photography Archive - Em the Gem

Archive for the ‘photography’ Category

matchstick coffee roasters : vancouver
May 2

It’s the kind of place you’d consider moving to Vancouver for.

It just feels like home. Albeit a slightly better dressed version of home.

The space is bright and well kept. A long wood table on one end full of chairs, every corner of the shop spotted with customers on laptops and small families with scones and curious and friendly gentlemen asking what kind of camera is that you are using?

The kind of place you don’t feel lame for getting a macchiato + a scone after you’ve already sat and drank your americano as slow as you can. It’s the type of space made for lingering.

I loved visiting Matchstick while I was in town to see my sweet friend Jamie Delaine. For 5 days all we really did was drink coffee and talk. Matchstick was the perfect backdrop to our conversations about life, photography, community + faith.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while you had heard me go on and on about my love for a well-crafted espresso. But it wasn’t just that the space was lovely - every little thing about this place tells me that the people who own it and work it are doing it for no other reason than this is what they were meant to do. It shows.

If you are in Vancouver, you ought to stop by. Say Hi for me.

More photos of Vancouver yet to come.

All of these photos were taken with my Canon eos-1. Kodak Tri-x 400. Processed by Richard Photo Lab.

xoxo,
Em

Posted in film, personal, photography, travel | 3 Comments »

paris
April 27

I am a perfectionist. And it is not a good thing.

I have the tendency to look back and dwell on what I should have done. On the one hand it helps me grow. I am always thinking strategically about what I want to change for next time. On the other, it robs me of gratefulness for the process. Perfectionism keeps me enjoying what I have been given.

Which brings me to Paris. Glorious Paris.

You’d think I just danced around Paris light as a feather free as a bird by looking at these images.

Wrong. I was frustrated that it was cold and rainy the whole time, because I only brought one pair of long pants and one jacket. Neither being very fashionable. I was tired from walking all over the city all day and night because no one in my party wanted to take long Parisian lunches and take a break. I hadn’t really planned out what I wanted ahead of time, so I found myself in every church and museum Paris had, wishing I was just sipping coffee at a cafe or shopping. Just writing all of that out is rough. I want to go back and erase it. Make it sound less like I am a petulant child. But that’s exactly how I was acting.

Which led me to day 2 in Paris. Aaron and I had split from our dear friends after climbing the Arch de’Triomphe and I was a cranky hot-mess. I sat down on a bench and cried, feeling tired and sorry for myself.

Bless my husband for dealing with this kind of behavior. Really. It was one of those moments where you can SEE yourself acting badly but you feel absolutely powerless to snap out of it.

After figuring out what in the world was going on inside my head, he helped me make a plan. Go back to our place and take a nap. REST. Get some macarons on the way back to that nap (RIGHT? He’s a saint.) Then map out the shops I want to go to tomorrow and stop feeling sorry for myself.

It’s funny but this is the kind of thing I love about traveling. Not that it makes me act like a lunatic, but that it really forces me to figure out what prevents me from doing what I love. I love our friends so much and being there with them, I wanted to just do the things they were excited about. But I was doing everything at the expense of my own needs, I wasn’t even listening to my body or stopping to slow down when I knew I needed to.

It would have been easy to just post all of these images and say “Yay for Paris! We were living the dream!”

I mean, we did. It was marvelous to see so much. But even with these images it took me so long to edit and post them because I even wish I had taken different pictures… More of the normal city things while we walked around… or shot everything on film… or …

Even now I know I am being crazy. But I think it’s good to put that out there so you aren’t just sitting here thinking that pretty pictures equals pretty easy life.

That’s just not reality. Life is messy. I am a mess. But that doesn’t mean life isn’t good.

And just because something isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean it’s all bad. In fact, sometimes it’s the imperfections that make the good stuff even sweeter.

I would also like to take this opportunity to put this out into the universe, if you are getting married in Paris next spring, let me know. Or if you need photos for a magazine editorial. Or if you even just want some family photos…

I will shoot it for free. Just fly us back, and it’s on me. Shoot me an email emily@gem-photo.com

xoxo,

Posted in photography, travel | 8 Comments »

the scenic route
March 31

We live about 25 miles outside the city. Without traffic, it’s a really quick trip.

I grew up in Southern California, about 5 minutes from Redondo Beach, so San Francisco still holds a special draw for me. It’s a world away from that laid-back beach town.

I feel inspired every time I walk the city streets, it’s like a foreign country to me.

Sometimes I wish we lived in the city. Especially on the weeks where I’m up there 2 or 3 times… photographing engagement sessions, meeting with clients, having dinner with friends…

Other times, I enjoy having an excuse to take the scenic route.

As nice as it would be to be a local, being a tourist gives me a different set of eyes. And I like what I see.

xoxo,

Posted in film, personal, photography | 2 Comments »

the things I learned from Sally Mann
March 29

Last week I had the opportunity to listen to Sally Mann give a lecture in the city. I walked away amazed at the stories and the images from her life that she shared with us.

What struck me was how her work, her art, and her life, are as tangled as the roots of a tree below the surface. They grew out, intertwined as one, and you cannot separate them from each other now.

As I have been wrestling with what it means to be an artist , she taught me that it doesn’t have to be complicated or abstract. It is as simple as documenting the daily things and the people we love that make up a life.

Sally Mann’s body of work grew out of where she came from. The farm where she grew up and eventually raised her children was the place that she created all of her most famous images.

She had to be intentional about capturing these images of their daily lives together, but she didn’t have a grand concept. She let her love instruct her art.

I want to create from that place. To capture what I love simply because I love it, and not get caught up in what I am trying to say. My voice will emerge, and I have to trust that.

I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to do amazing things, maybe instead I can do things with amazing love and let it be what it will be. The rest will come from there.

Here are a few more images from last summer at my grandparent’s summer cottage in Canada.

Taken with love. From a place and a family that has helped shape me into who I am becoming each day.

xoxo,

Posted in personal, photography | 4 Comments »

carissa : las vegas headshots
March 13

Carissa is the best kind of beautiful.

The kind that doesn’t totally realize just exactly how gorgeous she is.

The kind that tells you a crazy story about how her mouth does a weird thing when she smiles with her mouth closed – which is absolutely not true.

It’s the kind of beautiful that makes you jealous because it’s beautiful without being all full-of-itself-look-at-me-beautiful.

I have a feeling it’s the kind of beautiful that her husband sees when she wakes up in the morning and tells him she’s a hot mess and he just smiles because he knows it’s not true.

I like that kind of beautiful.

Carissa is a photographer too.

We met at a workshop last year and when she asked if I would do a few headshots for her while we were both in Las Vegas last month for WPPI , I was excited to reconnect and excited to photograph her.

I love photographing friends because I feel like it helps me show them how beautiful I truly think they are.

I love photographing photographers because they need great pictures of themselves just as much or maybe more than anyone… because really, doesn’t this picture make you want to hire her?