Shutter Sisters

the value of a sand dollar

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Barefoot time along the edge of the ocean has a way of temporarily clearing out the human-made clutter I’ve managed to accumulate on this earth… a calendar full of tasks, shopping lists, a dishwasher to unload, library books to return, a computer desktop littered with documents, drawers stuffed with clothes I no longer wear.  But at the beach, the simplicity of sand, sea and sky is a welcome setting.  It sort of pushes me to let go and seek out the true currency of the earth.

Why don’t you stop your day for just a moment and step outside.  Seek and shoot a small treasure made by Mother Nature and share it in the comments or tell us about a special place that keeps you grounded.

from sea to shining sea

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waiting patiently
beneath a blazing sun
seeking…
Lady Liberty

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I took this shot at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan last weekend. Seeing the long line of tourists eagerly await the water taxi for a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty gave me a good feeling.  I love this country. 

Do share your view of America today.

 

Stepping Back

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If you peek in the small backpack that has become my day-to-day purse, you’ll find my Nikon D80, the kit 18-55mm lens and my lens of choice, the 55-200mm. I’m attracted to detail, so I often find myself zooming in close with my 55-200mm lens wide open to inspect natural objects here on our farm – like an artsy scientist of some sort.  I trace the intricate paths of veins on leaves. I stop the car short to shoot thorny thistle. And I don’t mind wasting time watching threads of cow tail hair wave in the breeze on a barbed wire fence.  

But this weekend offered a new view and a chance to shift my perspective.  We traveled north with friends we love to a stunning lake site tucked within the Georgia mountains. The cozy home has remained in our friends’ family for many years, and my husband has held fond memories of this special place close to his heart since childhood…leaping off the top of the boathouse…exploring the edges of the 20,000-acre lake by boat… and skiing until his legs turned to jelly.  

So when he plopped in the water and squeezed on his ski, I grabbed my camera and realized that I had accidentally left my zoom lens up at the house, leaving me with my ho-hum kit lens. Bummer. How can I get in close from the top of this boathouse? I thought. But when I put the viewfinder up to my eye, it suddenly clicked.  How could I NOT go wide. So I stepped back and gave it a little tilt, then proceeded to give my kit lens a full weekend workout to really capture a sense of space.

What about you? Do you shoot wide? Please share your lens of choice for shooting wide and any tricks that help you capture a sense of place. And naturally, I’d love to see your shots.

fragile moments of exposure

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Dr. Robert Nix always wore bow ties to class.  Long and lean, he moved with confidence and grace – the gentleman of the fine art department. I loved his class. He taught me how to make photographic images through a pinhole in a box made of wood. Under his direction and encouragement that semester, my love of photography blossomed. He retired a year later. It’s hard to imagine that was nearly twenty years ago.

Last Friday we reconnected. I had been looking forward to this visit so much and anticipated grand visions of our exchange.  I sent a link to a slideshow of my best images to him prior to my visit in hopes of a thorough critique.  I visualized us sitting side-by-side at the computer screen where he (clad in his bow tie) would be pointing and talking and instructing, and I would be listening and taking detailed notes…and…we’d talk about aperture settings and shutter speeds and tricks for tweaking light… and as a result, his aging photography student would find her focus.

But I got so much more – immersing myself in his home for just a few short hours. I met his talented and loving wife, Harriett – a painter and collector of antique dolls and art. I studied sepia-toned portraits of his parents and his parents’ parents on the sideboard. We admired his endless stacks of National Geographics and his rare collection of Daguerreotypes and tintypes on the wall. At my insistence, he shared some of his own amazing black and white framed prints packed neatly in boxes below the pool table, down in the basement.  I marveled over the texture of his wooded landscape bromoil print and his explanation of this early photographic process. We ventured into his woodworking studio where he demonstrated his circular wood sculpting saw before he gave me a precious blond bowl carved from pear wood. And then he showed me his new Singer in the spare bedroom and introduced me to the art of making bow ties.

Yes, we did sit side-by-side at his computer screen and he did share a very thoughtful critique of my images, but this experience paled in comparison to what he had shared with me that day.  Looking back, I realize that I had come to his door in search of confidence. And as we neared the conclusion of our time together, his parting advice gave me just that:

“You’ve got a great eye. A good heart. And you believe in what you’re doing. You don’t need anything else.”

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Where do you turn for advice? or confidence in your art? Tell us about someone who has influenced your path or share an image that makes you feel proud of yourself.

Remember

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We are free.  

Free to speak… shout! and listen. We can choose to pray. The way we want. Or not at all.  We can choose to defend our perspective. To disagree. To confess. To make a point. To write. To vote. To criticize. Publicize. To celebrate. To make laws. And change them. To dream. And achieve. To express ourselves creatively. We are free to make choices. To learn. To share. To leave. To return. To be open. Or closed. We can choose to move forward. To look back. To stand tall… or still.

We are free.

But this is a gift.

May we always remember.

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Let us put politics aside and share your words and images of thanks for our American soldiers (past and present) and their families.  Happy Memorial Day, Shutter Sisters.

