Vintage and Made Fair /  by Liz Brown

To preface this post, I went to two markets yesterday. In the late morning, I visited the Firehouse Flea Market at the Des Moines Social Club and in the afternoon I visited the Vintage and Made Fair at Jordan Park Camp. I took a few photos at each one, but not enough for an entire blog post for each. As a result, I combined them into one post, and titled it "Vintage and Made," though these first three shots are from Firehouse Flea.

These gals are from Des Moines and recently started a vintage business (I'll post the name as soon as I find their card!) However, what originally drew me to their booth (if we are being very honest) are the Redwings on the gal on the left. I've only seen one other pair of women's Redwings out in the wild; I never would've thought to pair them with a dress or something white, but she was rocking them!

This is my friend Joany. She's the founder of the company One Positive Thought and a deep thinker and an encourager. More and more I'm becoming convinced that these words (by Lucas Scott/One Tree Hill) are important: "You art matters." Joany is the sort of person who says words like that, honestly and often, and it's so encouraging. It reminds me how important that is, how I should be constantly speaking truth and hope to people.

Now begin the Vintage and Made photos. Any event that greets you with a row of flannel when you walk in is bound to be a good one.

If I recall correctly, this gal's name is Michelle. She, along with two friends, hosted a booth at the fair. What drew me back was a sherpa/denim jacket, something that I've had an eye out for for quite some time, but without any luck--until now. They had dope items and reasonable prices, and when I began chatting with her, I learned they were from Chicago. What a small world! I love that having lived in that city gives me commonality with so many people. I think that's one of the better things about traveling and trying new things: all the new people that you now immediately have something in common with. Their business is called Fownd Vintage and naturally after I bought the jacket, I asked her for a portrait.

My last stop at the Vintage and Made Fair (and, honestly, and main reason I came) was to see my friend Rayna. She has a local, all-natural henna business and is ridiculously talented. This isn't my hand, but she also gave me a beautiful piece on my hand and arm that I'll be rocking for a couple weeks. All in all, I ended the afternoon feeling full. One of my favourite things is a lack of agenda: just talking to folks about their art and lives and yesterday was just that. Firehouse Flea is over, but the Vintage and Made Fair is still going on today. Stop on by!

Tour de Compadres: Needtobreathe /  by Liz Brown

I saw Needtobreathe for the first time about five years ago, opening for David Cook at an outdoor amphitheatre. Prior to seeing them, I wasn't a particular fan, but their live show won me over. Since then I've seen them close to half a dozen times and each time their performance and production has been amazing. This year they released a new album entitled Hard Love. I'm a believer in times of day and places for certain songs (for example, listen Coldplay in the city at dusk), and Needtobreathe hits the spot while driving midday through Kansas with the windows down. Give it a try sometime and you won't be disappointed. 

Once again, for Needtobreathe's set, I was limited in the areas I could shoot from. But, once again, I decided to get creative. They had a superb lighting setup, which made using a prism quite fun.

I isolated parts of this image by literally putting my fingers in front of different parts of the lens. The other images with huge negative spaces I created in the same way: covering the lens with my hand.

Tour de Compadres: John Mark McMillan /  by Liz Brown

This tour was one of the best I've seen. There's still a solid bit of it left, so if you missed this first leg, check out the next leg. Midwestern cities coming up include Chicago, Minneapolis, and St. Louis. I photographed three of the bands on this leg of the tour. The first was John Mark McMillan and company.

Mostly I'm impressed that his suit is white and I don't know how he doesn't spill coffee all over it all the time. And from a photography perspective, it was insanely helpful for white balancing the lights. 

For this particular date, the venue had strict photography restrictions. Primarily this meant that I could only shoot from the far sides of the stage, but on the ground. Sort of next to where the photo pit would be. At first I wasn't stoked about this (I didn't have my 50mm lens, so I was shooting everything with a 35--not ideal for faraway shots), but I decided to take it as a challenge. How can I differentiate these shots? How can I make them interesting or exciting, when I'm taking them all essentially from the same two angles? I worked hard and challenged myself and I'm more than excited about the result. These don't look like my typical concert shots because they are indeed further away. But different isn't always bad, and in this case, I think the result was something pretty neat.

