State of the Union

Welcome to my brand spankin' new art and photo blog! This will mostly be a chronicle of all my ongoing work, and in the meantime I'll be sharing awesome art stuff that I find all over the internet.
For those who don't know me well, or haven't known me very long, I'd like to use this post to give a background on how I got to be where I am today (Indianapolis, photographer and artist...five foot two...etc). My education in photography began in the summer of 2008, when I inherited my dad's Nikon D40, 18-55mm and 70-300mm Nikkor lenses, and a dinosaur Sunpak speedlight (circa 1972).

Summer 2008

My first photography class was that fall, with the great Ryan Musch. He learned of my interest in photography and saw how much I had already done on my own, and hired me to assist him at weddings (even now, I still work with him, I'll be leading his second team on June 11). Between a class that taught me the technical aspects of photography, and my own extremely photoshopped self-portraits for the 365 Days project, I learned and improved very quickly.

Sitting on my butt was never so productive...

My first paid photo shoot was with my friends' band Up the Cathedral, now known as The Brave Day, in January 2009. Good lookin' guys:

Their music is awesome, too!

Soon after, I was hired by a former coworker to shoot his engagement and wedding photos (May and August 2009), and I upgraded to the Nikon D90 and ditched the Sunpak for the SB-600 speedlight. Photos looked like this:

 

These freelance gigs have been sporadic since then, what with finishing college and moving to Indianapolis, but this year, I finally have a fairly steady lineup of assignments, and will be making enough that I bought some great new photo equipment. The better to shoot you with, my dears! The lineup for this wedding season is as follows:
Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 (kit lens)
Nikkor 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
SB-600 speedlight + diffuser + softbox w/gels
SB-700 speedlight + softbox w/gels

Needless to say, I'm pumped! I'm also happy that I finally got this blog started and am also making a lot of improvements to my website, www.kathleengrady.zenfolio.com. So I think it's about time to start this wonderful adventure of art, photography, and life!