Shutter Sisters

Pushing Through Creative Blocks

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a gentle day with kinfolk magazine….guaranteed to inspire.

I’ve been hearing a lot lately from creatives who have hit a wall, a dry-patch, a slump, a creative block…. Many say it hits hard in the winter….others for no reason at all. I get it! I’ve been there, done that…. many, many times. My longest block lasted almost 2 years. ‘ugh’…. I mean, seriously…. can you imagine? Thankfully, that was my last major dry spell…and it was almost 3 years ago now!! Woo hooing here!

I have found a little ‘trick’ for knocking down the wall…crushing it…. kicking it to the curb….. before it takes over my creative life.

It’s simply, showing up …. I push through, keep creating…. soon I find my way to the other side of the slump…. re-inspired and fired up again!! I push by changing things up. I focus on learning something new, trying a different technique, pushing my limits…. Or I switch over to something a little dreaded…. like file organization… my weak link…. Or bookkeeping…another weak link or organizing my studio. If that doesn’t work I give myself a gentle day….. a day to relax, regroup…. and just be…. But just one day, maybe 2…. Then I move forward…do the work, make the art…. do.

Let’s talk about inspiration…. slumps, droughts, blocks… How do you push through to the other side? What works for you, what doesn’t? Share with us today.

photography spoken here

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Before I was brave I was camera shy.

But we speak photography here. This community, in all the ways it has grown since its birth in 2007, has been a life force for so many women photographers that I know. It is so much more than a platform, a foundation, a place of strength. Yes, it’s a community of like minds. Yes, a gathering place for those of us who not only embrace the technicalities of our equipment but also the emotions our images evoke.

We carry balance here. This is the sisterhood we feel. Day in and day out we feel welcome here, invited to the creative circle. That confidence grows tenfold as we all walk away with inspiration to shoot another day.

We speak photography here. 
We are peers.
Sisters.

In this profession/passion/career/hobby where mostly men have made the rules, we as women photographers changed the game. Years ago I found it hard to walk into my local camera shop and be taken seriously (especially if I had my child with me). That statement is simply ridiculous and yet it’s completely true. Did anyone else feel that? (2007 was only 5 years ago, sisters! Women have turned the photography world upside down, all for the better!) Now I walk with confidence knowing I am part of this revolution, the photographic revolution of sisters. Can you feel it too? We do our part each and every day we shoot photos and share images and leave comments all the while going about our busy days.

We know your lives are busy.  We know there are lots of places to visit and such little time to chat. So, today, I simply wanted to thank you. For being part of this creative circle. We may lurk, we may not have time to comment, we may be juggling jobs and kids and passions… but we feel your presence as you feel ours. This is sisterhood. This is friendship over the miles. Please know that if I could gather all of you up into one familiar city, I would. And we would shoot the breeze and share tips and recommendations for print shops. And there would be wine and ice cream and photowalks and laughter. And it would be awesome.

Today can we carry on this conversation? I’m new to town and I would love to know your favorite shops or where you find inspiration online. What’s the latest in your photographic world? What’s the latest in your camera bag? Today I want to hear what you want to talk about… what do you want to hear? Any exciting projects you’d like to share? Let’s make today an open forum for discussion. And of course, share any images or links that you are loving these days.

your life is newsworthy

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I graduated from college with a journalism degree.  And for the past twelve years, I’ve been doing a job that has nothing to do with journalism.  I’m okay with this fact because I enjoy what I do.  My job allows me to live a life I truly enjoy.  Even though I don’t use my degree, I can’t ignore it.  I love a well-crafted nonfiction story.  I love one that’s interesting and full of rich details.  I love happy resolutions, but I realize life can have terrible endings too.  Sit at my table and I’ll happily listen to you ramble on and on about your life.  And then I’ll take my turn.  This banter could go on for hours.  I’m routinely asked to shorten or get to my point, but I like to squeeze in every single tidbit for the listener.  It should surprise no one that my love of the story transfers to my photography.
 
