Shutter Sisters

Picture Hope: What Dreams May Come

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The first time we met she had welcomed me like a long lost daughter, the child she never knew. I went to her arms as if I had always belonged there and then sat back to hear the stories–how she had been dreaming of me for thirty years, how she had been waiting, how relieved she was I brought the lights.

This visit she confesses the dream was not an easy one, that she had seen a white woman coming into her house with torches, how she feared that the house would go up in flames, how it disturbed her so much she told her two closest sons and her daughter, my good friend, years before we met. She tells me, only now, that all her dreams had come true, only none of it happened the way she imagined.

The house would be a new one. The light would be her eyes shining at the thought that she had ever been afraid. The fire would be the love that ignited when we all gathered in the same place, equally enchanted by the other. The torches would be a bagful of headlamps that made her laugh and laugh to see the light shining from her head as she made her way across the room.

I ask her what she’s dreaming now as she holds my hand, the one with the gold ring she gave me, the ring that is turning my finger green and making me happy. Everything will happen in its own time, she tells me, not willing to give away any more secrets.

Besides. What could we dream that could be any better than this–to be together, body, mind and spirit? What could we imagine that could give us any more comfort? What could possibly give us any more hope?

Hope Knows How to Wait

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Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have. —H. Jackson Brown Jr.

There’s something about words along side an image that helps the viewer see what you see in a whole new light. No matter how powerful our images, words take us somewhere new. Words frame what we see. Words highlight something that previously was hidden.

What words come to mind when you consider your favorite images? Feel free to share a pair–a favorite quote along side a photo–in the comments below.

 

All Right

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Most of the time when you think of Rwanda the first thing that comes to mind is the genocide, that fateful moment in 1994 when almost a million people were killed in less than 100 days while the world looked on.  While the aftermath of the genocide is still major news for most media outlets considering Rwanda, the real story of everyday life is much more hopeful.  Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, is a boom town, with bamboo scaffolding scaling construction on every corner.  Rwanda has the highest percentage of female elected officials in the world, and the country’s communication strategy includes laying fiber optic cable right along the brand new energy grid.  Despite being among the world’s poorest countries, a spirit of positivity fuels forward motion in Rwanda, and everywhere we went we could feel it.

In the stories of recovery from great trauma. 

In the tales of love found after all hope was lost.

In the platefuls of green bananas served up each night with so much enthusiasm and kindness.

In the backroom at the barbershop where something as normal and everyday as having someone wash your hair on an uneventful Wednesday is proof positive everything really is all right.

Picture Hope Gets Ready to Take Off

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Nyamwiza-1 Just one week to go and Stephanie and I will be on the plane on our way to Rwanda for the launch of Picture Hope. Here are several ways you can come along with us as we get ready to take off on this year long journey.

Submit a photo of yourself or your children to the Picture Hope Flickr Pool. We’ll print up these images as hope notes with the message “Thank you for sharing your story” for every story teller we meet along the way. To see your face and to know you’re listening will give this work heart and soul wherever we go.

Join us for the special Picture Hope reception at the Shutter Suite this Friday at 4PM in Chicago. Held in conjunction with the Blogher Conference, the Shutter Suite is your place to lounge, check out our sponsors, get a taste of Open Range Wines from Casey Flat Ranch Vineyards, make hope notes with suite full of hip HP technology goodness and say good-bye before Stephanie and I head out next week. We’d love to see you!

Purchase the Picture Hope book in the Blurb Store and directly support the people we meet along the way. Too often photographers come to the global south to shoot without making any impact on the lives of their subjects along the way. We are so hopeful about another way of sharing our content–especially in Africa. 100% of all profits from the book go straight to the people who were generous enough to tell their stories.

Join us on themotherhood.com as Stephanie and I LIVE chat directly from Kigali, Rwanda about our experiences on the ground. This will be your time to ask questions, see first images and share our first experiences as photographer partners in Rwanda. Mark your calendars–the chat will start at noon Eastern Standard Time on August 3rd. We can’t wait to share this journey with you!

Eight is Great

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Today is my youngest’s birthday. He’s eight; old enough to conduct an intelligent and interesting conversation. Young enough to still make me smile with his questionable sense of humor and incredibly innocent approach to life.

