Bittersweet

It's tough to fly under the radar with a huge black camera in your hands. Once your subject feels a lens pointed in their direction they become more aware of themselves and all hopes of being a fly on the wall are shot. So I'm always thrilled when I'm able to capture a truly natural, intimate moment. The above photo was taken at a 50th anniversary party last summer. These two brothers hadn't seen each other in over a year and the man on the left has been dealing with increasing dimentia. I snapped this photo as the groom explained "I'm Bill. I'm your brother". It was a heartbreaking moment to watch the confusion in his eyes followed by a slight glimmer of recognition. When I look at this picture, I remember the scene like it was yesterday.

Have you ever captured a touching moment where the subjects are totally unaware of your presence?

Searching for Hope--Raw and Real

Around this time every year, something in my brain flicks a switch.  Just like the bud of a newly forming leaf is triggered by enrivonmental and genetic cues, these same signals and accompanying consequences--the emergence from winter darkness, spring rains, blossoms shooting up overnight, the cheerful chatter and melodies of songbirds--rouse in my subconscious an homage to and remembrance of one of the most significant experiences of my life.

Seven years ago, almost to the day, I received news that my father was dying of inoperable pancreatic cancer.  One month later, the day after his 64th birthday, he was gone.  During those short final weeks of my dad's life, I developed an intimate relationship with my then-new digital camera.  Perhaps it was the shock of imminent loss that opened my eyes in a new way and motivated me to search for the hope I so desperately needed wherever I went. 

It was during this time that I developed a deep and abiding love for wandering the streets of my city, camera in hand.  Much of what caught my eye back then wouldn't be considered beautiful in the conventional sense of the word.  In fact, I found myself often drawn to the weathered, beat-up and forgotten images that most people would rush by without a second thought (or even a first).  Maybe it was because I was feeling somewhat weathered and beat-up and forgotten myself that I was trying to comfort my soon-to-be-crushed inner daddy's girl by gathering up these overlooked mementos and treasuring them, savoring the moment in which I found them.  It was as if I needed to know that I could find light in the midst of darkness and decay and even death, because if I could, then I would be able to find hope no matter how dreary the circumstances.

I find it quite timely that now, when my thoughts and emotions are conjuring up the memories and feelings from that month of watching my father succumb to cancer, our Shutter Sisters have embarked on this voyage to Picture Hope.  I am thrilled because I know the power of images to stir our hearts and minds and to plant hope in the midst of dispair.  I think Stacey Monk said it quite eloquently in her comment, "Hope is the most beautiful direction in which a lens can be pointed."

Will you share with us today your images of the weathered, beat-up and forgotten that nevertheless convey to you a hope and beauty that's raw and real?  It would mean ever so much to me...

Telling Stories

When I was in graduate school for creative writing, I took up photography.

I probably should have been working on my writing. But writing alone is never quite enough. You have to have something to write about, right?

Plus, I was feeling discouraged. I knew a lot of good writers who weren’t getting anywhere. And I certainly wasn’t getting anywhere. And I wasn’t sure that I wanted to stick with it.

I took a photography class at a local art school. We worked with film and paper. We developed photos in a darkroom. We processed our own film. I didn’t have any kids then, so I could spend as much time as I liked in the darkroom. And I wound up spending hours and hours. I’d walk in at lunchtime, and suddenly they’d be locking up the building for the night.

I liked the idea of looking at everything in my life as if it had the potential to be a photograph. I liked the idea that the photographs were already out there and all I had to do was learn to see them. It made the world more beautiful to me. It made faces, buildings, and everything in between more interesting. And it made me more interesting, too—just by approaching the world that way.

For a while, I thought about quitting writing to do photography. I carried my camera (a Lubitel twin-lens reflex) everywhere I went for about two years. It felt like I was moving away from stories and toward photographs.

Until I realized that photographs are stories, in their way.

I remember my photography teacher telling us once that the photos she liked best were ones that asked questions. And not long after that, I heard Garrison Keillor, talking about writing, say, “A plot is just raising questions in people’s minds.”

That’s when I saw how it fit together. That all the things I loved about photography were the things I loved about writing: paying attention to detail, capturing the moment, marveling at each discovery, developing a point of view. A photographer has a voice, just like any storyteller. And we are all telling stories all the time—with our own tools in our own way.

In the end, I never could manage to quit writing. But not because I ever chose writing over photography. Just because writing—in its own magical way—chose me.

Thank you to Katherine Center for sharing her words and photographs with us. Katherine is the author of Everyone is Beautifuland is an all around beautiful person!

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Congratulations to our most recent winner of the One Word Project, Simple Sparrow.  Well deserved, she wins a copy of Katherine's book and a Diana camera courtesy of Ballantine Books. YAY!

Go Where You've Never Been

I’ll admit, I didn’t know what to expect, but I was extremely excited. Last Friday I was invited with a handful of bloggers (by my friend and previous business partner James Harris) to go behind the scenes and shoot a live, sold-out performance of a circus in Atlanta, but not a typical circus. This was the UniverSoul Circus, a sixteen-year-old circus comprised of 60 performers from all over the world including Ethiopia, China, Russia, Gabon, Guinea, South Africa, Trinidad, Colombia, Brazil, and Dominican Republic. A circus primarily marketed to African American audiences in thirty cities throughout the United States.

Simply put… it’s a circus with serious soul. And despite the fact that I technically don’t fit the target market, I was blown away by the performers, laughed out loud throughout the show, danced in my seat, sang with the audience, and left with some of the most interesting images I’ve ever shot. The energy under that tent was electric and the whole experience reminded me that it's good to go where you've never been.

Show us something extraordinary today.

To Have and To Hold

After all this time, she still did not know exactly what his hands looked like.  She had never studied them or noticed them really, taking for granted they would always be available for further examination, should she ever decide to be curious.

Now that time seemed to be running out, she regretted neglecting the privilege of holding them.  She could see now for the first time how young they seemed and in some strange way how fragile.  She marveled that they had no lines, no resistance, no sign of struggle or defiance.

No one could say really why any of this was so, and if they could, she understood this would mostly be a made up story to make her feel better, to distract her from everything she knew now she would not have, of everything she understood now, she would not hold. 

In lieu of a story she would have this picture.  In lieu of his hands, she would have this memory: how he sat on the bench with a child on each side and without malice or pride, folded his hands together and let her go.