BIG Dream Gathering /  by Liz Brown

Drake’s campus was beginning to look like fall, but it definitively still felt like summer, despite the leaves beginning to scatter across the lawns. On the walk from the parking lot to the Olmsted Building, the sidewalk was decorated with chalked phrases like: “take it day by day” and “you can do this!”

You can do this. If one phrase summed up the evening, it would be that: you can do this. But: you don’t have to do this alone.

Rounding the corner, the Olmstead Building looked like any other building on any Midwestern college campus, but on the second floor, volunteers were busy stacking free books, arranging name tags, and sticking blue pieces of tape to the walls. BIG Dream Gathering founder Mitch gathered the group of Drake staff, local dreamers, and friends around into a circle. There’s been so much turmoil in the world, even within the last few days; it’s easy to dwell on the bad news and forget the existence of anything else. Mitch looked at the circle of eager faces and smiled: “We get to be part of the good news tonight.”

Less than an hour later, students and Des Moines locals began walking up the stairs into the foyer, then found seats around tables and next to strangers. Even before anyone spoke or gave instructions, folks excitedly jumped right in, writing their dreams onto the sheets of paper arranged around the room, and taping them to the walls, under different dream categories, like travel, career, and government.

Chrystal Stanley

Chrystal Stanley

At 6:30 Chrystal, a Drake employee whose job it is to help students figure out their dreams and take step to achieve them, introduced Mitch. He had several encouragements for the room of dreamers. Give yourself permission to dream, he urged them. And choose to diminish your fear by even 10%. Just see what you can accomplish!

Then began the challenge and the dreaming: write down your dream on a piece of paper and stick it to the wall. Students could write one dreams or dozens; then they would wander the room, writing notes of encouragement and ways they can help make the other people’s dreams happen on the bottoms of the colorful papers. the room transformed from a rather normal beige space to something of an art project: all paper and blue tape and big dreams.

The evening ended quite like how it began: volunteers cleaning up, students walking back to their dorms and other folks walking back to their cars. The music didn't stop, however, and you could hear it as you walked through the doors back to the street. It lingered, like the dreams now beginning to take hold inside of minds and on those colorful papers clutched in hands. Dreams were spoken, started, created. That alone is an act of bravery: dreaming. Dream big. You can do this. We can do this together.

Unexpected Places /  by Liz Brown

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Through elementary school into highschool, I took a variety of art classes, from painting to drawing to pen design. Beauty was straightforward, easy, black and white, yet colourful.

However, in college, my dorm room was tiny and I didn’t have room or time for any of these mediums. So I grabbed my point-and-shoot camera and explored the streets of Chicago, finding beauty in alleys and other forgotten places. I bought an SLR six months later and shot my first hardcore show the next month. I was hooked.

I never shot at Millennium Park or at Willis Tower or at any of the typical Chicago landmarks. Part of it was stubbornness, I think, but part of me also wanted the challenge of finding something different, beautiful and unique, a sort of extraordinary quiet grit. I found beauty in unexpected places in a small way: through my camera.

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Then I graduated and left that city. In moving from Chicago to Des Moines, I anticipated a slow, boring, and rather unbeautiful life. There wasn’t the wild feeling of exploration I’d had in Chicago when I drove through the streets I’d grown up on in Des Moines. I didn’t see beauty here. I didn’t see it for over a year.

 Des Moines required the same skill I’d began to cultivate in Chicago, but in a bigger way. The skill of seeing and seeking beauty in unexpected places. I learned that when you have to seek beauty in that way, you learn to own it in a different way than when it’s more obvious. You’ve discovered the beauty: it’s yours.

 And somehow here my restlessness turned into discovery and I was met with community and collaboration and more creativity than I’ve ever experienced in my life. I grew to love Des Moines deeply, seeing it not only as beautiful, but as perhaps the best place to create and experience art that I’ve ever lived.

