Shutter Sisters

The Rush

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She’s there,
On the tip of a steep cliff,
Playfully dangling her toes off the edge.
She could take five comfortable steps back,
And be safe again-
But she’s tired of safe.
 
For she craves the fall.
She craves the wind rushing around her,
Filling her lungs
and bringing goose bumps to her arms.
Although she loves the soft landing behind her,
It is the thrill she seeks,
Knowing that as soon as the cliff beneath her crumbles,
Her life begins.
 
Her life-
Her own.
The cliff of her childhood will soon be gone,
And she sits,
Looking over the edge,
Seeing the rush of the fall-
The rush of her life,
And she is tempted to jump,
To leap into the possibilities almost in reach of her dangling toes.
Who will I meet?
Where will I be?
What will I become?
The constant itch of these questions lies in her bones,
For she knows she must wait for answers.
Wait.
Wait.
 
And soon-
She remembers her soft landing,
It is not quite finished yet.
She goes back to basking in her final moments in the comfort,
In the familiar…
 
But her strive for the wind,
for the fall,
for the rush,
is always in the back of her mind.
She’s ready for her new life to begin.

* * *

Image and poem by guest Shutter Sister Suzanna Hodges, age 17

be the creative director of your work

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As photographers we are constantly changing and growing. As we discover more about the world, we instinctively discover more about ourselves. Our tastes, likes, dislikes, wants and needs, all influence who we are as people, and who we are as people ultimately shapes who we are as photographers.

For a time, I was confused about who I was as a photographer. When I first started shooting, I would just photograph things that interested me or the things that I instinctively thought would make a good composition. Yet, if someone asked me what type of photographer I was, I had no idea and couldn’t give him or her an answer. I was stuck. I was stuck in the black hole of comparison. Trapped by other people’s images and ideas and felt as though my own vision was being drowned in a sea of bokeh circles and 50mm macro shots. When I started to become bored by my own images, I realised that something had to change.

I realised that I was paying too much attention to the crowd and not enough to my own vision and voice. Who was I shooting for? What story was I trying to tell? I had started shooting for myself in the beginning, and then somewhere along the way I got caught up in the crowd. It was time for me to go back to what was important to me.

Once I let go, I felt free again. I felt like my whole world opened up and I could start shooting for me. It was liberating. Over time, I started to pay attention to what I truly liked about photography, what gave me goose bumps when viewing other people’s photography and what gave me most satisfaction when shooting for myself. By paying attention to my own likes and dislikes, I started to gather pieces of the puzzle that pulled together my own photography style.

I have been shooting this way for a long time now and it’s what makes me happy. I am particular about what I shoot, when I shoot and how I shoot. Every image is sketched out in my mind before I shoot it and they may not all work or have meaning for others, but to me, they tell my story and share my voice.

Through photographing this way over time, my style has developed. I have a set of adjectives I use to describe my photography and I remind myself of those when I shoot. Style is never finished and can always be improved upon. It takes many years to perfect and I am always working on reaching that objective.

I do know this; to nurture style, one must have a goal. We need to figure out where we are now, where we want to be and how we can close the gap between the two. It’s a work in progress and cannot be achieved overnight. We are the creative directors of our own work and we are the only ones who can speak with our own unique voice.

Do you have a clear vision and voice that you share with others?

Please share images that you think best represent you or your style with us!

————–

Today Amanda is giving away one spot in her Shoot By Design: Refining Your Photography Style photography e-course where she will teach you all she knows about molding your signature style, finding your own voice, share technical tips to get the best out of your camera and show you how to creates strong, passionate images. Leave a comment here before Tuesday 24th 12pm PST to win a place in the Shoot By Design Spring session, starting on March 5th!

You can find out more about Amanda’s work on her portfolio and popular blog Mocking Bird. She is also the co-author of the anticipated Instant Love: How To Make Magic and Memories with Polaroids (with Jen Altman and Susannah Conway) published by Chronicle Books.

