50 ways to get lost

i know we're taught that "nothing is perfect." but i've always disagreed. perfection is wrapped in acceptence. the ugly step-child of our judgement. and i love when i stumble across a moment, you know, the ones that exist outside of space/time, that is just ultimately everything it is supposed to be. or a painting that fulfills everything on and outside of a canvas. or a song that says what it wants to say and for some reason, the temperature is just right, the traffic is moving, your half-way home from work, and you completely understand the message.

there are a lot people that are perfect to me. not because they are perfect, but because they are perfectly who they are. i love the laundry list of quirks and disorders and phobias and food habits and medication and insecurity that people give me. as a warning, maybe? perhaps more like a map. and all i see is honesty. openess.

i see little details all the time; pairs of words, crooked smiles, the color of rust, tired moms, saddness, whimsy, curiosity, grocery lists all floating around me that cause pause and acknowledgement.

in my world, perfection has nothing to do with my taste. i don't have to particularly like whatever "it" is, i just have to understand that "it" is fulfilling it's purpose very vividly.

today held for me buckets of minor annoyances, and at the same time, so many details.

the soundtrack: the good life, "album of the year." particularly, track 9, "inmates."

the lyrics on paper are more like an essay. but out of her mouth each one is like blowing up a balloon, letting some of them deflate, some of them fly, and some of them pop. accordingly. a quote: "Life is a series of calluses, this is just another layer. So, build’em up, tough it out, yeah, that’s your skin – don’t let anyone under there."

"the good life." just another sound i want to crawl inside and cuddle with.

penn's first day at pre-school

penn started his first day at pre-school today at children's world. i missed my six a.m. alarm and had to start the day off running through the shower and making waffles and coffee and dogfood and shot records magically appear with all of my equipment and a clean baby together and into the daycare at 8:30 so i could be on time to my shoot at 9.

after making sure all the teachers knew this was the first day and to be gentle and kind and for the love of god do not put the baby on a changing table (he's got something against naked butts with altitude) and do not feed him meat i began to leave. from across the room penn's eyes welled up and we ran slow motion over trucks and books and primary colored plastic furniture and hugged. he cried and then, helpme, i cried.

there was no stopping it. we cried and cried and hugged and i didn't want to leave him there for eight excruiating hours so that i could go and play and take pictures of other people's babies. but i did.

i had to fill out some extra forms, with the tears streaming down and lots of onlookers, bent close over the red formica counter to avoid the stares filled with whatever they were thinking. me, handing back soggy carbon copy forms.

and then i had to drive and attempt to suck it up so that i could be professional and take a decent portrait of twin babies.

i had a long break in my schedule and had decided that i was going to have lunch with penn. but my break came during their nap time and realized that i didn't want to sit there and cry with my son at pre-school again.

the daily feedback sheet i get about penn noting diaper changing times, bowel movements, food, etc. said he was "cheerful" and wanted to hang out with the older kids.

it is absolutley impossible to get any of my freelance work done. so now is the time where i'm weighing pros and cons.

*photo by renee good-gurley

puppy puberty

you know that puppy adolescence stuff that everyone was telling me about? that space in a puppy's life where his love for people equals completely annoying? yeah. ringo is soooo in that stage right now. the above photo illustrates our household skiing adventures. in ringo's defense, it was the baby who started this.

this is where he lives. and now he's big enough that when he wants to run out really fast he almost knocks me out of my chair. he's almost knocking me out of my chair now because he thinks he needs to sit on my lap and make whiney puppy noises. his big deal is to run his nose into me over and over so that i'll pet him. it's not so much a "nudge" as it is a cold, wet "whack!" that demands, very articulately, "pet me now, human!"

on another note, he completely bowled the little jehovas witness over this afternoon. those of you bearing dogs need to come play. the baby is taking mommy's long work hours way better than the dog.

yay for first impressions!

