As a mentioned a couple posts ago, I wanted to take the opportunity to share with you some of the blogs I follow that influence what I want to  do with photography/make me laugh/ make me want to be a better photographer. I thought of starting with something on the bottom of the list, but you dear reader are too awesome to deserve that kind of lame treatment. So lo and behold I give you the one blog I would choose to follow if I were stuck on a desert island (…and somehow had WiFi…LOST ! … if you got that we can be friends)..dah dun dun dah Jasmine Star.

You open up the first page and this is what you’ll find, a magazine like spread with all her latest posts and of course amazing images. Why Kurtis? you ask is this blog so awesome it garners your full attention? I could write forever about why this blog is awesome but for the sake of brevity I’ll stick to bullet points and why I think it’s great/works for me (trust me, you’ll thank me later):

• Great story, she was in Law School but then dropped out to become a Photographer. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME. How is this not a motion picture yet come’on Hollywood, figure it out. This just makes you realize if you want something bad enough you can absolutely go out there and get it
• Constant Content, Jasmine always has something new up there every time you go back. She actually schedules her blog posting to a weekly schedule (engagements, weddings, personal etc.) Something I could definitely benefit from
• Shares her work, this is huge. She does a FAQ from her readers about every two weeks or so and answer any question you may have about an image she posted/equipment she uses etc. Very open. Very cool.
• Honesty, she is very upfront about the fact that this is the way SHE DOES THINGS, not the right way but the way that works for her. Some blogs will insist you do it there way or fail. Nice to know that my way may be the right way… sometimes
• Awesome images, the lighting and the posing are amazing breathtaking freaking-sweet-awesome. The images always seem to POP to me. She always has the right pose for each couple and as some people have described me as a giraffe on ice I’m not always the best at directing people into a flattering pose (…have you seen a shot of me? There’s a reason I got BEHIND the camera). Having her as a reference for a starting point pose and moving from there has been a HUGE help
• Feedback, on any given post she’ll have 30-100+ comments about the images her writing from past clients/ the photographic community making it an even better resource (even if some of the comments are “I <3z J*”)
• She shares her life. Small inconsequential things like posts about her husband JD or her dog Polo make her seem all the more real and relatable.

I could go on but you get the jist. Really the reason I like this blog so much is because of the fact this is where I would like to see THIS blog going in the future. Granted I’m still working on getting one comment 😛 LONG TERM GOALS PEOPLE, get used to it.