Everyday Risk

Everyday in my little urban neighborhood, I see things that totally delight me. Huge gangsta-looking guys carrying their babies in Baby Bjorns. Salvadoran women balancing enormous parcels on their heads. Little kids hanging out of their strollers hoping you'll stop and chat. More than anything else, I wake up every morning convinced I have to find a way to capture my neighborhood and celebrate all the ways it hums and sings like magic.

Doing so, however, requires that I photograph people. People I don't always know. I feel silly snapping away like I'm some kind of professional when I've only been doing this for five minutes! Who am I to interrupt someone's day for an informal photo shoot? The internal dialogue goes on and on. So, off I go on my walks, camera in hand, coming home instead with 200 pictures of flowers, produce and the shape of a house against the cool blue sky. You know how it is. :)

Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. But I also know that my very best work as an artist comes when I go straight to the edge of what feels comfortable and dive right into that uneasy, sticky place where I don't know if I'm being brilliant or totally ridiculous. That place where you have no idea if anything will turn out all right, where the only thing left to do is pour your heart out and let yourself play. Outcomes and foolishness be damned.

Yesterday, the Universe decided I must be ready for a little nudge in the taking-pictures-of-people department, because I walked out of the grocery store straight into a parade of people singing and following a float down the street--believe me, this is not an everyday occurrence! I had no idea what called for so much celebration, but it seemed to be religious in nature, and the crowd of maybe a hundred or more danced into the street, obviously happy. If there was ever a moment where it might be totally okay for a bystander to take a picture, this was it.

I held my camera up tentatively, as people swirled around me. Can I do this? Is this really okay? I wondered, feeling a little bit silly. And then the older woman in the picture above made eye contact with me and smiled kindly as if to say "Yes!" Just to be sure, I asked out loud, and then click.

With her help, I did it.

What risks are calling out to you today? It looks different for each one of us, and no one but you can tell which shot really represents your leap into unknown territory. That's the beauty of growing and developing as a photographer--we each do so at our own pace, facing our own unique challenges. Is there a particular thing you've been longing to try, but need a little nudge to do so? Tell us about it in the comments. Do you have a shot that marks a first for something new to you? Leave us a link below. I'd love to know what risks you're taking, as I forge ahead with my own.

Photo and post courtesy of the newest member of the sisterhood Jen Lemen. We're thilled to welcome her as a regular contributor.

Love Thursday: March 6th, 2008

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. 

-- Mother Teresa

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 Happy Love Thursday!  Please leave your links to your images of love in the comments section below -- and don't miss the beautiful images by marycalissa, Hippyhappyhay, and Fanglord2 from our Flickr pool.

 Here's wishing each of you wonderful, warm smiles today.

Blogging

photo by Alex Beauchamp

5 years ago, I had no idea what a blog was. Today it's become a fairly significant part of my life. I was trying to think back the other day about how it all happened, and then remembered. It started with a jewelry search. One day, I googled "jewelry suppliers", and stumbled upon www.anothergirlatplay.com. It was like I had died and gone to heaven. All kinds of creative women pursuing their dreams, in one place. I sat for hours reading their stories. And then promptly got hooked on this thing called blogging. Now, even when I'm crazy busy there are at least ten sites a day that I feel like I have to visit. But it all started with Alex's site . So that made me wonder about everyone else. Do you remember the first blog that ever inspired you? I'm so curious to hear your stories too. 

Look Who Cleaned Up

And the winners of the Clean Well Moments Photo Contest are...

Christinator5 for her shot of her little gardener under the Outdoor Activities category.

The Honorable Mentions are Happy Girl Lucky's Splatter and Mrs. Eaves' Toes in the Mud. Way to go gals!

Kerflop for her shot Into The Jam for the category In the Kitchen.

The Honorable Mentions are Melmo's World's Nectarine and Joannerim's Gim Bap. Great stuff sisters!

Nicky Thomas for her shot Clean Me under the category of Arts and Crafts.

The Honorable Mentions go to Kristina Young's Blue Man Groupie and Storygoil's Not Treats. Nice job ladies!

Camera Shy Momma for her Not Green Peas in the Family Life Category.

The Honorable Mentions go to Keeper of the Chocolates' Powder Soup  and Wannabe Hippie's Cute Artist Girlie Pants. Creative captures girls!

Thanks to every who entered. All of the photos were nice and messy...just the way we like 'em. Lucky for the winners, Clean Well will be coming to your rescue in the form of squeaky clean prizes!! And for the rest of you, never fear, you can get Clean Well products at Target. See, everybody wins! Yay!

pet cemetery

This Monday’s post is courtesy of the lovely Steph, who photographs as a foundation for her illustrative work.

Steph bewitches me with her treehouse ramblings, her eye for super-funky little clothes, her sketches, and her perfectly joyful way of capturing life as a mama to scruffy, inquisitive, rollabout boys.

She writes:

There's a perfect riparian hike up an open space preserve near the house that pauses at a quarter mile, if you are looking for it, with a set of mossy stairs that lead down to an old pet cemetery.

As I had hoped, he became saturated with the place: jumping off every stone, stomping on every ant, smudging himself into the wet earth, collecting grubby fistfuls of small sticks along the walk. His proud stride, the happy, bouncy swagger he gets when we're together: it just makes me want to burst. I love it. And, as usual, in anticipation of this display, I brought my camera.

I wish I could sling a camera like the professionals do, working quickly with finesse and understanding the technical aspects of photography, but I simply am too busy trying to capture all of these fleeting moments.

The best photographs I manage to take are those that capture what all mothers adore: acrobatic preschool gestures, the details in terribly food-stained clothes, the paint that gets under fingernails, a mass of bedhead, a noble negative space, the thoughts behind a dark brow or the silence behind an overbite.

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I like to have an image library within the pages of my sketchbook so that I can refer to it for paintings or illustrations. While I have some practice capturing gestures freehand, my photography has been tremendously helpful in compiling studies of their facial proportions so that life-sketching is more fluid.

If I didn't have the photographs I'd have to make the kids pose, which would interrupt everything.

And by everything, I mean that chaos which is a house of boys: flying Legos, the hiss of supersonic jets, beaming laser blasters and the rubble of broken alien spacecraft. Dirty bare feet on clean white sheets. Questions falling like rain, books everywhere.

The dog chases the stampede, and I follow furiously with my camera.

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This week, show us your little boys. Let’s see your favourite puddle-jumpers, sandcastle-stompers and mischief-hunters. TAG! You’re it.