Shutter Sisters

What Unites Us

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I knew there would be differences – the color of our skin, the food we eat, the place we call home, the way we greet each other, our language, the way we bathe, how we travel, the sounds we hear at night… Traveling to Africa opened my eyes in a beautiful way. It made me appreciate our differences, but spending time with my new friends and listening to their stories reminded me that in more ways than not – at the core – we are essentially the same.

As I scanned through some of my photographs taken in the past several months for a little inspiration, the universal nature of this moment struck me. Birth. A miracle each of us has experienced. Love. A gift each of us has the capacity to give and receive. Peace. A sense of calm we all cherish.

Today, please share a moment in time or a collection of words to celebrate our sameness.

The Six Questions Featuring Beth Rooney

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Image © Beth Rooney

I had the pleasure of meeting Chicago-based photographer Beth Rooney in our Shutter Suite during the BlogHer09 conference this summer while she was on assignment. Beth freelances regularly for The New York Times, Saveur, The Chicago Tribune, and many others. After spending some time with her images, I felt a strong connection to her documentary essays, particularly Strange Shore, a photo essay about African Refugees on Chicago’s North Shore. Enjoy getting to know Beth here in our Shutter Sisters Six Interview, then hop on over to explore her blog – a (delicious) collection of thoughts, recipes and photos from her everyday life with food.

What’s the story behind this photo?

I had a hard time picking an image. I debated for awhile between this image and the first image in my essay “Strange Shore.” This image won because it feels more universal.

This photo was taken in July 2008 for Saveur Magazine’s “breakfast issue.” I am drawn to this image because of the simple elegance in their body language and the soft quality of the light. The quiet moment of reflection at the beginning of the day is captured, a moment we all take before rushing out the door to face another day. Whether you pray before breakfast or simply pause briefly to reflect while drinking your coffee, that moment to collect your thoughts is precious and this image captures it.

What was it that lit your photography spark? Do you remember a
 particular camera, course, person, roll of film?

My family always took long vacations out west every summer when I was young; we would travel to Yellowstone, the Badlands, etc. And I became fascinated with the serene landscapes and color palates, but it wasn’t until high school that  I took a photography class. I enjoyed the class, but didn’t really feel a spark until I was a senior in high school. I was drawn to photography because it allowed me to combine, history, art, sociology and many other fields into one. I decided to attend Ohio University and was accepted into their visual communications program and my passion for photography has grown from there ever since.

Where do you look for inspiration?

I look to friends, art exhibits—photography and non-photography, magazines, newspapers, and other photographer’s websites. But if I’m really in a slump I return to 3 books: Salgado’s “Workers,” Gerd Ludwig’s “Broken Empire” and Susan Meiselas’ “Carnival Strippers.”

What would you say is one of your ‘signature’ shooting or editing 
tricks, themes or style? What do you think makes an image recognizable
and uniquely yours?

Style is something that takes a lifetime to achieve and I’m not certain I have pinpointed a singular aesthetic yet, but I do strive for a calm beauty in my images. Maybe that will one day be reflected in all of my images.

What aspect of your photography are you constantly working on or 
trying to improve?

Everything. A day doesn’t go by without an opportunity to expand my visually story telling skills. I’m always thinking, changing and adapting. You have to or the world will shift and you won’t notice until it is too late.
 
As a freelance photographer I am constantly challenged with finding new clients, keeping old clients, shooting for profit and shooting for my personal portfolio. All this is hard to keep in balance and sometimes you don’t. Things fall to the side and after a few weeks you realize you’re no longer in balance and you reassess. Everything is changing and the best thing you can do it roll with it. Figure out what you do best and go for it without hesitation. There are always new venues for photography, sometimes, they’re just harder to find.
 
The only advice I have for aspiring photographers is to be confident enough in your work to demand proper compensation for it. Don’t get so struck by the idea of being published that you give away your work. That hurts you and it hurts the profession as a whole. If people are giving images away, your dream of becoming a professional, i.e. paid, photographer will be short lived. On a lighter note, shoot what you love, have fun with the stories you choose to shoot. And be respectful of the people who are letting you in to their lives.

on the inside

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I can’t get it out of my mind. Those eyes. The feel of her hand finding its way to mine. The certainty of his steady presence in the dark. How she showed me the faded photograph of herself in the smart red suit. How we embraced because there were no words between us. How his small hand smoothed the hair away from my face and tucked it behind my ear without hesitation. How she looked out over her land and seemed to glow under a fading sun. How he insisted that I take his bible and asked me not to forget. These moments surface… tugging me deep down to a sliver of a space that makes my heart ache. A place where logic fails and courage is required. A place with no exit sign.

