I have been enjoying slowing down and allowing the passion for all things visual to flower and deepen.  When I first started out as a photographer and artist, after graduating with a degree in fine arts, I was a gung-ho business woman.  I had a yellow pages ad, and a resale #.  I went to photography conventions.  If I got a call to photograph turtles, or bottles of oil, or a boy and his cat, I was there!  I did weddings, I did birthday parties, I did funerals.  I set my camera on a rickety tripod to capture families of 12-42, I did model portfolios, and I did photojournalism for magazines and newspapers.  I have interviewed and photographed Miss America, Olympic Gold Medalists, and burn victims.  I have photographed riots, cathedrals, and births.

All of these things have given me a massively stable foundation, experience, and many memories.  Now, after 40 years, I am focusing, ahem, more on the faces of the wonderful people all around me.  I have been doing more portraiture, both photographic and with paint, brush, and pencil.

If you want a portrait session for one or two people, I am there.  If you want some warm and casual images of your family, while gathered around your home, relaxing and chatting, I am there.  If you want to do something creative, I am there.

If you are about to move from your home and would like a series of photos of the details that you want to remember, I am there. Photos of your baby when emerging into this life, I am there. Your child's first day at Kindergarten, I will gladly come with you. 

I am enjoying the details, the moments, the thoughts and emotions that fly across a face in an instant.  The doorknob that you open and closed for 20 years, the stuffed animal that was loved for a lifetime, the well-worn hands of a loved one who may not be there much longer, the eyes that say so much.  

I have been doing more natural light, less flash, less studio, although I can set up studio lighting when it is needed for the sake of creative imaging. I have been taking more creative risks, being more thoughtful, less hurried, more involved.

I am enjoying settling into a corner of the lives of others to document, kindly, quietly, what goes on, so that it can be remembered with hearts brimming over.

I am remembering an excerpt from Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN.  I was young when I first heard this quote, but it has remained with me all of my days, and I recall it even now:

“Does anybody ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?

The saints and the poets. They do some.” 
― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

I wish to make it possible for people to realize life while they live it, by stopping time, at intervals, so that examination, realization, and appreciation become possible.