The winner of the giveaway is Mary! Congratulations, you will receive an email from Amanda shortly.

the connection

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It all started with memories. I learned to use a camera because I wanted to capture memories, of where I had been and with whom I had shared my life.  For a long while, it seemed I was afraid I wouldn’t remember life without having a photograph to remind me.

As I learned more about photography, my goal transitioned to the moment.  It was the triumphant feeling of capturing a fleeting moment of an expression or of light, which drew me to bring the camera to my eye. I no longer needed to capture every memory, but watched for the right moments.

Over time, my motivations shifted again; shifted deeper.  One day, I noticed I was no longer capturing images to remember or to freeze time, but to feel. I had discovered photography as a form of self-expression. I was learning more about myself through my images. I was expressing my true self in photographs, in a deep and soul-satisfying way.

Photography brought me from memories… to moments… to me.

What I had discovered was a heart connection with some of my images; they expressed feelings I had not yet put into words. I found the stronger my heart connection with an image, the more likely others would connect with the image too. More than just connecting with an image, though, others also began connecting with me: The real me, the part that is often difficult to see.

These days, the heart connection is what I seek in my photography. To express a feeling is my purpose and motivation when I pick up my camera, more than the memories and the moments. When I share my vision of the world, I want it to be the vision that expresses who I am at heart. And through my heart connection with my images, I want to connect with others. I want to find kindred spirits who express themselves through their images. I want to know those who seek a heart connection too.

This year, I’ve started a new project called Photo-Heart Connection, to deepen my practice of photography. At the beginning of each month, I will be looking through my images from the previous month and finding the one image which brings me the strongest heart connection. I’ll write about it, learn from it. The exercise will force me to pause for a moment, contemplate my direction and reaffirm the expression I am seeking through my photographs. Each time I pause to do this, my photo-heart connection will deepen. I think yours will too, so I’m inviting you to join me, sharing your strongest photo-heart connection each month with a community of like-minded photographers. Our first link up will be February 1.

Today I encourage you to consider your photo-heart connection. Do you have an image which comes to mind, as an expression of your heart? Share it here, and start the connection.

Image and words courtesey of Guest Blogger Kat Sloma of Kat Eye Studios.

Telling Stories

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 That’s me up there, sitting on my Mother’s lap. It’s one of my most favorite photos of my Mom and I.  She would have been just a little younger than I am now.

There’s a story behind every photograph captured, every snapshot stolen from a moment in time.  I look at this photo, now through a mother’s eyes, and wonder what her story was when this was taken.

It’s fascinating to think about where our own photos will end up, forty or fifty years from now. Will somebody, somewhere, look at an image we’ve captured and wonder about the person in the frame? What they were thinking, feeling, doing in that exact moment?  Perhaps it’s a love of photography that leads me to also wonder about the person behind the lens. I wonder why it was they chose to capture a certain moment, a certain scene, a certain someone. I wonder what they were trying to tell me.

Holding this snapshot in my hands, a bit weathered with age, its paper curling from its backing, I make a wish that someday, somebody will do the same with a photograph of my own.  I hope they wonder about the stories I’ve been telling.

Today, please share with us your photos that tell a story. 

 

Image and post courtesy of the awesome Janice Squires, who many of us know and love from her blog Two Scoopz.

savoring motherhood

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I did all the right things. I read all the books. I watched all the videos. I took all the classes. I went to prenatal yoga classes religiously, took walks with my husband, and daydreamed with him about how we were going to have the “happiest baby on the block.” I savored every minute of my pregnancy and was excited to do the same with our newborn.

We were ready. Or so we thought.

Then she arrived and everything we thought we knew flew out the window. Night was day and day was night. I felt as if the life I once knew was a distant memory and now I was navigating new and very foreign territory. I wouldn’t have traded my new life for the old one, but those early days were hard. Very hard.

Several weeks after Sadie was born, I realized that I had been in a deep fog. While I was wallowing in the exhaustion, she was growing and changing. And I had missed it.

Yes, this has been one of the most difficult times in my life, but I don’t want to lose sight of how wondrous and amazing it is. I want to savor it because it will be gone before I know it.

