Thankful for two kids / scooter games

With all of the quarantining - I’m so grateful that my kids have each other to play with. That being said, they also are at each others throats sometimes as well and I hear myself yelling “CAN’T YOU TWO JUST GET ALONG?!”

Earlier this month I participated in the Filming Life Academy Mini Keepsake Film Challenge. Here is one of my most recent films, the one I submitted for this challenge - of my kiddos in harmonious play. It was great to get some refreshers on how to put together a good film. I’ve always thought about adding films to my offerings and am finally ready to make it official. I cannot wait to get back out there with families and capture moving stories as well as photos.

Interested in booking your own family keepsake film? Lets chat!

Entering the creative flow - technique flashback

When I was in high school, my art teacher (Mr. Bibler) must have known that I had a thing for cameras and photography. He taught me how to “freelens” before it was even a thing. Except that he called it “reverse macro.” He showed me how to carefully hold a lens upside-down against my SLR camera in order to produce ultramacro photos. I was in love and continued to shoot mostly flowers with this method for years to come. I loved even examining the flowers after they began to die, to see what happened during this process up close and personal.

Yesterday after trimming and watering my indoor plants, I was blown away by the colors on some of the leaves of my Stromanthe, as they began to brown at the edges. I decided I should take them to the studio and photograph them. As I started, I was not so excited or inspired.

But then I started playing with the sunlight and how it was coming in through the open door.

And then somewhere deep in my memory and subconscious, it struck me that I should try free-lensing again. THAT’S when the flow began, when time warped and everything felt right.

Mistakes Were Made - one year ago

Around this time in April last year, I had just wrapped up the most wonderful opening artist reception for my gallery exhibition at Lille Aeske Arthouse - the sweetest little gallery in Boulder Creek, California.

Titled “Mistakes Were Made”, this show was an exploration of polaroid and polaroid derived images that I made through play and experimentation. Often times I’ll read an instruction manual, but there comes a time when I just want to dive in and try something. I put this show together to embrace mistakes and see the beauty in them. I fell in love with the scratches, the dust, the bubbling and curling chemistry of these polaroids. For many of these images it was a long process from when I first captured the image in camera to these final images, involving many many stages. But for others, I was winging it in the moment - the film wouldn’t pull through the chamber correctly, or the chemistry pack wouldn’t pop open as it should to coat the paper so I would hand squeeze it to create these marks. It felt so exciting to not really know what the end result was going to be, to let go of compositional control to embrace a new vision.

I hope during this strange time we’re all going through you find time to play and experiment too. Look for magic in the unexpected, in the trial and error, and embrace the limitations provided by our need to stay home.

Sadly my favorite film stock that was used in most of these images is no longer manufactured - RIP fp100c. I love that Supersense has launched a new version of this film but when I went to try my usual technique things didn’t work out as I expected. I suppose it’s just another good reason to play around and make a few more mistakes.

See any images you’d like to hang on your wall? Let me know! I do have some prints available.

Let's Play Quarantine Dress Up

My mom had been diligently protecting my wedding dress in a closet back in Ohio. When my parents decided to move, they needed to do some major purging. So, the dress flew out to California and into my closet. Since the day it arrived I have been joking with my husband that I would put it on one day. He always looked confused and wondered what the the world I was talking about or why I would want to put it on. He clearly doesn’t have the nostalgic sentimental bug I have. Plus all I was really thinking about was making some photographs, thinking it would be fun.

Fast forward to COVID-19 and the whole #stayhome #quarantine. The other day my friend at Hi & Hello Photography posted Jared Leto’s instagram of him wearing a dress with the caption “Getting dressed to go to the living room”. Feeling inspired, I knew that it was wedding dress time.

I decided on Monday that Wednesday would be the day for the wedding dress. My husband kept thinking he was forgetting our anniversary or something but I assured him it was really just for the art of it. After posting to Instagram, I decided it needs to be a regular occurrence so I will don my wedding dress each Wednesday and maybe wear something fancy on Fridays. Won’t you join me? Tag along with #letsplayquarantinedressup - no wedding dress required, just put on something fancy.