Light-headed

monkey bars

Tue, 24 May 2011 10:16 -0500

Photographing young children is so often a lesson in not getting what you want. It’s all about taking things as they come while maintaining a sense of humor. It’s about improvising. Negotiating. Yielding. Creative problem solving. Being painfully patient and profoundly attentive. Sometimes begging, sometimes bribing. It’s looking for things to wholeheartedly adore, and making the best out of any given situation. For sure, it’s writing a love story with pictures.

Other than the begging and bribing, it’s pretty much a good recipe for living life, I‘d say.

I arrived at the location of this shoot very quickly forming ideas of where and how I wanted to photograph. Because it was a family with two young boys, I knew the odds of getting exactly what I wanted were iffy at best, but still, you have to have a vision to know what direction to lean in. The family arrived and were more formally dressed than I’d imagined they’d be for photographing on the sandy lakefront. Trying to keep the boys’ clothing clean and nice while at the same time encouraging them to have fun presented a challenge. Pleasant expressions were sacrificed for the idyllic location.

After it became too hot and bright to work on the lakefront we moved to a nearby park area, where the boys were changed into play clothes and allowed to run. I’m not crazy about playground equipment being included in portraits, but was willing to make that concession over the pained expressions I was getting earlier. In this image there’s much to be distracted by. Too many lines, and too much busy-ness. I might have at least liked the boys to be barefoot and perhaps even shirtless to simplify the scene more, but those choices weren’t mine to make. My choices were all those things listed in the first paragraph, and then finally, deciding when to press the shutter release.

For the most part, I rarely get exactly what I set out to achieve when photographing children. Things almost never happen according to plan. There’s always compromises, let downs, and surprises. But I find the process oddly exhilarating, and always come away with a childlike freshness from having shed the need to control the uncontrollable. Letting all that stuff go allows me to discover the beauty that remains even when I don‘t ultimately get what I want.

~Cynthia

finger speak

Sun, 22 May 2011 08:00 -0500

I don’t know what she was looking at in the moment this was shot. I glanced in that direction, but saw nothing remarkable. It didn’t matter though, because young children experience everything so consummately that all I really needed to do was watch and listen to the story her body told. Reaching all the way to the ends of her fingertips a poetic interpretation of the wondrousness of being present was abundantly communicated.

I didn’t need to see what it was she saw to experience it, I could feel it through her body’s rendition.

~Cynthia

naturally retro

Tue, 17 May 2011 09:20 -0500

I’m not one to want my images to be characterizations of those I’m photographing. What I mean by that is portraying people as fictional versions of themselves for the sole purpose of making a more interesting photograph. While there are photographers who do this exceptionally well, with the resulting images being compelling and even thought-provoking, this form of photographing doesn’t personally feed me. And what I’m learning the longer I practice this craft, is that to deny one’s own hunger, for too long a period anyway, is to pinch off the very vessel that infuses any work with source energy. Without that, you got nothing. Pretty wrapping over an empty box, that might cause someone to look, but never linger.

I loved photographing this family, because I immediately had the feeling that the retro look they had going on wasn’t an act, but instead a deep appreciation for a time gone by. The items they treasured and exhibited in their home were from another era, including an amazing wall of some of the coolest old black and white family photographs I’ve ever seen. Who they are and what they love was written over every inch of their home, and I found it refreshing to be in a space that was so obviously created for the people who live there, rather than to impress the guests they may receive.

Residing in the land of Disney as I do, where sometimes it seems everything is a characterization of itself, and an imitation picture perfect plastic movie set, I liked seeing evidence of something naturally and genuinely retro. Ü

~Cynthia

nuzzle

Sun, 15 May 2011 08:00 -0500

I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you.
You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to
you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a
fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you,
draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about
you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.

~Charlotte Brontë

balance

Tue, 10 May 2011 07:20 -0500

In art and dream may you proceed with abandon.
In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.

