Chookooloonks

listenin'

To view more recent favourites, click here, but a warning before you do:

1) it's still a bit buggy, and

2) if you're using Internet Explorer on a PC, it's a LOT buggy. But my crack coder (Marcus) is workin' on it.

Have a good weekend.

my nikons

I've told you before how I got into photography, and I've told you that photography is one of my passions, so it probably doesn't surprise you that I'd include my cameras on my list of favourite things. What you might not suspect, however, is why I love shooting as much as I do. After my photographer friend Josef helped me buy my first camera and took me out on day shoots, it became very clear to me that even though I bought the camera to make pretty pictures, the reason that I would continue to pursue photography, particularly portraiture, would run far deeper. The reason has to do with connections, and intimacy.

Despite how many photos I publish here on Chookooloonks or on my Flickr page, I'm here to tell you that they represent a fraction of the photos I do shoot. For every photo you see here, there are likely dozens more that look very similar on my hard drive -- I've just chosen my favourites to show you. What's interesting, however, is that when I do a portrait, I generally know the instant I squeeze the shutter if I've finally gotten the shot I've been looking for.

I've heard that there are some cultures who believe that when a person's photo is taken, their soul is captured. I actually, in some ways, believe this. During a photo shoot, if I'm lucky, there's a moment where the person I'm shooting feels comfortable enough to relax with me, and let his guard down, and for a split second, with the help of my lens, I catch a glimpse of his spirit. It's often a bit startling, but always very exhilirating -- and invariably results in a great shot, even if the composition isn't all that impressive. It's sort of hard to explain; but a recent example is this shot of Alex with her father -- the composition isn't that extraordinary, but as some of you pointed out, the look in her eyes makes the photo pretty special. (It's actually possibly my new favourite of the two of them.) Getting this "photograph of the soul" doesn't always happen, but when it happens, it's magical. So, for me, the challenge of shooting a portrait isn't about making sure that an imperfection isn't in the shot, or that I get their "good side" -- it's about revealing the beauty that the person has -- that we all have -- inside. I consider it an amazing gift when the person allowing me to shoot her lets me capture that beauty.

What may really surprise you is that I actually don't have any of my photographs displayed in our home -- not one. I do plan on changing this once we own our own home -- I'll probably do a gallery wall of my favourite photographs of our family and close friends. The reason I love my cameras, however, is that they help me see, even more closely, the beauty of the two willing subjects who live with me. And being able to create that sort of intimacy -- well, that's what making a home is all about, isn't it?

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my favourite coffee mug, and weekend update

I received this coffee mug over the summer, a gift from AlphaMom in exchange for an interview. While the interview was fun, I was able to meet the amazing Isabel Kallman and the fabulous LeahPeah, and, let's face it, smart women do thirst for knowledge, I love this mug particularly because it's ceramic, and has a wonderfully deep bowl with which to hold my morning coffee.

I admit it: sometimes my reasons for loving my favourite things are, unlike this mug, rather shallow.

Anyway, lately I've been looking for new blogs to capture my attention. So, while you're having your morning coffee, here are a few that you might also find interesting:

- I originally was drawn to Hula Seventy because of the vivid photography, but I've been really pleased with how her words keep me coming back.

- Speaking of vivid photography, I recently stumbled across Ms. Kathleen. I haven't actually read her yet, but the images! Oh, the images!

- Someone else's blogroll pointed me to Sewn with Gold Threads, where it appears the author has just returned from a trip to Africa; and finally,

- I also haven't read much of True Nature yet, but the author has just traveled to Uruguay, where she plans on making her new home. Also? The soundtrack to her life recently includes Everything But The Girl. You have got to love a person who loves Everything But The Girl. I can't wait to read more.

And speaking of travel, for any of you who secretly aspire to be a travel writer, you might want to check this out. You never know where it might lead.

Have a wonderful weekend.

some pretty

Alexis, who, incidentally, is from the United States of America.

Some inspirational links for your weekend pleasure:

- Via Blogging Baby, the very ambitious project by photographer Danny Goldfield: the NYChildren Photography Project, in which Goldfield is in the process of photographing a child from every country on Earth. The catch? Each child lives in New York City. Be sure to check the site out -- the kids are positively beautiful.

- Via the beautiful soul of Jen Lemen, her article on Honoring your Spiritual Life: A Beginner's Guide. I used to do many of the things she lists here, but lately I've fallen out of practice. Thanks, Jen, for the reminder.

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getting my groove back, and look! flickr!

This morning I woke up, raring to go. I was eager to get some routine back in my life -- having been away from home so long, I'd been slacking on a lot of my blogging responsibilities (Blogging Baby and Emerald Market most immediately come to mind). This morning, I thought to myself, I'll be all full steam ahead. Nothing is coming between me and my computer today, boy-howdy. I'm going to be a blogging machine.

