Over the past year, I have come to really admire a few young, female, photographers, such as Brooke Shaden and Kristy Mitchell.  Their dedication and endless creativity is such an inspiration.  Although each of their work speaks to a world of dark surreal fairy tales, they both get there in different ways.  Brooke uses photoshop to manipulate her images as a painter would work with a canvas, and Kristy spends hundreds of hours building costumes and sets to fulfill her vision. Each path has its merits and I am fascinated by both as a means to achieving vision.  The one thing they have very much in common with each other is a dedication to their art and a boundless drive to create.

Thus, in honor of these ladies, I am announcing my new years resolution.  I am going to attempt a 52 image project.  This means shooting and publishing one photograph a week for a year.  This project is intended to push my creativity, and my output.   I will be experimenting with all kinds of themes and techniques but trying to stay in the vein of picture making rather than just picture taking.  It won’t all be my best work, maybe there will be some real gems and some total bombs, but ultimatally its just about the process. The one thing I ask for is lots of support.  I do this for myself, but it is always so much easier with cheerleaders, in fact, I think everything is probably better with cheerleaders.

That being said here is my first image:

“I only grew up on the outside”