• 6a.m.- wake up, shower, dress, work a little on freelance stuff, pack baby's daycare bag, write note to benji reminding him that he has to feed the baby breakfast
• 7:20 - leave for work
• 8:30 - get there
• 9:00 - first shoot
• 11:00 - get carsick in my new boss' car, but manage to not puke in the car and pull through his session. today's cyclical thought: why do i have to pee so often?!
• 1 ish - have to drive my new boss' great big suv thing (rather than being the passenger) to help prevent carsick puking, thinking that the early afternoon large latte and mcdonalds fish sandwhich lunch may not have helped anything
• 5:45 - home. company. make baby dinner. walk dog. CLEAN. dear god, but we're back to respectable. and it's 11:30 and i just put the baby to bed.
• 11:45 - start laundry. begin work on the BUTTLOAD of freelance gigs

soon i will get to add pre-school drop-off and pick-up to this. benji handled it today, but is leaving me to my own tomorrow. *sigh*

tomorrow i think i'll stop and grab some dramimine (the awake kind) before i hit the road.

[begin sarcasm] no, i'm not completely exhausted and in need of a good shoulder rub. not me...... heh. [end sarcasm]

all in all, it was a pretty good day!

carissa: a musical history with treats at the end

gawd this is long. but i'm going to do it anyway.

my fuzzy and hopefully accurate first recollection begins with my papa's three octave yamaha keyboard. keys as light as a feather and half their size. the dash full of cheesy songs and "beats" you could play. and i was really young, so of course i did, over and over in a tiny shag carpeted trailer bedroom in arkansas.

one day my nana came in told me to stop playing the programmed song over and over. she walked in on me and said something along the lines of, "well, i'll be." because it was me playing, rather than pressing "start."

shortly after i was put in piano lessons. on my first lesson my teacher asked what i could play. nothing, of course, that's why i was there. but i played for her "roll out the barrel" and "chopsticks" and other random things i had heard. she added new words to our vocabulary. "play by ear." and she catered to this for me. she'd give me a piece and play it first so that i could play it by ear and sort of "watch" what i was playing. she made me play the piano with something covering my hands so that i couldn't actually see the keys.

and i practiced and practiced on what we had, my papa's three octave yamaha. sometimes i got to practice on the nearby lodge's really messed up broken-keyed out of tune upright.

that teacher moved and we couldn't afford another.

then there was the fourth grade musical, "i love music." i hung out in the choir/music room until my ride came to pick me up after school because there was a piano. one day i started playing all the songs in our musical. the choir teacher sat down on the bench and asked me how i knew the songs. well, because i had been listening to them all semester, of course. i don't think it was really talent, on my part, they weren't particularly difficult. then i played for her a song i had written. i had just discovered minor keys! the next day she asked me if i wanted to be the accompanyist for the musical.

ha! it was my big debut. i can still remember what i wore. jean skirt and yellow blouse. she surprised me and had me play the song i wrote at the end of the show. i had my first standing o! it was all very exciting and after that i got another piano teacher.

then sometime after that my dad, the great bargain hunter, got a piano for like 25 or 50 bucks. boy, did that help.

then band and my amazing band instructor and the trumpet and french horn and jazz band and college and choir and the guitar and i've rambled on for too long as it is.

so i understand music. it makes sense to me in a multi-layered way that i may never be able communicate. despite all the goodness that was ripe when i was young i've very little technical abilities at all anymore if i ever had any in the first place. but i still feel it. and think it. like a language that no one else can speak. and when you see me at shows, not going crazy all over the stage or dancing, it's probably 'cause i'm more concerned with the internal dance than i am the external.

we have a keyboard now. with more than three octaves. and i still play occasionally. the weird thing is, i cannot recreate anything. i just sort of sit and spill out the mood into an instrument and randomly benji will come in and push "record" which gives me all this weird pressure so i lose it and he records my mess. i call it my "musical doodles." now with the excuses. they're completely random, sporatic, off-timed, full of missed notes and totally uncharted. the levels are usually too high and awfully distorted. they are completely imperfect with a gazillion things i would change if i could recreate them. i have no idea where i'm going when i play them.

but they make me happy. i'd thought i'd share a couple.

click to hear:

1. i drempt of amelie
2. oh, life
3. something cello
4. love song for the wb

two long shoots and three parties later......

i'm so tired i can barely walk. or think. or see.

and yet, i'm three shoots deep in photo-processing, so sleep isn't an option.

my dog needs to play.

