reflections

Perhaps it’s the end of Summer or the start of Fall.  Maybe it’s my birthday or something in the stars. Or what I usually attribute it to; getting the kids back to school and getting back to a predictable routine. Whatever the case, this is always the time of year where I do the most reflecting.  For years I’ve marveled at the power of this—what seems to be for me—the new year. It’s no wonder I don’t fuss over the true New Year, taking it all lightly and in stride. It must be because I always do my seeking and searching now.

Reflecting on the past and reflecting on the future play equal parts in my annual soul pilgrimage. One is no more important that the other. In fact, they seem to work together in a perfect alchemy. Looking back, I am reminded of what has been. Looking ahead I can begin to forge my path into the future. Whether I choose to bring what the last year held along with me into the next is never certain. It’s different every year. And I guess that’s not really the point. The point is the time of reflection itself. Slowing down, being contemplative, breathing deeply, holding onto gratitude, shedding  tears, getting rest, listening, musing, and paying attention to every feeling, every memory, every whisper. That is where the true magic of reflections lie.

Today I encourage you to take the time for reflections, whatever that might mean to you and seek out ways to translate that into your images. Literally or figurative, let’s reflect together and share our findings as yet another way to Elevate the Everyday.

space to shine

Clockwise from top left - Empire State Building in NYC, Nelson's Column in London, Water towers on the Highline NYC, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Sometimes the way to make a subject sparkle is to give the space to shine.

Using negative space to draw attention your subject can be really fun. When I approach a well known landmark, I like to mix it up a little, by using the negative space around it and have the subject peeking into the frame. The subject is still recognisable it’s just composed in a different way.

How about you? Maybe you'd like to create some space for your subject to shine? Do you ever play with negative space?... please share with us today.

the decisive moment

"Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."  -Henri Cartier Bresson

I was standing on the fourth floor of the High Museum of Art when this moment unfolded. I had one eye on my son in a neighboring room, one eye on my daughter a few steps away. I was fiddling with my scarf, with my braids, fiddling with the contents of my purse, fiddling with my camera. My mind was in a dozen different places but when I looked up, I saw it. The painting, the woman on the bench, the light in between. It was, by very definition, a decisive moment. If I'd hesitated at all, I would have missed it.

Instead, I reached for my SX-70, looked through the viewfinder, adjusted the focus. Steadied my hands and hit that little red button. Two seconds later, the woman walked away. The space filled with people, the light shifted. The whole scene evaporated. The only proof of its existence, this photograph. It doesn't happen like that for me very often but when it does, it's a thrill. Which is why I am always sharpening my brain, training my eyes to see this way, to seek out these moments, these fractions of seconds, whether I have my camera with me or not.

What decisive moments have you captured lately? Please do share a few with us today.

(The image above was shot with a polaroid sx-70 using Impossible Project PX 600 Silver Shade UV+ film)

Vantage Point

"If the photographer could not move his subject, he could move his camera. To see the subject clearly--often to see it at all--he had to abandon normal vantage point, and shoot his picture from above, or below, or from too close, or too far away, or from the back side, inverting the order of things' importance, or with the nominal subject of his picture half hidden. from his photographs, he learned that the appearance of the world was richer and less simple than his mind would have guessed. He discovered that his pictures could reveal not only the clarity but the obscurity of things, and that these mysterious and evasive images could also, in their own terms, seem ordered and meaningful." 

-- from 'The Photographer's Eye' by John Szarkowski

If photography has taught me anything at all, it's that unexpected angles often tell the most spectacular stories. Tell me, when was the last time you were forced to switch up your vantage point? Please do share an image or a story with us today. 

what you don't see

I have to tell you how amazingly freeing it is to show you the photo above.  When I started writing this post and looking for photos that show the, “what you don’t see”, I started finding and laughing at all sorts of discarded photos in my computer files.  What you could perceive from the first fireplace photo is that my house is perfect enough to get this shot or as one comment I received on the fireplace photo, “It’s like you live in a magazine”. ..ha, not with four kids and a dog! That is just photography magic (and clever cropping) my dear friends. I’m pretty sure a magazine wouldn’t have an unfinished fireplace, dusty wood floors, a discarded newspaper and wires poking out where once there was a flat screen. There is so much we don’t see in photography.

 I took the “pretty” fireplace photo before we were finished because I needed inspiration.  Priming and painting an entire two story, floor to ceiling fireplace is not an easy task and taking this photo kept me focused. It reminded me that soon, hopefully soon, I would have a wonderful showpiece in the house in which to hang our family’s stockings and decorate with each new season.

Photos speak volumes in both what it shows and doesn’t show the viewer. Often times what you don’t see, the real shot,  is the most beautiful part.  I have a photo of one of our newly arrived chicks sitting on a window sill looking out.  In hindsight what I wish I had done was take a step back or two.  What you would have seen then was my sweet husbands’ hands cupped underneath the window sill, steadying himself there just in case miss chick decided to jump, simply because I had asked.  To me, that memory means so much more than the professional looking chick photo. It reminds me how real and wonderful life is outside the perfect point of focus.  How although a pretty picture has its place to keep us inspired, the not so perfect shots (or uncropped versions) shouldn’t be so easily discarded, because they too have a story to tell. The newspaper on the ottoman in the right side of the fireplace photo…my kids sharing a chair, laughing and reading the Sunday comics in pj’s.

A dear friend of mine posted this photo on flickr a few years ago. Out of  the hundreds of beautiful and perfect shots she has taken through the years, this one stands out most in mind.  Why?  Because it is so real.  It is her and I adore her.  It is her life on her farm summed up in a single photo and I find it so achingly beautiful. Today, show us the real, the perfectionist, the messy, the inspirational, the uncropped and the gorgeously, beautiful parts of YOU.

Images and words courtesy of the lovely Andie edwards.