Shutter Sisters

the art of conversation

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Sarah’s post last week, against cheese, had me cracking up and nodding my head all at once. Yes yes, i know that face, that glazed over, not another photo mom face, or the tongue that instantly pops out when i turn my camera on. Kids can be tough subjects some days. I have a little sneaky trick, hey i am a mom of 3, a girl has to have a few tricks up her sleeve. Have you ever turned your camera on, laid it down in front of you, and then pretended it’s not there? This works great on a table, in the grass, or on a bed. Be casual, talk, let them tell you a story, ask them about their day and when they get going and get lost in their conversation, click away! Don’t pick it up, it will kill the moment. Just ever so casually put your finger on the shutter and push (auto focus on of course). I love the animated faces you capture when your subject is unknowing. Wide eyes, the giggles, a pensive moment, or perhaps a whole lot of animation. Your subject can be anyone, maybe you have an unwilling partner or camera shy friend, getting them to relax and forget the camera is there will make for some great faces and shots. So continuing with this month’s one word, faces, go ahead, try it and share an unguarded face with us here today. Or what tricks do you have up your sleeve? Do tell. 🙂

face to face

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Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to New York City and meet a few of the sisters in person for the first time ever.  One in particular was a most special meeting personally for me.  Meredith, camera shy momma, and I have been online friends for years now. Long before Shutter Sisters brought us together, we had “met” and formed a bond in this crazy internet world.  She living in Texas, and I living in Maine, never afforded us any face time until this day where we would finally meet in NYC.  It was unlike any other meeting I have had before. Usually I get nervous, not this time, not one bit.  I truly felt like it was any other day where I was meeting a dear old friend.  Like we had spent many days together, though in reality we never had.  We planned a full day in the city with another friend as our guide.  We met up at 9am, hugged, laughed at the reality of it all.  Friends – 3 years – hundreds of miles – now face to face.  Armed with our cameras, kinship, and a lust for this great city we were in, we set out on our adventure.  We walked miles.  We laughed tons.  In total I have 600 images from that one day.  Many touristy shots, urban life shots, bench shots, but this one image is one of my most favorite of the day.  We had just happened upon a used record store with a crate full of old vinyl albums outside.  Of course we each picked out an album and did a fun headcover, mine a Richard Pryor album and hers a Donna Summer album.  As Meredith lowered the record from her face, I kept shooting.  She bent over laughing at the silliness of the moment. I just love this shot of her; candid, real, happy, honest, in the moment, a memory forever saved in one click.  Her face, in the flesh, right there in front of me in real life and time.  A friendship come full circle face to face.

In honor of this month’s One Word, faces, share a favorite face you’ve captured with us today.

incognito

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I saw her walking up the beach.  Her red dress blowing in the wind.  As she got closer I spied it,  a vivid tattoo covering her calf.  She did not see me,  I was on my beach blanket shooting the waves and my kids as they played on the beach.  I wanted to stop her and ask her all about her tattoo, what it was, did it have a special meaning, but see I tend to be shy approaching total strangers.  Lucky for me I had my telephoto lens on at the time so i clicked a few shots as she strode past,  she completely unaware that I was having this little conversation in my head about her and her interesting tattoo.  

Are you drawn to photographing strangers? passerby’s? A couple in a cafe? An interesting face and story?

The 100 strangers project has intrigued me.   I am drawn to those of you who are braver than I and walk up introduce yourself and ask to take someone’s photo.  You get their name and maybe a little something more,  making the world a little smaller by doing so.  I am hoping to become brave enough to attempt this project myself one day.  Any sisters out there currently in this project?  Please share your feelings with us here today.  Do you find it easy?  Or does each new stranger give you butterflies in your stomach?

Today go out and shoot someone you don’t know.  Either incognito like me, or maybe you are ready to go up and say “hello” and get a wonderful stranger portrait and share it with us here. Or perhaps you have a favorite stranger shot in your archives you’d like to share.  I can’t wait to see who you’ve captured in your lens…

stories

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These hands have seen many things.  These hands have held generations of babies,  held my babies.  This day they hold a child’s wildflower bouquet picked just for her and I am drawn to how very gentle her hands are.  How graceful she holds each uneven stem, gathering them together to take back to her room.  Her skin is thin now and spotted by age.  I imagine she has held many a bouquet in her hands but none more important on this day.  This day belongs to these flowers alone. These hands tell stories, clap wildly to songs from her childhood in England, and hug with a fierce warmth.  These hands knew a war first hand.  These hands traveled an ocean alone to begin a new life and family, here.  She is not mine by birth, but by marriage, and I am so very blessed to know her and my children are further blessed for these years of knowing her too.  We live in different states, so when visiting I try hard to capture pieces of her but inevitably come home feeling like I did not take enough. When you are ninety two years young every moment together is a gift as are these images. Images like this one above are treasures to myself and my children.  Treasures that will help us always remember her loving hands, her stories, her.  

What stories have you captured lately?