나가 아시아에 얻고 있다 것 을 나는 생각한다

"what are you?" and
"where are you from?"

are not good ways to ask me why my eyes are slanted. the word is "nationality." i appreciate the curiosity, really i do. it's flattering, all of you peeking out of the night life, over gas station counters and grocery store carts and playground equipment, making guesses and bets with your friends as to who can guess the right country first.

my recent favorite was the guy who asked if he could play a game of chess with me at the new amsterdam. his opening line, "so, you're asian, huh? that's cool."

and i just loved the nickname's "jap" and "rice eater" and "yeller" and being referred to as "one of them orientals." oh and then there was that time that guy spit on me muttering something about bin laden. ooooh, even better, the time i was doing research for a story i was writing and the old deaf guy i was interviewing kept trying to get me drunk because he literally thought that, and i quote, "asians came over here to be prostitutes." yeah, those beat-up old courderoy's and that giant sweater were really doing it for him. heh. but that is a whole other post, despite my magnificent ability to care less.

i feel like lately i've suddenly gotten more asian or something. i can't explain the rise in inquiries otherwise. it's outside conversation, even. it is actual random people asking me out of the blue.

for the record, i'm half korean and half mcwhitey. and i'm human. and i was born in michigan. yay me.

너는 무엇 이는가?

last day of freedom

today was the same as yesterday.

except i switched to peanut butter captain crunch.

i got way more work done today and realized i work much faster around people. maybe it's just the captain crunch. or maybe i'll have to go back to hanging out at people's houses with the laptop. ooooh, i wonder what would happen if i ate captain crunch while i was working mobile?!

thy weekend promises craziness.

i love weezer

if you're like me, you're sitting in front of the computer propelling yourself through the drudge that is photo-editing and packaging with redbull and vanilla frosted mini-wheats and wondering if, for the love of god, you have anything else in your itunes besides elliot smith, the decemberists and amos lee.


the distractions are mighty. the visits to the piano and guitar have been a little two too many lately. but when i was killing the upload time with "butterfly" by weezer, i was suddenly filled with the joy that was 1996 and the sound that was "pinkerton."

the obsession probably started sometime when i was a sophomore or junior in highschool and a retarded guy was delivering his daily "love note" to me. but he was impatient and the end result was him choking the guy i was talking to and the guy i was talking to punching the retarded guy. later the guy i was talking to gave me his weezer t-shirt which i cherished until it faded into a million delicious mauve colored pieces.

"what's your favorite album/song?" is one of those questions i've trouble answering. there's just so much out there, how's one person supposed to pick one album/song? or even 10? i typically draw a blank and appear as though the word "cd" is foreign vocabulary. which is lovely considering this is typically one of those "get-to-know-you" questions asked by those who are trying to get to know you and therefore have not spent enough time to understand that beneath the vacant stare are words that sometimes form sentences that sometimes make sense.

so, i'd like to publically state here that this album is totally totally one of my absolute favorite albums ever. it's so ripe and juicy, even 10 years (TEN YEARS!) later i want to pour it all over my head and run around the house dripping in blessed weezer goodness.

i guess it wasn't enough that the house painter next door so totally caught me in naked after-shower mode through the window this morning.

survivor

"nothing shows you the straight line from here to death like a list." ---chuck palahniuk, "survivor"

my desk is a swamp of papers and faxes and contracts and schedules and lists. help me, i am swamped and under-motivated. nose in the air sniffing out fun distractions so that all the work i can't seem to get done at least has a place i can point in blame.

i remember three years ago being so excited at landing a shoot. this weekend i'm doing something i never really wanted to do. two shoots a day. and this will grow starting thursday, though in a less "all-on-me" sort of way.

it's fantastic. business always seems to be regular, but this year it's just more regular and the rest of 2006 is attempting to show me what i'm made of. what am i made of?

on the upside, my bank account is about to get real happy.

ducktape: ahhhh

thanks for the low-light lesson, neighbor.

i get better every time you pick up my camera.

40 hours

i got the job. starting monday i'll be shooting full-time for another company. as well as keeping my business going. i am excited and anxious. i have been my own boss making my own schedule for a while now. i've had almost three years of solid time with my baby and i know that accepting this position is going to bring all that to an end. i've had free reign to see my friends and now i'll be the one saying, "i've got to get up early tomorrow."

so if you want to see me for any extended period, now would be the time.

friday night

i almost missed the vladimir show due to a really long nap. but am so glad i made it out. really really amazing stuff. go check it out at the magnolia before it comes down.

then off to cosmic cafe where sarah jane got us all giggly with science talk and big blue holes.

it was dinner before paul's band "team evil" went up at the bar of soap. (note to kinome: my hair is screaming for your attention. seriously.)