Have you experience such a place? Where the only thing you can do is call on your own courage? We’d love to hear about it.

The Calm Out Back

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a full menu
inflatable starfish
and a palm tree made of glass
anchored in the bay
lights dim
to that familiar tune
drenched in the remains
of an evening sun
and buoyant conversations
she seeks
the calm out back

* * *

I’ve been infatuated with words lately. The whimsy and weight of them. I captured this image at the beach last summer and found that the words followed a few days later. Do you find that images linger in your mind and take shape in new ways? Do you let the words come to you just as the images do?

King of the Castle

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Shooting the personal spaces of creative individuals is such a thrill for me – like getting a peak behind the magic curtain. Several months back I spent the day with my friend Mel in her home, capturing images and video of her, her paintings, and her diverse assortment of once-stray pets. Mel’s dog, Lucky, commanded attention that day and worked his way into nearly every image I made… wagging his tail, jumping on furniture, and pawing at Mel as she spoke and pulled out paintings from her too-full flat file. At one point, his nose literally touched my lens.

“When I first brought him home, I thought, gosh, I don’t know about this one. He’s pretty intense,” Mel confessed with raised eyebrows and a chuckle. Then she told me the story about how she had found him in an abandoned pen on a piece of property near her farm. The neighbors had moved and left him behind without a word, food or water. Seeing him here, pictured on his thrown with a clear view of his new domain, reminds me how lucky we are to have people like my friend Mel in this world.

Take us home and introduce us to your beloved pets.

Mystery from the Fabric of Life

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One of my favorite photographers is John Loengard. His “As I See It” book of black and white images sits on the table beside my bed in good company with Annie Leibovitz‘s “A Photographer’s Life” and a borrowed copy of “The Family of Man.” I keep it there for inspiration and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve flipped through the pages and poured over his photographs, finding something unique with each view. In his preface to the book John Loengard writes about discovering photography at the age of twelve and goes on to say…

“Since then, I’ve met many others who fell in love with photography at around that age. Invariably, magic is the word we use to describe what we discovered. Still, the fact is, photographers work only with what’s present. I suspect our chief emotions are anticipation, frustration and patience (if that’s an emotion) – balanced by a marvelous sense of elation when things go right: when we think we’ve captured in a photograph some missing feeling, or hidden beauty, or bit of mystery from the fabric of life.”

When I went through the process of selecting just twelve images (from easily a thousand options) to share in an open critique with long-time, well-respected ASMP photographers a few weeks back, I was intriqued to discover a common theme in my favorites – a tension or uneasiness. Question marks. Perhaps a bit of mystery from the fabric of life.

Share an image from your collection that gives you pause and makes us think.

Exhibiting Photography in the Real World

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Pictured here is my friend and honored guest Imogene at the opening reception. She is featured in a number of my Project 365 images on display.

Last Friday night was the opening reception for my first solo photography exhibition, Project 365: Daily Discoveries, and quite frankly one of the most memorable moments of my life. When I began Project 365 on January 02, 2008, I felt certain that I would complete the project, but was a little unsure of how I would feel about the end result. I liked the idea of sharing the project in the form of an art gallery exhibit, and was thrilled to hear that the Monroe Art Guild gallery was eager to host it, but the tactical exercise of selecting, sorting, printing, matting, framing, and displaying the exhibit was slightly overwhelming (in a good way). Walking through the gallery Friday night, and hugging my family, friends, and a number of very kind strangers made me so thankful for the opportunity to share my work in a physical space.

I encourage you to explore gallery opportunities to share your work in the form of an exhibit, and when you get that first opportunity, here are a few tips to help you prepare and display your own exhibit:

1. Get creative with your display. I wanted the ability to show the breadth of the project by visually displaying all 365 images, but knew that gallery space and budget would limit the amount of prints I could enlarge, frame and display. So, I used Moo to print postcards of each image. On the front of each postcard, I printed each of the 365 images and on the back I printed the name of the project, my name, and my web site address. In the gallery, I wanted to connect the digital photography project to the visual of an old-school darkroom, so I spray-painted 365 clothespins black, hung black fishing line in rows, and suspended the images in sequence with the clothespins on one wall of the gallery space. This format allows visitors to immediately get the impact of 365 days, and to watch the progression of seasonal color and my focus over time.

