if you know me well- you know of my affection for sharp as a tack lyrics that poetically infuse music with heavy words rich with metaphors, deep-probing thought, and  real-life. in this life, i’ve listened to a lot of lyrics.  and i’ve learned from a lot of artists, but i have to say- no artist has taught me more than tupac. (second to him is Alanis)  and i’m not talking about california love.  me and my girlfriend is a song you’ve never heard unless you are a real tupac listener… and if you aren’t and you hear it, you might get confused, feel like you should cover your ears and never come back to this blog.  i get kind of giggly thinking about some of you heading to youtube to listen and then having to turn down the speakers on your computer real fast.  i mean, real fast. it’s really all beside the point- i could do a whole post on rap music- poetry, singer song writers, rhythm, powerful vocabularies, choice words… the lost arts, weak words, and lazy communicators.  the point is- when i hear this song- i can’t help but move- images flood my mind of what it must feel like to have the whole world against you.  i’ve always been fascinated with bonnie and clyde . and i’ve always wanted to shoot a couple with them in mind.

last week i taught a really great CRASHintoMYBIZ class with an up and coming houston photographer (***i’ll share when she’s ready) Hilaria and Ivan were our models, and i knew they would be the PERFECT BONNIE & CLYDE.  we happened upon a perfectly ambushed building (riddled with pseudo bullet holes- that came in the form of rocks) and the rest is history- we only shot 45 minutes tops & i walked away with a stash of new favorites!!  here are a few that i had to share here- you can head over to the Shauna Maness Photography facebook fan page to see the rest- & if you aren’t a fan… become one!!!  (that’s were the model postings go!) the WHOLE time i was shooting me and my girlfriend was playing in my head.  i know hilaria and ivan would have loved it… but i didn’t want to scare away my new friend – so, i came home and listened to it and edited.  looove them!!!

**** sick, right?

i know… they are too perfect.

i mean, really? so- check it- my sister (who happens to be MIGH-TY fly herself did the styling &&&& THE MAKEUP.) i cannot stress enough how important great makeup is girls!!  if you know that you are going to have a super-special shoot… then make an appointment and treat yourself!! you will be so glad you did!! and if you are scheduling a shoot with me, ask me to book a makeup artist for you- i will just add it into your session… easy, easy!!  i hope you love my version of bonnie and clyde.

and if you head to youtube and listen to tupac, don’t judge me really, think about the story he is telling- and why he chooses each word- they are all intentional. (as they should be) ** and for the record: i don’t really like guns at all, so personally, i wish tupac was talking about his new iphone, but alas, he isn’t.  shoot cameras, not guns. (oooh, that should be a TSHIRT!! – i’m on it)

have a blessed day.  don’t rob any banks.

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(that's me and my granny j... i'm sure she's imparting wisdom i would later pray for. i miss her everyday. she was such a wise and worldly lady... )

when i picked up my camera (canon AE-1 from my granny j) i took it all in.  the whole world, frame by frame.  i never worried about creating art, or selling anything to anyone.  i captured what i saw, the way I saw it.  i was excited for any chance to take in something new.  i would spend hours and hours exploring and more money than i could ever count on developing and learning the hard way that sun flare doesn’t always do what you want it to, you have to MAKE it.  i remember the first time i really understood that my aperture controlled depth of field.  it was like i had discovered GOLD!  i made my sister and friend pose in front of the shower curtain in our bathroom and stopped all the way down to 1.4 making one blurry and the other in focus.  i was in heaven.  i hadn’t even hit puberty yet.

my pursuit of photography continued and i’m sure my friends and classmates grew TIRED of having me snap away.  i would head to walmart everyday after school and wait for my order to come in.  (thank goodness you didn’t have to pay for what you didn’t want… because i screwed up A LOT) i would joyfully share the prints with the newspaper, yearbook, friends, family, my scrapbook, and anything else that could be decorated with the stories of my life.  i was addicted.  photography was an outlet that i never dreamed would carry me through life.  i don’t think i was capable of dreams that big.

years went by and i continued to work hard at nailing exposure and understanding how my camera worked.  funny enough, i didn’t actually know the “real” terms for aperture and shutter speed until YEARS later and was MORE than embarrassed a few times when discussing my work with “real photographers” who would grill me on how i was getting my results.  i just knew how to work my little AE-1.  my camera was older than me, and much wiser than me on many counts.   without words  it taught me more about myself and others than i would ever understand.  sometimes i think about my granny j traveling the world with that camera around her neck… i wonder what it taught her.  i wish i could hear those stories.

