Location: Memorial Park Cemetery, Memphis, TN. Equipment: Canon AE-1, Polaroid 250, Lomo LC-A, Nikon FE*

It was last year when I became sensitized to the existence of the Crystal Shrine Grotto, due to a small wedding I photographed there. Ever since since then,  I have been fascinated, I tell you! As per usual though,  I kept forgetting to go back to do more photographic exploration of the grotto. I mentioned this to my friend Ashley, who is both an adventurer at heart and a photo enthusiast. Ashley’s a GREAT friend, and wanted to help me remember that the Memorial Park grotto was on my photographic “to-do” list. She did so by scheduling a photo excursion to the grotto with me.

It was almost like kismet the day we went to Memorial Park. The weather in Memphis had been what I can only describe as “blah” for most of the weeks leading up to the end of February. The day of this excursion though, it was simply gorgeous outside! Blue, clear skies. Mild temperature – not too hot, not too cool. And Ashley had a few of her friends in tow with her, all of whom happen to be avid photographers as well. It was so awesome!

You’d think all of the above elements would mean all of us photogs would be intent upon running around, snapping photos of interesting elements of the cemetery and grotto. But really, this excursion was just the most chilled out thing ever. There’s this great seating area at the grotto that is meant to be like a large, hollowed out tree.  I’m pretty sure all of us would like to live in a tree if we could, so this was right up our alley! Some of the boys were climbing on top of the tree while we were inside having a cupcake picnic (comes in handy to work on Saturday nights at a bakery – you get to take home the leftovers!)

We did poke around the grotto’s cave for awhile, but I actually didn’t end up doing much photography inside – as you can plainly tell by the lack of indoor shots featured here today (except for this creepy photo of Aaron with a wooden Jesus.) Most of our time was spent sitting in that tree I told you about, just talking and making photographs of each other.

So, in conclusion, my sincerest of thanks to Ashley, Grant, Aaron and Alex for giving me such a refreshing and photographically fulfilling way of spending a pretty Sunday afternoon.

*(Yep. I went a bit overboard with the scope of equipment I used on this wee little photo excursion. Not to worry though; I wasn’t burdened with lugging all these cameras around. Clever girl that I am, my car was parked closely enough that I could just go back and forth for what I needed. I could leave a camera in my car if I were done and pick out a different one to take back up to the grotto with me.)

Three years ago, I up and took a voyage to England. Alone. You can read a little about it here. Besides the fact that I was already in love with the Motherland before I set foot on British soil, I knew the main purpose of my trip was photography, photography, photography. I owned a dSLR, but I was so high and mighty that I didn’t take it. I documented my entire trip on film. There were times when camera malfunctions made me second-guess this decision, but I don’t regret leaving the digital camera back in Mississippi while I went to England. In the end, I was glad I’d gone to England on my own because when you are a photographer on vacay, it can be difficult to juggle your desire to photograph with being fair to your traveling companions. I could stop and go as much as I want, come and go as I pleased, all to suit my photographic needs.

Both the issue of film vs. digital and how to get in satisfying photography while traveling with others cropped up for me recently. I traveled with about 7 of my friends to St. Louis, Missouri for a quick visit. I, being me, left my nice digital SLR at home and opted instead to take my Nikon FE and Holga 120N. I didn’t stock up on film before I left for Missouri because I figured I could just do that when I got up there. When some of my friends realized I didn’t have my digital camera, they were both perplexed and slightly disappointed because they new the limitations of film might hamper the volume of photos I could take on the trip. I was somewhat offended that my artistic vision for documenting our time in St. Louis was being questioned. Then some things happened along the way that caused me to learn my lesson.

I am very stubborn about using film rather than digital in most areas of my photography. However, I’m going to have to admit now there are some drawbacks to basing yourself in film photography. For example, when my friends and I arrived in St. Louis, it was getting late in the day and the sunlight was fading fast. We went to the zoo, and there were definitely certain shots I couldn’t get because I had a slow film speed, 100 ASA, loaded in my camera. Sure, I am quite pleased with some of the photos I DID get, but the scope of my photography that first night in the STL was not what it should’ve been.

