Earlier this year Kira and I went with some friends to Moab, Utah to first and foremost climb some sweet boulders, but also to do a lookbook photoshoot for a client named AidenOttis that had hired my company, RethinkCreative. It was a blast and we got amazing shots for AidenOttis as well as getting to enjoy the scenery and getting to climb on sandstone for the first time. In case you were wondering; no, it's not a good idea to go climb in Moab in the middle of August. Temperatures above 95 degrees sent us in town one afternoon till later in the day, but early morning and late afternoon are great since the canyon blocks direct sunlight for quite awhile.
I went to a house show in Nashville last night. There was awesome music and amazing artist. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, but I realized something while I was there. Art, in whatever form dramatizes life. It's all drama. When there is a song that moves you it was probably written about a situation that wasn't really that moving. It was an every day moment. A break up, an epiphany, a life change. We take these moments in stride and they seem and feel smaller and less important than when we hear someone else singing a song or talking about inspiration for their artistic piece. I'm not saying these things are less significant. I'm saying we attribute more significance to the experiences of other, simply because they express them better than we could. We read a poem, hear a song, or watch a movie and get shivers because it "seems" larger, bigger, better than what we experience. We long for and desire a life like these things. It's fake though. It's no larger or better than your life, just framed in a way to make it appear so. This is why artists don't attribute the significance others do to their art.
One of the singers last night was taking requests and he started to play one and couldn't remember the lyrics. Can you believe that?! He couldn't remember his own song! But he wrote that song 8 years earlier and it's not as significant to him as to the fan that wanted to hear it. I guarantee the fan has that song memorized and ingrained in his being, but the artist, he forgot it. I know artists feel this way because this is how I feel about my art.
I don't think this is a negative thing. I simply find it's interesting that the lovers of art take more meaning and love it more than the actual artist does.
About 18 months ago God brought this incredible girl into my life. Her name is Kira. Among all of the amazing life changing things she has done in my life, like moving to Colorado, she also got me into rock climbing. More specifically I am now addicted to bouldering.
For the uninitiated, bouldering is a form of rock climbing without ropes or harnesses. Before you start thinking I'm completely insane let me explain why I love this style of climbing. I hate heights. See, in bouldering you never really go higher than 20 feet off the ground. You climb with a crash pad/mat under you in case you fall. Usually in gyms, like mine, the whole floor under the bouldering area is a 2 foot deep shield of padding.
I've been climbing for about 10 months now and I can honestly say I'm in the best physical shape of my life (not cardio shape though, thanks high school soccer), and I never have to go to the gym and lift weights or count reps or do crunches. Crunches are the devil. I've lost around 20 lbs and actually had to start watching my diet to make sure I'm eating enough so I don't keep losing weight. With rock climbing I never feel like I'm "working out" instead I'm just trying to complete a route, get a move down, keep my feet on the wall, etc...
If you want to get in shape without having to "go to the gym" and do repetitive exercises I highly suggest rock climbing. It will be a beat down the first month as your arms adjust to being used so much, but it's a ton of fun and extremely satisfying.
Finally getting around to developing my own site. I've struggled in my personal web presence over the years. If you google my name you'll find the first few pages of Google are littered with tons of websites, blogs, portfolios, etc.... of things I haven't kept up with or abandoned. My website has gone through over half a dozen iterations. Should I focus on photography? And if so, what part of photography should be the primary focus? Or should I focus on design? Or should it just be a blog for my thoughts? Well, I've decided to finally make my website my home.
I will write about whatever I feel like in this space. It may be photo essays. It may be a review of a movie I liked or an app I thought was really useful. I'll talk about struggles running a business. If you want to see anything I've done it'll be here. There will be links to my business, my personal projects, and my social presence. This is my home and I'll decorate it how I want, not how I think I should so people will think I'm good at photography or web design or anything else.