when i realized that photography was going to be the thing i pursued in this life, i declared (at my university) that i would study to receive my bachelor of fine arts in photography. wow. that’s a mouthful.  here is how it translates in life: you have to take every art class, tons of photography classes, most classes are 3 hours A DAY long,  you normally have 2 and then you spend time developing and printing, which is normally a solid 8 hours. i had two jobs, i would combine work into two days, and then shoot, process, and print the other 5.  i was a workhorse.  i loved every second of it.  i can still see my classmates prints on the drying wrack.  we would tear them apart.  we all wanted to be great.  my favorite professor would always say that out of the 40 or so in each class, there would be 2 of us left.  shout out to Clark Lara. (i think it might just be you and me homie.)  we were artists in training.  my business just happened, because i had to make money while i spent half my day in the darkroom.  the first 3  years of my business i shot with my hasselblad on TMAX film.  color projects were only for record labels- that was the only time i shot in color.  i was learning to see the world in black and white.  the zone system was how i looked at everything.   i didn’t shoot weddings then either, they freaked me out.

i continued to document my life.  trips i took, places i went, friends i had… i shot it all.  i was always giddy to head to the black room to load my film.  it was like a gift each time i would pull it out of the developer. i was a sponge.  i took in everything around me.  my classmates were some of my greatest inspiration.  i wouldn’t trade studying art for anything.  i really began to explore what i was made of.  i had searched for satisfaction for years.  i was finally onto something.

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it started with film.

this whole thing.

i don’t really remember when i decided that i would trade one side of my brain for the other, but it happened. a switch was devised.  a switch that determines true creative freedom.  my personal work, switch on, professional work, switch off. i  flip the switch on professionally on occasion, but i have to be purposeful about it.

i was talking to a really talented friend of mine a couple of weeks ago- he is the kind of friend that as soon as we see each other, despite other party guests or friends, we end up lost in conversation about our favorite artists, new projects, potential projects, and why we do what we do…. and how badly we want to be beyond excellent.

in our conversation he led me to a lifestyle photographer (who’s name i can’t remember, but i will find it out and share it) basically, this fellow is dropped off in cultures who would seem less than ordinary to most.  he documents their lives, enters into their world in a way that is honest and captures incredible photographs.  you couldn’t write the moments, they have to be photographed to really feel them. my buddy and i were laughing about all of my street knowledge, and all the while, underneath the laughter, i could feel something stirring.

i headed over to hulu and watched a couple of documentaries on the Medici family.  (thanks for the heads up Russell!) images of Italy were flooding my mind.  Brandon and i took a roadtrip through Italy when he returned from Iraq.  It was incredible.  Looking back it was such a crazy time in our hearts and lives, and it’s so poetically perfect that would be trek through the land of battles and art.  i was so stirred by the imagery that i went to my darkroom closet and pulled out my case (as in HUGE RUBBERMAID TUB) of negative books.  i looked through each page and the stirring grew stronger and stronger.  i have 40 rolls of unprocessed TMAX and i can’t wait to see what each roll holds.  30 are of venezia and tuscany.  i miss film.  it will be  years until i can actually handle the chemicals again (turns out i printed a little too much in my formative years) so, i’ve found a lab and i’m sending off a test roll.  i’m going to start sharing my film work- for a thousand reasons i separate my personal work from my professional work (flippin’ switch!! )… but grand central, here they both come!  I’m getting out the film folks.  who knows what this stirring means.

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THIS BLOG IS GOING TO BE GRAND CENTRAL!!

it will be the melting pot of photography, creative projects, and personal growth… i’m glad to have a new cyber home- i feel really cozy already.

i’ll share my thoughts &  process with you on the whole “blog switch” and tell you what i’ve learned blogging, so far…

