And Now it's On

This was our first week of shooting and I am exhausted. As to be expected whenever I start a film gig, all of my skincare, nutrition, fitness, style, and moist-yur-eh-zae-tion regimens go out the window due to exhaustion. We have about 4 more weeks left of shooting, and I always enjoy myslef. I jsut hate that the habits I create for myself just go out the window. Oh well I am hoping that I can get it back together Monday when I have my standing chemical peel appointment to keep the chocolate in check( my skin I mean), and dare I make it to the gym? I guess we will just have to see.
ArtSyle posted a interview with me on there blog.

Check it out here

Random Chick at Caribou

So I come to Caribou Coffee to get some work done. It was quite in here until about a half hour ago. A woman asks me if she can share my table with me. "OF COURSE" I said to her. I was really only using half the table anyway and thee was nowhere to really sit. We exchange small weather talk and I go back to my photoshop and emails.
She asks me "Can you believe all this weather?"
"I know I tell her, it is freezing outside."
Now it is very clear to see that I am busy, so that should have been the end of our conversation
"what did you order" she asks me?
"A hazelnut steamer" I go quickly back to her work.
NOW HERE SHE GO?

"Do you think this weather has to do with Global Warming?"
I DONT MEAN TO BE MEAN YALL BUT I AM WORKING I CAME TO CARIBOU FOR FREE INTERNET AND A WARM BEV. NOT COFFEE TALK .....DAMN!
"hmmmm, its hard to say." I quickly say while typing so that she can get the hint, that I jsut dont have time for this. "

OH YEAH- LITTLE UNKNOWN FACT THIS CHICK TOLD ME, BECAUSE SHE DID CONTINUE TO ASK ME RANDOM QUESTIONS, TRYING TO KICK OFF A DIALOG

Walt Disney died of Cancer and had his body frozen. WOW! I didn't know that. I asked her if he did that, are they suppose to try to bring him back if a cancer is found.

SHE SAYS: OH WHAT THE HEY!!! THE OLD BAG HAD TO MANY ERRORS, LEAVE HIM AS HE IS.
Then she starts cracking up
OOOOOOKKAAAAAYYYYY
LADY. whatever

now she wants to know what what i am doing. You know what, I appreciate the small talk and I love talking to strangers, but now is not the moment. JESUS SAVE US.

New Work added to my site





New work. Designer Paul Wesolowski

The Passage: I'm speaking on a panel

February 19th, Tuesday, Northwestern University's School of Journalism will host CAAAP's "PASSAGE: Chicago Streets to African Roads" lecture and the exhibition of "The Passage," at the McCormick Tribune Center on the Evanston Campus.
I, along with CAAAP Photographers Louis Byrd, David Trotman-Wilkins, Worson Robinson and James Holley.
For more information about the Chicago Alliance of African American Photographer, check out the website here








New Header!!

I have a new header that I am happy about and I have my hommie Peter to thank for it.

Thanks Peter!!
Check out Peter's work at www.darkheartstudios.com
Diamonds and Chucks= Stephanie Graham

My Interview with the Chicago Artist Coalition

The Chicago Artist Coalition interviewed me for there Chicago Artist To Watch program. I was interviewed by Miguel Jimenez, the assistant to the publications Manager for Chicago
Artists’ News. Here is the interview:

First, a little bit about your

background: Where were you
raised, and where did you do your
undergraduate work?

I was raised in Schaumburg
and went to Columbia College in
Chicago. I graduated in 2005.

Your photographs are taken

in both urban and suburban settings.
Is that a reflection on the
duality of living in the suburbs and
studying in the city?

I was raised in the suburbs, and
even while going to Columbia I still
lived at home in Schaumburg. But
there was always something about
the city that intrigued me when I
first started to go there…there was
just a lot more diversity. During
high school, my friends and I would
take trips out to the city and go all
over Chicago – just hanging out and
exploring. It was an experience of
freedom from the whole suburban
life that was really routine. The city
had lots of layers to it. There were
lots of different things going on and
people from different walks of life.

In many of your photographs
taken in the city, there seems to be
a focus on the way women express
themselves with their bodies and
fashion what do you look to capture
in these photographs?

A lot of it is just off of my own
observations of people. I just try to
reset them and exaggerate them a
little. They are women who have attitudes
and exude a confidence all the
time that I’d never seen before. I am
showing this confidence and making
it grander than what it usually is.

Can you describe the process

behind these photographs?

Everything is always set up. I
have stylists, make-up artists, and
models. I talk to the models about a
character that I build up. I can see a
lady sitting at the bus stop with her
hands in her pockets, very voguish,
but she can be tired waiting for
the bus. I tell a model, “Picture the
girl waiting for the bus, it’s really
cold, and you have to get to work...”
Models and people can relate to this
because they’ve seen these characters.
They know the person that I’m
talking about and they know the
emotion.

