Life is all in the details, and my eye has always been drawn toward those details, as they comprise the most poignant and precious beauty found in everyday life.
A small child’s hand covered with dirt, clouds reflected on the panes of an old & weathered window, the blissful look in the eye of a dog looking at his owner and the coiled-up energy that’s just below the surface of a horse’s neck and shoulder – these are the details that are all part of The Big Picture, the details that draw me in both visually and emotionally.
The emotional component of a captured image is always the goal every time the shutter snaps – it is why we take pictures in the first place, we try to capture the FEELING we are having as we look with our eyes at some detail of life – whether it is the trust in the face of our child, or the connection we feel with our dog, or the way we feel about items lined up on the kitchen window sill. We feel something good, and we want to be able to feel that over and over and never forget, for the rest of our years.
My intuitive ability pairs up easily with my camera – my ability to see other people’s most precious details is perhaps my true talent. I began two years ago to further my technical skills as a photographer, and build a hobby into a true profession. The possibilities that digital photography presents are endlessly fascinating, and I have been blessed to discover this means of combining my ability and passion, with what will surely be life-long ‘work’.
I hold my prices at a very affordable level, and that helps to attract the type of photographic opportunities I’m particularly adept with. A few hours spent on someone’s farm or in the yard with their children or pets fills countless frames with the exquisite details of those lives – candid, ‘real life’ images that hold not just breadth and width, but depth and emotion – the feeling of the captured memory, not just the flat image. These are my true love and talent - vastly different from the formal, rigidly-posed portraits taken against faux scenes painted on back-drops in the chain studios.
Instead of trying to convince your 3 year old to sit in a fake wheelbarrow in front of an unrealistic backdrop, filled with way too many bright orange pumpkins and fall leaves to even visually focus on your child - I prefer to follow that child around in a real pumpkin patch, and catch the true life image of when he tries to pick up that 40 pound pumpkin, or when he wants to take a break and sits down on a log to watch the ducks in the river. Those moments make beautiful and emotionally full photos because they are real, and that's just how it happened.
Life isn't manipulated or posed, it just happens, and that's where we all find the beauty in it.