Day Trip Thinking + Calling All Artists
Time in the sky always gets my mind thinking + A flashback to the start of my career in Photography, and A Call for Artists at the bottom!
This morning, I’m on my way to Phoenix, just for the day—a long time, favorite client hired me to take a series of photos as she launches more legs of her brand and continues to grow her mainstay. So as I fly over the canyons, the mountains, the crevices of the earth, the billowing clouds, and the green of the rocky mountains which connect somewhere along the way to the browns of the barren desert, I’m thinking…
I had a set of shoots earlier this week—several different women who needed fresh headshots. I reserved a short gap in the middle to update my own gallery of pictures of me. During the grab of outfits for myself the night before at 8 PM, I reached for a handful of props: a red cooking pamphlet I grabbed from a corner bookstore in France. A leather-bound journal, a disposable camera. During my shoot, the photographer suggested I hold the disposable camera as if I were using it, and a lot of things crossed my mind. First, the feel of repeating a pose, a gesture I have many of from the early days of my new photography career. Me being photographed pretending to take a photograph—ironic, artistic, classic 2005 photography. And also, I had a warm notion—I unexpectedly felt reconnected to the start of my actionable love of cameras. Take it back to the late 90s, and I was utterly, no-holds-barred, a dorky scrapbooker. I fit most of the stereotypes…perhaps only breaking the one where I was wearing short shorts instead of a bonnet. In high school, I became the one who always had a camera. And it was always disposable. And then I scrapbooked the printed photos. And then, all the friends came over to oo and ahh how and see where I’d used them…more like who was in them and how many times they appeared, but nonetheless…it always felt sweet. This part of me, which made me feel a sense of worth in the mix of kids who were so different from me, also neutralized the social circles and brought us together to share the pages of the book—in the same room, laughing and sharing in the recounting while together.
I really cherish that.
As my business has transitioned out of private portraiture into commercial photography, I find my strength when I get to freeze frame a moment where someone is reaching for their dreams. Sometimes that means capturing vulnerabilities, and sometimes that means snapping them in their stride, and both are fulfilling. Both are connected. Both are important, and both are telling a story.
The more days that pass, the more I see how much worth I find telling the story. The good, the bad, the ugly, all to make room for grace, for redemption, for earthy connectivity that reminds us that we’re all just human. After all, most of us are just doing the best with what we know at the time.
Disposables to full production….
I heard a poem this week. I shared it on my less active IG account. It was talking about the way that growth doesn’t announce itself, but when we look back, how the you five years ago wouldn’t recognize the you today. How, when we reach for it and let it unfold, bit by bit—when we allow it. There are people who we never expected to be in our lives that are no longer a part of the new stories. The way that growth isn’t finished. It mentioned how in more years there will be different versions of a person that have come and gone.
It landed in a sweet spot.
For all the hard and twisted up knots I’ve unwound, there is beauty in the spaces where people still hold space—whether they know it or not. And I do think there is something kind about it all.
When I look out of my little 12” by 10” window and I see the cracks and breaks in the earth, I see her array of colors, her tiny little offerings that would feel enormous if I were standing next to them. When I look at the hundreds of thousands of roads that humans have etched into her up against the majesty of her water-carved basins, I’m humbled and inspired. I’m reminded that there is so much intended good that many are given at the start, and sometimes we stay on the paths that have been taken a million times, and sometimes we carve our own. Sometimes, we rediscover what was always meant for us. Sometimes, we cross terrain that is smooth, untouched, and safe. And sometimes we encounter unforeseen valleys, we come up against false summits, and unexpected storms. And either way…
We stay alert,
We keep going,
We reach,
We learn,
We grow.
Artist!
I’m curating collections of art. If you’re interested in submitting, please contact me through “message” below. Please include a link to or snapshots of the art you’re interested in submitting, a snippet of your inspiration, and contact information. The art submitted here will not be automatically used. You will be contacted before and compensated. Thank you!
xx,
k