About

I AM A PHOTOGRAPHER. I take photos of things that catch my eye in the world around me, which could be anything. Buildings, bridges, the beach, the sky, flowers, books, antique objects. I notice everything, and find a lot of things beautiful or interesting that most people would just pass by. I draw attention to ordinary things and highlight the extraordinary in them. My photos often have a retro and/or artsy feel.

I am inspired by the beauty that I see around me in my everyday life.  Some of it is more obvious; like colorful flowers, a gorgeous sunset, the beautiful scenery.  My favorite photos to shoot though, are the ones that aren’t so obvious.  An interesting angle, a close-up detail, a rusty piece of junk.

I also pay a lot of attention to color and light, because I love both of those things.  I am drawn to the sunshine just as a person, and I think my photos reflect that love of color and light.  Since I love to find the beauty in things that others might not notice, I love capturing that beauty that I see and presenting it for my viewers to see also.  I want everyone to be able to view the world the way that I do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been interested in art since I was a little girl, and have been drawing as long as I can remember.  My parents encouraged me in my love of art, and enrolled me in art classes from a young age, up until I went to high school, when I took art classes through school.  I took as many art classes as I was able in high school, including 2 years of IB Art, which is similar to the AP program.  I did not pursue art as a degree, but continued to make my own art, and I took one college painting class as an elective.  I focused mostly on painting as my preferred art form, and have done watercolor, acrylic, and oil painting.

I have been taking photos for almost as long as I’ve been drawing, but not quite.  I received my first camera sometime in elementary school, and have been taking photos of everything around me since then.  That first camera that I had was a film camera, but it was a cheap one.  I started making scrapbooks of everything that I did, so I took many, many photos.  When I was in middle school, digital cameras were becoming mainstream, and I got a cheap one.  I have gotten progressively better and better cameras, which also makes sense since technology gets better and better, but I also got better quality cameras to correspond with my skill and passion increasing.  I got my first DSLR camera about 6 years ago; a Nikon D60.  It was a gift, and I didn’t quite know how to use it.  I started to read the manual, but then took an online photography class to help my understanding.  With my art background and long history of taking photos, I knew the aesthetic aspects of photography, but not the technical aspects, so the photography class helped me to understand the basics of how to use my camera in any setting.

I have upgraded my camera now, of course, but I have also experimented with photography using my phone, and have purchased film cameras to go back to experimenting with that.  I am constantly taking photos and learning from my own experiences, as well as interacting with other photographers to learn new techniques.  I don’t think it is possible to know everything there is to know about photography; there is always something new to learn, and I am actively participating in that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The photos I have for sale I take with both my phone and a “fancy” DSLR camera.  On my phone I use an app called Oggl, which is made by Hipstamatic.  Hipstamatic was the original app, which worked more like an old film camera in that you could not edit the photo after you took it.  There are different “films” and “lenses”, which have different effects made to imitate some of the different effects of old cameras, and you could pick your lens and film before taking the photo, then just see how it turned out.  Hipstamatic’s new app, Oggl, has the same lenses and films as well as constant development of new ones, but you can change them after you take the photo, more like Instagram.  Personally, I believe it is much higher quality than Instagram, although many famous professional photographers use both apps for some of their photos.  These are the photos that I take when I would like to take a photo quicker, or do not have my camera with me.  I started out only selling these photos and used to take a lot of them, but I have been shifting to much more use of my DSLR and less on my phone.

The DSLR that I now use is a Sony a7R.  I have always taken photos of anything I see around me that catches my eye, rather than setting something up in a studio, with lighting, etc.  I love to capture the beauty all around me, and especially to bring people’s attention to things that I feel they may not notice or see in the way that I do.  I pay attention to angles, composition, lighting, and color.  I use Lightroom to edit my photos instead of Photoshop, since all I edit in post-processing is basically the same things that I pay attention to while taking my photos; light levels, color, and sometimes cropping.  I do not do any manipulation of the photos as far as adding or removing things.  I look for the beauty in what I see, and try to highlight and enhance that, but not to change it.

I print my photos on canvas and photo paper, but I do research and I only print with companies that I trust and I believe do high-quality prints.

Comments

Leave a comment

Scroll up