do not fear death,
for there is far too much
beauty left to enjoy.- #12fv
Source: 12fv-labs
Q:Hi Melly! I just want to say I admire your work so much and you inspire me to do even better in photography! I was just wondering if you have any word of advice for someone who'd like to do more than just shooting things of interest and personal projects. because I see you're working with a bunch of big names and that's something I'm really interested and would like to dive into eventually. Can't wait to hear from you :)
First off thanks for your kind words and for checking out my work :)
I’m not sure if I can answer your question properly though, since I try my best to shoot only things of interest and personal projects. If anything just keep shooting what you love and keep challenging yourself to bring it to the next level.
peace!
I miss this.
(one of the few photos of the 3 of us together)
While cleaning my workspace I found a photo that the talented Michelle Krusiec shot of my partners (Benny and Julie from OA) and I after we did a feature on her back in early June. I’m kind of being nostalgic right now. I miss the early days of OA when the three of us had more “free” time together. Every Monday night we’d jump on Skype and update each other on plans and who we could reach out to in the community to feature. After talking to the potential interviewee we’d lock down a date and the three of us would all go out and do the interview followed by a shoot with yours truly. I enjoyed these outings together because our personalities seemed to balance out one another well. Benny ours entrepreneurial hustler, Julie is the bubbly-sweet-gullible-you’ll-love-her-no-matter-what-person, and I was am the sarcastic, weirdo kid with the camera. Together none of us got any sleep and generated weekly content that rocked your socks off >:]
Moments like these aren’t meant to last forever. I think that why looking back we appreciate and enjoy them so much more. Starting up OA was an awesome learning experience. I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunity. Obviously the online publication has slowed down a lot because Benny, Julie, and I no longer have the that much free time anymore. Julie parted with OA beginning of September to focus more on acting. We’d be hypocrites to the website if we didn’t follow our own dreams. Benny and I are focusing on a new project called NewMediaRockstars while keeping OA alive on the side as a passion project. Its funny how much we’ve grown within the last few months. Looking back it feels like we were little, lost kids not knowing what they were going to do with their lives. We came together because of an idea and ran with it. There aren’t that many AA role models out there. We wanted to find them all and share the experience of meeting them with others around the world. I guess through the accumulation of these inspiring stories the three of us ourselves are gradually forming a more solid idea of what we’ll individually be doing in the next few years. For myself I knew I wanted to give this photography thing a go few years back, but I never had an idea of how I wanted to shoot. Only now am I beginning to see what my style might be and what I want out of the images I make. Only time and hard work will tell what will become of my “photography career” will become.
Okay, I’m done being nostalgic.
I can’t believe 2011 is almost over though! This year has honestly been a crazy ride for me, considering that it is the first year that I am putting all my efforts into growing as a photographer. I’m all in with no backup plan, and I’m fully enjoying the ride.
Stay tuned ..because I need to produce and plan four upcoming shoots in the next few weeks. Oh and finish editing that mountain of files. Argh.
Source: mellylee.com
Finding Copyright Infringements of Your Photos
This is kinda cool, I will find you photo thieves!
Source: jarred.github.com
Bet on people doing good things.
50 Reasons not to Date a Photographer
Was inspired to write one of these hehe.
- They rather hold their bulky camera, than hold hands with you.
- On a romantic date, you’ll watch the sun go down and think “Wow this is gorgeous” and they’ll go “mirror lock, tripod, and stop down f/8 at 1/125.”
- You’ll never be able to enjoy tv, movies, or magazines because they’ll point out all the visual flaws.
- They like to sit in obscure coffee shop and voyeuristically watch people for great lengths of time.
- If you’re taking a walk outside and you come across some “interesting light” they will make you sit/stand/pose in public so that they can take a photo.
- You’ll never get to enjoy freshly cooked meals because they’ll spend 15 minutes taking 20 variations of the same dish with their iPhone.
- They get angry when your friends go up to them and say “I am interested in photography, can you recommend a good camera for me? Nothing professional I just want to take pretty pictures.”
