Unintentional Revenge is Even Sweeter

Many moons ago, when I was quite young, impressionable, and to be honest, kind of dumb - I dated a professional photographer. In hindsight I can see he was an ass, but at the time I was so happy that someone was finally interested in me, I turned my eyes to a lot of things.

At the time I also had basically no experience with photography other than completely automatic point and shoots, which I used fairly liberally. For some reason - oh, that's right; he was an ASS HOLE - said boyfriend found it necessary to inform me that I would never take photographs; only pictures. Being something of a fragile soul to begin with and desperate to garner his approval, I was mortified by the criticism and didn't touch a camera for years, even after we'd long since broken up.

Fast forward more than a decade (I can't believe I am old enough to say that!) and things are a little different. I am back to enjoying photography, and have definitely improved in my skills. I am also able to admit that my work might not be technically perfect, but it doesn't have to be. And I'm more than happy to bore folks with pages upon pages of my photos on Flickr, confident that if folks don't like them, hey! They don't have to look at them! And its ok! Its a good feeling.

I bring this up because of a few emails I've received recently. You may recall that two separate photos of mine have been chosen to be included in other websites (the home-made party invitations and the shot of SF City Hall.) Additionally, just this past week I was contacted by KQED to get permission to use another photo of mine in an upcoming television show of theirs. I'm waiting for their official release form, and am working under the assumtion that this will be gratis, but who cares? If I can get a copy of the show to send to my grandma so she can get a kick out of seeing my name in the credits, that's good enough for me. :)

But the best one came last night. I got an email from a friend/photographer who I had helped last year. At the end of that assignment, he asked me to take his photo, as being on the other side of the camera he is rarely actually *in* photos. In his email last night, he informed me that that picture is on the front page of his website, and my name is listed as a credit under it. When I saw it, I have to admit I got just slightly choked up. Going from being berated by a photographer to being recognised by one? I'm going to be slightly California for a second here, but that felt sort of cosmically full circle, if you know what I mean.

I just got back from a trip to Italy, and came home with about, oh, 12Gb worth of pictures. I'll weed out the truly crappy ones and try to be selective in chosing the other 8 million that I post. But its ok now. They aren't all going to be perfect, and I might bore you to death, but sometimes photographers do that. :)