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 I’m reading a book called “The Artisan Soul.” I’ve been reading it for a while, and I’m slowly and steadily approaching the end. The premise is that the greatest works of art we can create are our own lives. That our lives are a work of art, and the same principals we use to create a visual or musical masterpiece are the skills we use to create a masterpiece of a life.

 Part of art is finding beauty in unexpected places. In shooting Chicago alleys and hardcore shows and on gritty street.

 And maybe that’s part of life, too. Sometimes that unexpected place is instead a corporate office. Sometimes it’s a routine or something new and scary. And sometimes that unexpected place of life and beauty and art is your own city.

 Most of you know my friend Sarah, and one of the things she’s taught me is that beauty is a choice: she often hashtags her photos “choose to see.” And maybe that’s the point:

 Part of art is finding beauty in unexpected places.

 And your life is the most beautiful work of art you can create.

But sometimes it’s hard to see any beauty around you. It’s a Tuesday, storming, and you have an insane workload. You’re ready to be anywhere but here. But I promise you, that wherever you’re at, there’s beauty all around you, if only you choose to see it.

 And perhaps learning to see beauty is the greatest work of art of all.

Switchfoot : Disposable Camera /  by Liz Brown

On Friday at noon I had zero Friday night plans. Around 12:30pm, my photographer friend Chris posted on Facebook. To give you some background, Chris is the touring photographer (among other stellar occupations) for Switchfoot. His post was a list of tour dates; Switchoot was on a short tour, and two of the dates were within three hours of Des Moines. So I shot him a quick message, asking if he’d be coming through the city at all. He wouldn’t be, but he offered: if I was able to make it to the show, he’d get me in, and we could hang there. I scanned the dates. The closest show was Omaha—that night. Show at 7pm. I worked until 4:20pm. And it was a two-hour drive. Challenge accepted. I texted Brittany and she picked me up from work (with food and a hat because she’s awesome and my hair was a mess) and we booked it to Omaha.

We arrived with 15 minutes to spare. Enough time to take a photo with this animal head.

Switchfoot

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen Switchfoot, and in how many city and venues. Outside, inside, Illinois, Iowa. I can’t count anymore. The first time I saw them was at the state fair with my dad and brother. I was in 8th grade and had just gotten contacts. It rained that day, and, as the show was outside, we got ridiculously wet, but it was completely worth it. A decade later, the band is still at it. And I’m still showing up, singing along, dancing, and feeling the words even more deeply than I did then. Stories of struggle and hope mean different things when you’ve lived more years. Deeper things. They settle into your soul and you find kinship in them.

During one of Switchfoot’s songs, frontman Jon climbed into the crowd and wandered through nearly every section. He walked down the aisle behind Brittany and II held out my right hand to high-five him. He high-fived me—then grabbed my hand and pulled himself up onto my chair. He stood right there for a moment, then grabbed my hat right off my head. And put it on his own head. He stood there, right next to me, on my chair, singing to me, with my hat on his head. Fifteen-year-old Liz geeked out. And let’s be real: adult Liz geeked out a little as I sang along to the same song. A minute later, Jon set my hat back on my head and moved on.

Lecrae

Lecrae

After the show, Chris met us in the foyer to say hi. He is an incredibly kind and gracious human and it was delightful to make his acquaintance in person. Until Friday, we had simply been internet friends, our paths barely missing each other in Chicago. One of my favourite times in life is when internet friends became “real life” friends and this was no exception.

post-concert Buffalo Wild Wings

post-concert Buffalo Wild Wings

Tory met us for dinner and it was wonderful to laugh together and hear about her life and adventures.

Our last stop was Walmart. We needed a phone charger and caffeine. At that point, we were pretty tired, after working and driving and the concert, so everything was funny. Those are the best drives: singing as loudly as you can to twenty one pilots and He is We and laughing and everything and nothing at all.