Tracing Mother Nature

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There are certain moments in time when you can feel the intensity of Mother Nature – the weight of her breath and the boom in her voice.

Severe storms and a string of tornados danced across the southeast on Mother’s Day morning. And as my husband and I ventured home from a weekend trip to the coast, Mother Nature’s devastating effects humbled us. Elderly trees uprooted from the earth. Pines arbitrarily snapped – their branches littering the roads and swaying from power lines. A crumpled barn. A tin roof wedged within a stately oak. As we slowed our pace through the small rural town, I quickly pulled out my camera on instinct to capture the moment. The scene. The effects. And after I snapped the first image, I stopped myself.

As we continued to journey home, I realized that much of my joy in photography is capturing the beauty of Mother Nature and her precious creations. New blooms. Plump raindrops. Aging leaves drenched with color. Thick blades of grass.  I like the way she sprinkles light like gems on water. How she breathes life into leaves as they whisper in her wind. And I love that she restores peace to the sky without fail and sets the sun to rest.  

How do you seek Mother Nature with your lens?

a is for aperture

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042808_600%5B2%5D.jpg“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”  – Ansel Adams

I spent this past Saturday morning in a digital photography workshop lead by shutter brothers Jack, a serious amateur photographer, and Al, a professional sports photographer. Opportunities to connect and learn like this with fellow photographers are rare in my small Southern town, so when I heard that the photographers were coming, I noted the event on my calendar with a big, fat Sharpie.

My approach to photography has been primarily artistic vs. a traditional technical approach, though I consumed a photography class in college with a heavy appetite. And while I did learn the technicalities of F-stops and aperture, and the speeds of shutters way back then, I often leaned on an artistic eye in the dark room to turn an okay image into something special. I rarely remembered the formula for chemical soaks, nor did I take the time to document my pinhole camera exposures to simplify the subsequent shot. Numbers and calculations simply didn’t mix with the art of aesthetics for me. I just sort of “felt” that an image was done when it was done.

Even today with my digital SLR, I lean on my auto settings to quickly capture my compositions because I can’t force myself to reference the manual or fiddle with buttons in the presence of a fleeting moment. As a means of controlling light, I keep my flash turned off at all times and follow the rhythm of natural light, shooting in the morning or early evening, feeling confident that if the lighting or contrast isn’t quite right, I can tweak it on my MacBook. But to really mature into a serious photographer, I’ve come to realize that there’s a delicate balance between firing the right and left sides of the brain…like ah, simultaneously. A balance I intend to cultivate.

So when shutter brother Al suggested that I shoot in Aperture Priority setting – giving me control of the size of the aperture (the hole in the camera regulating the amount of light that comes into the camera) and keeping the camera in control of the shutter speed – I made him turn the dial to the “A”.  Large apertures (low f/-numbers) reduce the depth of field, blurring objects behind and in front of the main subject. Small apertures (high f/-numbers) increase depth of field, bringing out details in the background and foreground. Al then pressed on the +/- button to show me how easy it was to increase and decrease the exposure setting simply by turning a control dial in this A-priority mode. The higher the number > the more light let in.  The lower the number  > the less light let in.  Well, now.  That wasn’t so hard.  So I proceeded to play in A-priority mode for the remainder of the weekend increasing and decreasing my depth of field and exposure settings, and comparing the images quickly to see the difference. Suffice it to say, I now can’t imagine shooting any other way.

What about you? Do you shoot with auto or manual settings?  Share your best-lit images in the comments and your tips/tricks for controlling light.

Pushing Past the Fear Factor

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There aren’t many things I do every single day. I brush my teeth. Read. Look out the window. Eat. Move my feet. Say “I love you.” Tap on my keyboard (though not necessarily in this order).  And while caffeine consumption does make the list each day, things like showering, vacuuming and staying properly hydrated do not. So when the idea of Project 365 entered my periphery, my first instinct was to let it blur into oblivion.

Project 365 is a flickr group of nearly four thousand members who shoot and share one photo every single day, consecutively for 365 days. Eek. How could someone commit to this, I thought.

Well, Danisoul did and her inspiring Project 365 flickr set intrigued me enough to bring the project  and my fear of commitment into focus. Do I really need another something to do each day? No. Not really. Well. Maybe. Will it improve my photography skills? Probably. Might it push me to carry my camera with me more places? Yes, I suppose it would. Would I discover inspiring photographers and bask in new perspectives? Well, yes. What if I want to stop? Hmmm. Could I push myself through lapses in creativity and find something beautiful each day? I wasn’t sure, but made an assumption.

So I’ve been shooting photos every day for 103 days, contributing to the Project 365 flickr pool and building a set of images to serve as a visual landscape of one year in time.  I’m loving this project and the much needed discipline and challenge it’s brought to my creative process. It’s opened my eyes in many ways.

What about you? Do you take photos everyday?  Are you participating in Project 365? Inspired to start “day one” today? Do share a link to your flickr set or blog in the comments so we can follow you.