Oh there you are.

Are you too young to have arthritis in your hands? Ever since I shot a wedding about 10 days ago my hands have been achy and throbbing. Sigh. I need to take better care of myself. I say this as my stomach is grumbling sickly from the 11pm Sheetz run I made after the series opener of "The Walking Dead". No spoilers but it made last season's finale worth the wait. I am a superficial reader of the comic as well so I do appreciate what the writers will (hopefully) do as they have set the appropriate atmosphere for Rick and Negan. This isn't a Walking Dead blog. I apologize.

I need to take better care of my craft. I almost called it art for a second. It's what you want it to be. I feel more appropriate calling it my craft because to me photography is very formulaic. Well, the type of photography I consume myself with is at least. I've spent so much time, or in my eyes, not enough time, trying to lay some roots, get some clients interested, work smarter not harder, I've had little time to create things I love. There is a part of me that really misses the people I used to shoot with so much. I have still yet to find people ready to shoot, see our visions as one and just make a picture for the sake of trying something new. Not to say I haven't met and worked with wonderful people, it's just that the groove isn't there yet. I've decided to take some days out to just focus on creative work, edit my images, cultivate my brand as a photographer. I need my work out there. Instagram and Facebook just don't cut it and have never really brought me anything. Not that I want anything from them. I just want to share my work in a broader spectrum. I'm determined to figure out how to do that.

I've also neglected this site so much and I pay a pretty penny to keep it running along with my business site, www.michaeljacobsphoto.com. It doesn't make any sense because this site is far too amazing to neglect. As I type this I am so thankful for how blogs are set up. Everything is so seamless. If Squarespace had the e commerce of Smugmug, I'd never look back. Maybe it does and I just haven't discovered it yet. 

I'm adding two series to my website, starting off with the never ending "Madre y Tata". As I've moved farther from my parents I've noticed how much they have impacted my life. It has always just been the three of us but this distance has affected me in ways I'm not sure I can quantify yet. I see it on their side as well as I still receive care packages from them as if I was still in college. I'm not complaining. I don't think I've had to buy toilet paper once since I moved here. Your relationship with your parents is a complex one and I don't ever want to tell anyone that they should nurture that relationship, especially if they don't want to. But, if there is more good than bad it's worth trying. This my sound pretty naive for a 33 year old but it becomes clearer the older I get. Your parents are people with fallible qualities, wants, needs and desires. They still make mistakes but they also probably still know more than you. The more I think about my parents, the more I want to give them so much more than they have given me. I would never be where I am, who I am, if they did not support and believe in their son and his very silly and sometimes wrong choices. Believing in someone even though you might think they are wrong, that's love. 

I hope you enjoy the quirks of who my parents are. Maybe you will see some in yours. Thank you Maria and Ziggy. 

Click the Series Tab from the Menu to visit "Madre y Tata".