New Website - Please Go To www.kylehepp.com

For all blog readers, JMCS has moved! You can now find my online home at www.kylehepp.com or can visit the new blog link here!

Please bookmark the site and visit me there from now on!!!!

Photographing a Wedding in Concepcion

I traveled to Concepcion this weekend for the wedding of a lovely Canadian bride to, of course, her Chilean fiance. The trip was eventful from start to finish.



When I arrived at the airport, the place was a zoo. There were easily over a hundred people crowded inside around the arrivals area, and press and photographers everywhere. I got out my camera immediately, thinking I'd have the chance to grab a shot of someone famous. I was too far outside the crowd to really see what was happening but all of a sudden everyone began to applaud. Then the room got silent. I sauntered up to a policeman to ask what was going on and he said that the body of a 20 something year old Chilean boy, who had died in Cuba, had come back to Concepcion, on my flight. I'm so glad I didn't know that beforehand -- it would have creeped me out. The news sobered me up and after one photo I put my camera away. The family came out all sobbing, which in turn started the crowd crying. Taking pictures felt so disrespectful. I don't know how the photojournalists do it. Thank goodness my job is to take pictures of people on the happiest day of their life! Anything else, and I couldn't handle it.





So I went and sat down on a bench right near the doors outside to wait for the groom to come collect me from the airport. I felt too intrusive being an outsider on what felt like an entire city's mourning for someone that I had never met. Watching seemed like gawking. It felt wrong.



The weather upon arrival was drizzly and grey. My first impression of Concepcion was that it seemed like a sad city. Although that could be influenced by the fact that I didn't see a single ray of sunshine the whole time I was visiting and because there was a funeral in the airport when I arrived. So you know, I'd be willing to give it a second chance.




Fortunately, Kristin and Pancho, the bride and groom, were nothing short of awesome. They were just happy to be together and even the rain on their wedding didn't stop them from smiling all day long. I was a little nervous because I had never met them before, but were so cool and SO fun to photograph, even braving the rain and getting completely drenched, all for the sake of the pictures. First photograph from the wedding is here, if you're interested.






After the wedding, some kind guests drove me back from Pingueral, where the ceremony was held, to my hostel in Concepcion. The drive, along the beautiful and winding roads next to Chile's coastline was stunning. I, however, didn't take any pictures, party because it was pretty dark, but mostly because I was car sick for the first time in my life. I didn't throw up, but only because I was with people I didn't know. Otherwise I would have made them stop the car so I could puke like the exorcist. I have NEVER felt that ill in my life. It was miserable.



We arrived at my hostel, which was totally ghetto and ridiculously expensive for the crap quality, although to their credit the staff was friendly and helpful. Even once I was out of the car I still felt pretty sick, so at 9pm, I laid down and went to bed for the night. A taxi picked me up at 7:30am the next day, and that was that. Isn't wedding photography travel oh so glam? :P I wish I had felt better so I could have seen a little more of the city, but alas, it was not meant to be.



On my flight back, I was just anxious to get home, however some passengers though that taking off, turbulence and landing were all ocassions to celebrate with vigorous trumpet playing. They were three (or maybe just two, I couldn't tell) wannabe Mick Jagger types -- old enough to fart dust, long greasy hair, harassing women young enough to be their daughters. The first time one stood up to play the trumpet before we took off, it was funny. But then he kept going and the pilot had to come out and make him sit down. I wanted to take a picture, but I also didn't want the guys to notice me and start harassing me too, so I stayed low profile, slouched down in my seat with my camera safely hidden in my bag.







On the way back in to Santiago the sky was actually a beautiful shade of blue and the sun was out in full force, but I just thought I'd keep the processing dark to stay in theme with the rest of the photos. Speaking of processing, I did a tutorial on how I converted these to black and whites at my photography blog if you're interested. However, I didn't pull the A-curve quite as far to the left so that they don't come out as pink and I pulled the B-curve more to the right for cooler tones. And no grain added. The end.