It seems like fashion brings

something unique to these re-staged
real-life scenarios. Fashion and
photography really collide. Where
did this idea come from?

I like fashion photography and
I also like photo journalism. I take
both things and put them together.

You have a project that seems
to follow these ideas, entitled “The
Wal-Mart Project.” Can you tell us
about it?
A really good friend and I go to
Wal-Mart and take pictures every
year. We dress up alike and pretend
we’re a couple, and we take pictures
together. I just thought it would be
fun to bring a model into Wal-Mart
and take a picture. They have these
crazy backdrops with sailboats and
leaves and other stuff, and I thought
it’d be interesting. That’s something
that I’m working on now. It’s fun
to see the portrait photographer get
involved. I direct the model and after
we take the picture, we all look at
the picture. The model can look, the
photographer can look, and we have
to decide whether or not we want the
picture. It’s just a fun project. I’m
going to video tape the next one.

Is that what you’re currently
working on?

Yes, and I’m also working on
a documentary / mockumentary
about black kids who are raised
in predominantly white suburbs.
I’ll be able to do a portrait project
with that.

Finally, what keeps you going as an
artist, specifically when something
like the state arts budget
cut occurs?

I hope that someday I can get to the
point where I can be so successful
that I can meet with someone and
change his/her mind or be able to cut
a check, because art is really important.
If I hadn’t studied art I wouldn’t
be here. It’s all that I’ve wanted to
do. It’s important that other people
get that opportunity to express themselves
and know that careers are
available in art and that you can
make a living doing it. I can’t believe
that they cut the budget. I just really
hope that I can get to the point where
I can make a difference.

For more information about the Chicago Artist Coalition click here

Today was payday at the gig. On my way home I stopped by Barnes & Noble to look for a book I've been wanting to get for a bit. Turns out the book was out of print so I head straight to the magazine section. Grabbed a mag, then another , then another.
My total : $86.26
I cant help it, I am a magazine freak.
Impulse buys are a muthafreaka

Retirement Saving

You know when I was in the fourth grade I my teacher would pass out these weekly readers. I remember an article in there suggesting that children start having retirement funds. The savings account my parents started for me became my savings account and I did pretty well with it until I decided to become an artist and go to college and other different things in my life.
That was awhile ago, I just wanted to show how I was at some point in my life finacnially savvy.

Sitting in the waiting room of the dentist office today I picked up this financial magazine. There was an article that talked about retiring rich. At the age of 25 this is what I need to do
  • Save $268.00 each month
  • Invest 100% of my money into stocks
  • BE SURE THAT I AM CONTRIBUTING TO MY 401(k)
  • Make an easily accessible account with interest of 4% or more
  • Pay down credit cards and other high interest debt
As much as I would love to follow these guidelines they are just not realistic for a film/photography hustler such as myself. It really put into perspective for me that I need to start to think about this now that I am 25. I have thought about it before but now I really need too.

Hmmmmmm. Just a thought. As a freelancer, I don’t have a 401(k) I am researching individual 401(k) so I will let yall know what I find.


I did a Google search and found the magazine. It was Kiplingers.
Check it out here:
How to save a million

Weather is NOT COOL right now


It sucks that I am at work and I live about 35 minutes from my office. The snow is coming down and I just want to go home. It's a big one too, almost a foot of snow is expected.
These are pics that I just took outside of my window, this is just the beginning. It really REALLY sucks.

New Movie gig

Today is a pretty busy day. Its more like chaos around me, but I as usually am just m peaceful self in the middle of it all. AdBase called me today, curious about my renewal plan. AdBase is great, but working in movies and me being my only employee its hard for me to stay on top of my marketing. I hardly have used them, and I think I really have to just focus on my book right now. I want to get my photography biz up and going. I have wasted enough money in 2007 and I am trying not to go there this year, I’m on a new movie called “Baby On Board”
Here is the synopsis:
in the tradition of “Knocked Up” and “40 year old Virgin” comes a hilarious comedy Baby On Board about Angela (Heather Graham), an ambitious, beautiful, image conscious, career-oriented woman, and her loving husband, Curtis (Jerry O’Connell), and their unexpected pregnancy during the peak of Angela’s professional path and her over demanding boss Mary (Lara Flynn Boyle). From the hormonal and emotional mood swings to the comical physical changes taking over her once perfect body, this film chronicles the hilarious cause and effects of pregnancy on modern day businesswoman, especially when their best friends Danny (John Corbett) and his wife Sylvia get involved. Baby on Board begins with an unwelcome, “inconvenient” pregnancy and its nine-month rollercoaster ride. This hilarious battle of the sexes turns this film into one of the funniest romantic comedies of the yea As usual my title is Art Department Coordinator, and on this particular film it seems like I am doing product placement also. It’s the perfect job for me; its one of those jobs that you work while you are trying to get your own personal work off the ground.
I
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