Of all the photos you take of your kids, I love the ones that embody exactly where they are at a particular age and stage of development. Here, he’s still silly, while his older sister plays like a grown-up girl with a baby on her hip and no time anymore for leaf hats on rainy days and other kinds of foolishness.

Do you have a photo that seems to reflects the essence of an age? A picture that reminds you time is flying and this precious moment will pass?

Her Trusting Heart

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She was just a lady at a party, one more person that I didn’t know in a house where I’d never been.  We had met briefly when I came in the door, but she didn’t light up until she noticed me pull my camera out of my bag. 

“Are you a professional?”  Um, not really.  (gulp.)

“Do you do portraits?”  Uh, only if no one’s paying attention.

“Can I hire you to take my picture for my website?”  By this point, I loved her for her unfounded confidence in me and unapologetic persistence.  I was the one who could capture her, she just knew it, and she couldn’t let it go.

I’m incredibly uncomfortable with taking people’s portraits for a purpose, on purpose, but something about this lady made me want to try.  Come on in the backyard, I beckoned.  Let’s do it right now.  And then, Do you want to comb your hair?  At this she laughed and said she thought her hair was just fine, her eyes fiilling up with light to show me her sweet and tender, trusting heart.

I played photographer and she smiled for the camera, and we got this shot, messy hair and all.  I sent it to her after, quite sheepish that it wasn’t the masterpiece I’d hoped to pull off on the spot, but she didn’t care.  She trusted me, and she knew from the first instant I was the right one to capture her soul.

Do you ever get pegged “the photographer” whether you feel like you merit the title or the role?  Show us those pics you were on the spot to shoot.  Show us what you can do when someone believes in you, even when you’re not so sure you can believe in your own fledgling photographer self.

Summer, Please Be Kind

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wise guy part two

They look like angels, right?  Like the kind of children who would sit quietly for hours playing board games, drawing pictures, asking if they finished all their thank you notes. 

But you already know better. 

They are little demons of adventure.  They want to ride their bikes in construction sites.  They want to turn the room above the garage into a kid-style karaoke bar.  They want cash for an IKEA run so they can buy a hundred of those twirly egg chairs, so they can line them up on the driveway and spin themselves silly. They want to run businesses!  Have dance parties!  Build rockets!

Now I’m planning to fly around the world and take pictures of hope–which is amazing!  which is a miracle!–but seriously, sisters, I pray to God these kids will have mercy on their subjects–oops! i mean supervisors–while I’m working around the clock, getting ready to go.  I pray a nice kind Mary Poppins whose way smarter than they are will land on my doorstep and whip us all into shape, before Kid Nation rules my world.

What are you wishing for this summer?  Who are the subjects at your house who are threatening a takeover?  Show us your angels, your demons, your precious darlings with those impish grins.  We need to know what you’re facing, as summer stares us down.

 

The Real You

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talent show 066

It’s not everyday you get to be seen for the real you.

Sometimes your chance comes when you stand on a stage.  Other times it happens when you lay your head on a pillow.  No matter how it comes, that moment of recognition is all it takes to make you feel like a real star.

When was the last time you saw the real somebody when you looked through your lens?  Show us your shining stars in your pics today, and if someone by chance had the talent to reveal the real you, show us that photo, too.

Before You Fly

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nest

Before you fly, I’m learning, you have to have a nest.  I’ve always had trouble patching together a safe place, prefering instead to stay aflight, above the fray.  This time, however, I’ll have to land before I take off.  I’ll have to find my own circle of quiet where the truth sits like a robin’s blue egg waiting for a warm place to hatch, waiting for the hope of a new life to be born.

Show us your nest today–that cozy corner of your house, your home, your soul where you understand everything’s going to be so all right, no matter where you fly, no matter where you soar.

Hope Travels

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The submissions to this month’s One Word Project were truly amazing.  Take a dive into our Picture Hope Flickr Group and be inspired.  These are the images we’ll carry with us around the world as Stephanie and I travel to uncover the kind of hopeful stories that can really take our hearts somewhere new.

Leave us the hope note you’d write if you felt sure the just right person would read it.  And of course, any last minute images you’d like to see travel all the way around the globe.

image by natala