the beauty of food

Food. We all interact with it every day. It fills and nourishes our bodies and (usually!) tastes good.

But beyond fuel and taste, food has a powerful aesthetic that, over the past few years, I’ve come to appreciate. Food is beautiful. I’ll admit, before I had a food blog I didn’t think much about how food looked. Sure, once in a while I noticed that something I was eating was beautiful. But that usually happened at a fancy restaurant, when the edibles were dressed to the nines.

Taking photos of food day in and day out has helped me develop an appreciation for the inherent, natural beauty of food. Chopping brown onions makes me happy, despite the tears. A bowl of blueberries stops me in my tracks. And pastries lining the windows of Paris? Ooo la la!

As I’ve contemplated my experience photographing food, I’ve realized it’s had an impact on all of my photography. I now look at life through a macro lens. To capture the essence of the food I photograph, I have to really focus on the details. This focus has expanded to other photos I take, no matter the subject. Portraits of my kids tend to be close-ups. I naturally gravitate to details, a candle rather than the whole cathedral. I see the world in a different way, with a smaller yet somehow larger perspective. Yes, I need to remind myself occasionally to step back and take in the whole picture, but I like this new view of the world that my daily photographic study of food has inspired.

Does the aesthetic of food inspire you? Do you like to capture the smallest of details with your lens?

 Pictures and words courtesy of Honorary Sister/Guest Blogger Jane Maynard of  This Week for Dinner.

Self-Portrait Challenge from Kelly Rae Roberts

Mixed media artist extraordinaire Kelly Rae Roberts crosses over to photography today with this delightful self-portrait challenge. Let's give her a warm Shutter Sisters welcome...

I love the idea of capturing images of ourselves in the company of the earth. Today's challenge is simple: go outside. Hold your camera down a bit and capture a shot of yourself with the sky as your backdrop. Then point your camera down and capture your feet on the ground. Put the images together to create a lovely diptych that reveals a small, telling moment in your day.

I love what these kinds of images say about where we are. about our physical surroundings, the season, and even about what we're wearing. And it's so fun to capture our shoes, the earth, and the motion of a day lived well. I so hope you will join me...cloudy skies and all.

Blissed Out

 Follow your bliss. I had a huge epiphany in my life approximately one year ago. I had spent my life doing things I thought I should or simply could. I rarely took risks or stepped outside my perfectly contained box. I felt stifled and stuck, and I didn’t know why. Right around this time I saw the quote that begins this paragraph. It resonated with me in the largest of ways. I made a choice to change things up a bit- a lot, actually. I started making choices simply by focusing on what makes me happy, blissful. Everything magically changed.

I started bliss in March and through my blog I have been introduced to so many amazing women. I became overwhelmed by all the inspiration around me. I started taking photos in a different way—I took pictures of things that made me giddy. Following my bliss created a blissed out version of my former self. Slowly I started to share my photos with my readers—my new blissful photos. A funny thing happened. People seemed to love what I was throwing at them. This became true in my daily life too. My new existence had changed every aspect of my life in the best of ways. Happiness suited me.

This is why the photos I now take mean so much to me. They are totally and completely me. The me that comes easy, the me that is happy, the me that isn’t trying too hard; just sparkly me.

Shortly after, I joined the Shutter Sisters pool on flickr and met yet another group of crazy-talented women. During this time the sweet Kristin mentioned something about the blues in my photographs. I was a bit confused. I looked back at my photostream, and WHAMMO! There it was, that sweet shade of blue that defined bliss for me. It was everywhere.

 

 The thing that is perfect about happiness or bliss is that it is completely different for everyone. It also comes across completely different through the lens of a camera. Where do you find your bliss? Where is it in your photographs? I have my blues. Take the time to explore this and see where your photographs take you; if you’re lucky, your life will follow.

Photos and words courtesy of the lovely and talented Traci French (Mrs. French if you please) who can be found sharing her bliss on her blog of the same name, posting her ‘blues’ at Flickr and sharing and selling her gorgeous imagery at etsy.

And Traci’s not the only one with bliss on her mind, I will be posting my reflections on the topic at bliss midday today. It’d be heaven if you’d stop over and say hello.

Learning to Speak Again

'Do you remember this?' My dad asked me, as we stood in my driveway, gathered around his open car boot.

He pulled a piece of card from a book and handed it to me. It was one of those pieces of card that they put in stocking packets, upon which was drawn a castle, set among trees, beneath a rainbow. The scene was faded, though possibly not as much as one would have expected, after twenty years.