~Patti Smith

family hug

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 06:04 -0500

Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.

~Margaret Atwood

closet doors

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:50 -0500

I’m a morning person, with most days finding me awake before dawn. The early morning hours are precious to me, when my mind is most uncluttered and I feel a receptivity that unfortunately can become a bit muddled as events of the real world vie for my attention. And the quiet! I won’t even put on my beloved music until the sounds of the rest of the world waking begin to invade my space. I love the morning.

I find my work flows so much easier at this time of day, where it seems I can accomplish more with less effort than the afternoon and evening combined. So if I don't have a shoot scheduled or something else going on, there’s a good chance I’ll be here in this room editing photos. These closet doors are to the right of my chair, and just behind me. Not in my line of vision unless I turn to notice. But on good days I’ll turn to notice. For a short time the light filtering through a nearby window will flicker across the doors, creating a subtle yet spectacular performance. I’ll be mesmerized for as long as the display lasts, because it’s always fresh and new, but more remarkable for the fact that in these moments it’s always enough. Shadows of tree tops waltzing through slatted blinds projected onto ordinary closet doors is enough to fill the room and me with an exquisite experience of God. So often I’m searching for “special” experiences, when the truth is anything that is fully and openly experienced is the gift life continually offers us.

So after years of relishing the morning shows on my closet doors, I finally took the time to make a photograph. Kind of interesting to note that on the rare occasion I’m compelled to photograph something other than a portrait, it will invariably be a scene that is in reality already shades of gray. Huh.

~Cynthia

hushed

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:00 -0500

Art's purpose is to sober and quiet the mind so that it is in accord with what happens.

~John Cage

she glimmers

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:40 -0500

Occasionally I’ll get the impression that the parents of children I’m photographing don’t think I’m doing enough to pose their little ones in overtly “cute” ways. Some will even decide to help me out by directing the child themselves. Not only does this hinder the process of creating something genuine, but I personally think it sends a message that in order to be worthy of a portrait one must somehow be “more”. I know this isn’t intentional, but I truly feel this erroneous message is already being blasted into our consciousness from every possible direction, most especially the media. And I think it’s dangerous and damaging.

Babies and kids are just naturally cute, there’s no getting around that fact, but eventually cute fades, and then what is left? It would have to be essence. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with depicting cute in photographs, and I certainly have shot my share of those images, the hope is always that some element of essence is allowed to bubble up and reveal itself. And that can’t happen if a subject feels manipulated or controlled. All our lives we’re secretly desiring to be seen for who and what we really are. When we actually feel we have been seen in this way we experience it as love. So you could say I’m most wanting to write love letters to my subjects themselves with the photographs I make.

I love the word glimmer, as it’s defined as to shine faintly or unsteadily, much the way our physical beings move through life. Though we may have moments of bright shining glory and adulation from the masses, it’s the glimmer at the core of our being that draws to us a more trustable and lasting love. Our glimmer keeps us going when we most want to quit. Our glimmer can sustain us in times of poverty.

So no, I’m not really one to busy myself with posing a child that I’m photographing, and it may at times appear that I’m doing nothing at all. But what I’m busy with is seeing…..seeing and waiting for the hidden glimmering to make itself known, so that I might sketch a heartfelt but rudimentary love letter on a piece of photographic paper.

~Cynthia

the expression arranger

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:40 -0500

Another example of the “let me help you with your face” pose that I mentioned yesterday, that has never been a hit with parents. I swear this behavior must be included in the owner’s manual for siblings, boldly listed as standard operating procedure for photo sessions. Giving bunny ears is in there somewhere as well, I’m almost certain.

But it is kinda cute, isn’t it? Oh yeah, I’m no longer showing these images.

However, I might consider hiring an expression arranger such as this little guy for my adult shoots. If adult expressions are largely contrived anyway, why not have them manipulated to my exact specifications? I might be on to something here. Ü

~Cynthia