what's your medium?

"People who work creatively usually have something in common: they love the media they work with. Finding the medium that excites your imagination, that you love to play with and work in, is an important step to freeing your creative energies."- Sir Ken Robinson, The Element

Although the Polaroid sx-70 is my camera of choice (and used to take the photo above), I also shoot with a digital camera (Canon 5D), Holga, Holgaroid (Holga + Polaroid back), Polaroid Land 250 camera and most recently with a Leica minilux. Exploring different formats and mediums not only allows me to widen my perspective on life and gives me access to all of the ways in which I experience the world, it also helps me discover what I like, what I don't like, where my own true strengths lie, and eventually expand my understanding of my own creativity.

Have you found your medium? If yes, please share images with us today. If not, tell us: What are you experimenting with?

Get Closer

One of my favorite documentary photographers, Robert Capa, once said "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." It's true. And it's not just about the positioning of your feet or your lens. It's about tightening the distance of your relationship with your subject. The best way to improve your documentary photography skills with people is to focus first (and frequently) on the people closest to you. Watch them move. Study their gestures. Get comfortable creeping in close with a wide angle lens. Be silent. Move your body to craft the composition without disrupting your subject. Wait. Remain alert. Working in this way will teach you how to anticipate action and be quick with your click.

Sequence of Steps Before the Click: I propped my elbows on the bed and used my Nikon D3s with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens on it's widest 24mm setting and set the aperture to f/4.5 to let in a fair amount of light while retaining enough detail for elements in the field. I fired an external mount flash (Nikon SB900) tilted behind me at a 45 degree angle (and slightly off to the left) to soften the light. To capture the best quality image, I make every effort to shoot on the lowest possible ISO setting (200 in this case). After making an initial image or two with my f/4.5 aperture setting (with the default shutter speed designated by aperture priority mode), I moved to full manual mode and adjusted my shutter speed a bit to compensate for light. This image is one of 33 shot in that sequence. I knew, at some point, she'd lean in close.

art love

Hello sweet shutter sister world!  I am so excited to be here!  I love this amazing community. I look forward to sharing lots of shutter love with you all. 

Happy 'sigh'.....

Not too long ago, before I was bit by the shutter bug, my crazy passion was painting. In fact I made my living as an artist, working with a publisher, licensing my art and good stuff like that. In the fall of 2009 I found myself having to rethink my creative path. And as I sat in my studio, staring at a blank canvas, my sweet Nikon whispered my name. I picked it up and we've been the best of friends ever since.  I went many months without touching my art. My beloved supplies just sat there, patiently waiting for me. But I took many pictures....many....many... pictures. 

In time my art supplies called to me, at first I resisted. I didn’t need them anymore. My camera was enough. But eventually the desire to get messy won me over. We found each other again. These days, I am blessed to combine my art and photography. Most days you will find me going back and forth between my iMac and my art....taking breaks to photograph my sweet Ben or something simple that catches my eye.

Besides your beloved camera, what are your creative tools? Perhaps you write daily in your journal, love to cook, maybe you are musician, maybe you knit. 

I love photos of art supplies, there's something about the texture of wool,  like this or this...that makes my heart sing, crafting, creative workspaces, kitchen tools .... sweet kitchen tools..... 'sigh'..... Love...just LOVE.

Share your creative tool shots with us today. I'd love to see them.

Be sure to give the amazing Kim Klassen a big warm welcome as she is our latest regular contributor here. We know ya'll are big fans (as are we) and we couldn't be happier to have her here to share her awesomeness with us!

for the love of film

January of course brought the New Year and for me, the end of my 365 project. The empty space that surrounded me was welcome. You see, what my mind has been craving is peace, stillness, and a sense of s.l.o.w.i.n.g down.

Digital photography often gives me space, but in comparison, film is a slow stroll in the park. I've not dabbled in film for many many years, yet something about this new {again} inspiration seemed just right for me. And so in January, I stepped into those waters again after so much time away. I got my hands on a nifty toy camera. The Blackbird, Fly. It's a sweet little twin lens reflex {toy!} camera {this means plastic lens} that happily takes 35mm film. I was beyond giddy to get my hands on it to explore and play.

Do you remember the first time you got behind the steering wheel? My mom took me to the big church parking lot on the corner in our neighborhood.  The keys jingled, the clutch brake and accelerator got jumbled under my teenage feet, the road was too vast, the windshield too constricting ... not to mention all the gears and knobs and spedometer! I crept along hurkey jurkey nauseating my mother and myself across the empty parking lot as I figured out how to control the machine I was driving.

Patience, grasshopper.
Getting back to film was kinda like that for me. 

It's exactly the slowing down that I need. It's quite the opposite of the gluttonous-continuous-shutter-release of my 4-frames-per-second-nikon-dslr that comes fully equipped with instant-gratification-kapow! And so ... it's exactly the learning curve I am desiring. To feel that newness again, that quiet unfamiliar sense of not.knowing.anything but going for it anyway simply for the pleasure of it, the intrigue, the curiosity, the love.

I dropped off three rolls of film at my local print shop. 

I really had no idea what to expect. I had never before in my life shot with a toy camera. And certainly not a dizzying twin lens reflex camera. {It makes me laugh outloud, to be so dizzy. It makes me feel like a kid again. And I take that as a very good sign.}

What I got with a hand full of contact sheets was a face full of smiles.
And a new {again} obsession.
Tell me, when was the last time you dabbled in film?
Share with me your favorite film camera, toy or otherwise.
And leave some photo love in the comments!

beauty is in the eye of the beholder

taken with iphone on instagram using nashville filter

Since the birth of my daughter, my life has changed significantly, and so I've had to make some adjustments to my photo taking habits as well. The bulky SLR has been put away until I go back to shooting professional assignments, the SX70 (and it's convenient flat design) found its place inside the diaper bag, and my trusty iphone became my camera of choice! I spend most of my days now shooting the trivial, celebrating my baby's expressions, our home, how the light changes in every room of the house throughout the day, and even my silly face! I do it a lot. All day actually! It's easy and it's fun. There is no editing, no cropping, no raw images clogging my disk space, and (god forbid!) no retouching. Who has time for that? Iphoneography is completely effortless... Yet, those special moments can still be captured all the same.

Gosh! Will phones ever replace cameras? Absolutely not. We love cameras of all kinds and shapes way too much! But do we need expensive, fancy or hip cameras to take good photos? No more, sisters, no more. Shooting is indeed a lot less about technical process and a lot more about shooting constantly and training our eye to capture the beauty we see. When we shoot from that perspective, we can pick up any piece of equipment and make magic. And as it turns out, that magic can happen even with the help of a tiny little device that fits in our back pocket!

Any other iphoneography enthusiasts out there? If you are an iphone geek like me, you must check out Instagram! This little app is revolutionizing the way we take pictures! It combines the photo community aspect of Flickr, one click filters for post processing, and Twitter chatter. The community is quite supportive as well and you can automatically post your images to flickr, twitter, facebook, posterous and tumblr too! If you want to check it out and look me up, I'm @alessandracave. I'd love to follow your photo taking journey that way.

So tell me... Would you share with us the best of your phone pics with us today?