True Love

When I was in second grade my mom and dad were going through a trial separation that would eventually become a divorce. I was already a painfully shy kid up until that point, but when they grew apart, they also moved us out of the only home I was old enough to remember. We left our big house on Lake Isabella in the middle of Northern Michigan, aka in the middle of nowhere and uprooted our lives to a small suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I had to start over at a new school.


They are so many sayings about "Oh to be a child again, " and "carefree days," and this and that, but I remember being stressed out big time during my early years at West Elementary. My first day in class, the desks were arranged in pods of 4. Our name tags were set out so we would know where to sit. The white paper with "Kyle," written across it was sitting on a desk next to "Andrew," (who occasionally reads this blog and was the stud-muffin of 2nd grade, hi Andrew!) and across from "Matt," and "Rob." The pods were in groups of all boy students or all girl students and the teacher had understandably, but mistakenly sat me in an all-boy pod. I'm pretty sure I cried and my 2nd grade teacher still wouldn't move me because there were no free seats in any of the all-girl pods. Can you imagine the embarrassment of being the new girl with a boy name and being forced to sit with boys all while your parents were going through a divorce? Stress, I'm telling you, 2nd grade stress!!!


Anyways, at that pod something miraculous happened. By accident, (I think), the boys at my pod were the smart kids. And it somehow rubbed off on me. We tested for the gifted program called Image, and that's where I became friends with Tom, and many of my other best friends from the time, some of whom I think might even be reading this blog (Hi Nashy! And Catherine, are you still out there?!?).


From the get-go Tom brought out the competitive nature in me. If the class was assigned a 5 page story to write, he would do 20 pages and I would do 21. He teased me mercilessly and one time tried to impress me by leaning back in his chair and balancing. I vividly remember the moment he fell and how happy I was to see him hit the ground. He eventually asked me out with a little note and we "dated" or whatever it is that elementary school kids do. He was my first kiss, with a peck on the lips out back behind the baseball field at the big old tree. Shortly after we became boyfriend and girlfriend he shaved his head and I was absolutely mortified because none of my friends thought he was cute anymore. Oh the irony.

I broke up with Tom after 2 years for another guy the summer before middle school and the other guy promptly broke up with me the day middle school started. Such drama! Tom and I stayed friends though. One day he did something to make me mad though so I threw all the notes he had written me (from 3rd grade on, and by this point we were in 7th) into a trash can at a Varsity football game. It was a giant stack, because man, was Tom a writer, and he still is...


And you know how I know that? Because he proposed to his girlfriend last Saturday with an 11 page note!!! Or actually at this stage, seeing as how we're not in elementary school anymore, you could probably refer to it as a letter. And better yet, his fiance, Sarah, just happens to be one of my very best friends in the entire world. They are actually probably the two people who had the biggest impact on my entire childhood and high school life.


I met Sarah in 7th grade. We tried out for the cheerleading team together and out of over 100 other girls we made it...well, we made the White Team (otherwise known as the Second Best Team or B Team). Sarah and I weren't the exact same height, she was taller than me, but my arms were shorter so when you put us together we matched up perfectly to become bases (stunting partners who throw people in the air). We continued stunting together for the next 6 years, though we weren't always on the same team, but we lived in the same neighborhood and were always close.


We'd go home together every day after school and eat junk food before cheerleading. Her sister, who at the time was a hair dresser in training, would practice on her, and about once a month I'd get a call from Sarah near tears after a too-short cut or a bad perm. I'd run through the park, cross the street and squeeze through the fence to console her in her backyard. When she had (non hair) issues of their own I would go over to hold her hand. And she squeezed through the fence, crossed the street and ran through the park to console me the day my half brother died. Call it cliche, but she was always, always there when I needed her.


