Regarding your stomach, check your basics. Diet is real important, always. Sleep is also very important. Stress will agitate things that are mildly out of balance and make them much worse. I have first-hand experience in all of this.

Regarding your business of photography. Remember to work in some business courses at school if you can. Too many people, especially around here it seems, lack business sense and try to make up for it in enthusiasm. They either fail or run themselves ragged trying to keep their project afloat. If you can, I STRONGLY recommend getting a copy of Quickbooks for your computer to track expenses (and decuct them!) and for it's instant ability to give you dozens of views of your business in regard to analysis and it's overall health. It's very user friendly and saves huge amounts of time during tax time. I can take a year's worth of work into H&R Block and have my annual taxes done in 1/2 hour. It really saves money and strengthens your business foundation. You could probably learn the program in an evening.

Beyond that, have fun and keep the photos coming!

Randy

I'm pretty sure its just a couple bad things in my diet, higher stress levels, and a sensitive stomach that's causing the problems. I've been so busy lately. I don't think I've gotten home earlier than 8:45 pm after leaving no later that 8 am- if I've even been home for the day at all! To make things worse, my boyfriend just moved into college, school is starting on Wednesday, and I have like 5 or 6 people who want photos done ASAP. I'm trying to keep up with all of this AND work a summer job, which continues until September 20th after school and on weekends. Lots of stress!
I'll have to look into getting Quickbooks, or at least learning more about it. I definitely need to start getting the business side of things taken care of, especially because I'll be 18 next month, and actually have to spend a lot more money considering I won't have my parents to buy me things. ) But yeah, thank you for your advice, it's very helpful and I'll definitely keep in all in mind!
-Stacy

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Email: stacyannphotography@hotmail.com
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When's your birthday? Mine's October 30th and after so many, I still get a little excited about them. I guess I'm glad about that.

I've been wanting to contact you for a shoot, but between the small town issues, you being a minor (at the moment) and having a disapproving wife who thinks this is all total nonsense, I've just kept my mouth shut about it. Learning to shut up is an important part of surviving marriage, just an FYI for you...

However, as I've said before, you do have some real strong points in your work and I always encourage someone to follow their dreams. I got "stuck" in the survival rut (beware the survival rut!) right out of college and didn't follow those dreams of mine which were art, music, photography, possibly modeling & without question writing. I'm working my way back in the creative direction again, but again the survival rut takes it's toll. Getting into a "normal" job bothered me of course. But I did meet hundreds of special people along the road though, have my health (recent biopsy came up BENIGN!), have a job, etc. So I mustn't grumble ~

I would say to you, concentrate on sleep, diet and exercise first and foremost. Long term, these are the things that will swing around and blind-side you if they're neglected. This will happen at the worst possible moment in your life. So make time for YOU and remember, if you don't, no one else will. Well, I'll be around to nag you about it... LOL!

Quickbooks would actually be a real time saver for you at some point. You have to focus on things that will serve you efficiently and quickly. It's the one thing I'd recommend most for anyone starting a business.

Maybe some day if you're really bored stiff looking for someone to photograph, drop me an email on MM. I usually go there daily.

Best wishes always and take good care of yourself ~

R ~

My birthday is March 23. =] Well happy early birthday, since I probably won't remember when the time actually rolls around I'll be 18 on my next birthday, I am very excited! Yeah, feel free to email me at skippy_339@hotmail.com whenever you'd like to set up a shoot- I'd be interested if you still are!
Haha. Thanks for the advice!
What I've been doing lately is helping out a photographer here, and she's been teaching me about lighting and stuff, and I'm actually going to assist her at a wedding this weekend, so I'm kind of excited to try that out, especially since I've never done anything like that before.
Do you do photography too, or just model?
Unfortunately I feel like I'm straying away from the artistic side of photography, especially with all these senior portraits I've been doing.
I keep thinking about starting that quickbooks thing, but I keep putting it off!! I think that once I turn 18, I'm going to do it no matter what, but since I"m still underage and stuff I don't think I have to worry TOO much about it, although getting started should be a very good thing.... I'm just too busy! x_x

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Email: stacyannphotography@hotmail.com
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I should check this site more often! Thank you for your comments, they're much appreciated given your tight time schedules and all you have going on. I'd like to get in front of your camera, concentrating on more abstract and unusual poses and themes, close-ups, hands, eyes, hair, whatever, just something as far away as possible from typical portraits (which will be your bread and butter of course).

I've had little interest by other photographers that are in the area (I haven't really networked too heavy) and the ones that are interested are in other countries or out of range naturally. I've done some of my own shots. If you want to see them, check out my page on flickr: [link] I did do one photo shoot for Casey Sengbusch for her tear sheets prior to running out to NYC for a modeling gig out there.

I learned a lot in a big hurry as they called me a day before they needed me (their photographer backed out). My black t-shirt shots in MM came from that, shot by Casey's sister Bliss for fun. I sure enjoyed that, possibly one of the few high points of the summer for me.

I've found flickr and MM to be a real solid source for ideas regarding creative photos. Some people (check my friends on flickr, look at T.E.S.S.E.A. or Nicole Lafourcade for a start) have really pushed the limits of photography and expression of emotion. This is where I desperately want to go. For your work, I'd concentrate on all your aspects, remembering that one dicipline will always help the other. Creativity is not good if technically the photo is weak due to lighting or focus or depth of field. So the more you shoot with an eye toward technical excellence, the better all your work will be.

There's a lot going on in my life right now, lots of unhappiness, stress, tragedy, doubt, a nice buffet of food for the mind if you're serving depression as the main course. I'm an artist at heart and didn't follow that direction in life, largely due to survival. Then I've been easy prey for women looking for a hand up in the world but offering little in exchange. LOL this is probably a lot more than you need to hear about. You've got a life and hope on your horizon (insert envy here!). I still have a very muted sense of hope keeping me going.

The plus side of all this is that searching the dark side of my life, I've made some discoveries about myself while at the depths. This is where you find what you're made of which is good. It also pushes your creative envelope for some reason. I've done better things creatively during this time than I have in a long time prior.

Well, I'm blabbering now and you need to get on with things I'm sure. So thank you again for your kind notes and hopefully we can get together sometime. I'll jot down some ideas and store some photos as time goes along. There aren't a ton of good guy poses to begin with as I've seen, but I'm really not into looking at guy photos to begin with. There are some shadow and light poses that interchange between male and female models though...

I'm still relatively new at modeling, and I'm starting to feel bashful about it (no idea why, but I am), possibly because I just haven't done much of it or my confidence is waning. What I don't want to do is waste someone's time once the shoot starts because I'm too stiff or whatever. Probably I need classes which don't exist in Hayward of course... LOL.

I have dropped 20+ pounds as of last week, so I do feel better about that! Plus my hair is longer (wife hates it) and I am happier with it long... so maybe by the time we do get together, it'll be really long...

Have to get to work, but wish you well in all you do. Stay in touch, it's fun watching someone grow in a positive direction! If you ever have any questions, give a holler on my MM email. I check that the most.

Best always,

Randy