So much stuff!

Everything seems to be going so fast those past couple of days, and at the same time, the beginning of the week seem like a lifetime ago. I can't remember when i last wrote in this blog, though I'm sure it wasn't that long ago. Between facebook and flickr it feels sort of strange to report about everything that's going on again, but I think that it'll clear my head a bit so I'll try and write some of it.

It seem that all this effort to go out more, socialize and interact with people is starting to pay off, also, it really helps me be more friendly and conduct my online work interaction better. It's also at least in part thanks ot Bob, the guy who's the teacher at the Sale's class Ned and I are taking.

So, there is a lot of exciting news!

First of all, I'm going to teach a class in etsy next month, it's going to be a demonstration of drawing on cups and will be broadcast in their chat, so people all around the world can follow! the coolest thing is how once thing led to another with this - I did an order for the company who makes the paints I'm using then the nice woman from the paint company asked me about the class and of course I agreed. It's going to be wonderful! though I'm just going ot not think about it so I don't get too stressed.


Second, Ned and I just had a really great meeting at a huge advertising agency today, with the guy who's the head of their print department, I don't know if it'll lead ot anything (though if id does that would be the best thing in the world) but it was really great to sit in am eeting and feel like I have my shit together.

Third, Ned and I are shooting some of the fashion week backstage shows - we did one on Thursday and another one tomorrow, I've had an excellent time on the first and got massive amount of photos that I like. Tomorrow we are shooting in the Briant park tents, I'm a little nervous, hoping we will not have problems with getting in, and hoping to have an amazing time, and take a lot of photos.

Also, I just got a new lens and made banana bread today (first attempt at real baking in oh, maybe 6 years...)

Aftershoot blues

I'm so tried, we had an evening shoot tonight and one yesterday. it's 4:00 AM and I just finished editing my photos, editing Ned's photo with him, and making chilly before the beans we
sprouted goes bad. For the past few days (weeks?) I feel like all I want is to sleep all the time. I'm not sure if it's allergies, still getting over being sick or just stress and the weird dreams I've been having lately.

I'm happy with the photo I took though.

I hate feeling like I'm not doing everything I want, I feel like I'm missing opportunities and messing up stuff by not keeping in touch with people and follow things though.

I'm not sure if it's really the case or if that's just a feeling, I don't know if I'm really messing up or not.

I'm just so tired of feeling tired, and hate feeling so aimless and unfocused.

Winter Weather

New louchelust movie, i finished it tonight, it's cool to have this site updated after probably a year of not touching it.

The Gym....

Ned goes to the gym almost everyday (unless we woke up too late or we have something better to do or he doesn't feel like it) but over all he's really good about exercising. I on the other hand, keep promising that I'll go back to yoga and never do anything about it...really, I'm so bad, that last time I exercised was before we got married.

I guess my only work out is carrying my backpack around with all the art supply in it. Ned calls it "my studio", and it's just getting heavier and heavier. right now it's got a couple of reference books, an old book which pages I use for paper, 2 packs of water color and about 6 identical pens, and of course the MP3 player so I can listen to audio books while I draw, also, at the bottom, there are a million other things who got lost in the back and just wonder around aimlessly looking for a why out.

So, while Ned is at the gym, I do my own gym time by going to one of my favorite cafes and drawing for a couple of hours till Ned finish his exercise and come to pick me up.

Snow Storm

I don't think I've ever seen so much snow, it was beautiful (though very cold) around here in the past couple of days.

Last Night Ned and I went out at about 3:00 AM to get some snacks and take some pictures, the streets were all full of clear white snow, untreated and so soft it felt like walking on icing sugar. The walk to the corner store felt pretty nice on the way there, with the wind to our back and horribly cold on the way back, I've trie taking as many photos as possible before my fingers started freezing!



Today, Ned and I went into the city, which looks very different while it snows then Brooklyn. The snow is being cleared from the roads and sidewalks so efficiently it feels like it's barely there. I walked around union square and the park, and it was beautiful. Though no birds or squirrels in sight, at the end I've found a couple of the birds huddled together on the construction area, I think the warmth from the cars was more appealing then the bare trees.




