vive la snail mail!

Dear Shutter Sisters,

Shortly after I posted here about wanting to get back into the habit of writing letters and using photography to facilitate that, I got a Facebook message from Mika, a member of the Shutter Sisters community, about something she was participating in called The 100 Postcard Project.  According to the website, it's "a grassroots initiative to revive the art of personalized, material human connection through the writing of postcards and letters. Collaborators on this project aim to write 100 postcards or letters in 100 days, between May 22 and August 29, 2010, artistically rendered or otherwise."  I got excited that other people were interested in snail mail, too!  And then a week or so later, a friend of the family began sending us  postcards.  I started sensing a revolution brewing...

I received my gorgeous photo/postcard from Mika last week, and it was such a lovely feeling to receive something with my name handwritten on it, knowing that it was meant just for me, not a mass message to an email list or a blogpost for an anonymous audience.  It made me wish that more people could experience this for themselves.  Then this week, when I read Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Mission of the week--to pair up her readers as pen-less pals (e.g. the digital version of pen pals), it clicked...Snail Mail Shutter Pals for Shutter Sisters!

So here's how this will work.  If you would like to start exchanging a photo and/or letter/postcard/note with another Shutter Sister, leave a comment below with a functioning email address [in the email field of the comment form, not necessarily in the comment body itself].  Within the next week or so, I will play matchmaker and pair you up via email to exchange mailing addresses.  You will then send your Shutter Pal a photo and a short (or long) note about that photo and what it means to you, what it says about you, or whatever else you want to write about.  Or, if sending a photo is too much pressure, just a note or postcard will be great too.  And to help you along, I am giving away a packet of Photojojo's mailable photo frames to two commentors.  They'll instantly turn any 4x6 photo into a postcard!  Leave a comment by Monday night 10pm CDT to be entered to win.

Isn't this the perfect way to say Hello to each other?  Who's with me now?  Viva la snail mail!

Peace and Love,

Sarah-Ji

P.S. If you're daunted by the idea of letterwriting, start out by simply writing a note on the back of a photo, like a postcard, or sending an actual postcard.  I think of postcards as the Twitter of the epistolary form, and that makes it much less intimidating.

P.P.S. If anyone wants to send me Postcards From Italy, feel free to do so!

Update on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 by Shutter Sisters

Congrats to Debi of Emma Tree and Heather of To Live Inspired--you each won a pack of Photojojo's mailable photo frames! 

What a great start to our Snail Mail Revolution!  Feel free to sign up if you haven't already.

Update on Monday, July 19, 2010 by Shutter Sisters

If you signed up to be a Shutter Pal, you should have received an email by now with the information on who you've been matched up with.  If you haven't received that email, please contact Sarah-Ji directly at sarah [at] sarah-ji[dot]com.  Iif you wish to be added in the future to the Shutter Pals exchange, contact Sarah-Ji (instead of commenting on this post).  Thanks, and happy snail-mailing!

photo as art medium

Lately I have been intrigued by the idea of using photographs as an art medium. Sometimes I get the undeniable itch to create something with my hands, something tangible and 3 dimentional. That spark is often ignited by a simple material or found item that begs to be used. But the truth is that I am most comfortable with photography these days. I've been out of practice in every other art medium for so long, and photography is currently my biggest inspiration. So rather than deny that fact, I recently asked myself: "how can I integrate photography into a painting or drawing?"

The result was messy and experimental. The end product was an accident and nothing like I had imagined. But I loved the process and surprisingly the piece itself. It all started with a thick piece of chipboard that came off the back of a little notebook. I had been eyeing it for days, wondering how I could use it. So I painted it while I thought about my options. Then I found a photograph from my archives of a grassy field under a blue sky filled with white puffy clouds. After digging through my bins of paper, I found a piece of semi transparent vellum and printed the photo on the paper. Next, on a seperated piece of vellum, I sketched a rickety barn (modeled after another of my photos) and layered it underneath the photo. Last I glued the two pieces onto the board and covered it with Mod Podge. I didn't realize how the glue would warp the paper, but I kept going. The photo above doesn't show how wrinkled and worn the paper looks. Somehow it just seems to fit with the subject matter and comliments the foggy imagery. If nothing else, the process was refreshing and allowed me to think about my photos in a different way.

I would encourage all of you to think of ways to experiment with your photographs as an art medium. Print them on unusual materials, cut them up, rip them and glue them. Hold them in your hands and let them speak to you. I think you will agree that the experience will awaken a part of you that may have been hiding.

father's day photo card

Each June, I head down the greeting card aisle and look for a Father's Day card for my dad. But I rarely find one that "fits" him. He doesn't love sports and lawn mowers. He's not obsessed with tools and grilling (although he is handy and a great cook). And the funny cards don't always fit his sense of humor. In the end, I often end up leaving the card aisle and going home to create my own hand made card for my dad. He always appreciates receiving something I created and it allows me to personalize it to his taste.

As photographers, we have art at our fingertips that easily allows us to make personalized greeting cards.  This year I created the above photo card for my dad and I'd love to share the Photoshop template with the entire Shutter Sisters community. The template allows you to insert your own photo, and I hope the design is basic enough that it will fit any dad.

Click HERE to download the card file.

Hello Daddy!

 My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: he believed in me. ~Jim Valvano

It's time to give the father in your life a gift to remember this Father's Day. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, it's the perfect start. There's still time to order a canvas of your favorite fatherhood photograph from Hello Canvas! You've got until June 14th to order to get your canvas delivered in time for Father's Day.

In celebration of all the dads in our lives, we're hosting another mini photo contest. You guessed it; Hello Daddy. Show us your best Daddy shots for a chance to win. You’ve got between now and Sunday night at midnight PST over in our OWP Flickr pool and leave a comment here with a link to your shot. Only one image per person and only those images shared through links in the comments here will be considered. There will be one “Grand Hello” winner that will receive a 36X24 canvas (Hello!) and 2 runners up will win a 20X24 canvas compliments of Hello Canvas, of course! Come on, tug on our heart strings, it's almost Father's Day afterall. 

starting fresh

I've been thinking a lot lately about the dying act (at least for me) of actually printing photos and putting them in albums. Somewhere along the lines my normally strict photo album routine took a nose dive. It makes me sad to think that two or three years of vacations, birthdays, and special memories aren't recorded in a tangible book for my future children and grandchildren to look through. Or even for myself to look through. And the reason I haven't printed any photos for a couple years is partly because of this neurotic idea that I can't start a new photo album right now unless I get completely caught up on all the past memories. In other words, it's all too overwhelming to think about...so I don't. I imagine it's the feeling that extreme hoarders are overcome with when trying to start the process of cleaning out 10 years of pizza boxes from their basement. Or the reason it took me two hours to clean and organize my bathroom today. Avoidance and fear.

And I have another theory about why my photo albums stopped suddenly. Blogs and Facebook are to blame. Ever since I began posting my favorite photos online, I've lost the sense of urgency to have a real live picture to hold in my hands. It's as if once a picture has been put on the internet, it has been recorded in the universe and I can move on. And while sharing photos online is nice and instantaneous, it doesn't change the fact that sifting through a book of photographs, page by page is a beautiful thing. And something that future generations will enjoy. Imagine sitting in a nursing home on a laptop opening folders of photos. It's just not the same.

So I recently came to the conclusion that my best bet is to start fresh and forget about the lost years of printed photos. If I decide someday to go back and print them, so be it. But for now I am staring a new photo album this summer, no exceptions.