The Nap Series

 

When my son Max was about 7 months old I was so keenly aware of how important nap time was. Not for him, but for me. I needed Max to go take his nap so I could eat my lunch, decompress, have an hour or two dedicated to “ME TIME”. But Max didn’t get the memo. He would stare up at me and laugh and laugh while I thought about all the things I wish I was doing instead of rocking him back and forth for what felt like an eternity. I finally realized that this nap time business wasn’t going to go away. I needed a way to shift my swirling thoughts back to the present moment.

I decided to bring my iphone to bed and once he fell asleep I took a photo of the two of us in whatever position he ended up in. Seeing that first photo, I was hooked.  When I saw how the light was falling on this frustrating situation my mind quieted. My heart burst open at the sight of the two if us, peaceful and content, tangled together in a compositionally pleasing snuggle. I started to notice deeper clues about our relationship that showed up within the photograph. Our closeness, and our deep connection was revealing itself to me in a way I felt inside but had never really seen in this way before.  The Nap series was born.

Two years later, I am so grateful for the collection of Nap photos of the two of us that document a time in our lives that is short lived and so precious.  I didn’t realize that I was trying to leave a situation that was truly incredible. What was the bigger lesson for me? Don’t leave before the miracle happens. Use the camera to shift perception from mind to soul. I remember this whenever I find myself frustrated, stressed out, or in fear. Bring it back to the present. Grab your camera and see with your heart.  Creating this nap series has increased my ability to “see” in ways I didn’t expect. It continues to help me connect more deeply with the preciousness of these fleeting moments.

Photo essay and words courtesy of Catherine Just. You can view a larger portion of the nap series on Catherine's blog.

What better photo essay to share when our prompt is "bed"? Share with us how you get cozy in your bed today and tag your snuggly shots #sselevate.

carnation pink

We are tickled pink to be sharing this excerpt from Susannah Conway's new book, This I Know: Notes on Unravelling the Heart.

Words and images have always been the currency of my creative life, but it was years before I could stand up and say, Yes, I am a writer, Yes, I am a photographer, as if I had to achieve a certain level of success before I earned the right to call myself either. When I say I am a writer I mean I use words to convey the truth in my heart. When I say I am a photographer I mean I use cameras to record and interpret the world around me. Of my two passions it’s my photography skills I feel most confident about. For as long as I can remember I have “seen” photos wherever I go, noticing small details, colors, the lines and shapes that marry so well in a flat image. I notice how branches scratch across a blue sky; how the space between the cushions looks so soft and safe. There’s a list in my head of my must-take shots, and I can’t walk past a construction site without snapping the side of a rusty truck, a constellation of colors found in deceptively mundane places. My eyes don’t judge what they see—there’s no hierarchy of beauty when everything piques your interest. 

For a time I thought that being a real photographer meant I needed to join associations and offer my hourly services to paying clients. So I tried it for a year, making postcards and advertisements, networking with the mothers at local schools, photographing christenings and birthday parties and families on the beach. And there were moments of real fulfillment—when clients loved their portraits and called to thank me, when I felt I’d captured something truthful in a family group—but the work drained me more than any job I’ve ever had, my introverted self, exhausted by having to be “on” all the time. I’d turned my passion into a job, trying to fit into a mold that wasn’t designed for me. So I spent less and less time on the marketing, until the phone stopped ringing and I recycled the postcards. Although it felt like a failure, I couldn’t ignore the relief.

Photography is more accessible than perhaps it’s ever been, with camera phones and social media feeding an unending stream of images into the ether. While potentially we’re all photographers now, in truth it’s never as simple as owning a camera. For me, a photographer is a person who expresses themselves using the photographic medium. They don’t have to sell their images, or have clients or commissions—they are simply compelled to translate what they see and feel into a photograph. Most forms of creative expression require specific tools, but if you were to take away the paintbrushes and the cameras, the loom, the guitar and the stage, you’d be left with a bunch of people who are compelled to act on their creative impulses. 

You are left with artists. 

I believe we are all artists at our core, all of us endlessly creative, using our lives as canvases, our imaginations as tools. Children are born artists, seeing the potential in every cardboard box and dried leaf, remaking their world as fast as they discover it. We don’t lose that innate creativity, but many of us repress it, weighed down by all the grown-up responsibility adulthood brings. But with a camera, a pencil, a ball of yarn, we can make something out of nothing; dinner served with a flourish, a bed made with vintage linens, a garden border planted with red tulips. We simply need to open our eyes and put some thought into the details. We are the curators of our lives—we decide what they look like.

Susannah Conway is the author of This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart (SKIRT!, June 2012). A photographer, writer and e-course creator, her classes have been enjoyed by thousands of people from around the world. Co-author of Instant Love: How to Make Magic and Memories with Polaroids (Chronicle Books, 2012), Susannah helps others reconnect to their true selves, using photography as the key to open the door. You can read more about her shenanigans on her blog at SusannahConway.com and connect with her on Twitter: @SusannahConway.

Share with us some carnation pink details from your world today as we continue to celebrate color month! When you leave your comment here between now and Wed midnight EST, you'll be enetered to win a copy of Susannah's book This I Know.  

rose-colored glasses

I headed out for a photo walk around my neighborhood today, wandering the cherry tree lined streets.  There is something about the act of walking even only a few blocks in search of photos that always shifts things for me.