above photo by this guy. who is funny.

bar of soap was too crowded for me to even find the bathroom, so we camped out next door. it was the first time in a while i've had the semrad's all to myself and i got to bask in their amazingness and sarah jane's contagious way of being.

lesson reinforced on the meridien's bathroom wall.

website graph

www.carissabyers.com



www.carissabyers.blogspot.com

your website as a graph: www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/

life is kinda weird, huh

but, i guess we already knew that.

courtesy of mr. samples

just looked at the disc and it is affirmative that hal samples has officially captured the weirdest expressions i have ever made.

so i won't show you all those, heh.

but it's late and my peanut butter captain crunch level is a little high and i have to do something while i wait for this other thing to upload.

it's the end of another day and i'm actually a little glad about that. gawd this year is going by fast. let's make a really, really good one, shall we? funky expressions and all.

best way to not wake up

being beat over the head with a crowbar type object.

what the baby learned this morning: taking apart the guitar stand and hitting mommy in the face a couple times to wake her up is probably The Worst idea a two year old ever had.

the bruising on my forhead is not yet very noticeable.

artists math

croquet +

photographer sarah jane +

photographer hal samples +

one adorable paul +


this guy +

this guy's dog =

a whole bunch of fun jostleing balls and going through wickets, not to mention the inspirational boost i needed checking out hal's wedding photos. i'm also just a little tiny bit jealous of hal's canon right now. i think i'm going to shoot some stuff tonight.

11 month old portrait

i recently photographed an 11 month old portrait of the CUTEST little girl you've ever seen.

doesn't hurt at all that she was decked out in a pink tutu.

she gets that all that photogenic from her mommy, yes?

after sweating it out in the hot sun she turned into a little angel.

literally.

thank you, little one, for letting us bustle you around the arboretum. i can't wait to see you at your first birthday party!

carissa byers photography: engagement portrait

this story really does relate to the photos eventually:

i made a giant pot of really yummy veggie-chilli. and then accidently left it out all night. but, since it was covered and there's no meat in it, popular opinion said that i could re-heat it really hot to kill off any possible stomach eating lovely that might have taken up residence and be fine.

that night, after eating the chilli, i went out and refused all propositions to drink, (i am still dumfounded as to the amount of free liquor that gets thrown my way!, thank you kindly my genorous drinking friends) because i felt that nauseous. i thought even my neighbor's driving (ahem) was going to make me hurl.

the next morning i felt awful. i went back and forth with the "to puke or not puke?" idea and the "reschedule at last minute idea" and decided to skip the puking and go to work. i changed out of a more flattering, but tighter pants option into ragged old too-big-thus-unbinding courderoy's and a t-shirt. now, i am not at all very fashion conscious. but i do know i showed up, sick and sweaty and poorly dressed. determined and excited, though, to take an engagement portrait of the absolute cutest couple ever.

this being the first time they met me in person, i felt pretty gross and for the first 20 minutes i kicked myself for not rescheduling. but they were absolute dears and we got some GREAT photos!

they're the perfect "opposites-attract" couple and look like they could be an ad for anything. they were up for any direction or idea i had.

even if it meant putting that pretty white dress in the grass. you guys are absolutley amazing! thanks for putting up with the queasy photographer.

how much would it cost to clone me?

beside my computer i have a notepad. a list of all the things that have to be done. because i have a baby and work from home I don't always get to answer e-mails right away, so i try and write down everyone that i have to respond to. my e-mail load is enormous. and hard to keep straight sometimes because, for example, three of my clients names are casey, two are jennifer, two are nicole and if it's not that then it's something similiar. the majority of my clients are women. because my face to face communication is typically sparse until the shoot, i find myself going through the pictoral roledex in my head to locate their face.

and all of the subjects blend in as well; "wedding photography," "june wedding," "portrait," "questions," "photograhpy inquiry. . . . . ." and because i want to give a thoughtful and correct response to everyone i need five minutes to get it together. there are just so many.

i am quite, quite, quite! fortunate that i get to work for almost everyone who contacts me. and it's lovely, really, getting to spend these beautiful days with people, giving them a piece of themselves with my art.

all that to say this: i am so snowed under right now.

it shakes the balence of being an awesome attentive mom and a good businesswoman.

of course, i chose to have a baby a million miles away from the grandparents. *smile* (he's asking about you, papa!)

ellaroo.com

Mid-May I did a shoot for Ellaroo's FABULOUS baby carriers. We stepped this one up several notches from the previous things I've done for them because Ellaroo carriers are undergoing new packaging by Ideasquad's David Sterling and one from the shoot will be the cover of the box.

