share

If there's one thing we're good at here at Shutter Sisters it's sharing. Sharing thoughts, ideas, stories, encouragement, hopes, dreams, joys and most of all photography.

Today kicks off a brand new month of sharing our pictures in our One Word Project and we thought Share would be the perfect word to inspire us for May. As always, will be collecting your visual interpretations of the word Share in our OWP Flickr Pool (please tag your images with the words May and Share). How you choose to capture the theme is up to you.

We are delighted to welcome HP as our fantabulous sponsor this month and I'll tell you, they will be generously sharing some pretty great stuff with participants all month long so watch for special giveaway posts in May. And remember each day we will feature an image from the pool on our daily One Word Project page so keep you eyes on that.

Oh, but wait! That's not all!

To up the ante a bit, we're making our one word this month work double duty. In light of May being Mother's Day we are going to throw in a sharing challenge as well. We challenge you to MAKE your Mother's Day cards this year. Of course here at Shutter Sisters we most certainly hope to see your photographs gracing these handmade cards! Why? Because sharing our photographs is one of the most rewarding parts of doing what we do as photographers! And because Moms love pictures.

We're even staring a new Flickr pool called Shutter Share. This will be a very specific pool where you can Share with us how you share your pictures. In other words, you will be taking pictures of your pictures.  Your family wall portrait gallery, a set of note cards, frames on a shelf, your Mother's Day card, you name it. Take a photo of it. We want to see what beauty you create and how you share your gifts with the people you love. We'll be looking to feature some of those shots here too and if you're willing to Share some tips and tricks, let us know. Enlighten us! We love to be enlightened. And if your looking for something to spark your creativity, the HP Creative Studio is full great ideas! Check it out.

So, now you've got 2 new projects to shoot this month! We can't wait to see what you Share.

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The winners of Light Crafts new Aurora photo editing software will be announced later today!

Display Idea - Photo Window

On a recent trip to visit my dad I spotted an old 8 paned window in his garage. I remember commenting about how great it would look on a wall, or used decoratively in some way. Not surprisingly, the next time my dad took a road trip to visit, he brought the window with him and gave it to me. It sat in our garage waiting to be used until this week. I've been busy preparing for an upcoming Women's Living Expo, where I'll have my own Paige B. Photography booth. Suddenly I rediscovered the antique window and knew it would be a perfect way to display some of my photos. Each pane is about 8.5" x 12.5", so I ordered the photos on 10" x 13" paper and trimmed each one to size. Then I attached the photos to the back with masking tape. Lucky for me, I have a very handy and creative husband who made "feet" for the back to stand it up. However, I think it would look just as good leaned up against a wall or hung up. Old windows like these are often available in antique stores, estate sales or on Craigslist.com. We ended up repainting ours white because I was going for a clean look. But leaving the paint distressed would have looked nice too.

I love how my photo window turned out and can't wait to show it off this weekend in my booth! How about you? Have you discovered any creative ways to show off your photos?

Tool Around

A few years ago at blogging conference I sat in on a panel of crafters who, among other things, discussed how having an online presence gave them an invaluable way to not only promote their work but also to sell it. Although I can be crafty, I am not a crafter but none the less saw great value and understood exactly what was being shared; the value and power of using the internet as a tool.

Of course having Amy Sedaris there didn’t hurt in making the panel totally entertaining and fun to be apart of—a la her hilarious stories of googly-eyes and cupcakes—but that’s beside the point.

I myself enjoy frequenting many of the craft blogs I have come to love online not only because of their lovely handmade offerings but also for their photography. These women are not only creating beautiful pieces of art they are also artfully capturing them in stunning photographs which for me is just the icing on cupcake, so to speak.

I was having this very discussing with my step-mom who has in the last year or so taken up making exquisite wire wrapped beaded jewelry. Her biggest challenge has been how to simply take better pictures to post over at her Etsy shop—to not only showcase her work but to help sell her one-of-a-kind pieces. We spent a morning together chatting and shooting and uploading and comparing snapshots to more mindful, deliberate, artistic images of people’s crafts.

