Well hello there. Welcome to the shiny new blog.
I can’t remember how or when I started my old blog, but let’s start with the basics. My name is Annie and I’m a wedding and lifestyle photographer in Los Angeles. My old blog was at a different address and it was time for an update. Change can be a little scary, but I’m pretty excited for a fresh new start in terms of a blog. It was only fitting since my website just got a makeover too. In my old blog, I had always tried to keep it somewhat professional, keeping it about my clients and mostly of photos. However, due to the encouragement of some of my friends, I posted a more personal post around this time last year and was truly overwhelmed by the response. Because I was convinced only about 4 people read my blog, I was touched that strangers reached out to me, contacted me separately and thanked me for the post.
As I thought of starting a new blog dedicated to more personal posts and lifestyle topics in addition to photography, my friend Paige Appel told me I should consider what my intention is with this blog. Great advice Paige—thank you.
So here it is. First, I find people to be incredibly interesting. Everyone has a story, including me. And these stories are what make us relatable to other people. I believe that people and relationships are the most important thing in this world and in some ways, I’d like to do a small part in connecting people more than a simple photography blog would allow.
Not too long ago, my mom and dad both were talking about how fast the past 20 years had gone by. The older I get, the more I see the truth in that. If nothing else, I would like this blog to prove that 10 years of my life didn’t just whiz by, but that I enjoyed every moment of it, even the less entertaining parts. Perhaps this sounds a bit self indulgent, which it is—but maybe in sharing parts of my story, someone out there may be able to relate.
We live in an age of increasing isolation behind screens. I’ve often found myself feeling sad after a particularly long session of facebook and twitter feeds. I feel like sometimes internet-based life is like high school and everyone is cooler than I am. Everyone has better places to be, more success in their jobs, more friends, more talent and a hell of a lot more twitter / pinterest followers. Rationally, we all know these things aren’t as they seem nor do they matter in the grand scheme of things, but for some reason, it has an affect on us.
Also in this age of extremely public life (due to social networking sites, but also the ease of starting blogs), we give birth overnight to celebrities of sort. People do all sorts of things to get more followers, more comments, more… validation. Information is immediate and we can’t stop wanting more. (I do it too, don’t get me wrong). A big fear of mine is that just like television and gossip magazines, the blogosphere will become one big reality tv scene obsessed with celebrity and devoid of anything real with any kind of thoughtfulness. Hopefully this will never happen and, just to clarify, I definitely plan to post all sorts of fun fashion finds and pretty things that are by no means terribly “deep”. But I hope from time to time, it may be more than that too. I just want to be honest and talk about real stuff, along with all the pretty stuff.
So as I try to wrap my brain around world issues and relationships and life in general, simply put, I’d like this blog to celebrate life.
Honestly, I don’t know where it will go. Maybe I’ll eat all the words I’ve just written– I am uncertain how it will unfold. But as Eckhart Tolle says it best:
“When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.”
[photo by Raya Carlisle]
Thanks for reading.
Onward!
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