I don’t remember much before I was six years old and the years after are a little fuzzy.  When I watch my boys play, laugh, argue, and wrestle I am sad they won’t remember each detail as clearly as I do.  For the past three years, I’ve approached my life as magazine pictorial.   Until recently, I didn’t realize that I’ve been using my college degree to tell a story with my photography.  But now I fully embrace it.  I’ve become the photojournalist of my life because I’m responsible for the story my children will remember.  Good or bad, they will see it in our family albums.  The trips to visit family with cousins scattered around the living room.  Birthday wishes.  Conquering the potty while waving Good-bye to diapers.  But life isn’t full of unicorns and rainbows, the bad stuff has to be documented.  Tantrums.  Doctor visits.  Tears because independence wasn’t quite fully realized. The full plates of food pushed away at the dinner table.  I’m careful not over-sensationalize these less than happy moments, but albums void of them would not be truthful.  Years from now, if my boys struggle with their own parenting I hope they can look through our family albums and relate.  And I hope the photos will help them remember it was a good life: one worthy of documenting.  

I don’t believe you have to have a journalism degree to be a good photographer.  I didn’t touch a camera during college.  But it’s my love of an honest story and my desire to remember every detail.  And those are the types of photographers and photographs I’m attracted to.  I don’t have a disgust towards coffee mug shots, landscapes or posed newborn shoots, but those images don’t make my heart beat faster.  I want a photo that tells the story of someone’s life.  I want raw emotion.  And in my family, I’m the storyteller.  Why should I let anyone else tell my story?  

You can do the same thing.  Snap an image that will make you weep tears of joy when you’re in the Old Folk’s Home.  Shoot a scene that will show your children you were an amazing parent who tried their best.  Photograph your story.    Tell it with photos that are full of details, honesty, and real life blazing through the frame.  There’s no one more talented or more eloquent to tell the world.  You are the greatest storyteller of your Life.  Start now.

Share your story with me.  I’ve pulled up a chair and you’ve got my full attention.

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Today’s guest post is from Erika Ray. Gabbing/communicating/gossiping is in her genes. Meet her mother and try to disagree with this statement. Plus her youngest son never stops talking, which feels like a loving payback from the universe. She uses her blog to report on life’s celebrations, disasters, and to keep her sane.

 

leap frog!

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Do you remember being little? Jumping was an everyday event back then wasn’t it?  You just wanted to leap in or over puddles, jump cracks in the sidewalk (of you’d break your momma’s back), leap off that big hill, hold hands and jump with your friends, your sibling, or hold a growup’s hand and leap really high knowing you were safe. Hopscotch was an every day thing, and of course the trusty old leap frog! Can you imagine playing leap frog now?  Makes me giggle even imagining that, but maybe a good old game of leap frog is called for.  I am not sure where that urge goes as we grow, perhaps we become less adventurous, more grounded, less playful?  That is a little sad isn’t it.  I fully admit I am not a jumper. Even when I was MUCH younger and a cheerleader in high school I dreaded the jumps!  It felt like gravity had an extra amount of influence on me and no one else.  I admired those girls who could get such great air with ease. 

Lucky for me I have kids who are at the ages where jumping is an everyday event.  They LOVE to jump, leap, hop.  This makes for many fun photos of them.  Jump on the bed?!?!  YES!!!!  Go for it!  But wait, let mommy grab her camera…  (lol) …. I do and they jump and jump and jump, laughing and smiling and getting great air.

So today, in celebration of February’s One Word, LEAP, get in touch with your inner girl and go have a good jump. On the bed (go ahead, we won’t tell), in a puddle, off a bench… Or if you feel like gravity is just not your personal friend, then share any jump shot you love.  If you are like me, and are around kids at all, I know you have one… or 20…    🙂

Let’s be playful today.

JUMP!

