the last two prized possessions for a while...

hilary and her favorite mate gourdemily and the 114 letters written to her by her by robert while he was on his mission

some things my mother gave me

hey look, it's me! i'm not dead or anything, just busy...
i've been wanting to do this mini series for a while featuring the pretty things my mom has given me over the years. as you can see, i finally found some time to do it this week.
i was originally thinking of photographing these on black, but ever since i bought this blue paper backdrop for the toaster shoot i've been wanting to photograph everything on blue.
it's just so pretty and soft.

anyways, the top image is a long strand of {fake} pearls from my moms costume jewelry collection. i used to play dress up with them and now i wear them to church...a nice transition.

in the middle is a gilded hand mirror that my mom bought from an antique shop {which hapenned to be owned by my middle-name-sake, marika} when she was in college.

the bottom is a tiffany charm bracelet my mom gave me for my sweet sixteen. she would give me a new charm everytime i accomplished something noteworthy.

that's all for now, tonight i'm off to peruse the beehive bazaar to find some handmade christmas gifts. it runs though tomorrow, so go check it out!

alternate ending

since jessie and trevor couldn't narrow their prized possessions down to just one thing, these are a few alternatives.

copycat ad

real version*

my version*

*i figured i probably should clarify which is which because mine looks so freaking awesome

some photos...

since i've been busy busy not taking any post worthy pictures (except an ad for a pur faucet that i copied for still life), i thought i'd put up a few work related photos you might enjoy.

1. remember that shoot last week i told you about? you know...ice rink, old guys on skates, freezing... yeah, these are some of the test shots.

2. here at byu publications and graphics, we occasionally get some odd requests. for example: we were given a copy of group portrait in which everyone is wearing baseball hats, and asked to replace them with christmas/new years hats. this led to an afternoon spent trying to imitate the light and position me correctly relative to the light wearing a series of party hats and santa hats and elf hats. this one is the best.

does anyone think i should make this my profile picture?
i kind of do.

*all photos by brad slade

hot chocolate

this week's still life

here are the prized possessions i photographed on tuesday.

jessie's boots are morgan freeman approved*
trevor's typewriter is just awesome
and the bible that cate's sister lucy is holding belonged to brigham young



*wondering about morgan freeman? as the story goes, jessie had just gotten the boots and was wearing them in portland when morgan freeman walked past and said imagine this in his voice:
"those are some real nice boots."

what a day

yesterday. what a day. i spent many more hours on shoots than i did sleeping.

want a recap? of course you do.

7am-meet up with brad (my boss) and braden (the other assistant) to photography the deans of the marriott business school for their annual christmas card. it was at an ice rink. it was freezing. they were on ice skates (mind you they're all 60+) and i spent the whole time praying none of them would fall and hurt themselves. i was also praying that the profocus light brad had borrowed from the photo department would not get the better of the flimsy boom it was on and fall crashing to the ice/floor.

11am-pull away from the ice rink(with feet that felt like they'd never be warm again) to go bouldering at the quarry with stacie.

1pm-off to school for still life class. we did a demo in the studio with 4x5 film, and at one point i fell asleep sprawled out on the floor. john kicked me to wake me up. i was probably snoring or something. i really should try harder to actually sleep at night.

3pm-on a frantic search for a block of chocolate and chocolate grater for my shoot.

4pm-shoot in the studio. hot chocolate in tiny blue espresso cups.

7:30pm-three prized possessions shoots in the studio at work. awesome images to post soon.


i love being able to spend my days taking pictures.










but today i need to start a five page paper that's due at midnight.

good news

-there's a real live website on the way! i'll keep you updated.
-i'm also doing some re-designing (you may have noticed changes to the header).
-i wasn't particularly fond of the still life i shot this week, but i love the silhouette of it, so i'm incorporating it into my design stuff. new logo, anyone?

mmm, toast

a new prized posession and a call for volunteers

my friend and co-photographer lucy let me photograph her with her bear (whose name happens to be bear) last night as part of the prized possessions project.

over the next couple of months i will need to produce five more images for this series, so if any of you are interested in being photographed with your favorite thing, leave a comment or email me!

