I always get excited when it’s time for a new workshop, I LOVE to see the students come in motivated and keen to learn the techniques that will free up their photography in ways they aren’t yet aware of. It’s really motivating to me too, it reminds me to get out there and do the thing I love the most. .. capturing stunning light.

I remember like it was yesterday the first time I enrolled in the workshop (April 2010, the spring workshop). I was super excited to learn how to work the light. It was a bitter sweet workshop for me because right in the middle of it my husband ended up in ICU fighting for his life. I was so thankful for the option to retake the workshop as an alumni student during the fall of 2010. The second time around was even better, I felt like I had the chance to be more creative in my work, and not just having to focus on getting the techniques right. I love light and have been a lighting junkie ever since. I may or may not  be known to do some  irreverent things with light – it’s just my quirky nature.

I now assistant teach on the workshop, along with my awesome sensei Jenny and the ever amazing founder of the workshop Detra. I also moderate the forum, send out all the goodies students get and do the blog posts. I’m always telling students it’s me they need to suck up to!

I can’t tell you how much I have loved the workshop, there’s been some hard times during it…. but without the information Detra provides, and her own incredible skills, I would never have that sense of freedom shooting at any time of the day affords…even in the toughest of lighting conditions – like NOON DAY…argh!

A post without an image can not be done, right? Hence… a visual of why good light (and beautiful subjects) makes me squeal.

a very long story.

and the last chapter is unwritten by me, it will be completed as you navigate through the circle of my fellow photographer friends starting with my good friend Suzanne Carey | Hattiesburg, MS Photographer

My story started in our apartment in Italy with a loud bang and the living room filling with smoke. (We were living there because of my husband’s work, in a tiny rented apartment that was provided for us furnished). As I made my way back to my computer desk, my worst fears had been thrust into reality. My hard drive full of several months worth of photographs had just exploded.

I called Mike at work.

He rushed home and confirmed what my sinking heart had already told me. Thousands of photographs gone. Mannlichen, San Gimignano, San Marino, curly head lion face, swimming in the Adriatic – gone. all of it. gone up in a puff of smoke.  Mike worked all night trying to restore it, but it was all in vain. I cried a little… sobbed a lot. Then got on with my life. Mike explored options of getting it fixed, the cost at that time was waaaaaaaaaaaaay out of our budget. I reasoned out in my mind that we still had the memories of it all… but I wasn’t consoled…I just buried the sadness and let it be.

then 4 days ago I sat in bed eating a breakfast of bacon and eggs my sweet lover man had cooked for me. My birthday breakfast. …he handed me this  note as I popped a piece of bacon in my mouth.

I read,

I cried

and cried some more

and thanked him over and over again, telling him that this was the best gift he could have ever given me. And then I asked him to set up the laptop so I could see my photos again, 3 and a half years later.

This is a snippet of what I am glad I have back…each image tells it’s own story of a time and place many moons ago. Each story highlights the reason photography is so powerful as a tool to create personal histories. Each image is just a photographic memory of a phase in our lives that means nothing to others but the entire world to me.

me sound asleep on the couch on a sunny sunday afternoon. I remember it, but can’t think WHY I was sound asleep in the afternoon….nor WHY  my husband took a photo?

inside the Chiesa Sant’ Agostino, San Gimignano, Italia.

one of my favourite little mac photos, jumping off the bench in the piazza at Longara, the next lil town over from ours. SO happy to have this back, Mike had a web sized image saved on his comp, but I had wanted to print it. Now I can….yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

peeking through the holes in the ancient walls in San Gimignano.

‘Parade of the children’, this was some kind of celebration that happened down via Turati, Calderara Di Reno. Where we lived. The woman in the minnie mouse hat, Romana, was Mac’s first pre school teacher. She was fabulous and loved Mac (and me) She spoke no English but we communicated with wild and fancy hand gestures. Whenever someone turned up who could speak English she would have them ask me a host of questions, as though she had been saving them for weeks.  Once this one dad came and he was her mouth piece for the 3 hours of preschool – he asked me question after question. He had been living in San Francisco for sometime so he was comfortable with conversing in English, but he forced me to answer him in Italian, so that I would learn. I hated him and loved him at the same time. It wasn’t until the night before we left Italia to return to the US did he and I learn that we were neighbours. We bumped into each other at our dumpsters! ha! ….stories……..

Mac at pre school. il rifugio di emilio.

the following photos are from in and around Monterosso, Cinque Terra, Italy.

Me taking photos of Piazza San Marco in Venice (Venezia) Italy

sidewalk chalk artist in Padova, Italy… not long after this it started pouring, he rolled a heavy tarp over his art then waited for the downpour to end. it was incredible.