Never in my life have I been so aware of the passage of time. Becoming a mother has amplified my need to preserve memories. At seven weeks old, I am floored by how fast Sadie is growing. Sometimes, it feels like she changes from minute to minute. She’ll wake up from a nap and I swear she’s gained three pounds. Every morning, I wake up to find a new baby.  

And so I do what I always do when I want to savor a moment in time: I pick up my camera. And when I do, I see for the first time what has been there all along: chubby hands, tiny ruffles, soft skin, itty-bitty shoes, little toes, wise eyes, first smiles, and a whole lot of love.

Yes, in the topsy-turvy life with a newborn, my camera helps me savor the simple moments and remember what is most important.

Share with us the kinds of moments you are savoring this season.

* * * * * *

Darrah Parker is giving away one spot in the Slice of Life Project, a 6-week photography e-course that will help you savor the details of your everyday life. Leave a comment for a chance to win a spot in the winter session, starting February 6.

For more information about Darrah, visit her website. For more information about her e-course, visit the Slice of Life Project web page.

balance

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In my family, I fill a number of roles.  They include, in no particular order, the role of primary caregiver, wife, mother, friend, housekeeper, bookkeeper, librarian, storyteller, nurse, educator, cheerleader, and comedian. I have to put on my pants and fill the role of democrat, republican, and independent.  I am a chef, artist,  singer/songwriter, engineer, seamstress, stylist, decorator, journalist…

The list goes on.

Finding a balance between all of these roles may be one of the biggest challenges in my life, aside from trying how to fix a hole in the soft organza fabric that details the 15 princess dresses that are taking over my dining room table.  Not to mention trying to figure out how to get my 3 year old to eat.  Or sleep.  Or stop screaming all the time, especially when the baby is sleeping.  And to my 4 year old? No, I have no idea where the warthog toy is that you haven’t played with in 2 years but are suddenly obsessed with finding so stop asking me before my head explodes from repeating myself.

It’s all about balance, but how do you find that balance?

For me, it is all about moderation.  In regards to photography, and filling the role of the journalist, I find that I need to allow some moments to pass by, unrecorded. Picking up my camera was one of the most significant choices that I’ve made in my life.  Since then, I’ve taken thousands upon thousands of images.  It has become a part of who I am, and it has made birthday and holiday shopping for me incredibly easy.

I often need to remind myself, however, that my camera is an extension of who I am, and I cannot allow it to singularly define who I am (though it certainly does contribute to that definition). 

I think (I hope) that we all have moments that we would just like to leave our cameras at home.  Times that we just want to live in the moment and not be the one to document it. 

I try to have an ongoing dialog with myself, and when I wake up in the morning I promise myself that I will be there, and be present in my life and the lives of my husband and children.  I will use my camera with intention, and that moderation will allow me to find the balance I need to not only enjoy the time with my family, but it will save me from the guilt and regret of not getting any shots along the way.

How do you moderate yourself?  What sort of dialog do you use?  How do you come to the understanding that sometimes it is ok to leave your camera at home? That sometimes it is ok to allow the moment to pass, unrecorded?

Image and words courtesy of the lovely Meg Fahrenbach of Tea & Brie.

And hey! Don’t forget that we’re giving away some cool MOO products and a Lensbaby here this week! Awesome.

Notes from the Middle

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me

It’s 6:33.  In the morning, not the evening.  And I’m sitting at my computer.  I’m not usually up this early by choice, but it’s the first morning after camp and something is different.  I’m different.  That’s the wonderful thing about experiences like this.  They change you.  They make you jump out of bed by choice at an ungodly (to me) hour of the morning to write things down, because you don’t want to forget…  

Most mornings, I hear the door of the boys’ room open and realize it’s still dark outside.   My first thought of the day is “It’s time to get up already?  Why couldn’t they sleep just a little longer so mommy could get a little more rest?”  Then comes the part where they climb into the bed, get under the covers, all poky knees and sharp elbows.  The bed immediately shrinks to the size of a postage stamp.  They cuddle close, searching for my body heat because the trek from their bed to mine has left their feet cold (very, very cold) and my skin is oh, so warm.  As they get comfortable, I feel the taking of me begin.  The taking that happens when you’re a parent to young children and your needs don’t come first anymore.  I guess this is what they meant when they said “parenting is the most self-less act in the world.  Don’t do it until you’re ready to give all of you to your kids”.

