i got the job! ...and found my destiny.

(please listen to this song while you read this post.)

i was recently hired as a photographer. dream come true? yes! today was the first day in my entire EXISTENCE that one of my photos was printed in a newspaper. i feel that i am greater than i am, and feel that i am happier than i can stand.

today i was shooting a construction site: men in yellow hardhats, concrete, those wire poles that i can never remember the name of. rebar, i think. and i lost all track of time. what does that say, that a girl who likes art and sad songs and making baby lava cakes and painting her fingernails bright red can spend two hours looking at a bunch of metal and rocks without a care in the world because she's looking at it all through a camera? (for those of you who are engineers and architects and construction workers, i am sorry that i do not know enough about building to see beyond the metal and rocks.) "they" say that the true indicator that you have found fulfillment in your work is if you find flow...aka: losing yourself in the job you are doing, such that a whole day can pass with nary a thought of time because you are so absorbed in your work. i think i have found that.

i love taking pictures for so many reasons. because it challenges me. because it gives me an excuse to talk to people and learn their stories and see little glimpses into their world, why they have such a sad face, or a sprightly walk, or a tired posture. where all those wrinkles came from. i love it because it forces me to reduce the world into a box--to find what's most important and to cut out the rest. to change what's focused so people see what i see and wonder at what i wonder. i love it because it makes me look stupid sometimes and i think that's healthy (yesterday i took out the videocamera guy at the devotional with my monopod, apple-dumpling gang style. whoops. i'd never used a monopod before, okay.)

and maybe i love photography because it's art without the hours. i'm [sadly] becoming an instant gratification kind of girl: if i only have two hours as is often the case, i'd rather go take some pictures of this universe of the people and places in my life than paint a leaf or a fingernail in hopes that someday i finish the entire painting. taking pictures = instant art. and i kinda like that.

as an endnote, i am currently looking to either buy a packmule or hire a man with very large muscles. or a woman. i suppose either would do. because i'm telling you what, after lugging a camera, three lenses, a flash, and that idiot monopod around for two days, my muscles are tired. bigger, but tired. and semi-shaky. yes, i am a wimp.