I’m having fun working with clients to design unique cards for the holiday season. So far this year, no one seems to want the traditional red and green! I really enjoy getting to be creative with these. Check out some recent designs. (These are all flat cards because the folded ones are harder to show online.)
When Chad asked me to create a portfolio of actor portraits for him to take to Hollywood I knew it was going to be a fun shoot. He and I brainstormed to create different characters so he could show his versatility as an actor. He was such a great collaborator and kept me laughing throughout our meetings, phone calls and location shoot. He’s also really talented at improv… At one point, after I directed, “Pretend you see someone you know over there” he was so utterly convincing that I had to turn my head to look to see if someone had actually walked up. I have no doubt that he’ll make his dreams a reality.
If you’ve taken classes at the wonderful Northern Arizona Yoga Center, you’ve likely met Chad’s mom, Maggie. Being a great subject runs in the family!
These three women were really inspiring. They took time from their busy lives and chose a day that all of their families could have portraits taken together. I was so happy that we were able to record their amazing sister relationship. Seeing how they cracked one another up and the obvious bond between them reminded me of my own two wonderful sisters!
Twenty years ago, while on a five-month backpacking trip through Europe, Israel and Egypt, I made a life-changing decision. Until then, I had been working in a psychiatric half-way house, but was finding that I preferred making portraits of the patients to doing the therapy. I left the job to travel with a friend.
Then one morning at sunrise, after a grueling hike to the top of the famed Masada overlooking the Dead Sea in Israel, I had an epiphany. I was taking pictures in the hazy golden light and I turned to my friend and said, “I wish I could just be a photographer.” Without missing a beat she smiled and said, “Do it!”
I went home at the end of that trip and started taking pictures part-time. Soon, I had somehow talked my way into a full-time job at a photography studio in Boston, shooting any job that came in, from legal photography to weddings. I continued my education that way, working for photographers who could teach me a particular photographic skill, also learning the business of photography along the way.
I sometimes marvel that I found my calling in making portraits, and that I still love my job so much – even after 20 years. I wish that for my children, for everyone. I love the creativity, always learning new things, being my own boss, but most of all, I love the people I get to work with. They regularly make my day: a two-year old climbs into my lap and asks me to read to him, a mom cries happy tears looking at my pictures of her kids, a person sitting for a professional portrait says, “Wow, do I really look like that? I look great!”
Transformation and connection occurs, people see themselves in a new way, tell me their heartbreaking, heartwarming or hilarious stories, and trust me to make pictures of them and the people they love. It is truly an honor.