But today.  Today is different.  I’ve been away from them for 3 mornings. I’ve been inspired by the amazing women at Camp and their practice of shooting through gratitude, shooting with intention and shooting what you love.  I’ve been thinking about my passion for shooting life as it is right now, in this very moment.  I’ve been thinking about story and how even that seems too big for me.  Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.  But that is too long for me, too drawn out.  Because sometimes, when I think about the whole story, it overwhelms me.  It reminds me that the BEGINNING of the week started off frenzied, with too many things on my to do list.  And I immediately just want to get to the END so that I can finally exhale.  What I’m finally realizing (thank you camp sisters) is that I leave no room in my life for the MIDDLE.  The right here, the right now.  When I’m focused on the END and just want to get there, I miss everything in the MIDDLE.  It’s all a chore and I just want to get it over with so I can get to the END, to my prize.  I know in my heart that the END never really comes.  There’s always a new BEGINNING, and a new END.  But isn’t the MIDDLE where the good stuff happens?  Where the joy is?  What am I missing by ignoring the MIDDLE?

Making this connection, right now at 7:07 in the morning, is blowing my mind.  My Mind = Blown.

This morning, when I heard the boys’ door open, a small smile crept onto my face.  I heard their quick, heavy footsteps and felt warm.  Warmer than my blankets could ever make me feel.  When they cuddled into me, I reached out and pulled them even closer.  I welcomed the feel of their skin against mine, regardless of how cold it was.  I listened as their breathing became rhythmic.  I breathed them in and wondered how I could capture this moment with my camera.  How I could remember that this morning, instead of thinking about how tired I was from getting to bed late and how many things there were on my to do list, I thought only about the good in that single moment in time.  And how blissful it felt.  How grateful I felt for my life.  For that moment.  In the MIDDLE.  

That is my passion.  Capturing the stuff in the MIDDLE.  The stuff that gets lost when you think about the BEGINNING and the END of the story.

That is what I learned at Camp and I don’t want to forget.

What about you? Share a glimpse of what it looks like to be present and content in the middle?

Image and post Camp Shutter Sisters story courtesy of the awesome Wendy Tienken.

How we move through this world

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I had lunch with a friend today. When you’re self-employed and work from home like I do it’s always a treat to meet a friend for lunch somewhere lovely: today it was Jamie’s Italian in Bath. When our starters arrived I whipped out my iPhone, stood up and took a few shots of the bruschetta slathered in olive oil and crushed borlotti beans—luckily Hanne knew not to start eating until I’d got my shot. The same thing happened when our pasta arrived, and our coffees too. It’s not often I get to eat in restaurants so taking photos to record the occasion makes sense. But I also do this when I’m at home. And when I’m in the supermarket. And when I’m eating breakfast with my 18 month-old nephew. I take photos of the fallen leaves at my feet and broken doorways and daisy circles. I take photographs to anchor myself more firmly in the moment and use my cameras to capture the potential photos I see everywhere I look. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing—for as long as I am able to take a breath and lift my camera to my eye, I will be creating images with pixels and film. Do you have this urge too?

My constant—some would argue obsessive—picture taking is simply the way I move through the world. Photography is like a form of meditation for me and when life is feeling harder than usual I take myself outside and look at the world through my lens. There’s always a new way to see things—it’s uncanny, really. When I was grieving the untimely death of my partner it was my camera that helped me reconnect with myself and my world, and it’s the reason why I know that creativity is the fastest way to access our truest selves.

