned out the pieces I precut was too small so I had to staple together two and two to make these :p) Thank you so much Kine for letting me borrow your punch all evening!! They look awesome here! I also sprayed my olive-green prima-flowers w/Graphite glimmer mist to get a more themy color on them..


Gonna hit work extra early tomorrow and place these on the desk of the colleauges. There's chocolate inside :) Call me silly but when I first got the idea I decided to just go with it. It's now too late to regret and well, although I kept these SIMPLE it still was a heckofajob. Not gonna repeat the feat anytime soon for sure! :p

It´s been a while since I talked about my job here by the way, so I figured it´s ok to mention it again ;p

So here goes:

Personally I cannot express how deeply satisfactorily it is to be a part of a workplace where you sort of feel you belong. Or maybe rather, where you feel you actually do your share to contribute. A place where people apparently appreciates you and maybe more important, your work, and lets you know about it. It´s really nice :)

I feel I have gained a lot of confidence in both myself as a person and the work I produce. Not that I now think "oh, I´m so darn good&pro now, get the fuck outta here", but in the sense that I feel more braver and confident when it comes to suggest and come with input to ideas both when it comes to taking photos, poses or content in the paper. I don´t immediately panic (inside of me :p) when people look to me for "what to do now?" or "how to do this?" when it comes to me being the photographer. I also feel a bit more calmer in worksituations instead of feeling I need to hurry up because people probably have other better things to do instead of waiting for me (taking pictures). A bit more anyways. The feeling is still there though, but I don't feel as stressed as I used to :p In short. I feel good because I feel (right now) this is right for me - I´m on the right path at last.

I´ve even been on a few freelance-gigs that I got because my work recommended me, and I was all alone w/the responsibility and it wasn´t that scary or bad as I thought in advance. And the feedback so far has been positive..will know more for sure in a few weeks when they start to use/look closer at my pictures....

I´ve also started to write some for the paper. Mostly smaller, "easier" cases and only occassionally. Being a "photographer-only" isn´t really a viable option for a local paper - you have to go to the larger agencies if you want to take pictures only and well...that kind of job is sacre these days (with major layoffs in the larger mediahouses over the last few weeks) :/ So if I can write in addition to take pictures that´s a big plus. So in that retrospect I´m grateful for the practice I get writing, and for the feedback.

And well, I really hope I get to work with this or in similar areas when my practice/interning ends.

• Ok, not everything is rosecolored - I´ve so far learned that I feel somewhat protective of my pictures when it comes to how they are displayed in the newspaper. I know being in a small, local newspaper is a lot different than being in a larger one where you maybe (??) have no control over how the endproduct looks. It´s both good and bad. I.e. sometimes small technical glitches at the desk may make your pictures look like muddy unfocused shit despite them actually being good (like, probably taking a jpg instead of tif and/or forgetting to update the links in the pdf after updating pictures so they link to the old not-optimal-for-print-pictures). I´m ashamed to say but it sort of pains me when that occassionally happens, esp repeatedly in the same issue, because well...the pictures weren´t that bad, promise!! :p
  

• Working at a local newspaper means you probably get to see a few familiar faces when on location. Sometimes I go "oh, that´s the dad of X in the kiddos class, so this is what he´s doing for a living" or "Uh where have I seen this woman before" knowing it´s jobrelated but can´t recall from where. And I´m usually bad w/names & faces - cough.
  

• I am still supercritical of my pictures despite my colleauges reassurement that I did get the shot. And I tend to leave a lot of air at the upper part of the pictures. Still. Bleh. Ofc sometimes it´s intentional, but when it´s not and not good for the piccie - ugh! And the WB is still bleh despite my attempts to use manual WB. Besides, it´s not always time to finetune the WB, humpfr.

• Oh, and I´m soon a pro coffeedrinker! I´ve ditched the milk now, and am trying to reduce the sugar I still have to add to my cup of coffees. Yay..? :p Have to grab a cup of coffee once I get to the office and then uh, I maybe drink a lot of coffee throughout the day....my poor teeth :p

Ok this ended up LOOONg and totally long-winded and hm, maybe a bit braggyish, which's NOT the intention of this post - I only wanted to say I'm happy with what I'm doing right now after a few years not really knowing where I'm headed workwise (not that I do atm, but at least I have gotten a sense of direction of where I want to go) and that it's a good feeling ;)

There!
Thanks for reading if you have done so so far ;p

Now off to pick out outfits and prepare myself for the photosession w/some of the girls tonight! :D Pictures to follow........:D

Title: "All Or None" -Pearl Jam