Golden Light

There's a specific time each evening when the light is perfect and everything has a beautiful golden glow. Right now it's about 7pm in my area (I'm sure that there's a similar golden time each morning, but I wouldn't know because I don't get up that early). I try to schedule all of my photo sessions to start at about 6:30pm so I can be sure to catch it. And I've been experimenting more lately with shooting toward the sun during this time of day. It definitely takes more thought in terms of settings and exposure, but can produce some really gorgeous results. I've been noticing some shots in our Flickr pool that clearly utilize this golden time of night, but I'd love to see more! Go experiment and show us your results.

Holding On

They met when they were just finishing college, when she and I still shared the garage apartment attached to her mother's house.  I left first and she soon followed, all of us landing in a run-down garden apartment in an old part of town where trees dropped blooms on our cars at night and the landlord slept on a couch in the makeshift office on the ground floor.

They were jazz musicians fated to live on the side of the building where the people across the alley played Michael Jackson, Celine Dion and MeatLoaf.  I lived on the other where each night a Cuban boy serenaded me with Spanish folk songs from his balcony while I melted to the sounds of his perfect guitar.  We mourned the irony over late morning brunches in our pajamas--in my pop-music free apartment, of course.

By fall they moved on to California, taking only what they could fit in their little car.  I waved good-bye holding the last armful of everything left they couldn't carry.  They spent the next ten years carving out a life together, determined to make music their world.  When I saw them last week they had just arrived in a brand new city, seasoned and familiar with how to turn dreams into bread and butter.  I could have asked them their secret I suppose, but one look at this shot and I already knew the answer.

They have always in so many ways had each other.  And they know so deeply what it means to hold on.  This is the wisdom they share between them--the very thing that makes them able to stand by me, this time, holding all the things my soul can no longer carry.

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Who helps you hold on when times are tough and dreams are pushed to the far edges of reality?  Show us your sages, your guides, your trusted friends in the comments below.

Love Thursday: Friendship

Jen Gray and Andrea, Manzanita Beach, Oregon, August 11, 2008.

Last week, I took a short holiday with several women -- some of whom I knew prior to my trip, some of whom I didn't.  It didn't matter -- we all got on like a house on fire.

On the second day, we all trouped down to the beach to take in the sun and shoot some photos.  Two of the women, Jen and Andrea (also a Shutter Sisters contributor!), have been friends and soulsisters for a long time, and knowing this, I asked them if they'd let me take their picture.

The women immediately agreed, and they did the standard cheek-to-cheek friend photo pose we all do, and I took a few shots.  And then, suddenly, they pulled back and regarded each other, happily and soulfully.

And I quickly took the shot above.

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Happy Love Thursday, all.  Please leave your links to your images and words of love in the comments section, below -- and check out the great friendships captured by eky_lane and yaznotjaz and uploaded in the Shutter Sisters Flickr pool. 

And may you soulfully regard your true friends today.

eyes on the road

Nothing beats the slow pace of a summer road trip. Meandering highways, sweeping landscapes, vast skylines, and expansive roads that seem to lead to nowhere make for not only picturesque views but also breathtaking photos. When you’re able to take it all in from the passenger seat with either a soundtrack to match your surroundings or the beauty of silence, your camera can help translate your scenic backdrop into a visual language that is universal.

As we follow the road to the end of this season of warmth and welcoming, share with us the stirrings of simplicity that fill your summer lungs with wanderlust.

Enchanted

It is true that the magic of childhood is for the most part intangible however, as a professional photographer and a mother I know that the perfect moment in time captured in a picture can tell a pretty grand tale of the enchantment.

What is it exactly that makes us swoon at the sight of a sleeping baby or melt when we feel the motion of uninhibited play and total freedom of being?

Do the eyes have it? It is a gesture? Or something about the context of the shot that makes it irresistible?

Even after all these years, and many clients later, I’m not sure I can put my finger on it exactly. I guess I just know it when I see it, just as I’m sure you do.

Share with us in a photo what kind of kid stuff stops your grown-up heart in reverie.