Next month I’m leading a brand new e-course sharing everything I know about photography. Photo Meditations: Infusing Your Images with Soul is a five-week exploration of the inspirational and the practical for anyone who wishes to sink deeper into their own photographic journey. We’ll be diving into compositional theory, self-portraiture, shooting for your blog, story-telling and so much more. I should probably mention right now that I’m not a very technical sort of photographer—I’m going to be sharing some important basics in the first week, but I’m not concerned with histograms and what have you. What excites me, and what I hope to pass on to my students, is a passion for creating pictures that tell stories. That move the viewer. That convey what I feel. That hold layers of meaning. That delight the eye. That’s what we’ll be exploring in Photo Meditations. 

Would you like to join me? 

Please leave a comment here between now and Friday (midnight EST) for a chance to win a complementary registration for Photo Meditations!

Images and words by Susannah Conway; photographer, writer and the creator of the Unravelling e-courses. A Polaroid addict and very proud aunt, her first book, This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart (Globe Pequot Press), launches in June 2012. You can read about her shenanigans at SusannahConway.com. Registration for her new class, Photo Meditations, opens this Saturday, October 15th.

**Congratulations to Julie Fairchild for winning a spot in Susannah’s class! Thanks to all for commenting.

what you don’t see

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I have to tell you how amazingly freeing it is to show you the photo above.  When I started writing this post and looking for photos that show the, “what you don’t see”, I started finding and laughing at all sorts of discarded photos in my computer files.  What you could perceive from the first fireplace photo is that my house is perfect enough to get this shot or as one comment I received on the fireplace photo, “It’s like you live in a magazine”. ..ha, not with four kids and a dog! That is just photography magic (and clever cropping) my dear friends. I’m pretty sure a magazine wouldn’t have an unfinished fireplace, dusty wood floors, a discarded newspaper and wires poking out where once there was a flat screen. There is so much we don’t see in photography.

 I took the “pretty” fireplace photo before we were finished because I needed inspiration.  Priming and painting an entire two story, floor to ceiling fireplace is not an easy task and taking this photo kept me focused. It reminded me that soon, hopefully soon, I would have a wonderful showpiece in the house in which to hang our family’s stockings and decorate with each new season.

Photos speak volumes in both what it shows and doesn’t show the viewer. Often times what you don’t see, the real shot,  is the most beautiful part.  I have a photo of one of our newly arrived chicks sitting on a window sill looking out.  In hindsight what I wish I had done was take a step back or two.  What you would have seen then was my sweet husbands’ hands cupped underneath the window sill, steadying himself there just in case miss chick decided to jump, simply because I had asked.  To me, that memory means so much more than the professional looking chick photo. It reminds me how real and wonderful life is outside the perfect point of focus.  How although a pretty picture has its place to keep us inspired, the not so perfect shots (or uncropped versions) shouldn’t be so easily discarded, because they too have a story to tell. The newspaper on the ottoman in the right side of the fireplace photo…my kids sharing a chair, laughing and reading the Sunday comics in pj’s.

A dear friend of mine posted this photo on flickr a few years ago. Out of  the hundreds of beautiful and perfect shots she has taken through the years, this one stands out most in mind.  Why?  Because it is so real.  It is her and I adore her.  It is her life on her farm summed up in a single photo and I find it so achingly beautiful. Today, show us the real, the perfectionist, the messy, the inspirational, the uncropped and the gorgeously, beautiful parts of YOU.

Images and words courtesy of the lovely Andie edwards.

Circus Act

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As artists we are inspired, and then we are compelled to create. Over a year ago my approach to photography evolved when I was introduced to the work of Shannon Sewell. After hosting a workshop with her, and through trial and error on my own, I learned the life-cycle of a styled shoot. Here are a few things I consider once I decide to go ahead with a concept.

OBJECTIVE
                Knowing I’m about to spend hours on a project, I have to have a good reason to make it all worthwhile. I love planning, shooting, editing, and looking at the story-like images that are created from a themed shoot. So really if nothing happened with the images from there, I would consider it a win. With the circus shoot, however, I knew I wanted to try my hand at getting published online. This objective was the force that made me put in the necessary time and energy to make it exactly how I envisioned.
                Identifying an objective, and evaluating it throughout the process, also helps me decide what is useful stress and what is just distracting stress. For example, for this shoot I found myself getting side-tracked by the backdrop… should it be a tent, an arena, garlands, lights, what if I didn’t do a backdrop at all, should I sew one or buy one… and on it went. It gave me such a creative block that the backdrop almost derailed the whole shoot. I had to keep reminding myself that I wanted the outcome to be an identifiable nod to the circus without taking it too literally. So I threw out overly complicated options while still getting the structure and color pop that I wanted.