1. CHOOSE A PLATFORM THAT IS EASY TO EDIT: i write, but rarely read what i write- i really rely on my sweet assistant jessica to tell me things like “you spell AWE, A W E… NOOOT aww.” thanks jessica OR my mama to publicly correct my misuse of there in place of their. i used to read what i wrote more, but when i switched to squarespace i had to be really careful backtracking and correcting, or it would tank my whole post- this happened MANY times, so i gave up and waited for jessica to sit down and say “how is your morning going? by the way…” it works well.  we laugh.  i try to do better, but rarely do.  she will probably correct this post too.
2. CHOOSE A PLATFORM THAT CAN BE CUSTOMIZED: i have a lot of “irons in the fire” – there are A LOT of creative things going on around here- I was constantly trying to categorize them so that they would be in the right place on the BLOG… little did i know that there were A LOT of people who didn’t even know there were other sections of the BLOG besides the main post page. (talk about wasted worry!) when i posted the last poll & got really great feedback (THANKS) i realized, that everyone really liked all the creative things too… and that i didn’t have to worry about keeping them off of the “photography” page. (thank goodness) there are some people who stop by just for that – so why not put all of my day in one place? once i realized i could do that, that opened up some serious opportunity for change.  squarespace is great at allowing you to build your blog/website to meet your needs (i really liked those features) but my once complicated needs were just simplified…
3. PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS: two things, BIG THINGS i learned from squarespace (i’m really not knocking it- it just wasn’t a good fit for me) blogspot emailed me my comments- so i could always “chime in” to the conversation- i took that for granted and didn’t even think about comment tracking- i was constantly looking at my most recent comments, trying to find them and reply- it was not fun- and i didn’t have time to devote what needed to be devoted to make it functional. i’ve already responded to every comment- i can just hit reply here- it is SO EASY- last thing: exporting information- squarespace doesn’t export an .xml file- just a .txt file- so, you can get your post in the same format you posted them! i spent hours today trying to figure out how to not lose my blog!
4. DON’T COMPROMISE EXCELLENCE, YOU WILL ALWAYS DISLIKE THE RESULTS (even when no one else is the wiser) : my page header always, ALWAYS bugged me! i desire EXCELLENCE.  & fall short a lot.  A     LOOOOT.   but you know how it is when others are watching you? it’s not so fun! i would have to custom make my animated header and i never loved it… and i LOVE TO LOVE things… especially when it comes to the images that have grabbed my heart over the years.  so- i wanted a company that would give me that option, without making me build it (because i cheated through my flash class in college… and YES- i wrote that on my BLOG- kids, take it from me- cheaters NEVER WIN.  i cheated in photoshop too… and it has taken me YEARS to make up for it!! (shout  out to curtis for making me look like a pro… my professor told me i should study graphic design because my website was so great… little did he know i traded stock photography for my whole project!!!) bad choices, bad choices
5. DO YOUR RESEARCH WHEN SHOPPING: rewind back 2.5 years- shauna wants a custom blog- contacts two designers who give her a quote of $1500 for a little less than everything and $2500 for all the icing on the cake you could eat.  i had a feeling i could make my blog work for me for the moment- because i wasn’t quite sure what flavor icing i wanted, and i wanted to BE SURE before i bit off that chunk.
6. BE PATIENT- KNOW WHAT YOU WANT: i’ve been checking out other blogs that i dig, and they all had a few things in common: simplistic design, single column, flash header. i knew the company they were using, i looked into it last year when i chose squarespace (you had to know a little code, and LIKE I SAID… sister didn’t do her work) but this week, when i went back over to their site, i was pleased to see the brand spanking new upgrade!  LOOOVE IT.   PROphoto 3 has got it down!  they have it all- they make it EASY and it is affordable!!  seriously, you can have a fully customized blog for $199. that’s nuts. you don’t pay anything, ever again (you just have to have a web domain and hosting) and I KNOW ME. they had the $199 version (that comes with the blog in your email i guess and you have to install it… or the $269 version… where they do it all for you and let you know it’s ready. ummm… i went with that one.  (and i googled prophoto 3 coupon and got $10 off!) i didn’t give it a second thought (i have enough to do without having to figure out web-hosting, right?) and 2 days later… viola!

PROphoto 3, i love you. thanks for allowing this BLOG to be GRAND CENTRAL… thanks for having cool widgets that i can add to my blog that make me look like i really know how to design or that i paid someone a lot of money.    your secret is safe with me… well, it was- but i let the cat out of the bag- my bad.

so, if you are looking for a super easy, really customizable, affordable, clean, professional blog… check out PROphoto... and tell them i sent you!

just a side note: if you are a squarespace user-  it is extremely difficult to export all of your blog to another blog site- i blogged for a year, had to copy my code (for a year) and split it into 2 posts on blogspot to make sure that i didn’t loose it all- they say they can erase my blog anytime (rude)- it may be up forever, but you never know- so, you might want to subscribe to your RSS feed through email so that you can have a copy of your posts in case you want to do something special with them.

and here is a little NYC… BECAUSE THIS IS NOW GRAND CENTRAL.

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i have lots and lots of projects that i’ve never shared here… feb is going to be pretty easy going- so i’m going to bring my back burners to the front- this is always hard for me.

in my heart, there is a HUGE difference in my personal work and my professional work- i know, i know- some would say- “it’s all your work, the body as a whole”… but i’m really wrestling with that. you can find more thought here.

i don’t know why in my heart and mind i disconnect it.

i don’t even go into the same parts of my brain as i’m shooting the different things- i’ve tried really hard the last two sessions to do that- and i have to say, i’ve enjoyed them more than i have in a long time.

all that to say, cool stuff coming- out of the norm for what you would see here- but if you’ve been to my house, or we’ve really talked about art- then you will understand perfectly.

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