rebeccajrosen » Natural Light Senior and Glamour Photography

This is year I have so many amazing young ladies representing Rebecca J Rosen Photography and every minute I get a change to hang out with them a little is very special to me. Maybe it’s having son and being surrounded with boys all the time or just that I love learning about what is happening in their life and seeing the wide open future that is in front of them. My high school days where very far from anything I would ever want to relive, but if I was to slip into some time warp and have another chance, I can tell you that each of these girls have instilled a desire in me to reach harder for every dream I ever had.

Their confidence and dedication to sports and their educations is mind blowing to me. I know we live in a chaotic time, but these young girls have a fire and determination to change lives and change the world as we know it. There is no limit to what they will achieve. Even though I am a south Georgia girl at heart, I am so lucky to live in a part of the country where race, religion, and life choices has little, if no baring on the friendships that are made and the bonds between families and friends. Just being a small part in this time in their lives is a privilege and each one of them leaves a positive impact that effects my outlook on life, in people and my son’s future.
No one knows more about Mellanie than her Mom, so I asked her to share with me a few things about her daughter that in this short time I’ve known her I might not have learned.
Written by Mellanie’s mom Kim…
 ”Mellanie is a great kid, she is true to her catholic faith, she’s a great student, an inspiring captain of the swim team, she enjoys the simple things in life. No bling bling, no makeup and no high heels. She a candyholic but she reluctantly admits it. She loves her music and the Stadium band received perfect scores at the Anaheim band competition this past May at Disneyland.  She loves family, but her brother still bugs her at times. She is an excellent driver and she’s the type of kid you never have to worry about. She is so responsible. She watches the cooking channel all the time but she doesn’t cook. But when she does it’s awesome. She loves teaching and coaching swim lessons. She read ferociously. She even reads the same series numerous times. I could go on and on…
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Our Journey To India…

all journeys have a beginning and unfortunately most have an end, so before I overload social media with many photos of our travels and you begin to lose interest, I must tell you about the beginning.

Everyone knows that without my sweet friend Reshma this trip would not have happened at this time. But there were five other people that had a large impact in making it happen and it just happens that they are all men. Interesting…

First there is Gopa, Reshma’s husband. Without him Reshma and I would still be planning and the trip would be over. Thank you for reigning us in and setting us on the right path and mostly for putting Aaron at ease. If it hadn’t been for you he would have never been ok with my dream of traveling to India and dragging our son along. Thank you Gopa!

Second there is my night in shinning armor Adarsh. He is the Manager of Sales and Marketing at Vythiri Village near Reshma’s parents home in Wayanad, Kerela, India where we stayed for the first four days. Go Kerela!!! Reshma called this our “softening point”. Adarsh endured countless emails and phone calls from Reshma and I and arranged many details of our first week in India. From helping us decide where to stay in Bangalore, which is where we flew into, to transportation to Wayanad, more specifically Kalpetta which is 8 hours or so south of Bangalore, to touring Mysore Palace along the way and basically taking complete care of a very nervous American women and her 12 year old son who had never traveled to India before.

I had know idea what Adarsh looked like or how old he was until he walked into our hotel in Bangalore and greeted us with a huge smile. Immediately I knew that we were safe and it was going to be a great start to an extraordinary journey. This amazing young man had taken the day off from work and ask his friend Prabeesh (man number three) to be our driver. And when I say driver, I do not mean driver in the sense that any American will understand unless you have traveled to India. Prabeesh was a god as far as I’m concerned. Bangalore (officially Bengaluru) the “Garden City” and “The Silicon Valley of India” is on the top 10 list of worst traffic conditions in the world… let’s just say Seattle, LA and Manhattan all rolled into one mixed with cows, goats, pedestrians, scooters, motorcycles, tuk tuks and anything else you might want to throw in. Complete mayhem and the most exciting thing I have ever experienced. I loved every minute of, even when I thought we would all die at any given moment.

So I’ll skip forward to the part where we parted ways with Prabeesh at Vythiri Village and said our goodbyes and many thanks…but to my surprise we would meet again.

To be continued…

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I can’t credit for these photos. The top two by Adarsh and the traffic photos pulled from Google.

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I am so pleased that Mikela will be representing Rebecca J Rosen Photography this coming year as a Senior Rep. She incompases every aspect of my idea of beauty, which I feel always begins within each of us. When I learned she entends to become a nurse it just seem the obvious choice. And even though she is just a junior at the moment she is extrememly focus on her future. She is currently a 3.84 GPA student taking AP classes as a Junior. She has lettered 2 years in a row as a Puyallup High School Cheerleader and will be returning her Senior (3rd) year.

Mikela is going to be a busy girl this summer. She will be attending the 2015 Multicare Nurse Camp in July. The process to be selected to Multicare’s nursing camp was very competative. A 110 students were selected from over 250 applicates with highly impressive backgrounds, academics and experiences. Mikela has also been chosen to represent the her school and the state of Washington at the Congress of Future Medical Leaders to be held in Boston in June. This honor will give Mikela a significant advantage over other high-achieving peers in reaching her academic and career goals. In July Mikela and the PHS Cheer team will be participating in the UCA cheer camp. And as if that isn’t enough to keep her busy, she will be working at Nordstrom for the summer.

It will be an honor to watch this beautiful young lady as she achieves her dreams and enjoys her Senior year.

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I came across this blog post by Mike Yost Photography and I wanted to share it with you. When I started my photography business a couple of years ago, one thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to be a shoot and burn photographer. Mike’s blog post is a great read and he reassures me that I’m on the right path with my philosophy. I love packaging and presenting my clients with their beautiful prints and products. When I do have the occasional client that purchases only their digital images, I’m always left feeling a little sad.