PLAN
                Regardless of the size of each project, planning is crucial. It’s also one of my favorite parts of the creative process. I’m not exactly a control freak, but I’m also not a person who loves surprises… like “Surprise! Wardrobe doesn’t fit.”, or “Surprise! Model A’s mom doesn’t want her images shown online.” I know things will come up that I can’t control, like “Surprise! I accidentally had my assistant set up the backdrop on top of poison ivy.” (eh-hem… true story), so it’s very important that I anticipate the things I can control.

I keep a checklist to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. My checklist varies depending on the needs of each shoot, but here’s how it looked for this project…

 

– Models: how many, what age, where to get them, how will they be compensated

– Model Releases: Get them signed. Period.

– Hair and Makeup: who will do it, what styles for which look, which models have a hair and skin profile to match the desired look, hair accessories needed

– Wardrobe: accessories, shoes and clothing (in this case a combination of dance costumes, items from my closet and the girls’ closets, and a contribution from Lillipops Designs)

– Props: details support the theme, added visual interest, aids posing, where to get them

– Location: what will the light be like when we shoot, is it easy to get models there, is it right for the theme

– Timeline: coordinate multiple models to arrive at staggered times, what will the light be

like when we shoot

– Grab Bag: contains “floating” accessories in case I decide an outfit needs something else, safety pins, pretty much anything that might come in handy

– Print: list of models and their looks (make copies so the makeup artist, moms and anyone else assisting don’t have to hunt me down with questions), directions to the location, timeline to keep us all on track, notes to myself about specific angles or lighting or poses I want to use

– Treats: because food and drinks make everything more fun

COLLABORATE
                Most of the time I can figure out anything with the help of search engines and a hot glue gun. And then there is hair and makeup… and then I’m kind of stuck. The fact is great hair and makeup makes models look better, post-processing easier, and is a key element in completing certain themes. Thank goodness I met Courtney Peters, a hair and makeup artist with mad skills and a need for portfolio images for her upcoming website. I sent her the “character” information, along with model specifics, but ultimately I left the creativity and execution to her.
                My style of photography emphasizes details. Which is another reason I rely on assistance for large shoots such as this one. On the day of a shoot there are a lot of random details I don’t want to miss. Props need to be moved to the location, model releases need to be signed, outfits need to be put together in a specific way… you get the idea. These are all things that, when added up, can drain me and affect the quality of my work when it’s time to shoot. My friend Cortnie was a great help in taking care of loose ends during the circus shoot and problem-solving some of the planning. She also chatted with the models and their moms so that I could focus on my own thoughts.
                Collaboration with other creative people can offer perspective and insight that give your project depth. It’s also a way to spread the burden of coming up with all the ideas, props, plans, and work by yourself. But for me, the biggest reason to collaborate is that the whole process is more fun. Don’t be afraid to reach out to stylists, vendors, designers, and other photographers.

Themed shoots require extra work coordinating a lot of moving parts. After the circus shoot I was exhausted… and maybe not-so-fresh after hours in the heat and humidity. So I thought when I walked in the door after the shoot I would be ready for a break. Instead my mind was enthralled and working on my next ideas. 

What are you compelled to create? Today we would love to hear some of your ideas.

 

Image and words courtesy of Laurel Hogge of Laurel Photography. For more about Laurel and to see the other images from the circus shoot visit her website.

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Don’t forget, we are giving away one $100 Paper Coterie gift card EVERY SINGLE DAY of September to one of YOU!  All you have to do is share a comment each day before midnight EST for your chance to Win that day’s random drawing.  Be sure to leave links to your story shots.