When I go on these walks I feel like I put on my rose colored glasses and become a treasure hunter of beauty.  Today I find it in cherry blossoms that have fallen from the tree and their soft delicate petals.

No matter what else is going, when I make this space to wander, take pictures and look for beauty, it re-energizes me like nothing else does.   It invites me to slow down, to engage with the light and the natural world around me.  This practice of seeking beauty with my camera has been a lifeline from darkness to light.

When I first began exploring photography I was going through some drastic life changes.  I knew the way I had been living wasn’t working for me anymore.  I was living for everyone else and not for myself.

So I reverted into a cocoon for a while, craving even more time alone than my usual introvert self needed.  I wanted to be alone and figure out who I was separate from all the outside perceptions.

I went in search.  I didn’t know how to find what I needed or even that photography would lead me there.  It was just something I could do in which there was peaceful yet creative time alone.  I knew that was the first clue to finding my way back to myself and to happiness, simply because of the way it made me feel.

I went in search of beauty and when you go in search of beauty, you find it.

At times it seems like we aren’t supposed to tell our stories with rose colored glasses, muting out the rough in favor of the radiant, the flowery, the beautiful.  Yet looking for the positive, for little bits of beauty, isn’t denying that life has rough patches: that there are broken branches or muddy puddles around those gorgeous pink blossoms.  Rather, it is a way to focus on what is positive even if times are rough (especially when they are).  That doesn’t mean denying the rough patches, but rather using photography as a tool to engage with the world around us in a way that lifts us up. 

Even these years later, I’m doing the same thing I did when this creative journey began, seeking bits of beauty.

You could say that seeing the world through rose-colored glasses is what saved and transformed my life. Seeing the beauty around me helped me find my way back to happiness again and to discover the beauty within me by documenting the beauty around me.

Will you join me today in documenting some of the beauty around you?  Let’s put on our rose-colored glasses and go treasure hunting for beauty.  Be it a flower petal, a person you love, or the beauty you see in yourself today?

Image and words by guest blogger Vivienne McMaster.

Prompted

You don’t see it right away, but it’s there. The straw in its mouth, the one it must gather for home; for the nest. It symbolizes a continues gathering until woven pieces can finally hold things together. It is an amazing labor of love. It is much like our work in everything we care for. We labor with love and gather what is needed for the home, for our nest. The home where we live in, with its kitchen and rooms, and the home in our hearts; the place where we gather strength and courage; the place where we gather our dreams and make them real.

What is curious about this moment is its pause. I was witness to it; it was a pretty long one. This maya bird took a moment to perhaps gather its breath; as if to take whatever was in sight all in. A little bird marveling at the world.

I watch these birds every morning now. They teach me how to pause, to breathe, and take in a bit of the world outside my window. I feel like a little bird marveling at the world. There is work to be done, but I shall marvel at the world.

The beautiful, beautiful gift that photography has given me is a voice. A voice for the words in my heart. I think I kept on looking for a way to find a place for all that. I knew I could write, but I wasn’t sure what I could give to the world. I knew I needed to give back something and I thought, why would the world be interested in my love letters? And then it stretches further to, why would the world be interested in my confusion and heart ache? How would the world benefit from all that? I couldn’t figure it out until there were these ‘prompts’ – you take a photo based on a concept, a word, and you could write about it if you want, or leave it to speak for itself. I am drawn to writing about it because when I capture something, I am certainly capturing a moment. And most of the time I like to paint that moment with words, too. What I have realized is that every moment contains a gift. Yes, every moment. Can you imagine how many gifts there are? Certainly enough to give back to the world.

‘Prompts’ are like inspiration, except I think when we just rely on inspiration, we tend to wait for it to come. That’s fine, but we shouldn’t just wait. And wait. And wait. Because maybe we don’t even know what exactly we’re waiting for; a magic feeling? Pixie dust? Nah. It doesn’t really work that way. I think we have to commit to something. It doesn’t even have to be big. So, if you’re prompted, let’s say with a word, you’re given a direction; a kind of path to follow, a way for your eyes to see or find something that’s already there. Somehow inspiration is everywhere; all you have to do is capture it. *insert magic feeling and pixie dust here*

What have you been prompted to notice, see, or capture lately?

Words and image courtesy of Guest Blogger Jennifer Hagendorn Dizon. She can found at Instragram as @beautifulnothing, on flickr as Creative Jen or on her blog The Divine in Everything.

tomorrow

"Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow." -Imogen Cunningham

And it's true, it's so totally and completely true. It's what I love most about photography. There are always images for the taking, stories for the telling. No way of knowing what tomorrow holds, what photographs lay waiting. For this reason, I am never without a camera, never ever. Sometimes people think this is funny, sometimes they ask why. Because you never know, I tell them. You just never know. 

Are you this person too? Do you carry a camera with you everywhere you go? Do you wonder what images tomorrow holds? Are you as excited about the potential as I am? Tell us, what photographs do you look forward to taking? What images snuck up on you and took you by surprise?