 

* Still need a little extra motivation?  Check out The Jumping Project.

tomorrow

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“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” -Imogen Cunningham

And it’s true, it’s so totally and completely true. It’s what I love most about photography. There are always images for the taking, stories for the telling. No way of knowing what tomorrow holds, what photographs lay waiting. For this reason, I am never without a camera, never ever. Sometimes people think this is funny, sometimes they ask why. Because you never know, I tell them. You just never know. 

Are you this person too? Do you carry a camera with you everywhere you go? Do you wonder what images tomorrow holds? Are you as excited about the potential as I am? Tell us, what photographs do you look forward to taking? What images snuck up on you and took you by surprise?

an invitation to the weekend

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The weekend.

There is nothing like it. A time to rest, rejuvinate, refuel. A time to wind down or wind up. A time to settle in or skip out. A time for family and friends, comfort and joy.

The weekend.

No matter how many have come and gone, as each new one approaches we look forward to it like a gift we cannot wait to open. And somehow we are surprised and delighted each and every week. As so it goes on and on.

The weekend.

For us, lovers of photography, there can be no better time to shoot. And because we want to honor not only the magic that is the weekend but also the Universal deep need to end the week and then begin it again with this sacred time of respite, we would like to invite you to share your weekends with us.

The weekend.

Starting in March we will be featuring weekend images from you here at Shutter Sisters. What does the weekend look like at your house? What moments capture the attention of your lens? What activities (or non-activities) do you hold dear at week’s end? What do you create, cherish, capture when the weekend arrives yet again at your door?

Answer these questions for us in your images. Share some words if you want. Throw in a quote. Include a link. Tell us who you are and where we can find you online. Share yourself and your weekends with us and you might be featured right here in our new weekend series that will be posted each Saturday and will be featured through Sunday too. Because weekends are supposed to have two full days of goodness to enjoy.

If you would like to submit your weekend images for consideration in our weekend series, please send your shot(s) via email to us at click [at] shuttersisters [dot] com with the subject weekend. We can’t wait to see how you do weekends and begin our series in March! Give us a hint in the comments today.

And above all else, enjoy. The weekend.

a happy place

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Photo edited in RadLab.

This one of my favourite photos from our recent trip to NYC… my son leaping on the rocks in Central Park, I’m reminded of that happy place whenever I see it. I’ve printed it out BIG and it hangs in my kitchen so I can go back to this happy place when I glance at it.

Share with us today a photo of a place or time that makes you happy, and I’d love to prompt you to print it out, to hold in your hands, or display, so you can be transported back there when your eyes fall on it.

Her Camera

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Three years ago I picked up a camera with one goal in mind. We were starting a family and was determined to avoid paying a professional photographer to take photos that I thought I could learn to achieve on on my own. I was quickly bitten by the photography bug and when we fell pregnant on Mother’s Day 2009 everything seemed to be falling into place. I was gifted a brand new Nikon d90 and upon the baby’s arrival I was confident I’d be able to capture beautiful squishy newborn portraits of our bundle of joy.

 I never expected that things would go terribly wrong.

 At our 20 week sonogram a red flags were raised and we were alarmingly referred to a high risk practice to have them investigated. The vivid memories of our trip to that high risk office will haunt me until the day I die. The technician called us back and rushed us through a series of sonogram photos. She was rough on my belly, she pressed a little to intensely, I could feel our baby kick the technician back as if staying “Stop!”. I wanted her to stop too. Finally she left. Minutes dragged on like hours.

Then, the doctor finally walked in and broke the silence with 5 little words that would change our world forever: “Your baby has multiple problems”.

Without stopping for air, he continued to spout out medical jargon about this syndrome and that syndrome. Things we had never even heard of before. He listed off the numerous organs our baby was missing one by one. So cold. So heartless. We left the office numb, dazed, and confused. That evening, as I googled every little snippet of medical jargon our doctor threw around that day I knew what was coming next.

