Where Truth Resides

I could capture her in her perfection.   The bold silver of her hair or the light magic of her eyes when she's listening in close to every word you say.   With any luck, I could take that image and make it shine even more with my fingers at the keyboard, as her years and her flaws slip away.  I could do all this and make you see her, make you love her, make you understand who she is without any imperfections holding you back from the truth. 

 This is my work, I tell myself.  To eliminate the distractions.  To take the flaws of the photo or the subject and minimize them until all you can see is the beauty.  This is why we have the tools right?  This is what it means to be an artist in a digital age.

 But what if the beauty is in the lines that show with each passing age?  What if the magic of knowing her is to see the way that love (and sorrow) has made her face worn and kind?  What if the only way to know the truth is to make the imperfection plain?

I worry I am using my photography to tell a story about my life that isn't always true.  I wonder if I am clicking away all the rough edges, only to make pictures that tell half truths of my raw, messy, beautiful life.   How would things change if I used my post-processing skills to highlight all the places truth resides when things are anything but perfect?

Show me the photos where beauty shines in the absence of perfection.  I want to see your real life--the one that celebrates what is true, no matter what.

Love Thursday Featured Fotographer: Kimberly Brimhall

"Carried With Love."

When I saw the photograph, above,  it brought me back to all the feelings that I had while waiting for my own daughter to be born:  the feelings of anticipation, excitement, concern:  the sorts of feelings that all expectant mothers feel, regardless of how their children come to be a part of their families.  And while the feelings may be complex, and plentiful, and even overwhelming, the truth is that ultimately, they all boil down to one emotion:  love.

 Happy Love Thursday, everyone.  This is the second in our monthly series, "Love Thursday Featured Fotographer."  The photograph above was submitted to the Shutter Sisters Flickr pool, taken by the extremely talented Kimberly Brimhall.  Be sure to check out the rest of her photographs here, and you can drop by her blog, Cheating Destiny, for more visual goodness.  And of course,  please leave links to your images of love in the comments below.

And may you experience complex, plentiful and even overwhelming feelings of love today. 

fun project

I found this tutorial today at www.fototiller.com via photojojo. The kids had so much fun making their "OWN" coloring pages. Thought yours might too. You could even make them into a book here or here, and give them as birthday gifts. Happy Wednesday!  :)

on the radio (uh oh)

We ask a lot of questions around here at Shutter Sisters. What inspires you? Are you up for a challenge? What images would you like to share with us?

I think it’s high time we give you a chance to ask us a question or two.

On April 16^th at 6pm PST, Sister Kate (it makes me giggle when I get to call her that) and yours truly have been invited to join the lovely and very clever Kristen of Motherhood Uncensored on her Blog Talk Radio podcast where we will answer your questions live on the air. Crowd goes wild.

Here’s what we’re proposing—you offer up your questions here in the comments and we will pick a few that we’ll address on the show. If we choose to use your question on the air, we’ll be sure to extend a little token of gratitude (gifts TBA) if that’s any incentive. *

So ladies, fire away. What is it that you want to ask us? We’re all ears.

* edited to announce that our little token is a BIG gift card to Snapfish. We've got 3 - $50 cards for the lucky winners! YAY!

my kinda truthiness

This is something to own, to make clear: the day we went to Ross Farm I took 300 pictures in two hours.

I’m a ruthless deleter, and proud of it—the final tally was 60 barely acceptable shots, 12 flickrable.

Early on the learning curve my goal was to improve my shooting ratio—to be happy with one in five shots instead of one in twenty (or thirty, or forty). Admirable, sure.

But then I had kids.

And then there were the mid-frame tackles and the naked streaking and the radioactive snot (we won a Boogitzer for the above, and now we're rich) and the blur, the constant, unintentional, tasmanian-devil blur.

So now I must fess up to worshipping the continuous shutter, to being in the market for extra storage, to being shamelessly, unapologetically devoted to the Why Take One Frame When You Can Take Fifteen?  school of photographic thought. To be creatively fulfilled (and not demoralized) simply by bettering my odds.

That’s my truth. What’s yours?

What's exploded in your life that’s flipped your philosophy, changed how you take pictures?