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)
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.
I’m back from another mini sabbatical via backpacking through New York. The trip was a great way for me to clear my mind and get those creative juices flowing again. Hopefully I will write more about this later, but I have a 7am call time tomorrow for a shoot.
I’m realizing more and more though that I have a lot of work ahead of me if I want to “make it.” For me this means working harder at smarter projects. I’m hoping to put myself into ridiculous challenges and see what I can create.
Coney Island, NY
In a Funk
**note: the following is best read with a sarcastic tone of voice
Oye oye oye! I swear I’m terrible at maintaining a personal blog with text posts rather than photo ones -_(\ Ok so what have I been up to lately?
- I’ve updated my portfolio - http://MELLYLEE.com
- Started up a new photo blog - http://BLOG.MELLYLEE.com
- Started test shooting again
- Oh! I’ve been in a rather unpleasant funk recently
I swear being in a funk is both unpleasant and inconvenient. Its unpleasant because it seriously comes out of nowhere and drags you down. Everything around seems pointless and doomed for disaster. Its inconvenient because once someone gets into this funk-y mindset all logic and reason goes out there door! I’m sure we all know what it feels like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. The funk makes go into a situation with a defeated attitude, which makes obstacles more challenging than they need to be.
These ups and downs of life are habitual for me. When I’m up I’m ready! and nothing can stop me. But when its bad, I have to work a little harder to fight through everything and get myself out. and thats a-ok! because it gets a little easier each time.
How to get out of a stinkin funk:
- Surround yourself with good energy. By good energy I mean be around people who emit strong, positive energy. These are people who will inspire through their actions and stories, which will give you that contagious feeling to motivate you to work harder at whatever it is you do.
- Read! Know that going through funks is a normal process of life that everyone goes through. You are not alone in feeling like total crap. Everyone faces some difficulty in life and goes through emotions of I-Hate-My-Lifeness —and a lot of them share their experiences through writing. My top 3 reads that get me pumped up are: Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers, Robert Greene and 50 Cent’s 50th Law, and Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness
- Write things down! Start off with a goal you want to accomplish then break it down into steps you’re going to take to work towards making that goal happen. Its helps you stay focused and envision what you want. I feel that envisioning what you want is a big part. You have to really see what your goal is and really believe that it is real and can be attained. If you go in and think its impossible, kid you already put a mountain in your way.
- This one might sound silly but create a mantra. For me I like drowning myself in happy quotes and I like repeating them in my head. It reminds me that I’m not alone in my journey and there are plenty of individuals who achieve some kind of success through hard work and having the right mindset.
- Do things to remind yourself to be thankful and to appreciate everything you’ve done and everything you received. Let’s be honest even when we’re all going through a funk, life isn’t that bad. We just need to be reminded of that :) Take a walk outside, go have a cup of coffee (and leave the laptop at home!), exercise, do good for someone else, whatever it is make time for yourself!
- Always stay productive with an open mind and don’t stop believing in yourself (cue the Journey song!)
**end of sarcasm
Rebuilding my portfolio! Stay tuned :)
How to backpack thru NY: travel light
REFRESHED
Farah Moriah from Popseoul has been been egging me to make time to rest for quite some time now; apparently our brains need a vacation from time to time. So randomly I took off an entire day and hung out with my big sis’ Grace Su aka Peachies. The day started off with me waking up around 5am, this dreadful time has become routine for my body thanks to the “day job.” I tried to go back to bed, but my head was too stuff with fluttering thoughts of endless editing and emails. Recently no matter how hard or how fast I worked the monotonous, repetitive clicking and scratching on Photoshop gave me one of those what-am-doing-with-my-life syndromes (Don’t get me wrong I actually enjoying the process of retouching!)
Its come to my attention that all my friends from school and back home think I’ve died! I have moved pass the point of just being missing in action and am now just part of the walking dead. So without further ado here’s what I’ve been up to.
Harry Shum Jr. and Wong Fu Productions
Shoutouts to George Wang and Don Le for putting me on these shoots :) I was shooting behind the scenes still for the three Harry Shum x WongFu videos. I have to say it blows my mind that I grew up and watching these guys put up their lip sync videos and years later I’d be privileged to work on their set. Not to mention everyone from the cast and crew were super friendly and hard working.