A snapshot of something handmade is just a snapshot but a beautiful photograph of the same object elevates that object. A picture can be worth a thousand words so why not have it speak of the story of the craft? The process, the detail, the effort, the care, the texture, the color, the fabric, the size, the shape, the personality, the love can all be captured through the lens helping to tell a unique and compelling story of the subject and hand and what it took to create it.

I’ve been musing on how as creative beings our tool boxes are brimming with the tools we use everyday; to create our own unique masterpieces, to capture the world around us, to share what we do with others. Whether it’s wire, needles, buttons, a macro lens, light box, Photoshop, a blog, we are using invaluable tools each day to execute and share our work whatever it may be. Just as a recipe takes the right mix of ingredients to make the perfect cake, with no element being more important than the other. And it doesn’t necessarily stop there. After all, one wouldn’t dream of baking the cake without frosting it and then offering a fork, would they? Well, OK, there are cupcakes but my point is that to take our creativity from start to finish we need the right utensils to mix our own well-balanced artistic alchemy

Enlighten us with the tricks of your trade and the process it takes to make it happen. What tools are first and foremost in your arsenal?

Jump Start

As I sit at my computer I can hear the freezing rain tapping on the window to my left. The wind is howling and I'm about to turn up the heat again. The view out the window might as well be a sepia toned photograph because I don't see any color, it's a wash of browns and grays. January tends to be a time of renewal for people. We're all going to eat better, lose weight, spend less, and give more. But in my second year working from home, I am realizing that what I need most right now is inspiration and creative action. My creativity and my camera are pleading for a fresh start. Believe me, I am inspired daily by what I see on Flickr or while reading blogs. But being inspired by others is only half the battle, actively participating is the other. So I am giving myself a January homework assignment to lift myself out of this creative slump. And if you are feeling the same, please join me.

My self-imposed January Homework Assignment (Starting Monday):

1) Take one photo everyday until Jan. 31st that is colorful, cozy, cheerful or just makes you smile.

2) Do something creative with your hands 5 days a week. It could be drawing, painting, origami, scribbling, doodling, writing, or anything else. But it may not involve a camera or a computer. I find that doing creative things with my hands makes me more creative as a photographer and designer.

That's it! That doesn't seem so difficult right? I'll let you know how it's going for me later this month, and if you feel like participating I hope you'll come back and fill us in on how you are doing.

friday's featured resource: photo style recipes from pottery barn

Recently on my own site, I talked about how, even with as much as I enjoy the holidays, I always feel a sense of relief at the beginning of the year.  What I didn't mention, however, was how much I go into nesting mode.  I think it has something to do with taking down the Christmas tree: after putting everything away, and seeing my house go back to the way it was before we decked the halls, I feel an urge to move things around a little, make a few adjustments.  Redecorate a bit.

Since I truly don't have lots of money to spend on redecorating (does anyone?), and, well, I've been known to take a photograph or two, I've decided to see how I can enhance our home using photographs.  What's sort of strange is that in general, I don't display my photography at home, save for a couple of family snapshots here and there.  But really, why not use my photographs to help make my house feel more like home?  It feels like a no-brainer, right?

And so, a couple of days ago, I dusted off a book that I purchased a few months ago, on a whim. Photos (style recipes) is a publication from Pottery Barn, and is chock full of really lovely ideas to store your photographs, display them in your home, advice on how to mat, frame and hang photographs -- even some ideas on how to assimilate and create collages of vacation snapshots.  I've already pulled a couple of ideas out of the book, and I'm loving the changes I've made to our fireplace mantle and our breakfast area, all for a pretty nominal fee of printing a few photographs and purchasing some standard frames.

While the book is available on Amazon, I can't find it on the Pottery Barn site, or anywhere else for that matter -- so it could be the book is out of print.  I really can't recommend it enough, so be sure to snap it up if you can.

And on a related note, I'm curious:  do you display your photographs in your home?  Are your displays limited to portraits of your family, or do you frame your art photography pieces as well?