It's been a slow sad day, tomorrow we are going to see Ned's father in the hospital. He got a room today and starting treatment tomorrow. even though some good stuff happened - I was on Etsy's front page, and then sold a creamer and sugar bowl set, and I think I won the apartment therapy competition (winner hadn't been announced yet, but I got more votes then anyone else in my category), it all feels insagnificat and unimportant compare to all the sadness.

Weekend

Ned's father is going to the hospital tomorrow, he's going to have a bone marrow transplant, which means he's going to be in a clean room on his own for 3 weeks and not allowed to go out of it, we can visit if we scrub and wear doctor's masks. He's probably going to be really tired and weak, but hopefully, after this, will start to recover from cancer.

We've been at home mostly, not quite feel like doing anything, both edgy and upset, we had 2 fights in the past couple of days, we usually don't fight. I really hate fighting with Ned. It always reminds me how alike we are though, we say the same things to one another in this strange spiral conversation that only ends when one of us decide it's enough and that there aren't going to be any winners in this.

My father called yesterday, waking me up at 2:00 PM after a long night of working. He told me that the dog that they took from the pound a while ago isn't working out for them, she keep crying and wants to go out for walks all the time, he said that they are going to give it back to the pound. It made me really sad, how bad they are with pets and the idea that you can take and give away a responsibility for another living soul.
In the bathroom, while brushing out teeth later that afternoon, Ned said "this is your home, even if we fight I love you and I'm not sending you back to the pound".



I didn't really feel like making anything or answering any e-mails or talking much. Also, a very slow past 10 days on Etsy really didn't make me feel like listing or making anything new.

I did however started and finished our new website and also worked on a new project that involves a massive amount of photos from our trip to PA a couple of weeks back. I sort of feel like packing a bag and going of a long trip, I think mostly because I don't want to be hear and deal with how I'm feeling.

New Site

A couple of weeks ago, Ned and I went to a Portfolio Review at PowerHouse publisher, one of the people we talked to was really impressed by the fact that we were a couple working and living together.

She talked about other photographers who work as a team and how she, as an art buyer, prefer working without couples because she know they can communicate and compromise and are easier to work with then a single photographer who's just focus on taking a shot and don't know how to listen ot a client or their crew.

We realized that we have been working together for a while and that this is, in fact, one of our biggest advantages in taking picture. So in the past couple of days we worked on setting up a new site for us as a photographer's team.

www.nedandaya.com

State Collage PA

We drove to state collage today, returning merchandise Ned's mom took for a trunk show in New York. Ned's father is on a 3rd day of chemo and they couldn't take it back themselves as they usually do.

Ned hates coming here, he's got a lot of bad memories about this place and feel bad about not calling his grandfather or uncle and meeting family while we are here. I love coming here, it's so different then our everyday life, I like staying at this strange motel and watching the view as we drive. A short 2 days trip always makes me feel like I was away from home for years and I come back with many cool ideas and new appreciation for my life in Brooklyn.

We got here at about 5:00. Dropped of the many bags of clothes and went to pack our bag in the hotel. The building was surrounded with policeman and firetrucks, there was a fire in the laundry room and they were putting it out, a couple of photographers were also on the scene taking pictures.

Me and Ned walked around for a bit, then had dinner and ice cream and walked around in some odd outlet store, which Ned remembered by a different name.
We came back to the hotel, Ned took a bath, I read him his e-mails and took pictures. Then he fell asleep.

I have my computer and my MP3 player, and a book and a sketchbook, basically almost everything I have at home to do and entertain myself, but still being in this strange room, without my stuff and without Ned makes me feel very lonely. And very much wanting a drink...

PowerHouse

We are taking Ned's portfolio to be reviewed by "powerhouse" publisher tomorrow.

We've been editing photos and making choices all week, now almost everything is done (we still need to make a couple of CDs)

We've talked a lot this week about what we want, about our accomplishments from the past year, about the future.

At first it felt like we are coming to this meeting very empty handed, being that Ned hasn't done a lot of commercial photography in the past few years, then thinking about the amount of views we had on our websites, the involvement in different web based project and other things, we started to feel better about the whole thing.