- You’ll wait longer for them to finish analyzing art in a museum than you’ll wait at the dmv
- Same goes with old used bookstores.
- When you think they’re giving you their undivided attention, they’re really wondering how they could fix you with a little Clone Tool and Patch Tool.
- Or they are actually using you to not look so creepy as they people watch everything going on around you.
- They rather drop $1,000+ on new glass than a purse for you.
- You can’t take a photo with them without taking at least five more.
- If you ask them if you look fat, they’ll say “don’t worry I can photoshop you later.”
- They’ll never photoshop something simple for you if the content is not up to their “standards.”
- That photo they randomly took of you yesterday? Good luck getting them to send it to you.
- They spend all their time on the computer (and not for porn.)
- They can’t have a normal conversation without throwing acronyms and random numbers in.
- They still use film cameras.
- They spend a lot of time with people cooler than you i.e. models, actors, musicians, successful rich people.
- They’ll be fussy over the position of a common household object, like a coffee cup.
- They won’t return your calls or text messages, but you can bet they’re still posting pics on Instagram.
- They like watching old films that you’ve never heard or will ever understand.
- They like looking at weird things in general.
- Instead of having penis-envy, they have camera-gear-envy.
- If there’s a natural disaster in a far away land, they’re already on a plane going over there.
- Everything is watermarked.
- They think everyone else’s photos suck.
- They want to color correct a lot of scenes from Twilight and Jersey Shore.
- They hate rainbows, especially ones spinning in a circle.
- Whenever you’re in a group talking and the conversation goes deep, they’re taking notes in some form of Moleskine.
- They use over priced Moleskine notebooks.
- They like trespassing into old abandoned buildings filled with health hazards.
- They always want to show a new photo they took, but don’t really care if you like it or not.
- They hate your n00bie friend’s new artsy profile picture.
- Bright, sunny days make them sad, but cloudy, overcast days are apparently great!
- They’ll take you into places that have “culture” as well a high chance of getting mugged.
- Your birthday present will be a portrait that they’ve taken of you.
- You can’t go anywhere new without them stopping to take a photo of everything and anything.
- They will always bug you to be a test subject.
- Nothing can ever be naturally pretty, everything must be fixed in Photoshop.
- Bringing their camera means, bringing 50lbs of equipment.
- If you break any of their things on accident, you’ll owe them thousands of dollars.
- You can’t get them a birthday/Christmas present without spending at least $500
- They are natural hoarders, collecting and keeping piles of old newspapers, packaging, magazines, and other things that “inspire” them.
- They are weird and geeky.
- They have hard drives of photos, but probably have printed 10 images.
- They are always secretly judging your creativity.
- If you’re ever in auto mode, they laugh at you.
- They orgasm every time they learn a new lighting technique.
If you can’t laugh at yourself, life’s gonna seem a whole lot longer than you like.
This is your one opportunity to do something that no one has ever done before and that no one will copy throughout human existence. And if nothing else, you will be remembered as the one guy who ever did this. This one thing.
So continuing from my last mini update… I currently have my hands tied for November with working on the creative direction (in addition to photography of course!) of a new project I’m doing with Benny called NewMediaRockstars.
We’ve been hustling to give you guys a hefty load of OC (..original content)! Its going to be like OA meets Masables meets E! meets .. Oprah? Stay tuned :)
This particular afternoon we ventured out to Venice Beach to shoot with Kassem G. I’m actually quite please with this session. I shot 60 frames and got some keepers in that amount, woot new record!
Sidenote: My personal goal for every photo shoot that consist of “one look” is to shoot <200 frames. If I’m shooting more than that I feel like I’m being lazy and hoping to get lucky by going shutter happy. As I continue to develop and grow I realize that you can’t be lazy and expect magic to happen on set. You really have to work and project creative direction and energy. That energy and interaction gives your subject something to work with and makes you the photographer indirectly part of the end photo which in turn will set you apart from being another kid with a fancy camera that just points and shoots.
Source: MELLYLEE.COM
