Wednesday, September 20, 2017

My Better Half

A quick shout out to this girl. My wife and my partner. She always does the final "whittling" of my images, narrowing down my shots to the best of the best before I work on them. When she does this, I can't be in the room because it's like watching someone hack away with a hatchet at my art. It drives me crazy as I argue and defend every shot and of course what I was thinking when I shot it.
Therefore, we learned a long time ago that I must leave and find something else to do. The upshot to this is that she saves me loads of time in post production.
The downside? Well, because she's along on every session and she happens to look so beautiful, I can't resist taking her picture - at almost every session. BUT, since she does the whittling, she deletes them. She's says it's out of fear that I might accidentally upload them to our clients. In her defense, that actually happened a couple of times. Sometimes I do miss the minor details. Heck, yesterday I accidentally messaged a client who is a doctor, no doubt in the midst of some very doctoral role like saving lives or curing cancer, and thinking it was my wife asked her casually if she needed me to pick her up anything from town.
Anyway, I've decided I'm going to start rescuing and saving these helpless images from the Hatchet BEFORE she gets to erase them from history. And now to my shout out: The stunning image below, does not happen without the girl to the left, and I thank you, Kari Ann, for putting up with the likes of me. You hold the lights, you make kids smile, you model a pose like a Broadway dancer, you shoot from a perspective that I literally can't see, you give direction and you talk to people so warmly and make them forget about me when I go all Rain Man and think of nothing but the light, the comp, the color, aperture, stops and ISO's.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

A Butterfly in a Hurricane


Do you ever feel this way,
a butterfly in a hurricane?
like maybe you weren't built
for something so insane?

Parts of you are delicate,
not meant for gale-force winds.
things just seem all out of sorts
and none of it makes sense.

Some days I think it's best
to stop trying to answer why.
Stop bearing the weight of the world,
just spread your wings and fly.

Maybe it's just a flash in the pan.
and it's gone in just a breath.
What good will it have served
to have only dwelt on death?

May as well be free!
Live, not just survive.
May as well be beautiful
While beauty's still alive.

Someday they'll take notice,
but if they never raise their eyes,
You were made for so much more
than you yet realize.

If God looks at His masterpiece,
If He smiles and calls it good,
no hurricane can take you down
the way you think it could.

For such a time and such a place,
you're right where you should be.
Bring on the wind, bring on the rain.
and be what you're made to be.

Be free.

d.c.elliott 9/13/17

Monday, September 11, 2017

Some days ya just gotta write.

That I would hear so clear a blast
To tie my heart and soul to mast
To pursue in haste with childlike trust
And yield to His chased love I must.

For none have hunted like the Hound 
To seek me lost and make me found.
To burn out the chaff of misery
And sacrifice such Love for me.

To deny would be an awful cheat.
A wasted life of vain conceit,
To think myself somehow above
Such true and unconditioned love.

The timeless depth of such great care
I cannot bear, I dare not dare.
It threads through all that I hold dear
It holds me close and draws me near

So then which would be the bigger lie?
To love Him back or never try?




d.c.elliott 9/11/17