Sarah and I were never best friends in the sense that we only hung out with each other, but I do think that we always understood each other better than anybody else. To this day we still have some kind of telepathy going on. A few months ago I had a dream that I wrote a toast for her wedding to Tom. Later that day we talked on a phone and she said that was where they were headed and they had just started discussing marriage. I was shocked slash completely not surprised at all! Tom had been madly in love with her since middle school and she'd been resisting his charms for so long. I thought she would never give in and realize how much he cared for her. Then, after high school, after college, she finally realized she loved him too. They're both living in Chicago teaching right now. Life never seperated them, because they were always meant to be together.


The day Sarah told me that she and Tom were dating, like "for real," this time, I started crying. I wanted so badly to live near them and go on double dates and celebrate with them! So you can imagine how emotional I got when I found out they got engaged. Actually, I knew that Tom was proposing before Sarah even found out (thanks Hulie!) but when I heard the story from her perspective I could barely keep it together. Two of my childhood best friends are getting married! I'm SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!


Tom proposed to Sarah with an 11 page story of their love. Well, this is my story of their love and my love for them. It might be slightly different version, but it has the same happy ending, nonetheless :)



* Sorry! I'm so ridiculously excited that I had to share this on the blog, even though it has nothing to do with Chile. :)

Blink Changed My Perspective

People sometimes ask me what I dislike the most about living in Chile, and that answer is pretty easy -- I hate never fitting in. I hate that I can never be treated as a normal resident of this country, one who speaks Spanish, has a Chilean husband, lives and works here. People see the color of my hair and the shape of my face, my blue eyes blink back at them, and they think one thing -- tourist.


On a frequent basis I will say something in Spanish, with an accent yes, but not an unintelligible accent by any means, and the clerk, cashier, secretary, whoever, will ask me to repeat myself three or four times.


Once at Starbucks, I asked for a "cafe frappucino light, tamano grande por favor." The woman behind the counter looked back and me said in English, "I'm sorry I do not understand you." I repeated my order, again, the exact same thing in Spanish." She looked over at her colleague, bewildered. I repeated myself one more time and she hestitantly asked, "Quieres un mocchacino frapuccino QUE?" And at that point S. got fed up and said, "Que es que no entiendes?" And I added one last time, "Quiero un cafe frapuccino light, tamano grande!" The girl finally figured out my order and from then on the rest of our conversation, in Spanish was completely understood by both parties.


This sort of thing happening used to make me furious. I mean, I would be livid, wondering if these people who couldn't understand me were trying to make me feel stupid or were just being downright mean. I thought it was odd that anyone who has previously met me, 99% of the time, can understand whatever I say in Spanish the first time I say it. I've theorized about the subject before, wondering if it's just shock value -- as in, strangers are expecting to hear English come out of my mouth so when I speak Spanish it throws them for a loop.


Turns out, the author of Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, says I'm sort of right. Here's a quick description so you have some context of what I'm talking about.

It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good.

He goes on to explain that many of the snap judgments that our subconcious comes to, are manifested conciously and there's not much we can do about it. To give you an example:


I don't conciously dislike black people. If you were to ask me, I'd say I feel neutral about a black person or a white person until I get to know him or her and that skin color doesn't affect my feelings towards the person. However, I took the Harvard Implicit Assocation Test. My data suggested a "moderate automatic preference for White people over Black people," and "a strong automatic preference for Barack Obama over John McCain."


The media, my upbringing, whatever it was that factored in to my social unconscious has made me biased against black people and republicans, even though on a conscious level, I don't think I am. In fact, my heart speed up as I was taking the test...I was sitting there thinking to myself, "Oh my god, I'm fucking racist," My conscious was thinking, "This isn't right. You don't really think black people are bad." And then my subconscious was making me push the button that would relate the word "Evil" with black people before I could control myself. Seriously, take the test, it will FREAK you out.