It was nice to understand that basically, we were doing everything right, building a reputation, reaching out to the public, and sharpening our skills, now all we need to do is find a way to connect with some art buyers and learn to make money.

Also, this made me realize something really important about my own art. I really couldn't care less of what happened to it after I'm done making them.

I want to sell art so I can go on making art and not have to work in an office or something, I also love selling art cause it makes me feel appreciated and loved. However, I don't care at all if I sell it to a magazine to use as illustrations, or find an art gallery that show and sell it to collectors, or publish it in a book that's sold in a bookstore or whatever.
Really, if I could find some eccentric patron who would buy all my paintings cause he want to use them as toilet paper I couldn't be happier.

Severine

Ned and I haven't shot in about a month and a half, Ned was sick, we were tired, then sad with his dad's cancer news and other things, it's winter, it's cold, we were busy with other things.

We've seen Severine's Model mayhem page a while ago, and both liked her style and photo personality, Ned wrote her an e-mail and said we'd love to shoot with her if she ever comes to NY. Then, a couple of weeks ago, she wrote back to say she's going to be in New York for a week and would love to shoot with us.

Ned and I were pretty nervous about this, we both felt unpracticed in taking pictures and also, unprepered, we decided ot not have hair, make up or wardrobe for this one and to just shoot intuativly, without any type of concept or idea.

So the day started sort of slow, as Ned was adjusting the lights and figuring out while shooting what are better angles, I was very tired and feeling sort of sick and upset all day, which meant I couldn't really take any charge as far as outfits goes, Ned had to deal with everyting on his own and I felt like a usless lump.

Severine on her side, was really nice but also very closed, she felt very guarded and dignified, I liked her strangth but it felt somewhat hard to communicate, She was pretty shocked when Ned asked her to shoot without any make up on, and then also made her wet her hair and let it frizz as it naturally wants to and not just be straight like she's used to wear it all the time, I had to go out and get a blowdryer so she can strighten it before the shoot.
We talked about how we all see ourselves in different ways and always want to look like different people then ourselves. Both me and Ned agreed that her hair looks beautiful when it's curly, it actually looks like a lion's mane, but she wasn't intierly convinced.

When she was drying her hair in the bathroom, I fall asleep, I only slept for about 10 minutes, but when she came out I felt a lot more refreshed and much more awake. I looked into my camera and were shocked to discover I took 174 pictures! I felt like I was doing nothing all day...
Andthen when I downloaded them I was even more amazed at how the pictures came out. I really love what I shot. I think it's my favorite photos that I took of a girl that isn't me.

We are shooting again tomorrow and I'm going ot try and use Ned's lens and not my own, I'm ciourious to see how those would come out.

Shoot - Sierra

The first shoot we had in a while with an independent model who doesn't belong to an agency.

The experience of shooting a models is always surprising and fun for me. I always somehow expect them to "act like a model" which is my mind, I guess based on TV and movies, is somewhere between stupid and nasty - I'm not sure how I got so prejudgist, maybe it's jealousy or mistrust in beautiful people. Non of the models I've met were either stupid or nasty so far.

This girl was so awesome, she was funny and creative and just really fun to be around. She brought such great energy to the shoot.

Shoot Today

I'm still sick, it's not as bad, but still, not 100% OK, I'm coughing and I get tired really fast, it sucks! I just need to rest every now and then and I can't work or do as much as I want to and usually able to.

I especially felt it yesterday and today while we were shooting. Usually, I'm really energetic and positive and taking care of a lot of different things, but today it was really hard to both make the model feel comfortable, shoot some snapshots and look at the monitor to make sure Ned's photos are in focus and that everything looks great.

I mainly focused on the model, but I'm still pretty happy with some of the photos I took.

New Store

After I made the books from the set paper Ned used for a shoot a couple of days ago, using Ned's photograph to decorate the covers, we thought it would be really cool if Ned had an Etsy store to connect to his Erotic site, and sell photography prints and other erotic related art in.

So today we set it up together.

It was not easy, we were both stressed and were having a pretty shitty day as it was, but we went for it. Ned manage to get a cut on his hand from the frame glass he was cleaning to take a photo of one of his prints in the frame, and then break it. We were feeling more shitty then before. Eventually he shot it with the frame without the glass and it came out really nice.

