Hello Again

I'm going to stop apologizing for being an utter failure at publishing blogs regularly.  We all just need to accept the fact that that's not ever going to change, and get on with our lives.  Savvy?  Savvy.

This particular post is occasioned by the fact that I just rediscovered my old journal (like, a physical one) that I kept from sophomore year of high school to part-way through freshman year of college.  Oof, what a trip.  I sort of expected to find hilariously immature entries about drama and boys and stupid shit (and there was plenty of that, believe me), but mostly it was interesting to read back through things I had forgotten with a fresh perspective.  Freshman year of college was a lot more traumatic for me than I remembered, and with my new-found freedom came a slew of bad decisions and sobering experiences.  I'm not saying it was all bad, and certainly the fact that I learned from those experiences ought to count for something, but it was interesting to see myself transition from a shy, silly, innocent 15-year-old to a confused, passionate girl-woman struggling to cope with the ugly side of adulthood.

A lot has changed since my last entry.  For one thing, I'm a college graduate now.  Whaaaat!  As of December 8th, I am officially in that awkward limbo state where I'm not a student anymore but I'm not an established adult with a real-world job yet either.  The plan currently is to go to New York sometime around late February to job/apartment hunt, and to be able to make my stay permanent if I find said job/apartment.  I had two internships with different photographers last summer, and one of them was in New York City.  Although he isn't really in a position to hire another assistant, I do have a professional connection in the city now, and he may be able to help me out or at least provide a reference.

My top choice right now is to get a job at Milk Studios for a couple of reasons: for one, it would mean a steady paycheck (which an assisting gig almost certainly wouldn't), and it would also get me well acquainted with equipment, as well as give me opportunities to be hired out as an assistant on shoots.  So it's kind of the best of all worlds.  I imagine it's probably insanely difficult to get a job at such a place, so I've been brainstorming where else I could apply, but if I were to somehow land a job at Milk, that would be amazing.  Most photographers start out first by assisting, and I'm pretty sure that with Milk on my resume, I'd be a very strong applicant for any long-term assisting job.

In the mean time, I'm trying to put together a few shoots before I leave so I can add as much to my portfolio as possible, and, as crazy as it sounds, I'll actually be teaching a couple of classes in early February.  There's a local company that offers classes to beginners wanting to learn how to use their cameras, and the founder of the company saw some of my work online and asked if I'd be interested in teaching with them.  I was a little flustered at first, given that I only just got done being the pupil myself, and needless to say I've never taught a class before... but he assured me that I at least know enough to be able to teach a basic class, and in any case I saw this as a neat opportunity, so I'll be doing a workshop about on-location portraiture lighting, and a beginning Photoshop class a little later on.

I've developed a lot in the last year, both creatively, and professionally.  Even my professors at my college have remarked to me that they saw a giant leap in my work and attitude between junior and senior year.  I'm not exactly sure what caused it, but despite the huge challenges that face me in the coming years, I feel confident.  Well, sometimes I feel confident.  Other times I feel like hiding from it all... but I suppose that's natural.  I mean, think about it.  I just graduated from college, I'm from nowhere-town California, I went to a good school, but one that isn't exactly known for its art program, and I'm going to the biggest city in the country where there are millions of other people who want exactly what I want, but have more money, charm, connections, or talent than I do.  I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm a little terrified.  But what's that saying?  "If your dreams don't scare you, you're not dreaming big enough" or something like that?

The other reason I'm terrified is more personal.  I know I was complaining earlier that I talked too much about boys in my high school journal, but the relationship I'm in now is a lot more serious than any of those, and we're about undergo a big change.  We've been together for two years and almost four months, and I've gotten closer to him than I ever have to anyone.  Our friends have joked that we're like each-other's gender equivalents, we have complete trust in each other, we can be totally honest and real with each other, and our bond as friends is as strong as our bond as lovers.  He, moreover, doesn't have any plans to move to New York in the foreseeable future because his focus is finding a good but reasonably priced medical school (which he's not going to find in New York).  So basically we're looking at an indefinite cross-country long-distance relationship.  I'm painfully aware that the vast majority of relationships can't withstand that kind of stress, and this bothers me more than I like to let on.  It's more attractive in this culture to purport yourself as a driven, career-first type of person who puts everything second to their dreams and aspirations.  And I'm not saying that I'm not that kind of person... I'm just saying that when it comes down to making a choice between two passions, it's not that simple.  I know which of the two I should choose, if it comes to that, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Anyway.

There's obviously a lot that happened in that big gap between the last time I wrote and now, but none of that seems as important now.  Some of it was covered in my photo blog, if you're curious: http://sabinamiklowitzphotography.blogspot.com but I think that's all I'm going to write for right now.

Until next time.