dbjorklund.com

These guys understand how life works.

The everyday world can be a stressful place.. It can be difficult to deal with the average things one has to handle during the day let alone the added stress of not seeming to have the time to follow your passions.  Everyone needs to be passionate about something, life isn’t worth experiencing if all your doing is going through the motions as though a machine. It’s easy to forget this, easy to allow others to influence you into forgetting what is important.  We as individuals must experience life and all the wonders it has to offer, to do any less is criminal or at least should be.  It had taken me a trip to a physical place, a location far from my everyday world for me to be reminded of what is important in life, why we all are on this mud ball of a planet.  My passion for life and photography was rekindled on those Caribbean Islands and whenever I find myself being pulled into the grayness of a dull existence that so many seem to accept as how it is, I look back to my days in the sun when time had no meaning and all that mattered was we were living life for all its worth…

“Weight on my shoulders but I’m walking so tall out into the new horizon wonder in everything no matter how great or small…”

I don’t know who is placing them but the message is becoming more clear everyday.  A bright new day is coming, it may not be on the schedule we all would like but it is going to be here for those who are watching. I’ve recently spent time with a friend who is experiencing some troubling times and I found myself searching for the words that could fix things and make everything alright.. Truth is the words don’t exist and it’s not my place to solve their troubles, being powerless is a horrible feeling and that how I felt.  Even though there are no words there is something we all can do when we those around us face adversity and it’s stronger than words.. We can share our hope of the better tomorrow coming.  Maybe if we remember we’re all connected and sometimes just being there for others is the strongest thing we can do.. a good listener is better than unrequested advice…

People all around are understanding the message check out http://sma.llchange.net/ they got the message, it starts small and grows with each person it reaches.

“…Same thing that’s scrawled across the stars is written under our skin new horizon within…”

“A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by a blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.”

The fact that people enjoy my photography gives me probably some of the best feelings a man can feel, yet at the same time it astounds me because more often than not I see myself recording what I am seeing.. it’s nothing special deserving of praise.  Putting aside my annoying modesty for awhile here, let’s talk about my photos.. specifically the ones people enjoy.  First off if you’ve every told me you like my work.. thank you!  Along side the praise I occasionally get requests to use my photos, which I always say yes too when I am asked.  Now letting you use one or more of my photos for personal purposes is harmless ..although I’d love it if you’d buy a print from me.. and it is not license for you to take it and do whatever you wish until the end of time, while it doesn’t happen often it has been a problem in the past and it makes me cranky.  Let’s remember a couple of things..  I own all rights to everything I shoot, unless I was hired under contract and specifically gave up those rights.  The second is I’m rather generous with usage rights to individuals and in most cases small businesses.  The only thing I really ask is that you ask my permission and then give me proper credit, clear and simple.  Things do get a bit more complicated if your looking to use a photo of mine in a commercial project but often it’s not much different from the above rule.  Being involved in a small business myself I can understand how hard it is to just get by so I try as often as I can to give back to those I consider peers. If you see a photo of mine that you would like to use in the marketing of your business ..or self.. then please ask me I can hook you up also if you have an idea for some photos that you’d like to bring to life I bet we can work something out there too…

It is getting close to that time when people think about making New Year resolutions.. We look back at the year before and hold ourselves under the microscope seeing all the flaws and not so shiny bits of ourselves in greater detail than any other time.  The whole ritual of the resolutions have become somewhat of a farce in recent years, we make them with a wink and a nod knowing all too well that they’re going to be broken in record time.  I’ve thought about this at length and have looked back at myself and the only resolution that I could see fitting to make for the coming year is that I will no longer allow anyone to be reckless with my heart.. I can can no easier close my heart to those around me and not give love as I could just stop breathing tomorrow morning. Since I will continue to keep an open heart and give of myself I know that this resolution will be broken faster than any has ever been…

“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes. That’s a sentence I read once and I say it over to comfort myself in these times that try the soul.” — Anne of Green Gables: Lucy Maud Montgomery

They sat embedded into the wood along side the river most likely overlooked by most everyone who pass by. The stones left behind to remind us that whatever trials we face that we always have hope. I’ve been guilty of forgetting this lesson from time to time and my goal in the coming year is to always keep hope in a bright new tomorrow.  I’ve put forth the effort to create a better world for myself and those I care about and it’s know up to the fates to decide if I deserve the hand up, but if not there is always tomorrow and a whole set of new opportunities for me to work towards.. after all that’s what hope is all about…