Tragedy struck my plan of being too cool for school and do only film photography in St. Louis: I actually LEFT my wallet at the restaurant where we’d stopped for lunch on our way to St. Louis. Cape Girardeau, Missouri. I discovered this when I went to stock up on film and had no way of paying for it. D’oh! My lack of preparedness bit me in the rear. Yes, Amanda Raney did go out of town with only one roll of 35mm film in her possession. Oh how the mighty have fallen…

I ran out of film pretty early in the day Sunday morning. Before we’d even left our super cool hotel, in fact! And we still had hours of St. Louis awesomeness to enjoy before going home. What’s a girl to do??

All was not lost, thanks to the darling Annie who decided I should use her point-and-shoot digital camera while we spent our last few hours in St. Louis before going back to Memphis. I’m sure she knew not being able to take photos like I wanted was just eating me up inside. If you think I’m uppity about not using my dSLR for everything, you should see how uppity I normally am about my ever having to use a point-and-shoot digital! Once again, I had to learn my lesson: some camera is better than no camera at all. And guess what: that little camera of Annie’s wasn’t half bad! It performed well, I’d say. We went to the St. Louis Art Museum, the galleria, and a cool pizza joint for lunch. I ended up being quite pleased with a lot of the photos. Just gotta know how to get the best out of these little cameras.

For the events that unfolded with my photography in St. Louis, I am taking the “all’s well that ends well” viewpoint. I didn’t come back with a portfolio stacked with shots of that city, but I came back with a lot of fun (and some quite nice) shots that fulfilled my need to do photography while traveling.

So what is my conclusion in all of this? When you, as a photographer, are going somewhere special, you have to assess the purpose of your trip. Is this a trip that is going to be based mostly around photography? If so, how is this going to work out if I’m traveling with others who are not mainly interested in doing fine photography while we’re away? Even if I had had all the film in the world while I was in St. Louis, I wouldn’t have been able to do everything I wanted to photographically because I was with people whose purpose was to hang out with friends in a different city, not pack in as much photography as possible.

I had to learn that maybe it’s okay that I go out of town with my friends and have a main purpose of just being with my buddies. When I access the purpose of future out of town trips, I will decide if it’s to hang out with my friends, or if I’m planning on coming back with a body of work from that city. After my experience in St. Louis, if the answer is “my main purpose is to just have fun with my friends,” I’m honestly just going to throw my digital camera and maybe a small 35mm camera in my bag to take care of the type of photography I’ll do while I’m away.

It was my first time to travel to St. Louis and I just LOVED the city. I was just DYING because there were so many awesome things I saw and I wanted to capture in photos. It just wasn’t practical this time around. I resigned myself that I would be “forced” to go back to STL another time specifically for a photo excursion. Oh, the things I’ll do for my work!

There are a number of places on the internet where folks see a lot of my photos, such as Flickr or Facebook. Most of my photos you see on here aren’t exclusive to SWP. However, I enjoy the SWP blog as a venue for giving you behind the scenes insight into these photos.

For example? If you know me on Flickr or Facebook, you may see the following photo:

And you may get bits of the story behind this and the other photos of my friend Jason from this session. But you won’t hear the whole story if you see these photos somewhere besides this blog.

Part of the story for this photos series is about how I and my co-workers sometimes have too much time on our hands and like to blow off steam by taking ridiculous pictures in one of the studios that isn’t being used for clients at that moment.

