I have learned a lot over the past year and have grown a lot as an artist because of it. I graduated college last December, and acquired a job in the newspaper business. Never would I have imagined myself there, as a graphic designer, but because of this rough economy I'm sure it has taken many people's lives in a different direction than expected. At my job I design print ads for the newspaper, and I am a photographer there as well. Aside from two classes that I took in college on photography I am mostly self taught, and had a lot to learn about the new equipment that the newspaper provided me with. Before this job I owned my digital slr for about a month, and I had never really touched an attachable flash. I shoot a lot of businesses for our business feature story section and I have taken photos at so many different places from restaurants to jewelry stores to craft shops and even a vacuum store - the subject matter is always changing and challenging me to improve my skills and adapt to every situation. I still prefer natural lighting whenever possible over using my flash. I always want to capture the true mood of a place. You're not going to walk into a Martini bar and expect all the lights to be on and lighting that will blind everyone in the place. The lights in these kinds of places are dark and moody, and I like to be a true as possible to those types of situations. I also like to shoot the food with that type of lighting as well so it will look the way it would if you were really sitting there eating it. If just one person takes a look at one of my food photos and says, "Man, that looks tasty"  or "That made me hungry" then I have succeeded in my mission. I really crave that goal from the designer side of me. As graphic designers we are always creating art with the goal that it will create a response from people. That is the point of many marketing materials, and if they are lack luster in appeal no one buys them. Now through out all of this, I'm not going to lie. I have taken a ton of terrible photos. That is why I take hundreds of photos at every shoot to ensure that the best on makes it to the paper, and so I have a nice new addition to my resume. That is the beautiful of digital photography, one can never take too many photographs.

So here's to a new year. A new year of learning, a new year of creation, and a new year of making art that is worth while. Beauty can be found every where around us, and this is always what I am trying to achieve through my photography.  The beauty that can be found in the everyday. Every day is a gift and there is most certainly something beautiful about that.