Things have not gone the way I’ve wanted them to this year and from those I’ve been blessed to know it hasn’t been all that great anywhere.  When times become so rough and abusive that you’d like to throw in the towel and surrender that’s when you most certainly cannot. The natural reaction towards rejection and loss is to give up, but we must fight these urges and not allow ourselves to slip away from society.  While it is alright to grieve our losses it’s not healthy for us to allow our grief to consume our entire being and let our hearts become shut and cold to the love still out there meant for us…

I’m not sure where I was meaning to go with this, maybe I just needed to say it out loud so that it was more real to me.  The core beliefs that make us who we are can sometimes get lost when we’re trying to fit in with the world around us. Plus some of the places we so want to fit in to aren’t really good fits for us. We must look past the rejection and see the larger picture and focus on the things important to who we truly are…

I will keep looking for the perfect fit and be happy.. I think we all should…

Things aren’t like they use to be.. It’s rare to meet someone who is able to walk to work or for that matter can make it to their place of employment in less than 10 minutes.  Almost everyone has a long commute these days.  My drive into work is probably more enjoyable than most as I get to drive down county roads and through beautiful farm fields and woods instead of a busy expressway.  Driving the same route everyday though can lead one to not seeing the beauty that is there and in turn we lose out on some of the wonder and magic that the world offers us. It wasn’t until recently I’ve been making time in my commute to be able to stop along the way and allow the world to treat me to the wonderful scenes that have always been but I’ve been too hurried to notice. Some of the most viewed photos on my Flickr account have been from the times I stopped along my way to work and spent the extra time and allowed the myself to be lost in the beauty of the world around me.  There is magic and beauty everywhere and the calming effect of just taking even 5 minutes out of our hurried schedules can do so much for our well being, I think everyone should make a little extra time on their way into work just to stop along the way and see what part of the world they are not seeing.. Plus there will be snow everywhere soon which is always pretty…

Won't somebody think of the kitties?

Things have been rough all over for people.. doubly so for most close to me. It’s because of these difficult times and my memories of times long past growing up in the Upper Peninsula that gave birth to an idea.. I don’t know about anyone else but I really miss the simpler holidays where it was really the thought that mattered most and gifts were small and handmade.  So the idea was going to be that I set up a database where you could sign up to give a handmade gift and out of this list you’d be given an address to send the gift and in turn someone else would get your address and in the end people would get a smile on Christmas because a complete stranger took the time to make them something special.  Now I see that I’m quickly running out of time to make this happen and due to the constraints of real life I’m not going to be able to pull this particular project off. I really believe in this one and want to see it happen because I feel it is needed now more than ever and instead of allowing it to fade away and just become another possible past if only.. I have decided what’s best for this dream is to share it now.. put it up for adoption so to speak.. and hope somebody out there can make it happen…

I have a pretty decent light kit plus I had taken the time to learn how to use it well, but my real passion is available light..  I can’t look at another photographer’s work without deconstructing their lighting of the scene. I even find myself out and about places looking at how things are being naturally lit and how I would place a subject in the scene to obtain a certain look.. it’s a constant learning process, one I recommend others should try.

Right next to shooting available light I love portraits.. not boring stiff portraits but raw “in the moment” portraits. If available light photography were my wife raw portraiture would be my mistress. Capturing that moment of pure expression while my subject is involved in what their passionate about is one of the greatest feelings a photographer can feel.. well except maybe hitting the lottery.  Sometimes I fall flat on the photos but more often with a tiny bit of coaching the subject and I make magic and that’s what brings me to the real point of this post..

I love shooting under unexpected conditions and people doing what they love and since I always have my camera near by if you see me out and about town please say hi and ask for a portrait. I’d love to take your photo and give you a digital copy that you can use to show the world how awesome you are…

“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
– Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Today I finally made the time to put some polish onto the ol’ website here and get it to a place where I think it can stand for a while now and not be concerned if the other websites in the playground are going to make fun of his cheap hand me down theme. I have more work still to do on dbjorklund.com I have a few static pages that need to be pulled together and edited.. some real soon or they’ll become irrelevant. I have a couple of projects that have been cooking and also need to be addressed so that I can start generating interest and get people involved. While I can’t share everything I’d like to just yet I’ll give some hints, in no particular order of importance..

Do you like having a cool portrait done of yourself? How about free of charge?

Do you like getting presents? How about the feeling of giving that extra bit of yourself?

Do you like to take photos? How about sharing the experience with friends new and old for a day?

I can’t promise I’ll make all these happen but I’m going to do everything in my limited free time to make them real.. I don’t need this all to go down in a flaming fireball of fail so my hope is by putting this out there I can be reminded of how they need to be accomplished…