That’s when I broke down in a river of tears for the first time.

We sought a 2nd opinion at Children’s Hospital in Washington DC where a fatal diagnosis was confirmed. Our daughter Bella’s defects were 1 in 20,000. No one expects to be the 1 in 20,000, but somehow the devastating baby loss lottery struck us at 20 weeks pregnant.

Our lives were forever changed.

Bella Rose was stillborn on September 11th, 2009. When we arrived home from the hospital empty handed and broken hearted, flowers began to arrive in mass quantities. I was looking to busy my mind and my hands and I sought a way to collect the beauty of Bella’s blooms and preserve them for when I could truly appreciate them. That’s when I remembered I had her camera. The oneI  intended to be used to to take beautiful images of newborn Bella to fill our walls with canvas and framed prints in our home.

Instead, I picked up Bella’s camera after she died and used it to capture a glimpse into my fragile heart. And then, a magical thing happened.

I discovered photography to be an incredible tool in my healing and I started to shift my perspective. I uncovered small bits of beauty in my broken world. I celebrated the little accomplishments, even something a simple as getting out of bed in the morning. I made it my daily meditation to visually express gratitude for what I did still have left in my life. I blogged images and words that revealed my most private feelings of loneliness and failure after losing an unborn child. But, I also shared how photography was allowing me to experience emotions more fully, learn about myself, and heal my soul.

Do you have a special image you’ve taken that has helped you on a healing journey? I’d love it if you’d share it here today. Let’s celebrate the magical powers of photography in soothing our souls when they are hurting.

 Guest blogger, Beryl Ayn Young, serves as chief photography muse over on her personal blog and serves as teacher of the Illuminate Photography e-course, designed especially for moms who have lost a baby due to stillbirth, miscarriage, or infant loss. She believes in nourishing the soul with lifelong learning, photographic healing, & a glass half full perspective. Beryl photography classes and mentoring aimed at teaching you how to improve your camera skills and cherish life’s journey.

brave leaps

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Recently I posted a self portrait that felt risky to me, but I wound up being amazed by the effect my personal pronouncement had on others.

The risk I took – that leap?

I made public my deepest held personal desire, that for as long as I can recall I have wanted to be an artist and while it most definitely felt scary as I hit the “make public” button, in the days since I have been asking myself, “why?”

There is no greater satisfaction than taking a risk and succeeding                                                             but so often we don’t because we are afraid… of failing… or embarrassing ourselves… or not being taken seriously.. (feel free to insert your personal bugaboo here)

but think about the illogic of that for a moment.

If you are not even willing to say out loud what it is that you most dearly hope to be or do, how will you possibly convince anyone else? How will it ever happen?

So, today I challenge you to be brave and take that leap. Do you have a dream you hold so close that voicing it scares you? Make your declaration today with words or a picture. It’s a safe space, and I’m hoping you’ll have plenty of company.

And because sometimes even the bravest among us need a little moral support, I’ll be sending one of my pocket-sized super heroes out to one courageous commenter.

Peace, love and bravery!

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Today’s words and images by guest shutter sister, artist, photographer, mother, Deborah Candeub.

spreading the love

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Top row, left to right: porcelain heart bowls, sweet apple photo by jsharp2121, diy elbow patch, Martha Stewart marshmallow hearts Middle row: be(et) my valentine, custom family print by loopzart, sweetheart sundaes, tp roll heart stamps, Bottom row: i heart you photo by Erin Wallis, The One That I Love book by Paper Coterie, you are amazing photo by Xanthe Berkeley, “Love Courageously” letterpress print by Sweet Afton Studios 

Happy Valentine’s Day! I thought we’d celebrate by sharing some “love-themed” beauty with each other. I’ve gathered up some of my favorite love-finds which include beautiful photography, lovely products, cute crafts and sweet treats. It’s so inspiring to see how other people are spreading the love today!

Play along and share something lovely with us…