 

a different point of view

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I am drawn to different points of view.  Whether it be lying belly down in the grass,  shooting straight up a flower’s stem, or shooting from above a subject like this shot above,  I  think shaking things up and trying new points of view can prove fun and interesting.  Rather than a straight on portrait,  I like how this brings focus to the subtle details;  the eyelashes and the brim of his hat.  What different points of view have you tried and liked?  Share some with us today.

wish

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“If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic bean buyer.  If you are a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax golden tales to spin, Come in! Come in!”    ~Shel Silvertein

I am a hopeless dreamer, believer, wisher.  I believe in the magic of four leaf clovers, shooting stars and rainbows after a storm. Snapping wishbones, blowing stray eyelashes, and closing my eyes and wishing on birthday candles.  Right now the most perfect dandelions are round and full and ripe for the wishing all around our yard. My family has even given up calling them by their proper name and instead call them “wishers”.  I become childlike in the simple joy of picking those fat wishers and blowing my wish to the wind.  What i love even more is passing all this magic onto my children and watching them believe in simple everyday wonder.  What everyday magic have you captured?  Please share it here with us today.  

 In the spirit of wishing, I am honored to present my Wish necklace for Bel Kai Designs :The Shutter Sisters Capture Collection, now available for purchase.  I am so proud of this collaboration.  I wanted something personal yet universal for my design and I am so pleased with the end result.  Now have a wish to wear around my neck every day.

Continuing the celebration of Giveaway May, Bel Kai and I will be giving away 1 wish necklace.  All you need to do is leave a comment here by 12 midnight PST to be entered in a random drawing for a wish necklace of your very own.  

***CONGRATULATIONS to Karen the winner of the necklace!   Happy wishing Karen.  xo, Kristin

close up

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Some days I need to get small, real small.  

There is magic to be found in the minute details of ordinary things.

So today let’s get close, real close, and shoot some macro.

Amaze us with the details you find.

Need some inspiration?  Macro May is in full swing over on flickr.  Click on over and check out all the macro goodness. 

instant love

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Polaroid lovers unite each year on flickr for ‘Roid Week.

That time is here.

5 days celebrating instant film.

Do you have a polaroid camera?  And if you answered yes,  are you lucky enough to have some film?  I sure hope you do.  Click on over to flickr and join the group.  You can add 2 polaroid images a day, each day.  It started yesterday and continues through Friday.

Polaroid enthusiasts LOVE their cameras.  Which polaroid camera is your favorite?  My dream polaroid is the  SX-70 model,  the one my parents shot with back in the day.  I still remember that feeling as a kid when the photo would pop out the front of the camera and i would hold it in my hands and watch it develop right before my eyes.  It always felt like magic, it still does.  Now I get to share that magic with my own children, and watch as they get that same giddy anticipation I so remember getting when I was little.

Need film?  the IMPOSSIBLE project has what you need. When the Polaroid company decided to close shop a passionate movement began. Click on over and read their inspiring story and check out the goods now available thanks to them.

And an extra bonus of ‘Roid Week 2010, the IMPOSSIBLE project is giving away 2 packs of their new PX 600 film a day to 2 random members of the group.  Who knows, you could be a lucky winner!  

Show us your instant images today.  What? No instant camera you say… Well you may not be able to join ‘Roid Week, but you can still have fun with your digital images by making a poladroid and sharing it with us here.

when thoughts become things…

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I was walking down a street in Philadelphia just a few days ago and stumbled across this scene in a storefront.

“thoughts become things”,  it read.

 I stopped, lifted my camera and clicked. I wanted to remember these words. So simple yet so true. They speak to that small part in me that tends to fall short some days on dreaming big and following through on those dreams.  

What thoughts do you wish to make real this year in your life?  What dreams do you have for yourself?  For your art?  Perhaps it is to be published somewhere, or to open up an etsy shop and sell some of your photos.  Maybe finally make that blurb book you’ve been wanting, but keep putting off.   Perhaps you are thinking something smaller like learning the settings on your camera, shooting with film, or simply shooting out of your comfort zone more.  Maybe enrolling in an actual photography class.  Or maybe you have even bigger, bolder dreams for your photography this year.  Perhaps designing a photography web site or shooting professionally for the first time ever.  

Whatever your thoughts may be, (I can nod my head to almost every single one of those things above) perhaps sharing them here today will help give them wings.  Type them out, give them a voice, claim them for yourself.  Go ahead,  I know I need to.  Let’s be brave together today,  I’ll go first….  “I wish to shoot in raw and learn my way around Lightroom” and a bigger dream I have held in my heart is to one day shoot a birth, so yes, “I wish to be present at a birth and capture those life changing moments for a family.”  

I believe I was meant to stumble upon that very window, with that very message.  Perhaps you needed it too…

urban

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I am on the road right now, a traveling girl.  I was born, and for the most part raised, in rural America and  I now live in a small coastal town in Maine.  Metropolitan I am not, but oh how i love a city.  I cannot express what the pace of city life does to me.  Perhaps since it is so very foreign to my every day,  I am just fascinated by it all.   The transportation, the sounds, the people (oh my yes the people), the foods, the cultures, the architecture, the colors, the grit, all of it.  Now that photography has become such a passion I am kind of annoying when visiting places other than my home.  I can admit it.  Every where I turn something to see, something to shoot!  click! click! click!  I just can’t stop.   My heart beats a little faster and my eyes go wild soaking up every piece I can.  Lucky for me my best girl friend lives in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia.  Now I get many more chances to fulfill my urban dreams while visiting her in her big city.  Perhaps you too share this secret love of city life?  Or maybe you live in a great urban area.  Share some of your urban images here with us today.