The Typealyzer (http://www.typealyzer.com) doesn’t do quite as well as advertised – it marks me as ISTP based on this blog. I’ve been through Myers-Briggs evaluation, albeit almost 10 years ago now – and was confirmed as an INFP.

It’s an interesting idea, trying to determine MB type from chunks of writing. A fun meme, perhaps, but probably shouldn’t be expected to be accurate.

The Mourner

Originally uploaded by poppyphotography

Eugene’s Strobist group went out on Saturday to do our October photo shoot, themed Halloween and held in the Eugene Masonic Cemetery. We had a BLAST, although it felt like only about half of the photographers scheduled showed up and as usual, some people had to cut out early to attend other commitments.

I haven’t blogged much since summer. August started out with one of my co-workers being called out of the office for a week and a half for a family emergency, so we were unexpectedly short-staffed and things were crazy for a bit. Once that cleared up, things stayed pretty crazy working on stuff until mid-September. I’m behind on my photo editing because of it, as well as not having posted much lately.

Things have calmed down now (knock on wood!) and I’m ready to come back to some of the projects that got put off while I was putting out fires. I’m seeing a lot of difference just in the photos I was getting in June and July and the ones I’ve gotten in the last couple of weeks, and it can’t all be due to having cleaned my camera sensor.

So, the door is open – there’s a couple of people I’ve promised shoots to, and I’ll be contacting them soon to see if they’re still interested. I’m looking for indoor locations to work in the winter, fun locations where they might let a couple of people in with a camera. And for people who want to play dress-up and be photographed and for food to shoot.

It’s happening again. In Texas and Louisiana, state politicians are discussing the ugly old aunt of the “pro-choice” conundrum: paying women receiving welfare benefits to get sterilized.

Normally, this is yet another ploy by white folks to reduce the number of brown babies running about, and as such, makes me want to spit to rinse the words I just typed off of my fingers.

But this time, I thought to my li’l ol’ self…. geez, I’ve been trying to suggest for years that someone tie my tubes off so I can stop taking these damn pills every day. Doctors always mumble something incoherent about my insurance and maybe an IUD instead*, before writing me another prescription for birth control pills. Clearly all I needed to do in the first place was to lose my job, move to Texas, and go on welfare to receive the medical treatment I keep asking for.

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*Don’t get me wrong, my GYN is the awesomest doctor I’ve ever seen. It makes me sad sometimes that all she has to do to be made of awesome in the current medical world is to simply READ my chart before walking into the room and ask me something that proves that she remembers who I am.

I’ve been struggling all summer with what it means to be both a photographer and a feminist, where the two intersect, and how I can use one to educate and inform the other and vice versa.

Lately, I was directed to this blog (NSFW!!!) to do some reading along similar lines.

My personal opinion: the focus of my art is not to turn me into in a sex object. I fully understand that for some people I am just that, just because of the mere fact that I’m naked in an image. But still, that’s the viewers interpretation, and I have no control over that. It’s just not my objective when creating an image or embarking on a photographic project.
As far as the term “M*LF” is concerned, and more particularly, being type cast for a “M*LF glamour shoot”, we now move the purpose of the image to solely that: creating an image with the purpose of becoming sexually desired by the viewer. I find that very offensive to be put in that position as a model who does not pursue adult work. Especially after I clearly stated my objective to them: creating fine art images. Needless to say: I’m not filling out the application.
From Women of Avalon

Wow. So that’s what they mean by a “girl crush.” *grin* Well spoken and thoughtful, and it expresses my own thoughts almost eerily.

There are days when I wish I knew more feminist photographers and models so we could discuss these things. Sadly, I know all of five other female photographers, and to my knowledge, none of them are as explicitly feminist as I am. And the men, less so.

I digress. Hauling the train of thought back to the station…..

I’m really not interested in photographing nude women just for the sake of them being undressed. By which, I mean, that I have no interest, no intention, of creating images whose sole purpose is to objectify the model, depersonize her, make it less about the photographer and the model, and more about the desires of the photo’s viewer. I have no objection to fine art nudes or boudoir pictures, where the intent is to make the model feel sexy and desirable.

I’m slowly moving in the direction of wanting to know something about my models, wanting to talk with them about what they want to see in themselves. And then try to bring that out. I want it to be a process that we both participate in, not one where I as the photographer requests a pose and the model merely gives it or the model directs her own poses completely apart from what I’d like to shoot. I think this is moving towards being respectful and aware. I want it to be about what *I* want and about what the model wants, not about what some nameless, faceless patriarchy says is attractive.

I went out this evening to do some promo photos for a fabulous lady I know…. and in the process, my camera clicked across the 10K mark.

I have now shot 10,000 photos with my camera. I’ve only had it a little less than a year and a half. May the next year(s) be captured on pixel!