For the large, framed prints, I shared written stories, quotes and poems in the form of small plaques beside each image to help strengthen an emotional connection between the viewer and the image – just like a blog format. I love getting inside the head of an artist and wish more artists would share their written thoughts behind their work in gallery exhibitions.

2. Consider matting and framing costs and availability before you print. Based on the size of the gallery space and the mobile panels used to display artwork in the space, I selected 33 images from the 365 set to enlarge and frame in two different sizes. Knowing that I would need a large quantity of nearly identical black frames for consistency, I shopped first for reasonably priced frames (Sam Flax in Atlanta) and settled on 27 18 x 24 and six 22 x 28. (This required two shopping trips as I cleared out their stock on the first visit, so be sure that you plan for frame purchase well in advance of your show.) Based on these two frame sizes, I worked with my printer to determine ideal sizes for the prints, allowing for a minimum three-inch mat around each image with a slightly larger width on the bottom edge. To save time, my printer also managed the process of having the archival mats cut for the prints to ensure that they fit the prints and my frames. I then recruited my husband to help me frame them all on our kitchen and dining room tables.

3. Splurge on good paper and befriend a good printer/photographer if you have no desire to learn the fine art of printing. When printing my fine art prints, I work with a individual printer/photographer, Dave Russell in the Atlanta area. In his studio he has a high-end professional, large format printer. Before he printed my digital images, we met at his studio to review my files so he could test colors and image format to ensure the best printing quality possible for my images. He also shared paper samples with me and made a few test prints of my images on the paper selections so I could see the differences in quality before making a decision. We decided on a high quality, archival Hanamule gloss paper. This paper is (not inexpensive), but luscious for large color prints. Had he just quoted the price and not shared the difference in quality with me in person, I probably would have selected the lower quality paper and would have been less pleased with the results.

4. Don’t forget to sign your prints. I’ve seen photographers sign the bottom edge of mats, but I don’t think this is a good idea as the mat can easily be separated from the print over time. I used an artist’s acid-free pencil and signed the actual print in the lower right corner, just above the bottom edge of the matt. What’s nice about this is that you can see the signature if you look at the print from a certain angle, but it’s not readily visible when you step back to view the framed image.

I’m sure you have more tips or have seen really cool photography exhibit display ideas that have inspired you. Please share them with us in the comments.

The Blur Between Moments

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Like most of you, I often seek out my children as subjects for creative inspiration. Naturally I have a healthy dose of smiling faces, but I’m finding that the images that mean the most to me are those captured in between moments. When they’ve look away or shifted their focus to a place other than my lens.

I shot this image with my LensBaby Composer. What’s cool about this lens is its bend-a-ability. So you grab the end of the lens (its “focus collar”) and tilt it any way you like to selectively focus on a specific area of your composition. Here you can see I had it tilted towards the left and focused on my girls’ eye, generating a bit of blur and distortion on the right side of the image. The lens comes with a collection of aperture disks to control the sweet spot (focus area). I used the default f/4 for this image and this wider view, making the size of the sweet spot smaller and giving me a larger blur area. Had I used a higher f/stop number (smaller aperture opening), less of the image would have been blurred.

Embracing the blur? Check this one I heart from Karen and this series of luscious blue blurs from Kate. Paige took her LensBaby for a walk here. And Tracey gave it a rest on her table here. Oh, and here’s a cool one from Sarah-Ji. Show us your LensBaby Composer creations or any other images that celebrate the blur between moments.

Announcing: The One Word Project

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You’ve inspired us! Thanks to an impromptu 30-day photo challenge idea exchange discovered in the Shutter Sisters flickr group and a little “one word” creative inspiration from Ali Edwards, we’re mashing up the best of both ideas to bring you the Shutter Sisters One Word Project starting in February. Each month, we’ll choose one word to guide creative inspiration for your shots. Then you do your best shooting, and we’ll feature one of your images daily here in the site, and select one award-winning image at the end of each month to win a super cool prize from one of our fabulous sponsors.