here is the first draft of my artist's statement about this series...just in case you were curious about my theories about this.

thought the scriptures warn us to "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matt 6:19-20), we all have prized possessions. For many, these objects are not "treasures" in the worldly sense--some may not even be beautiful--but we hold them dear because they tie us to a certain experience, a particular time, place, or person. in essence, it is not the object itself that is most important to us, but what the object represents. the experiences, not the objects, are what make life sweet, and are the only things we will take with us when we leave this world.
in this project, i've sought to catalogue not only prized possessions, but also the stories behind them. this has forced me, as well as my subjects, to think deeply about the objects that are important to us and the reasons we hold them dear.

a shirt

sorry for the lack of updates, i've been off doing this:



with my dear old dad (aka mon petit papa chéri) in maple canyon.

i'm going to be shooting a bunch this week though, so there'll be plenty for you to look at.

contact me, please!

if anyone would like more information regarding pricing/availability, just email me at clairegoussard@yahoo.com and we can talk.

thanks!

katie and the leaves

if you're wondering whether the clothes hanging from this tree mean that i made katie change into the d.i. dress (which we bought on the way to the shoot) in the middle of the aspen grove, you would be right.

i'm really not sure why, but i decided it would be cool to tangle her in the trees with lace...

the end

things to come

firstly,
you know how i was talking about doing a fall illustrative shoot? well, i did, and i think i managed to get some really pretty stuff. i'll try my darndest to post that tomorrow

secondly,
my husband [who stays up to date on all sorts of tech happenings] told me about this black silicon chip they're developing, which could eventually make its way into digital cameras. if it did, it would be 500x more sensitive than current ccd or cmos chips. interesting... i wonder what that would be like. i tend to get freaked out by too much change, but as the president of our church reminded us last weekend in this amazing talk, change is unavoidable and is the mechanism that allows us to progress minute by minute and day by day, hopefully in the right direction.
in any case, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

prized possessions

i've been thinking for a while about doing a series of photographs featuring people's most valuable possessions. i know that it's by no means a new concept, but my anthropological/ethnographic penchant seems to express itself in a kind of need to catalogue people. i just thought it would be really interesting to learn about which physical objects are most meaningful to people and why.

i shot these for a mini-theme in my digital class, but i think it may be an ongoing project.

i started by asking my boss, brad slade, and my co-photo-assistant braden duncan, what their most prized possessions were.
the criteria is this: it has to be a physical object, and it has to be truly important to you, like one of the things you would get if your house were burning.

after much consideration, braden decided that his prized posession(s) were his journals, which he's kept religiously for who knows how long (if only i were that disciplined, my posterity might actually have something to read in 100 years).

brad chose his rolleiflex camera, which he has been using to photograph his beautiful kids since they were babies.

as for me, it's hard to say what i would chose. after rescuing my hard drives with all my photos and my file with old letters and important documents and whatnot, i would probably run back into a burning house for either:

-the silver gilded hand mirror that my mom gave me, which she got from the antique shop that the grandmother of her good friend owned. the grandmother of the good friend was named marika, and is my middle namesake.

-a teacup that my godmother gave me. the story is that when she first moved to montreal from the iowa farm where she grew up, she made a friend. that friend gave her this teacup and saucer, which surprised my godmother because she thought that teacups always had to stay in matching sets. her friend taught her to embrace variety and maybe even discord, and i know that meant alot to her. she gave me the teacup over forty years later, the day her friend died.
my godmother is brilliant.

-the little cloissonne bird that my grandfather bought in india for his dad when he was young. he got it back when his dad died, and gave it to me. it's beautiful. i'll photograph it sometime.




what is your most valued object?

mmm...chocolate

this is what i did for the black on black assignment in my still life class.
this isn't a final version, so hit me with some feedback.

looking back

this post from my fellow photo student ashton reminded me of an engagement shoot i did last fall of my friends katie and parker. the ones with the orange corrugated background were shot in front of the building from ashton's post.

seasons

don't you love the weather this week? now it really feels like fall. i've been dying to go up the canyon and photograph my beautiful friend katie in a grove of birch trees. i want to shoot an illustrative portrait for each of the seasons like mucha's.