The cool thing is that while we were trying to not get cut by glass and freaking out, the new store first sell happened! it was so exciting. One of the notebooks we listed less then half an hour before got bought! it was awesome.

I felt like we were doing the right thing after all!

Check out Ned's new store!

Day 2

Morning at the Sheraton Columbia Hotel. It’s clouded and foggy outside, there’s a beautiful view of a lake and a forest. We are in some strange hi tech and business area with really nothing but office buildings andhuge chain outlet stores, by the looks of it.

Still all foggy by the absence of coffee and not enoughsleep. I really wanted to write about Yesterday, but it was already 2:00 AM andI went to sleep. Sitting in the bath while Ned was on the computer. I was doingthis math: Writing down everything that happened today will take about 3 hour,if I also want to download some photos and post them in the website, that’sprobably about another hour, I also want to draw a bit, let say, another halfan hour. And I still won’t be getting everything I want on paper \ file.However, if I wait till morning, not only I probably won’t have the time, butalso, I forget a lot, not so much the other stories of places and people butthat abstract feeling of how a moment is, and how I am in it.

I’m frustrated with the mapping program as well, because i can’t just register everything I want it to. I don’t know why documenting thisjourney is so important, but it feels right now that on every moment I spend onthe road I would have to spend a moment writing about it, is it more importantto document then to experience? Probably not, but then again, the documentation makes the memories, and somehow, making memories feels important now.

What does one do in a day of no crafting?

I didn't make anything today, usually I don't make stuff in a day before a shoot. Ned's shooting a beautiful model tomorrow and we are trying to get over the mass in the studio and turn it from an artist studio, a very messy place indeed, to a photography studio, which is basically a lot of free space. So what did I do today?


Well, Ned when into the city for a meeting and I came as well, we agreed to meet back at coffee shop in an hour and a half. I'm almost out of cool fabrics for the lining of the tarot decks, so I walked to PurlSoHo to get some new ones. The store was really crowded and it's tiny, but found some good stuff. It was cool to listen to all the conversation and how people are dealing with crafting problems and what they are making.



It was very cold and i was getting tired walking out, so I stopped in some tea shop and had some tea. I didn't have my MP3 players and for the first time in a while I got to sit on my own and listen to people's conversation that were very strange, There was 2 women in some meeting on one side, one of them were a voice coach or an English teacher and this was their first class, she made the other girl read out a poem lout loud in the middle of the cafe and they went over the difficult words.

On the other side, a girl was telling her friend about her trip to Pushkar, India. one of them watched a TV show about Pushkar and they were comparing notes and talking about guys.

While I was having tea and listening to conversations, I was finishing a painting I was working on for a while.



We went back home and Ned fell asleep while I was trying to clear the mess in the apartment so that we can shoot tomorrow. After a while I stopped, we didn't do the image research we usually do before shoots and I didn't know if Ned's going to wake up in time to do it, so I made one myself, after an hour of finding and downloading pictures, I went back to trying to clear the mess.

Ned woke up and we went out for a late late dinner in Kellogg's coming out, we saw the most beautiful snow falling. It looked like tiny shards of glass or the small tinsels in a snow glob, all tiny and shiny. It was very cold and the snow was staying on the ground, all dry and stiff, like powdered sugar.



In Kellogg's it was warm and crowded, and we had some sandwiches and talked over the photos I downloaded before, thinking about different ideas for tomorrow.

Productive Night

Ned's back was hurting and he was feeling sick yesterday, he spend the day in bed in a colossal sleep of 27 hours (well with a few breaks for food). It was weird to spend a whole day with barely a conversation with a living soul...

So, I listened to Israeli podcast, that I like, a show called "making history" by Ran Levi, which is about the history of scientific discoveries and invention, and i made Tarot for the store. the 3 decks I made before was gone, so it was time to make some new ones. The fabrics that I bought on Friday were great for color inspiration and I enjoyed the podcasts and painting, cutting and sewing.

Ned took pictures of them today, so now there's a new Cups Deck and a new Major Deck in the store.

Tonight, I was working on a gift for my sister, however, it came out so nice, I just had to keep it for the shop, I'll make her something else tomorrow...