Another part of the story is, there was this sign that was made by someone in our department as a reminder for another member of our team. Jason liked the sign and kept it for himself. It was good for a laugh. Then, I had this flash of inspiration before work yesterday, and let Jason know that I had envisioned photographing him holding the sign whilst wearing his prescription Ray Ban sunglasses. Killer. This is how it looked in my head when I thought it up:

I knew I would be posting these online at Facebook, as kinda goofy pictures for our friends to see. I upped the comedic anty though, when I had another flash of inspiration: I could say that the photos of Jason with the “Stay Calm” sign were photos for a public service ad campaign, similar to one running in Memphis called “Chill, don’t kill.” This campaign includes both TV commercials and billboards throughout the city.

It would probably be a better story if I could say “So I had this brilliant idea: I’ll take pictures of Jason as a spoof on the Chill, don’t kill ads!” and proceeded to do so. But I really didn’t think of it until after I’d already taken the pictures.

Yet another aspect to these particular photos is the type of portrait session they would be considered if Jason had been one of my customers as a portrait photographer. It’s called the “black-and-white” session (duh) and, along with the “white-on-white” session, is the only type of portraits I took during my stint as senior portrait photographer that I actually felt were ”Amanda-style.”

When I first began the portrait studio job, I struggled because all these studio lights and posed photos felt like the polar opposite to my normal, photojournalistic/documentry-style of shooting. Having to pose my subjects felt counterintuitive for me. However, there was something about the black-and-white and white-on-white portraits that felt like they answered the question “if Amanda were going to do pictures in a studio, what would they be like?” (not that I or anyone else have ever asked that question.)

It’s been strange for me to be producing SO much photographic work all summer, but none of going into my online portfolio. This is due to the fact that a) most anyone who was a customer here was under the age of 18 and I’d need permission to post their photos online and b) the studio pretty much owns the rights to said photos, not me. I wanted to show you guys what I learned on summer vacation though. Which is one reason I chose to shoot the “Stay Calm” session of Jason in the black-and-white style. Jason’s not a minor and my job doesn’t own the rights to these! I’m free to show them to you!

Ray Charles? I had said something ridiculous, and Jason threw his head back in laughter.

Nikon FE. 24 hour diner. After David Bazan’s show.

One afternoon in April, Gabe and I decided to take a little photographic excursion to Bolivar, TN. We’d been told by Gabe’s dad about a super creepy, abandoned mental instutition that we were stoked to photograph. Before we left, Gabe found out that the band Giant Cloud was going to be meeting us in Bolivar and that we’d be taking their pictures as well. This was GREAT news because I’d shot them before and they’re awesome to take pictures of (as well as really cool people to be around.)

After we’d met up with Giant Cloud, we headed to the mental institution to check things out. The building we were looking to shoot WAS just as crazy-looking as we’d been told it was. However, it was much less imposing in the middle of the afternoon than we would have liked. More of a “shoot this on a foggy, moon-lit night” sort of place. Not only that, but they’re using the building as a post office for the newer facilities they have on the grounds,  so it’s not EVEN  abandoned. Translation: we thought the whole thing was kinda bogus.  We felt let down and thought all may have been lost. Then, we spied an actual abandoned building on the mental facility’s grounds.  Gabe, Giant Cloud, and I decided to take a look around that one.  While its design wasn’t gothic like the building we’d intended to shoot, the abandoned building was amazingly creepy inside (from what we could see through the windows.) It reminded me of an old school building -  desks and chair stacked up, ceiling tiles hanging down. The whole shebang.

At this point, the band was kinda walking around, seeing what this strange building had to offer, as were Gabe and I. No sooner had Gabe set up the tripod with the Hassy on it, when a couple of security guards pulled up and told us we had to 23-skiddoo. The guards said it’s illegal to take photos on the grounds of a state mental hospital. Now, mind you, there were no signs posted to this effect. AND I have the tendency to want whip out a copy of the “photographer’s rights” and beg to differ whenever my right to photograph is being challenged. In this case, I had decided the abandoned building wasn’t THAT interesting if we weren’t going to sneak in anyway, so I didn’t put up a fight.  (Also, I always appreciate a word of warning from security, rather than having the law called on me. Thanks, over-zealous security guards for giving us a word of warning!) I’d gotten a shot or two fired, Gabe had gotten a shot off. We headed to greener pastures.

