He came in a 3 piece suit...

During my last IPS class in the ever-lovely Manitou Springs, Colorado, one of my assignments included a legit client photo shoot. I say legit, meaning not one of my fellow students. All week long, we'd been practicing our skills on the other pupils, but for our final, we had to pair up and set out for an hour and a half shoot with a client whom we didn't know anything about.

(As I stare at that last sentence, I can't quite figure out if I used "whom" correctly. I always want to use it, but can never remember the right way to work it in. Oh well. I tried.) 

Would we be taking pictures for a family? A couple? An individual? As our instructor started reading off the client assignments, I was silently pleading with him to assign me a girl. I feel like I have a lot going for me when I do photos of girls because... well I am one! I have a decent grasp of hair and makeup, and shoes, and things like that that are important to girls when they have their pictures taken. "Let me get a girl! That really would be perfect for me. Please don't make me handle a family of 9! I could probably do ok with a couple, but for heaven's sake, whatever you do, please don't make me do pictures of a guy!" 

Let me pause from the story here for a moment. It's not that I'm against doing photos of guys- not at all. But it had taken me a year to convince my brother to let me do photos of him, and at that point he had been my only guy model. Not only that, but, as we've already covered in this post- I'm a girl and even when I'm trying to demonstrate a something manly, there's not one bit of macho. So the thought of having to work on these skills during a "legit shoot" was not very appealing. 

Jump back into the story where my instructor, Rowan is announcing the assignments, "Jasmine and Sarah, you'll be doing photos with Jason." 

Of course. 

So the photo shoot is set at Garden of the gods, and as I'm waiting for this Jason to arrive, I'm frantically trying to assess how bad this situation really is. My part of the shoot is only 45 minutes- surely I can get through 45 minutes right? 

And then he arrived, wearing a 3 piece suit- and I knew that everything would be fine. How bad could it possibly go when your client looks like he walked out of a J. Crew magazine? It was all good after that. Thankfully, my partner and I got lucky with a client that seemed pretty darn comfortable in front of the camera, and helped make up for my lack of posing expertise. I was also thrilled to find out that suits haven't been abandoned completely. Yessss!

Now, I obviously don't really know Jason at all, but he strikes me as one of those super cool people that if you have the chance to get to know him- you probably should. 

Super excited to share a few of these photos with you! In some ways, I feel like this shoot was a mini victory for me- couldn't have accomplished it without a super cool client with equally cool fashion sense. 

Ciao, friends!

~jazzy

Things I love Thursdays! [ First Snows ]

Ok, so I know that I do my fair share of whining about the departure of summer, and the end of warm weather. Despite my love of crisp fall afternoons, I'm always sad to see the end of carefree summer days. In some ways, the end of summer feels like saying good bye to a family member. (Don't judge me, that really is how much I love summer!)

However, even with my absolute love of warm weather and everything else that summer signifies, it's hard to beat the thrill of the first snow of the year. What makes this excitement even better is when it's unexpected. There's nothing like waking up and peeking through my blinds and being surprised to see a thick white blanket covering the ground. My breath catches in an excited gasp, as I pump my fist in the air and excitedly whisper, "YES!"

Suddenly, the grey that is the end of autumn is transformed into a wintery white wonderland. Icicles glint and sparkle in the sun, snow crunches under my feet, and my breath hangs in air in frosty puffs.

Snow makes me wish I was 8 again. I so desperately wanted my boss to call and tell me she was canceling work and declaring it a snow day. All I wanted to do was run around and sing Winter Wonderland and Baby It's Cold Outside. All at once, my previous feelings of sadness over the passing of summer were gone, replaced with childlike fascination and excitement.

Interested in seeing a few snapshots of those magical moments? Read on!

She's kind of a cutie...

Happy Thursday, all!

~jazzy