And then the entire northern part of the island was struck by a power outage, lasting hours, and robbing me of my internet connection. Welcome home to me.

ANYWAY.

So, on another topic, last week, before I left Houston, I met Kelly. Kelly found out that I like to take pictures with my Nikon (from a friend of a friend sort of thing), and asked me ages ago if I would do some portraits of her (then) newborn, and her family. I agreed, but circumstances arose (in the form of Hurricane Rita) which made it impossible to keep my promise at the time. So, last week I made good on the promise.

I'm really pleased how the portraits turned out -- although, as you can see, they're a pretty beautiful family, so it would've been hard to screw up:

Nonetheless, in addition to giving me the opportunity to flex my portrait-taking muscles (since, at this point, Alex positively VOGUES in front of the camera, so she's not so much a challenge anymore), taking the photographs of these beautiful people allowed me to make some new friends. And that's always good.

Anyway, you can see a few more of these pictures (as well as some other more familiar ones) in my not-really-new-but newly-revived Flickr account. I'd been resisting Flickr, because ... well, to be honest, because I'm a snob. "I needn't use Flickr," I'd say with a sniff, "after all, my blog is a photoblog, in essence. Why would I ever use [insert haughty sneer here] Flickr?" But there's organization with Flickr, dear God, the ORGANIZATION! Why didn't someone TELL me?

So anyway, I'm now a converted Flickr fan, and I have the badge in the sidebar to the left to prove it. Feel free to take a look and browse around. Oh, and Kelly? Thanks for letting me shoot your family. You are all beautiful subjects.

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artistic revelations

The inside of my steel pan. Can you see me?

When I was a child trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up, parents and schoolteachers steered me away from anything artistic. "You won't make any money," they said. "Besides, you don't have any artistic talent. But you're good at math." Being a child, I believed them. When time came for me to go to university, I considered architecture -- but then I remembered that I didn't have any artistic talent (but I was good at math), so I became a structural engineer (although I did end up taking almost 30 hours in architecture classes, which I loved). When, after graduation, I found the practice of engineering boring, I decided to go back to school. Rather than go into any creative field, I remembered I had no artistic talent (but I did have an analytical mind), so I became a lawyer.

Frankly, I didn't much like that, either.

It's taken me all these years to begin to suspect that perhaps, just maybe, I am an artist. That's not to say my parents and teachers were wrong -- I can't draw anything more complicated than stick figures, or sculpt anything more intricate than a rudimentary ash tray -- but perhaps artistry and creativity are more than just pastels and moulding clay. I've always been quite passionate, for example, about art, art history and music. I think I'm pretty decent with a camera. I love drafting a well-crafted phrase, or sentence. And I've always been drawn to artistic, creative people (Marcus not the least of them). I'm starting to believe that perhaps it's not that I'm not artistic -- it's that my definition of being an "artist" has been far too narrow.

It's a lesson that I hope I remember as I raise Alex -- that not only can she be whatever she wants to be, but, even more powerfully, that her talents my lie in unexpected niches that will allow her to be whatever she desires, or is passionate about. In the meantime, however, I'm loving exploring my newfound creative side. I hope the journey never ends.

And on that note, I'm off to have my steel pan lesson. My teacher wants me to participate in an upcoming national steel pan competition, playing with a relatively large steel band. And I just might.

If only because it would be a really artsy thing to do.

best of 2005, and a break until 2006

Marcus and Alex at Las Cuevas

Monday and Tuesday are holidays here in Trinidad, and Marcus has 3 days of vacation that he has to use before the end of the year, so it turns out, unexpectedly, Marcus is off for this week. For this reason, I thought that for the remainder of the year I'd give Chookooloonks a break as well, so the three of us can play.

However, because I love you all so much, and would never want to leave you without anything to occupy your time, I present to you the Best of 2005 -- my favourite photographs over the past year. Many of them were previously published here on Chookooloonks, but some weren't, so go ahead and give them a gander. A warning: there are over 60 photos in the gallery, so you might want to grab yourself a cup of coffee, and settle in (or, if you're looking at this at work, you may have to spread your illicit web-surfing time over the course of the week, to minimize your chances of getting caught).

Click here to enter the gallery.

Enjoy. And because for some odd reason Typepad doesn't allow you to leave comments in their photo galleries, I'd love if you'd wander back here and let me know what you think. Hopefully you'll find your favourite pictures are included in the gallery as well.

In the meantime, Happy New Year to all of you, wherever in the world you may be celebrating.

See you in 2006!

emancipate

Detail of EMANCIPATE, mixed media (acrylic/collage) by Sheryl Pierson

I am so enjoying reading your answers to the question posed in my previous post. Please keep answering. And in return, I'm going to respond to some questions that I've received from you guys recently. I figure it's the least I can do, and besides, it's somewhat peripherally related to my half-baked idea.