'Who did that?' One of my girls asked, reaching for it. 'Your mother did, when she was ten,' my dad said smiling, 'and I still have it now.'

I didn't remember creating the drawing, though I did remember the days when I drew castles, almost obsessively, trying to place each line right so that it would look like it really was made of stone blocks. I loved to draw, to write, on any available canvas.

Other things happened, that tenth year of my childhood. Things that changed all of us forever, that quietened my creative voice and dulled the senses of those who had once listened to it. Like that tree that crashes in the forest without anyone around to hear it, there was only silence.

As I grew, occasionally I could hear the voice stir within me, but it was always quickly drowned out by life's cacophony. The serious act of growing up, becoming more than I was. The loving, the wedding, the birthing, growing and educating of those four precious girls. Be quiet voice, I have no time, no money, no energy, just leave me alone.

I fooled myself into thinking I'd rather listen to the creative voices of others, than speak my own. I was no stranger to the power of a photographic image. The ability a single picture has to touch the souls of those who view it, without regard for age or race, education or orientation. I'd experienced first-hand the effect of certain pictures, as they embraced, lifted into the air, twirled and spun me, before dropping me back to earth with a thud that left me breathless and altered. Yes, I knew only too well.

Then one day, someone asked me about my camera. It was a capable point and shoot, which I had affectionately named, Mr Fuji. I told them, and they replied that they would have to go out and buy one, because my pictures were amazing. Amazing? My pictures? These pictures? What crazy talk was this?

But my voice had been awakened, and within months I was the proud and excited owner of my very first DSLR camera. My creative voice was speaking, and people were listening. I was connecting with people all over the world through my images, my art. Every time someone emailed me to tell me how one of my pics had brought them to tears, or touched something deep within them, my voice grew stronger, louder.

These days, I'm still finding my voice. At times it cracks and becomes barely a whisper, or disappears altogether for a while. But I don't fear losing it again, because nurturing it, setting it free, was the greatest gift I have ever given myself, and I know now, that silence isn't always golden.

Photograph and words courtesy of Honorary Shutter Sister/Guest Blogger Just Hay who can also be found Flickring or Photoblogging at Hay's Fauxtography.

Seeing is Everything

I wait for the waves to come swirling around my feet and when they do, I gasp. The northwestern Pacific Ocean waters are cold, so cold. Gorgeous but unapologetically frigid. Enough to send me running for the blanket, which I immediately sprawl out on. Ava refuses to let the cold water stop her. She wades bravely out into the ocean and I watch as her body takes on soft undulations, I watch as the waves slap unevenly against her skin. She calls out to me and I know what she wants. She wants me to join her. Too cold, I yell back. But she pleads with me, she wears me down. Reluctantly, I grab the Nikon, the Argus Seventy-Five (with the wacky cardboard contraption attached) and make my way towards the water. I look into the viewfinder of the old camera and find Ava. She fills the frame of the tiny glass square and I see her with new eyes. I point the lens of my Nikon into the cardboard device attached to the Argus and I begin to shoot. And I forget about the temperature of the water. My feet are numb but I am oblivious. I can't stop looking, can't stop shooting.

I first read about the Through The Viewfinder technique (aka TtV) back in 2006. I followed a link to a link to another link and before I knew it, I was constructing my first device out of an old cereal box. Through the Viewfinder photography is the using of one camera to take a picture of an image in another camera's viewfinder. In essence, using the second camera's viewfinder as a lens. Two years later and I have come to look at it as my secret weapon. When I am stuck in a photographic rut, I reach for my Nikon/Argus/Duaflex combination and hit the streets. I look down through the viewfinder and my framing changes, I see things so differently. I realize this can be said for most photographic techniques but something about TtV excites me in totally different way. It's the perfect combination of old and new. Simple but complicated. And so accessible. It's the next best thing to loading the camera up with film. And while it will never replace shooting with film, it comes in a very close second. I'll admit, I'm hooked. I'm riding high and waving the TtV flag. I'm not too proud to wave the flag.

And I'm converting sisters along the way. If this interests you, I've written a lengthier breakdown (which will lead you to a whole mess of TtV linkage) over on my blog. Enough to get you started, enough to get your feet wet. And I recommend getting your feet wet. Whether it's with TtV or something else. Whatever takes you out of your comfort zone and plops you right down in the middle of someplace new, whatever forces you to see the world differently, whatever that is for you. Wade out into the cold, unknown waters. It's the only way.

Picture and words courtesy of honorary sister/guess blogger Andrea Jenkins perhaps better known as Hula, woman extraordinaire behind Hula Seventy & girlhula a la Flickr.