Thank you, Ryan Murphy

I'm not even going to sugar coat it. I'm lacking inspiration right now. Auditions are slow, I haven't booked anything in months, and I spend most of my days refreshing my email for auditions or submitting myself on acting websites. Now, this is a reality for MOST actors, and I'm not naive to the fact that much of my life may look like this waiting game I've been experiencing recently. So, in an effort to save my sanity, I decided that something had to be done about it! I didn't want to sink into the couch and disappear into non-working-actor oblivion. I know I may be starting to sound like a Negative Nancy, but I have to be transparent with you in expressing that the life of an actor is a complicated, tortured, wonderful, exhausting, depressing and exhilarating one! I won't be on set every week. I won't get a callback for most auditions. And that's OK. Recently, in a podcast I listened to which featured Ryan Murphy of FX's "American Horror Story," he lamented that not a single rejection in his life has not lead to something better he never saw coming. He has always been able to look back and say 'oh, wow! I'm so glad that didn't work out, because then I never would have even thought to do that other thing!' This keeps me going. What also keeps me going? Focusing on what makes me happy and exploring what else I could potentially be good at!

In college, I was the go-to photographer of my circle of friends and my sorority. This was mostly because I had a fancy camera (Canon Rebel T3i). I had a standard lens, but I somehow brought some pretty cool moments in front of it, which resulted in beautiful images that I'm grateful to have for the rest of my life. I didn't really know what I was doing. A classic Amber move: to own an expensive piece of equipment and never read the user's manual. What? I'll just figure it out!

Turns out, it's very hard. I am learning this now because I am completely starting from scratch and trying to get back into photography in the hopes of making a part-time living off of it. AND I'm going to start holding myself accountable by documenting my progress here on my little blog thingy. The way I see it: I have a great camera, I have tons of actors friends in Atlanta who are all in need of head shots or different images for their portfolios/websites, so I have literally no excuse for why I'm not making use of my skill.

These were the kinds of photos that I used to take in college. The first three were for a friend pursuing a music career, and the fourth was a typical sorority event shot.

Not bad for a point-and-shooter, right? (Except for the heinous filtered editing styles...)

I recently bought myself a Canon 50mm 1.8 lens and I have been asking a few friends to do some test shoots free of charge, just to start playing around with it!

Last week, I did my first headshot test shoot with the beautiful Julia Vasi! You can catch her on the last season of "The Vampire Diaries" or on "Sleepy Hollow."

So, it's not perfect, but I was pretty happy with my first attempt! Sure, she looks a little Edward Cullen-esque because sometimes I get a little edit-happy. The toughest part was getting my shutter speed to be fast enough. I found a lot of images to be pretty blurry unless I stood very still. This was shot right in front of her window in her kitchen. I'm all about natural lighting! Right now, my editing software I'm using is PortraitPro, so if you use one that you love please let me know!

I would love any and all feedback and if you find yourself in the Atlanta area and are in need of some free head shots, hit ya girl up!