Day 5 From the Archives: A break from landscapes. This is a favorite series of my late mother, sitting on the porch in Cape Cod. She was a fairly dark person but deep down she was a hilarious woman who loved to be playful. She hated the sun but loved the porch. She would hoot at the owls on the property. She loved Pancake and would hold him like a baby. For some reason she was grounded and present here, and this is how I like to remember her. It’s a portrait, it’s a moment of connection. She’s looking up slightly because she is looking at me, and that breaks my heart a tiny bit in the most beautiful way. I shoot my Hasselblad with the waist level finder which means I hold it at the center of my chest and look down through the lens. It creates a level of intimacy because my face is not covered by the camera, one of the reasons I love the Hasselblad.

Speaking of personal projects/personal work - what are YOU creating right now? I always push my Dog Photography Mentoring Students to develop, create and shoot side projects. I don’t care how busy you are, if you aren’t working on something just for yourself outside of your client work, photography will become dull and you will lose your creative spark. Creative side projects build intimacy into your business, and most importantly they are an amazing tool to build trust within our client community. Clients want to invest in an artist, not a photography machine. When you show your clients and community your true voice - the things that make you a unique artist - people begin trusting you and looking to you for inspiration. This, in turn, leads people to become clients, to purchase prints and sessions, and refer you because you are letting yourself stand out from the crowd. Most photographers these days act more like machines than artists, and I think that’s a real shame. Have a voice, have a point of view, and get personal. This is what elevates artists these days!

From the Archives: Day 5