Sunday, March 29, 2015

I Can.

I went to a conference in Phoenix last weekend and the theme for it was "I can." The other day was a roller coaster for me. I was driving around in my parents crazy little car with the roof down listening to loud music and out of the blue I just REALLY needed to affirm to myself that I CAN! So I did. I yelled "I CAN" at the top of my lungs (feeling just a little crazy) but was bawling by the third time I yelled it. I needed so bad to validate and sustain myself. It was beautiful. So as some extra self care (since doing photography is when I'm at my best) I did a photo shoot of this special little necklace that's now around my neck 24/7.

I have had several people request to use this photo for Facebook or Instagram and the answer is YES!! Just say that it's from Rachel Lindsey Photography :)

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Insane Semi Wreckage

In the process of trying to move me back out to Utah, we narrowly escaped death in a massive 30 truck pile up. There was incredibly thick fog and within a matter of minutes the road went from a wet spray to glare black ice. I'll try to use my photographs to help tell our story.

There were guard rails on both sides of the road with a large hill on the right side. That's how the paramedics were able to get to us. There was a small frontage road they had to take because the crash completely clogged up the road for miles and the worst injuries were in the front of the wreck.


Right where the truck is over the guard rail on the left is where the was a small gap that we were able to pull through. When we got there, there were two semis that had already wrecked. There were 2 cars ahead of us that got through before us. The second car had this axle bouncing around behind them. Can  you imagine the terror?? So they went WAY down the road and stopped. Their car was damaged in the process of getting through the gap.


Later when other trucks plowed into the wreck, this truck closed the gap we got through. Had we stayed there for 3 more minutes, we would have been dead.



There were 2 men that we very badly injured at the front of the wreck where we were. This shoe belonged to a man that I walked back to our car and the truck in the back was the truck he barely climbed out of alive. He was bleeding to death. My mom helped stop the bleeding so that he survived. Doctors say that he was lucky to have survived. His blood levels were at about 21% and at 18% you get a blood transfusion. He's still recovering from the wreck. He had a severed artery in his arm and a torn up ankle that required several skin grafts. The other man that was injured had several broken bones in his back and ruptured discs. There more more injuries to him but I can't remember. He's still recovering too. He was in massive amounts of pain.






The next few pictures are bloody.... They tell my story helping the man who was bleeding to death. Those are his bloody foot prints as he walked back to our car.



This is the pool of blood that came from his foot as my mom was trying to wrap it up to stop the bleeding.


The worst part of the wreck was hearing the booms that never seemed to end from truck after truck piling up. Every now and again I hear something that replicates the sound and it sends chills down my spine. We're lucky to be alive!

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Photo Challenge 2015 Week 11: Outdoor Photography - Haka

Haka..... WHAT?! I still can't figure out how this challenge is supposed to help me be a better photographer....

The Haka is a traditional ancestral war cry, dance or challenge from the Māori people of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment. (Thank you Wikipedia for explaining)



HAKA positions 

So what did we do? I had a special helper.... The Revinator!! See if you can figure out what I was trying to get him to do.




Photo Challenge 2015 Week 10: Numbers - 50mm

I kinda cheated.... I shot this today, not last week. BUT the idea behind this challenge is to get people to stop using zoom and to start using their body to get the shot. A prime lens is one that doesn't have any zoom capabilities and that's what I'm always shooting with. A 50 mm lens has the same perspective as our eyes. Several challengers had a very hard time with this challenge because they were not used to moving around and in the process of having to move around, realized that they looked ridiculous. That's something I've just gotten used to.... I used to care what people thought of me but my work has become far more important to me. I know what I can accomplish if I can look at things from a different perspective.

When I was at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, I looked like a crazy person trying to get this shot of cheese. But I was absolutely determined to get a unique photograph. I heard several people snicker and one person exclaimed "She's taking a picture of cheese!" Ya... I wish I could have shown them what my hard work and embarrassment created :)


So for this challenge, this is what I created today with my 50mm perspective: