Simpler

My relationship with photography has been a long, tumultuous road. Where most people go from hobby to career; I was the opposite. This was a job for me WAY before it was a passion. Over the years, I'd want to improve, so I'd get a book or take a class. But I never enjoyed them, thinking the teachers were too rigid and judgmental. It's funny how we see the world based on our own biases. Because in retrospect, now I see that it was ME who was all of those things. I used to think that for an image to be good, there had to be REASONS WHY. It had to COMMUNICATE. It had to be PROFOUND. These beliefs completely set me up for failure. More than that, it made my work stagnate, because the mountain of perfection is ALWAYS too hard to climb. So rather than attempt the impossible, I just continued doing my repetetive photography job. I'd get bored and quit for a while. Only to go back and get bored again. I did this for over ten years. Until one day, I completely burned out. I knew that I would never touch a camera again, if I couldn't find a way to be excited about it. So, I LET GO OF WHAT I THOUGHT A PHOTOGRAPHER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE. I decided that my expectations were complicating things; and that art according to me, was going to be simple. Do I like it? Am I drawn to it? Does it make me want to look for a few seconds longer? By letting go of the "shoulds" and the "what if I fail"s, I was able to take the risks that are necessary to be creative. Now for the first time in over a decade of working in this business, I can say that I love photography. And that things are often much simpler than we make them out to be.

What I Remember

For many of us, taking the photos that document our lives is just a part of our daily routine. I shoot pictures of my children just about every day, but it wasn’t until the other night that the importance of each of these seemingly effortless images I snap away came into clear focus.

On the eve of my oldest daughter’s tenth birthday, I watched her pull from our family albums, her favorite baby pictures for use in her fifth grade auto biography. She mused over what she liked about each one and embellished with the details she remembered about them. It dawned on me that there really wasn’t anything she vividly remembered about the actual moment these photos were captured. How could she when she was just a baby? I imagine that what she was remembering were the photographs themselves. Revisiting the baby pictures she had grown up looking at stirred the memories of the photos themselves and the stories I have shared with her about them.

I listened as she reflected, I remember this one, I used to wear that orange outfit all the time, we called it my carrot suit. I loved that quilt, didn’t I? I remember Grandma made it for me. Oh, remember that I used to snuggle with that bunny. I love this picture. I heard her recalling her life as these photographs have narrated it for her. I too have photos like that--images of my young life that take me back to a moment in time that although may have slipped from my memory, is stirred up by both the picture and my mother’s stories. I guess it doesn’t really matter if I can remember these details or not, but I do have the photos as tangible proof that I had a grand first birthday party with a gazillion guests, that I wore my favorite Minnie Mouse dress on Easter and that I was “such a good little traveler” when my parents and I drove across the country in a Volkswagen Bus.

Hearing my own daughter speak of her baby days like that, like she actually remembers those days reminds me that when I am taking pictures I am doing something important. I am creating for her a visual treasury that she will have to help her remember her life. That I love doing it is just icing on the cake.

Mastering the art of the rinky-tink-tink: part one

 

So, what is it that you do to your shots?  The sisters have asked. They’re kinda unique.

Well, I ahh… I umm… see, I move the clicker wheel to ‘BEACH SCENE’, and then I hold the button down halfway so it may (or may not) focus, and then…

Crap, I think, too late, rinky-tink-tinking on my toy piano in a roomful of Steinways. I’ve just outed myself. Next thing you know I’ll give away my ‘BRIGHT SNOW DAY’ trick.

My camera is a glorified point-and-shoot with an unchangeable junior lens, shot-in-the-dark focusing and a complete inability to operate properly in anything but blazing outdoor light. It's all I know, photographically — probably like many of you, too — aside from the 25-year-old Pentax K-1000 I learned on.

So to those who have yet to graduate to the school of digital SLR I say:

1) You are not alone in your periodic camera-directed sado-masochistic abandonment fetish.

2) Between now and the receipt of lotto winnings, we may as well make the best of it.

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It’s frustrating to hit a ceiling — to have a creative drive that exceeds your equipment. I’ve got a baby, a toddler, a recent home renovation and a credit line with indigestion. Canon? Nikon? NTFL (add ‘Not Too F-ing Likely’ to your web-repertoire alongside LOL, SAHM and OMG).

Stretch what you’ve got. If you’ve still got the manual, read it (or go online to find it). Uncover every possible setting, adjustment and feature. Capture the same scene on auto, on preset modes, with flash, without flash, zoomed in, zoomed out. Let no button or switch go unexplored. If your camera offers manual settings, test them vigorously until you can visualize the effects of shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

Learn what works best in your most common shooting scenarios. For instance, when it’s bright out I use the ‘beach scene’ preset mode to overexpose, then tone down within Photoshop after I’ve downloaded the images. Something about that setting, combined with a contrast adjustment after-the-fact, makes blue skies pop.

Such a trick I’d never have learned if I hadn’t moved the clicker off the godforsaken AUTO and taken some risks in the interest of trial by error.

Sure, I flail, and curse, and salivate in front of store windows. Then I turn to my weary, battered Kodak, my pipsqueak, and say Okay kid, it’s just you and me. Let’s see what we can do.

It's Real Now

While I am fairly new to the world of photography, I feel like I have been seeing things through a lens my whole life. I've always been content to quietly observe my surroundings, noticing things that others might not. When I was young most people thought I was just quiet and shy (true), but there was more to it than that. I was busy observing. I was noticing the swirling pattern in the shell buttons on someone’s shirt or the way the sunlight made a pattern on the floor as it filtered through the trees. I think that’s why photography is the perfect outlet for me. When the camera captures what my eye is seeing, I can finally relax. It's real now.

I’m sure there are a lot of reasons that people become interested in photography. But I think that for most of us it is a way to capture what we’re afraid we’ll forget.
 

Traditions

This year, my daughter is three years old, and all of the year-end holidays, from Thanksgiving through the New Year, seem to now finally have meaning for her.  For this reason, I find myself obsessed lately with developing traditions -- little rituals to help make the season as special to her as it is for me.  So I've been doing a bit of research, asking around and finding out what makes the holidays special:

I love the stuffing we have at Thanksgiving -- with the water chestnuts... 

Water chestnuts in stuffing?  Please.  I'm Italian.  Sausage.  The stuffing needs sausage.

I remember opening our presents on Christmas morning ...

Morning?!  You mean Christmas EVE, right?  It's just not right to open them any other time! 

 Hmm.  So it appears that people hold their traditions pretty dear.

For me, I'm starting small:  prompted by some angel ornaments I seem to have collected over the years, I've decided that each year, I'm going to buy a new angel ornament.  The one above is one of my favourites.

Still, I could do with some inspiration -- what's your favourite holiday tradition?  Better still, feel free to share links to your photos illustrating this tradition, below.