A couple weeks ago I asked my black lab, Kelby, what his plan was.

My sweet dumbass dog was begging to go outside, and I, thinking he needed to pee, was slightly put off when he kept wandering about the bushes, sniffing, with no leg lift occurring.

“KELBY!” I yelled, “what’s your plan?”  Oh, the sweet tilted facial response i received in return (you have a lab, you know).

And then it clicked.

I’ve lost it.

I’ve got to listen to that inner voice, stirring in my head, that life needs to get bigger.

So since my last post I’ve been thinking about exposing myself.

Not in the trench-coat-flasher-creepy kind of way, but in the way where i’d like to take a hard look inward and really reflect upon where my boundaries are, then flex them. Discard those things that make me feel like shit and invest in those that make me feel like i’m an invincible warrior, free from the “you should” conundrum.

And all of this aligned with my favorite day of the year.

It’s a day better than Christmas (aka “Target-day” thanks to retail and consumer behavior shifts over the last, oh, 15ish years), better than my birthday (no one defines my age mindset!!), and definitely better than Halloween (ugh, the pressure of coming up with a costume, although my best ever borrowed idea was the cheap long slip I bought from JC Penney and wrote phrases such as “penis envy,” “superego,” and “oedipus complex” on it – guesses anyone???).

It’s the day we change our clocks for an hour more daylight in the evening.

We come home, exhausted after a day of work, open a bottle of Pinos Gris, sit on the couch with our family, and witness – for one extra hour! –  the rotation of the Earth that results in the perception that the sun is actually setting. It’s magic and it will last for the next six months.

So let’s celebrate new light, and what that means when it comes to photography.

In my book (not my literal one… my proverbial one), overexposing a photo is the best trick there is.  Juergen Teller has been using it forever. I’ve always been drawn to him… when you see his work, you know it will be bright, crisp, and perhaps tinted with a slight yellowish twist.

It doesn’t matter what editing software you use.  It can be as simple as your Instagram options on your iPhone, perhaps slightly more technical as you get to an app such as Camera+, or maybe you love fooling around, such as i do, on a more advance form of software such as Lightroom.  All of them have an option for overexposure, and I’m in for it.

So i’m no Juergen, but i’ll ALWAYS vote for an overexposed photo.  Do nothing more, and your photo is already more amazing… in my humble opinion.

Below are a few examples of photos I’ve taken in their raw state, then afterwards with the overexposed filter.

Do with this what you will, and take it for what it is…

A single persons approach to editing her photos as she would aspire to live her life.

Overexposed.

To light!

AC