Abundance

When is enough, enough?

When is too much, too much?

When is a little all you need to take your heart all the way home?

I asked a woman on the roadside in Kigali if I could take a picture of all this bounty.  She agreed, but only if I was willing to pay a small price.  I would have given it I suppose, but my friend Goreth intervened convincing the woman that she wouldn't lose a thing by letting me get the shot.  Some things in life it seems are meant to be free.

Where is abundance revealing herself to you these days?  Where is the too much, too little, never enough showing up in your camera lens?   Show us the shots that reveal what's full and what's empty in the viewfinder of your world.

Love Thursday: go weak

When planning for today's post, I wanted to post an image that inspired.  Words that moved.  Thoughts that ... well, made you think, I guess.

But then I took this picture of my daughter, Alex, and figured I had to share it, instead.  She was being tickled mercilessly by my husband, and after shrieking and wriggling wildly, Marcus suddenly stopped tickling -- and as she caught her breath, she went weak and sank into his arms. 

Then I took this shot.

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Happy Love Thursday, everyone.  As we do every week, please leave your links to your images of love in the comments section below.  And be sure to check out the warm fuzzy love caught by the opera mafia, and more tickle love by Right Moon for inspiration.

And may you go weak and sink into someone's arms today.

Keeping up with the Shutter Sisters

Since our launch we have been growing sure and steady here at Shutter Sisters and there’s so much going it seemed like a little overview was needed.

First, let me honor the photographer who shot today’s featured photo, Cranial Hiccups. This was by far the fan favorite at The Daily Click with an awesome 62 comments all singing the praises of this beautiful image. Cheers Cocoa! That said, very first Blurb Book, The Daily Click will be coming soon to the Blurb Bookstore. Thanks to all of you who submit incredible images to our Flickr Pool and for voting for those that turned up over at The Daily Click this first go round. We are sifting through and tallying up the comments now that the voting process is over and those of you whos images make it into this first book will be hearing from us via your Flickr mail very soon so be on the lookout for that!

Our second Blurb Book , ShutterWalk will follow the first, featuring some of the shots from our San Francisco PhotoWalk and BlogHer weekend. If you were at BlogHer and have some photos you’d like to have considered for the book, you have until Aug 15^th to enter them in the book’s Flickr group. Even if you couldn’t make the PhotoWalk but you got some cool shots at BlogHer that weekend, you can submit.

We’re also thrilled to share that our Flash Bulb necklace designed by Blue Poppy Jewelry is becoming quite coveted item! Since our numbers are limited still we are going through the comments from the official-unofficial pre-order post and using that as our “list”. First comment, first serve kind of thing. Some of you have gotten your necklaces already and some will hear from us in the next few days. The rest of you will get word just as soon as we get the next order in. And please be sure to include your email in your comment and double check that it’s correct. If you haven’t added your comment/name/email to the post, please do! It will ensure that you will be notified just as soon as your necklace is available.

And the last of the fun news is that we are working on our first official Shutter Sisters Newsletter. We are growing leaps and bounds, aren’t we? So, now is the time to go register to get on our email list so you too can receive a little Shutter Sisters somethin’ somethin’ in your inbox once a month! More on that soon but for now, we encourage you to get on the list.

Oh, and a quick reminder (as requested); One Sweet Shot is happening THIS Sunday so please send in your OSS honorees to click@shuttersisters.com when you can!

Thanks again everyone for all of the encouragement, support and participation here. Keep the emails coming if you’ve got something you want to share with us and above all else, keep clickin’.

Beloved Black and White

I began my photo career years before the digital age, at a time where shooting a portrait session took a number of cameras loaded with lots of different kinds of film. The norm for me was simultaneously shooting with three bodies; one loaded with color film, one with b/w film and another with high speed b/w film (1600 for the grainy/artsy stuff). In the end my clients got a good number of proof prints to peruse with a cross section of b/w, color and more b/w. Emphasis on the b/w. It was just kind of my thing—for many many years. Creating black and white images was what I enjoyed most and in the end my favorite shots from any session were -you guessed it- black and white.

Then, a few years ago entered my swift and smooth little digital SLR (that shoots everything in color of course) and the enchanting Adobe Lightroom which helps take that color to a whole new dimension. The last 2 years I have found them to be an irresistible couple that have seduced me into practically forgetting about my beloved black and white. It is only when I see shots like this and this that I am swept up in remembering my passion for the absence of color. For an image that holds the viewer captive with it’s enticing tonal range of whites to light grays to dark grays to the blackest blacks and back again. An image where texture evokes emotion and wonder, and there is no color to distract.

Lately I feel desperate to rediscover that unspoken thing that black and white images bring that drew me to photography in the first place—to rekindle that old flame, and search for ways to restrike that spark in a new world where creative tinder can come from a single stroke of the keyboard.

And you? Where do your loyalties lie? Do you ever feel torn in your processing? Do I or don’t I desaturate? What would make this image the best it can be? How do you decide? And what is your preference? Shed a little light (and shadow) if you would, because I need to know I am not alone in this. Am I?

on the internet

The first words of hers I read are among her last—the blog post she’d written for her family to publish after she died. In her farewell post she writes:

…the small stuff is very small and not worth your time and attention. Gossip and resentments, worrying about things that never happen, fearing the unknown. Let it go my lovelies, breathe and just be good to each other. I realized not long after my diagnosis that life is too short to spend it hurting people and holding onto the anger we have for those around us.

It’s not the first time I wish that such fine clarity didn’t come at such a cost.

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Then I read this and it knocks my bloated, plain, aging self off the couch I spend too much time on, and I wonder why California has to be so damned Pacific and why the Alantics have to be so damned… Atlantic, and I wish the land in between would go POUF so that Elaine and I could, you know, get a little drunk together. Tonight.

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In this place the water rushes in a steady current, clean and fresh. The underside of the creek bridge brushes against my back as I crouch.

This is not a photo of a boy in a tunnel. It is of the black in there, the tar-black. And the light. And of how either the darkness or the lightness wraps around you depending on where you choose to stand.

What’s on your mind? Show us with your camera.