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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Back in the motherland...

Well not really. I took a couple weeks off from the Houston scene to visit the parents back in Biloxi as I told you guys in my last post. Looking back on these photos, I sometimes wonder where all the time has gone. Time has flown by so quickly, I forget to take time out for myself to reflect on what I've been missing and neglecting. I can still remember how young my parents looked when I left for college back in 2002. Now my dad is at that time of retiring from the shrimping occupation and moving on to concentration with the tobacco and beer shop. I'll tell you guys what, the hardships and labor on the shrimp boat really takes a toll on the health of my dad. I'm really glad he's putting the boat on the market to sell. In addition to that, the shrimp cost has plummeted like a mother ever since the US started to import shrimp from other countries. He's getting way too old to be doing hard labor. Look at his hair and you tell me if he's too old for it.

I still to this day blanket myself with emotions when I see how hard my dad works on the boat. I spent a whole week on the boat and I couldn't stand it. My dad is 3 times as old as I am. My mom on the other hand wake every morning at 5 to get ready to open to store EVERYDAY. The store opens from 8 until 8 at night, EVERYDAY. I take a lot of what I have for granted. I neglect often to remember how hard my parents work for my siblings and I to have this contemporary lifestyle. If only my parents knew how to log on to my xanga and actually read my blogs. Wouldn't that be awesome.

Bottom line is I've neglected on reflecting on what I have today. That I should be way more appreciative of my parents and what God has blessed me with today.

THANK YOU MOM AND DAD. AND THANK YOU GOD for giving me this opportunity for this freedom to do what I want to do. Something that truly makes me happy. For my parents being the ground for me to step on to be happy. THANK YOU.

Here are some photos I took of my parents and my little brother at the shop. My parents are way too cute. LOL.

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-Diem

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Update (late)

I realized that my last post was over a month ago and a lot has happened since then. I finally got into a relationship. Took a road trip with my 2 of my best buddies to Biloxi and Panama City. I updated my website with photos I neglected to post here. And probably the most exciting is I finally told my parents about my plans in life.

I told my siblings and close friends that I'll talk to my parents about my careers when I go back to Biloxi to visit them but had no idea it would happen the way that it did. My plan was to sit them down, after a couple of beers of course, and tell them the potential success as a wedding/portrait photographer. You guys don't know how much weight of guilt I was carrying until that day. Before this my parents knew how much I loved photography and noticed the number of photo sessions that I was doing. The 2 weeks that I was down in Biloxi, I managed to book 3 photo sessions!
Then a couple days later my dad asked me,

Dad: "So is this what you want to do?"

Me: "Well it's a side thing that really helps me get by with my finances."

Dad: "I don't care what you do as long as it isn't illegal. What about optometry school?"

Me: "I'm still going to school. But you know, photography offers a big potential for me."

Dad: "I don't care what you do. Do something you're good at and wealth will come to you. If you can't get into optometry school than do photography. I've seen your photos. I want you to be successful at whatever you do and to be able to be a good person and to raise a family. That's all I ever wanted for you guys."

And that's how it all went down. A BIG breathe of relief. To be honest, I don't need to graduate if I truly didn't want to. But I've been far in my college life and have a couple classes left so why not. I have no regrets on how long it took me to find my passion in life. There are people that take many years to finally realize what they are in this world to do. And I was one of them.

I promised you guys new photos but to be honest I just wasn't in the mood to. Apologies. So I'll make it up to you readers and do a massive photo update. =) These are old photos to the ones that have been to my website recently. Oh and before I forget if you guys have a Facebook account add me @ my facebook.

These photos were from different sessions. If you want to see the full session visit my website @ Diemphotographer

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And a few from a very SMALL wedding. =)

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Cheerios,

-Diem

Saturday, May 17, 2008

....And then you lose some, alot of it.

Ahh, the sky fell dark on my life the past couple days. The inevitable nightmare to all photographers happened to me a few days ago: the HD on my imac died. It was inconsistently not reading and writing properly. And when an HD crashes, everything on it goes down with it. The worst part? I was working on 4 photo sessions that I did not back up because I wasn't done with them. Yeah can you guys imagine how fast my day turned dark? I had documents, music, PICTURES, and other random things on my HD that I didn't care to back up. I even have an external!!!!

So I decided to go to apple to see if they can salvage any my work. I told them I don't care about my music or videos or anything else and that all i wanted was my 4 recent photo sessions i recently edited. And because the hard drive was inconsistently reading and writing, apple managed to only save 85% of my photos. Yay better than nothing. But when it come worse to worse, I still had the raws. Apple ordered and replaced my imac with a new hard drive and transferred the photos back into it. Sucks that all of my preferences is on default and i have to reinstall all of my programs.

So bottom line to all photographers: I know it's a "duh" but back your things up EVERYDAY!!! I now use time machine to external HD. Don't be lazy and back it up!! I plan on getting at least 3 more HD's to back each other up. This day will never happen again!! I guarantee it!! Other than that, I'm happy i have my computer back and love time machine.

cheerios!, (and back up your data!)
-Diem

Monday, May 12, 2008

Diemphotographer.com is LAUNCHED!!

Thanks to everyone that has been so supportive of me while I was working on my website. =) I truly believe this is a very big step in my photography career. I would love you guys to stop by Diem Photographer and give me some feedback on here. Spread the word guys! Thanks again for the love and support and new photos will be posted soon! =D

Cheerios!,
Diem

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

New and exciting!

There will be new and exciting pics in the coming months in preparation for my website! I'll keep you guys posted on that as soon as it launches!! Here are a few teasers, if you will, of a few sessions I had the past few weeks. Sorry for the short post, I'll be back to add more later. I'm poop'd!

-Diem