February’s One Word Project is Brought to You by Lensbaby

The word of the month? You choose.

The cool prize? a Lensbaby Composer – the ultimate selective focus SLR camera lens!

Here’s how it works:

1. Pick a word that best represents you or your focus. Your word should inspire images throughout the month of February. If a word doesn’t come immediately to mind, scan Ali’s extensive list of words to inspire you.

2. Once you’ve selected your word, share it here in the comments or blog about it in your space and leave a permalink to your post here so we can go check it out. The project begins on Sunday, February 1, but you can join the project any time after this date.

3. On February 1, begin shooting images that visually represent your word. You can shoot, tag and share your best photographs in the Shutter Sisters flickr group every day or whenever you feel moved to do so.

4. TITLE each of your One Word Project images to include your word (e.g., Hope, Love, Courage, Peace). TAG each of your images as follows: “oneword (month)” (e.g., “oneword february”, “oneword march”, “oneword april”, etc.). Tagging is important as it’s the only way we can find and enter your images in our contest.

5. Beginning February 1, check the new One Word Project page daily within this site to see if your image is featured. The first award-winning photo of the month will be chosen by the Shutter Sisters team and announced on March 1, along with the new One Word Project for March.

We’ve created a discussion thread in the Shutter Sisters flickr group to manage questions and answers. If you have any questions, check for the answer or post your question here.

* * *

As for my word… it’s Motion. I started a series of “motion experiments” – video captures with the Nikon D90 SLR this weekend, and intend to push this concept through the month of February. I’m intrigued by the idea of capturing motion in the form of still images.

What’s your word?

Tips for Shooting One Photo A Day for 365 Days

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Having recently completed Project 366 (creating 366 consecutive photographs each day in 2008) inspired by the flickr group, I’ve felt a great sense of accomplishment, coupled with a huge sigh of relief. I’m now honeymooning over the fact that there is no pressure to shoot every single day. And yet, I’m still shooting every day.

If you’ve thought about taking this project on, I highly recommend it. Simply put, it changed my life. It taught me to see. To push myself creatively. And it forced the discipline I needed to bring clarity to my future – ultimately giving me the courage I needed to trade a comfortable career to follow my dream of being an artist full time, focusing on photography and digital media productions.

If you decide to start your own Project 365 (and I hope you do), here are a five tips to guide your journey:

1. Take your camera out with you every day. I purchased a small, inexpensive backback big enough to fit my DSLR and turned it into my purse. Sometimes I would stuff an alternative lens in the bag, but more often than not, it was sort of fun to use the lens I had at the time and to find creative ways to make an image work with the lens I had on hand.

2. Shoot at least one shot in the morning. Let’s face it, there are days that zoom so fast it’s easy to forget essential day-to-day tasks like reminding one’s child to brush his teeth, transfering wet clothes into the dryer, meeting an unreasonable client deadline, shuffling papers on your kitchen counter, etc. If you shoot at least one shot in the morning before your day gets out of hand, you’re covered.

3. Set up a method to organize and share your series as you progress. When I initially started, I uploaded and titled each of my daily image selections on flickr (i.e., Day 1, Day 2, et.) and contributed the images to the Project 365 flickr group. Being a part of this group kept me inspired and engaged. It felt great to know that so many other folks around the world were traveling on this journey with me. When I first saw someone’s image in the group labelled Day 365, I could visualize completion despite the long road ahead. The group also offers weekly challenges to inspire image ideas.

4. Use this opportunity to get comfortable with your camera. If you typically shoot in Auto mode, you might consider learning one new feature of your camera each month. For example, during month one, you could learn to use Aperture Priority mode and experiment using different aperture settings. Month two, you could try different ISO settings – shooting indoor shots with a higher ISO setting instead of using your flash. You could grow to love that grainy texture in certain situations.

5. Never say “I have nothing to shoot.” You are likely to think this around Day 62, but don’t say it. There is always something to shoot. Walk outside. Lie down on the floor and look up. Turn over onto your belly and rest your camera on the floor. Look in the mirror. Take the long way home. Tell a stranger you are looking for an image of the day and see what comes to his/her mind. Use this opportunity to seek out and celebrate something unique each day.

If you’ve done Project 365 or if you’re in the process of this project, tell us about your experience and share your tips. And if you are leaning on the edge of this amazing journey, will you leap?