Mannlichen, Grindelwald, Switzerland- the longest gondola in the world. I was praying my little heart out going up this thing. lol

lake Thun, Switzerland

San Marino

this.is.so.mac.

i remember being mesmerized by the back lit water in this shot of a bunch of guys standing around ‘playing’ with the hose. I don’t know what they were doing, it might have been some kind of fire drill or something…there was no fire, but they had everything out as though there was.

one of the many times he got his face bitten at preschool.

swimming in the Adriatic

since this story began there has been some chapter re-writes so to speak. …my photography has changed, all of these were taken before I knew anything about working the light right.  I back up over and over now, my processing is so much cleaner than it used to be then, in fact I reedited these as I couldn’t cope with the nasty edits of before lol. Also I notice I don’t play as much, I don’t cook such yummy food, I don’t sweat as much either (that humidity was tough) haha and  … I’ve grown (in more ways than one)…I love that I get to read this chapter of our lives over and over again now.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Way back in 1990 I started studying architecture. I’ve always had a fascination of physical space, buildings, lines and scale.  I like re-designing spaces for functionality and have a natural sense of scale and spatial relationships.  And don’t even get me started on blue prints and floor plans – cos they are like candy to me. I happen to just love pouring over them with my eye to change. If I see a good plan I file it away for my ‘one day dream home’.  Mike and I joke that in our marriage, many norms are reversed. I am the construction/handy person… he is needle point/quilting person. KIDDING. he isn’t really. But I tend to do more of the repairs and restorations around our home.

During my studies in construction and draughting I was having difficulty visualizing what my drawings would become so I asked my brother-in-law George if I could come and work on building a house with him. My sister and George owned a design and build company and built spec homes to sell. So In January 1992 I moved to New Plymouth and got straight to work on the building site on Kinross Drive. It was HARD work. I was already physically fairly strong for a girl but needed considerable more muscle power to survive on site and hold my own.  Over the months of constant hard labour I become quite muscular and darn right buff.

After the completion of the first house I kind of just stayed around working on 6 more properties with him. I enjoyed being outside for the most part. I enjoyed the uncomplicated banter with the guys on other sites and I really enjoyed the process of seeing a house go from the first profiles, chalk lines and spray painted outline to the completed fully live-able house with a big SOLD sign on the lawn.

Painting was my favourite stage of the build. And even today I find it very satisfying to have a paint brush in my hand. I am a good painter. So when we were gifted a set of bunks for Mac, it was obviously that a new paint make-over would be in order.

right now, these two beasts are on the painters chopping block ready for a new spiffy colour.

and yesterday I gave Macallum the option of choosing the colours for his room. These are what he chose…. and honestly at this stage I have NO idea which paint will go on which item! I’m kind of thinking exotic sea for the bunks. … the apple green is the colour of the existing drawers in his room.  It was pretty fun for me to watch him go through the paint chips to pick just the right tone. He has an artistic eye, unlike his colour dumb mother. Any ideas?

it’s as easy as 1,2,3. small mason jar, 1/4 fill with baking soda, add a few drops of lavender essential oil (in this case certified pure therapeutic grade essential oil… not the cheap nasty stuff full of chemicals and impurities you get elsewhere) … punch a design on the lid with a hammer and nail and voila. niiiiiiiiiiiiiice.  I {aroha} homemade remedies.

I {aroha} a quick change

Admittedly most of these states have been done by road trip, another thing I love. I have a goal to visit all 50 states. This is where I am at right now, there is a big chunk in the middle and south I am missing! .. one day.

I’m a child of a dead parent. My father died when I was only 8 years old and my memories of him are few and unpleasant. And it’s because of this that I am very aware of what I would like my children’s memories of me to be, when I am no longer around to brainwash them into thinking I am all that and a bag of chips! first and foremost I would hope words like “faithful, authentic, covenant keeper, charitable, humble, obedient, trustworthy, loyal, righteous, learned” would come to mind followed closely along with “fun, funny, crazy, creative, and a little warped”. Because that is me.right.there.in.a.nutshell. And I make no apologies for that.

Although I do feel like I need to apologize to my group of photographer friends, while I should be setting up picture perfect portraits of myself and family in beautiful light and picturesque settings to coincide with the great lengths they each go to, I find myself not wanting to because in reality we aren’t like that. We are goofy kind of people. Photography to me is about having F.U.N, not making it a painful experience for those in front of my camera – INCLUDING ME.  And while we do love our family adventures photos in beautiful places when we’re home, we are a little crazy and have been known to break out in random disco moves, or 80′s pop songs more often than should be legal.

Today Mike and I had a dueling cameras shootout to the theme of dueling banjos. It’s just how we roll.

It’s probably best you roll on over to my awesome friend SUZANNE CAREY | HATTIESBURG, MS PHOTOGRAPHER to see what she’s cooked up for us this week and pretend like this never happened, k? okay!.