We used an amazing and stunning real life mom with her real life baby. This has to be the sweetest baby ever who worked long hours with us and never once made a fuss.

This shoot was carried by my artist/neighbor/friend, Erica, letting me rent her studio and calling in, picking up, paying for, delivering, setting up lights (ohmigawd she is so amazing I can't even come close to describing her talent or my gratitude or how it would be impossible for her to not go beyond the call of duty) and MY FAVORITE KINOME EVER! who did a super job with hair and make up.

And babysitting. Ha! It wasn't exactly part of the job decription, but it was soooo appreciated. Milla is the cutest.

Ellaroo.com. Best baby carriers ever.

another dog post

i love my dog. i do. i can't help it. he's the coolest dog for our family. sure, we just had to buy him a 20 inch collar and he's only 6 months old, and despite weight and girth he's pretty short and if you come over he will run and slide on the wood floors smack into you and then whine because despite the few seconds you've spent together, dear stranger, he feels like he's known you forever and he loves you so much it hurts. it hurts. strange whines escape his muzzle as his body convulses with joy and if you don't pet him he. will. die.

and then there's the herding. the herding! all attempts to explain i am not of the barnyard variety go unheard and the dog, when underwalked, will attempt to herd me somewhere. this is usually accompanied by me juggling a cell phone and a 2 yr. old, tangled in a retractable leash yelling toddler appropriate obscenities on the sidewalk. the neighbors, they love us i'm sure.

fun fact #1: chow chows are herders! i had no idea. fun fact #2: chow chows are used for meat in their native china. yum.

and so, he's a puppy. but he's a puppy who lets my son dress him (a new found love for mr. p.) and tuck him in and ride him and jump on him and hold his tail while leaning back to see if ringo can pull him.

his breath is disgusting, his farts should be bottled and used in times of warfare and his fur sheds in full-on dust rabbits, but he's a good cuddler.

and all you scaredy punks in dallas who are running away from my dog with strange survival looks in your eyes, (which is just so weird!) well, he started out like this.

all together now. . . ."awwwwwwwwww."

memorial day 2006

we celebrated this past memorial day watching the symphony at flag pole hill. it was a long foot trek considering the attendance, which is not very well captured here. people and blankets covered the whole park. there were footballs and frisbees and dogs and picnics and food and kids and icecream and citronella candles and family and couples of all shapes, sizes, and ages basking in the sounds and sights of the music.

which really was quite lovely. penn's been schooled on instruments and sounds and you've never seen a two year old so excited to see them all work together in person. his favorite television program is "little einsteins." they use classical music and teach children how to identify sounds and songs and notes.

so, as we walked through fieled and thicket i told him the symphony was kind've like "little einsteins" with violins and flutes and trumpets and drums and a conductor! and he listened and clapped and danced and made me very excited with the way his intrest was held with the music.

[deleted paragraph of defense that's totally unecassary, kind've like this sentence, about my "excitement" that was to ensure you that i don't spend my days sitting around pointing out how cool i think my kid is. i'm his mother.]

it takes a certain kind of person to truly comprehend certain arts like, for example, classical music. if we all "got it" it would be on pop radio and american idol wouldn't exist. there are so many levels of action and movement and feeling and control. and i sadly don't know a soul within going-with-me distance that would go, much less enjoy it. so i was excited to see penn exhibit as much interest and excitement! in hearing the music as he does in watching a back hoe dig a hole or the dog lick his butt. 'cause that just means he'll have to take his old mother. . . .when he gets a job. . . .and can drive something with higher standards than fisher price.

i was quite unprepared. no blanket. no money for the ice cream truck. no beverages or snacks. once the ice cream truck was spotted penn responded to my, "i don't have any money for ice cream" comment with "come on guys, let's just go get some help to get the ice cream!" it was so simple! but we unexpectedly stayed until the end. even without money for ice cream.

and of course, at the end, there was the traditional blowing up of trees.

no, it was penn's first fireworks.

he was not at all ammused at the blowing up of things in the sky.

i bought him ice cream on the way home.

happy memorial day.