Lately, I've gotten a lot of e-mail asking me how I got into photography, and requesting tips for buying a new camera, or ideas on how to get into photography in general. It made me realise that I've never actually talked about my love of photography here, and that, to me, is really weird. I mean, I shoot ALL. THE. TIME. And it's been one of my passions for about 10 years. So I figure we should rectify the situation, don't you think?

Okay, so: about 14 years and 30 pounds ago, I was a model. A lot of people don't know that about me (although I guess that's changed now!), because I don't talk about it much. It was fun and all, but although I got paid pretty well, I never really considered it more than a hobby. For that reason, I don't think that modeling is very indicative of the person I am today. I did, however, make someone wonderful friends out of the experience. One of them was a fashion photographer named Josef. Although Josef was not particularly well-known, he was an amazing photographer, and what he could do with light (not to mention the way he could make my thighs look thin) was truly inspirational.

After I graduated law school, I stopped modeling, but Josef and I remained friends. One day we were having coffee, and I confided to him that I would love to learn to do what he did with a camera. "Are you serious?" he asked. "You want to be a fashion photographer?"

"Well, no, not necessarily all that," I said. "It's just ... I don't know, if, one day, in the extremely remote chance I remarry, and my new husband and I have children, I want to be able to take beautiful family shots. That's all."

"Well, then," he said, "You need a camera. I'll go with you to buy a second-hand one. But understand that you're not going to spend any less than $500."

That was about 10 years ago, and I thought $500 was INSANE to pay for a camera, let alone a second-hand one. But Josef was a professional, so I decided to listen to his advice. We went to a local camera store, and about an hour later, I walked out with my first SLR camera (the kind where you can exchange lenses): a 10-year-old (!) Nikon FE. I was numb. I had just spent $501. At one time. And I couldn't even drive the thing.

"So now what?" I asked Josef.

"Now, we shoot. But you only get to shoot black-and-white film for a while. That's the best way to learn the camera."

So we did. Once a week for about a month, we'd go on photoshoots around town. He taught me about F-stops and shutter speeds. He gave me advice on how to frame a shot. He showed me that manipulating the light was the most important part of photography. And I was completely hooked.

I started shooting all the time -- portraits, portfolio shots for friends who still modeled, and even an album cover for a local musician. I found that I really loved shooting people -- and still do. Portraits are my passion.

Eventually, my legal career started becoming overwhelming, and I didn't get to shoot as much as I used to. When I met Marcus (and I discovered he had a wicked Canon EOS 650), we used to go out in the English countryside and shoot. (Incidentally, he is WAAAAAAAY better than I when it comes to scenery shots. I can still smoke him when it comes to portraiture, though.) And then, the first Christmas after we married, Marcus bought me my first digital SLR -- a Nikon D100, the camera I still shoot with today.

So that's how it happened. I can't tell you how happy I am that Josef forced me to get that old Nikon, and that I've stuck with it to a point that I can now do this professionally. It turns out that following your passion can be very freeing. Who knew.

Now, as far as tips on buying a camera: I don't know, there are so many, and they're all rushing to my head as I type this. I guess the first thing to do is decide how you're going to pursue photography -- are you looking for a camera to take to parties and have great snapshots? Then get a point-and-shoot and be done with it. Trust me on this. As much as I love my camera, it's a pain to lug around at parties (and for this reason, Marcus recently bought a small point-and-shoot for party pics). As far as a brand, I'm biased: I think Olympus makes the best point-and-shoots. But there are great ones out there, so check around.

If, however, you're really serious about this photography thing, you HAVE to buy an SLR. Whether you buy film or digital is really your call (although, obviously, there's a lot more flexibility in having a digital). For my money, the only two brands I would consider are Canon and Nikon -- again, just a personal bias. And actually, I prefer Nikon, because I like the metering -- but Marcus prefers Canon for the same reason, so test drive a few brands before you make a decision.

Also -- the lens is probably the most important part of the SLR camera, even more than the body. Don't skimp on that.

And if you want to do portraits, make sure you get a telephoto lens. Most point-and-shoots come with a normal lens (about 50mm). They're great for scenery shots, but if you get too close to a person when you're shooting with a 50mm, you'll notice that when you print the picture, his or her face will be bowed out or distorted, and you probably won't have a sharp focus. I like 100mm lenses, myself -- they give those nice, tight "cover photo" shots you sometimes see here on Chookooloonks.

And then shoot, shoot, SHOOT. Take a class, if you can. Try to copy the work of photographers you admire.

And definitely don't be afraid to purchase second-hand for your first camera -- my old Nikon still takes great shots, and it's good to learn the fundamentals first before you really need all the power of a top-of-the-line camera.

Okay, enough geekery. If you guys have any more questions, as always, feel free to shoot me an e-mail. And again, thanks for answering my "would you want to be published" question. Keep answering. I'll keep baking.