Giant Cloud had seen a old flea market on their way into Bolivar. They thought it might be cool to do some photos there. Having nothing to lose, we followed the band to flea market. This turned out to be a GREAT move. Firstly, across the street from the flea market, there was a diner called Dot’s Country Kitchen (photo by Gabe Bouck.) Gabe and the band decided to ask the two women at Dot’s if they thought it’d be okay if we took pictures across the street. They did think so, and we ended up talking to them for awhile about possible other cool locations in the area.  They were a lot of fun.

Once we headed over to the flea market itself, we were SO glad we did! There were a series of  rectangular stalls made of wood and fiberglass, with hinged front windows (which were down) and doors on the side for accessing the inside space of the stalls. We all took some time to explore the stalls – most of which had remnants of items that had been sold in them. A child’s sneaker here. A toy dinosaur there. Photographing the band as they were walking through the stalls in exploration made for some great shots.

Gabe and I traded turns using the Hassy, and I used my Holga as well,  taking promo-type photos of the of the band while we were at the flea market as well. It was SO great! I felt awesome, like I was going to be the featured photographer on the next Rolling Stone cover (hey, a girl can dream, can’t she? *wink*) Gabe’s shots of the band were not too shabby either (slash, he did a wonderful job!)

Once we’d felt we’d exhausted our possibilities at the flea market, the Caravan to Memphis (as I lovingly referred to it) got on the road again. I’d promised Julie I’d do some engagement shots for her and Ben, since they’d gotten engaged recently. She wanted the photos taken somewhere a little more pretty than the flea market, so we kept our eyes peeled on the drive to Memphis in case we saw a location that was struck the bride-to-be’s fancy. Now, I don’t know which part of the “Caravan” laid eyes upon it first, but I’d like for Gabe and me to take credit for noticing the next backdrop for our Giant Cloud shoot: a field. Now, lemme tell you, this was no ordinary field. And it was no ordinary sunset light with which we’d been blessed. And don’t you worry, due to our previous run-in with people not wanting us to take pictures in our chosen spot, I did have Gabe go up to the single-wide trailer there and ask the man who lived in if we could take photos in the field. We were granted permission. *high five!*

As I mentioned, the members of Giant Cloud just look cool when they’re doing “stuff.”  So Gabe and I just followed them around some while they were walking around the field, frolicking in the field, and terrorizing the emus that were fenced-in on the property.

Yours truly also got the opportunity to pull Ben and Julie out of the group to do some engagement-style shots, as promised. I LOVED it because, not only was the field/light/tall green grass so pretty for more “standard” shots, but Ben and Julie also let me take some more playful shots of the two of them. It’s my fave when couples let me do that!

Just like we’d done at the flea market,  Gabe and I took turns photographing the band in the field with the various cameras we’d brought. The light was nothing less of spectacular. And I’d be hard-pressed to believe that we could’ve happened upon a more perfect field in which to shoot this band.  While we did use the D300 for some of our shots, I have to say that the Hassy was PERFECT for this stuff. I’m super happy that Gabe and I had the opportunity to do the Giant Cloud shoot while we still had that camera in our lives. If I could talk to the Hassy right now, I’d tip my hat to it (if I had a hat) and tell it “We couldn’t have done it without you!”

Like all good things though, our Giant Cloud photo shoot in the field had to come to an end. The light was waning and we’d ran out of film. At this point, we bid “adieu” to Bolivar and made our way towards Memphis. I could tell you about the “awesome” experience we had at a chicken restaurant in Oakland, TN that will remain nameless  (to give you a hint, it’s initials are “Gus’s Fried Chicken”), but I’ll save that for the day when I run a restaurant review site…

A link to the rest of my photos from our Photo Excursion Awesomeness in Bolivar. A link to Gabe’s photos from our Photo Excursion Awesomeness in Bolivar.