Anyways, the whole thing made me realize something important. Just like I don't want to be racist, Chileans don't want to misunderstand me. The girl at Starbucks wasn't purposely trying to not to understand my Spanish. It's just that her subconcious has been so conditioned to believe that Gringo = English-speaking that her concious heard nothing but white noise when I was speaking Spanish. After a few minutes, once she realized that I did speak Spanish, she was able to understand 100% of what I said on the first try, even though my accent hadn't changed, the words I was saying hadn't changed, but all of a sudden, because her concious had finally made the switch, we could communicate. That's why Spanish speaking people who already know me, have no problem understanding me. I've also found that people who have been previously prepped, as in, my husband has told them "I'm married to a gringa who speaks Spanish," usually don't have a heard time with my Spanish either. Nor do my gringa friends' Chilean husbands and boyfriends because their unconcious now has probably been conditioned to think that gringas do speak Spanish.


I used to feel that people were actively thinking, "This girl's blond, she must just be another stupid tourist, I bet she doesn't speak Spanish, I won't understand her." And that that was why they don't understand me. But I'm now feeling way more tolerant towards people who expect English to come out of my mouth -- blame it all on their unconcious.


PS. If you take the Implicit Association test, post your results in the comments, I'm fascinated to hear!

PSS. Thanks, Allison, for loaning me the book!

*Updated: In Blink the author speaks of a man who gets a result in the IA test that's totally neutral after he watches black athletes competing in a track and field event. I just went on Youtube, watched two videos of Barack Obama and took the test again. This time my results were: a "moderate automatic preference for Black people over White people," and a "strong automatic preference for Barack Obama over John McCain." Now I'm racist against white people. This is nuts!

Still No News

Still waiting...



And I'm sorry I haven't even attempted to post anything interesting or insightful about Chile or life as an expat this week. I feel like I'm letting the readers down. To try and appease you I'll leave you with photos of my absurdly cute doggy. She made friends today with a nice Italian man's puppy and wore herself out playing.

Quote of the Day

Today S. looked a little stressed so I asked what was wrong.

His response:

"Honey, I'm only worried about two things in life...money and Swine Flu."

HAHA.


Just got back from a photo shoot to do headshots for an awesome British lady and her business partner, now I'm heading out for a double date. Love my life!

Email From a Kind Reader

Email from a kind reader:

Hello Kyle,

Where have you been? I miss reading your new post @ your blog. can't wait for updates.

Thank you to Shue in Kuala Lumpur for reminding me that I HAVE a blog!!! Normally JMCS at least makes my To-Do list even when I get busy. I'll look at it and then cross it off even if I don't get to it because staring at things on the list that don't get done, stress me out. However, the blog didn't even make it that far this month. I haven't even considered that I should feel guilty for not posting because I've been so busy.


All things considered, that's a great thing. Remember? I lost a lot of income in this past month. Fortunately, I've had an extremely busy month with photography. Every time I think that the slow season is about to start, I keep on booking. I am set to make a record 600,000 pesos in April. It sounds like a lot, and really, if I could get up to 1 millon de pesos a month I'd be almost completely replacing my lost income. However, the one thing about photography income is that you're always having to invest in new equipment. I paid off the 3k camera that I put on my credit card with non-photography income so I have a zero balance. I don't like debt. But, in terms of personal money versus photography money, my photography balance shows that I've still spent about $1k more than I've earned this year. If I ever want to go full-time I'd have to work out a good business plan.


Anyways, back to what I've been doing, I may not have been updating this blog, but I've been busy over at my wedding photography blog. For the past three days I've been averaging 3-4 hours of sleep a night so that I can finish client photos. I don't want to fall even further behind because I have another session tomorrow and Friday. I've been working really hard and I'm proud of my latest engagement session and wedding that I just posted, so if you feel like it, head on over and leave me some love. :)







PS. The weatherman LIED!!! It was not 60 and sunny, it was freezing and the beach at La Serena looked like this! However, the plane did not crash and for that I'm eternally grateful. :)