 

The Most Photographed Generation Will Have No Pictures in 10 Years!

Cameras.

They’re everywhere. In your phone, on your tablet, you have your point-n-shoot, and maybe even a DSLR. A few might even own a film camera. You can’t escape the selfies, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. People are deluged with photographs. And today, people are taking more pictures than ever before. It’s been estimated that in the past 5 years, more photos have been taken than all the prior years combined.

The sad part is that few of these photographs will survive beyond a year. To many people, a “picture” is only good for the moment. Moms and Dads want to snap every little movement of that new baby. Grandma wants to see everyone one of those too. When you want to show off the new puppy, you pull out the phone. And in a week, none of them have any real meaning and might even get “deleted” just to make room for more pictures that have little meaning as well inside of a couple of weeks.

So what will become of all the pictures that are being taken today? Here is the reason that 99% of the photographs being taken today are soon going to be totally gone – digital images are no longer important enough to most people to actually keep them in printed form!

Yes, I started in a film only world. We bought a roll of film and took our vacation photographs. We had them developed and printed. They were put in photo albums or photo boxes. We looked at them and cherished those memories with great care. They were a slice of our life and for many, if disaster struck, those photographs were the one thing we would try to find first. Wedding albums and photographs represented our LIFE and we salvaged all we could.

It is estimated and less that 1 out of 100,000 photographs taken today actually ends up being a printed photograph. The digital world means you can look at those on some computer screen and without one, you have nothing. You probably have countless pictures that are just randomly stored and has no organization or way to locate them. Perhaps you have made some effort, but even that can seem overwhelming a task when you decide to tackle the task.

Add to this, over the years, the technology has changed so fast, that many photographs taken 6-7 years ago are stored on a type of media that is no longer supported. I have boxes of floppy discs and not even a computer that works to view them. In 5 years or less, your DVD is going to be obsolete as will your USB drives. File types are going to change as well. And the technology of tomorrow may not support these “older” file types.

Many today have older cell phones with countless pictures on them. Maybe you “shared” some on Facebook or Instagram or uploaded to your photo storage website. But none of these are “permanent” solutions to viewing your photos and sadly, many of your memories you captured today, aren’t going to be around tomorrow. So where is that old cellphone today? In a drawer someplace, your not sure where, but you know it’s around here somewhere!

There are also countless memory cards filled with photographs. Each of those represent a small slice of you or something that was a part of your life. Some are older and you have fewer options to view them as technology simply outpaces their usefulness. Does anyone remember the 256mb SD cards when today, a 4 gb is considered tiny?

Perhaps you go to a Professional Photographer and all you want is someone to “take some pictures and give us the disc”.  After all, it IS a “digital world” and it shouldn’t cost you very much. You can “take them down to the 1 hr place” and get prints really cheap. No film. No prints from the lab needed to “see” them. So where are your discs today? Probably in that same drawer you haven’t found yet where that old cell phone is “lost” in. I doubt you have your DVD’s or old floppies on your wall! And when Mom asks if you have that adorable photo of your now 16 year old son or daughter- you know the one when they were 2- and you have to answer, I do, but I have to find it. “It’s on a disk…someplace…I think….maybe we still do…honey, where did we put that disk again?”.

In my home, you will find photographs. Real, honest to goodness prints. Nothing fancy in most cases and most are just plain snapshots of family at holidays, on vacation, or doing something silly or even important. These are the slices of our lives where we can open the old “self sticking” album and find out it no longer sticks. Where memories of our life unfolds before our eyes. We laugh. We cry. We tease each other. Our life is right there. It’s in that printed image that anyone can see. There is no wondering “if this file type is still supported” or does my “machine still have a DVD drive”. None of that is needed. Even the older, not quite as sharp as they used to be eyes can see them and feel the emotions of that instant in time as if it happened yesterday. These are the things we protect with everything we have should some disaster strike and the ones we start looking for first if it does. All of a sudden that $250 DeLonghi Coffee maker isn’t all that important. Nor is the fishing boat. Or the 72″ big screen TV with all the bells and whistles. It’s always the memories of our lives that become the thing we search for first.

So if you are part of this “digital revolution”, let me ask you- where are YOUR photographs? Stuck on some disc or stored out there is cyberspace someplace, hopefully, perhaps? Why didn’t you actually purchase that $500 canvas to display in your home that your Professional photographer worked so hard to produce for you? That was a “one of a kind” work of ART and an heirloom piece for your family to have and remember that little slice of their life. It is something that will be passed from generation to generation and the only visual way your heirs will see what you looked like and the love and emotions you expressed the instant that image was captured.

2025. You just found that DVD you had in that drawer you couldn’t remember which one it was. Along with 9 old cell phones that no longer will work with today’s new technology. Your 3 inch by 3 inch cube computer no longer has a DVD drive since in 2015 they were totally phased out. Your 3rd grandchild is sitting on your knee and asks to see pictures of their Mom- and all you have to show them is this piece of round plastic that is pretty much worthless. Not to mention dusty and scratched from all those old cellphones moving around every time you opened that drawer.  And since Instagram had been merged with another company, and they started charging, you let that go 8 years ago.

I guess that makes you one of the “most photographed generation that doesn’t have a photograph in 10 years”. I guess it wasn’t that important then. Digital was cheap. Cameras were everywhere. It just didn’t seem that important.

Lost memories are expensive.

 

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