Posts in Category: Personal
celebrating spring and togetherness
Easter isn’t just a holiday, it’s a feeling of hope that, if we choose, we carry with us year-round. Death was overcome and a new hope is born. Whether you are a religious, spiritual or a secular lover of spring time, this is a season of hope, renewal and reflection.
While unable to photograph others due to everyone’s need to shelter in place, our little family took advantage during the limited time that the wild mustard blooms to photograph ourselves on the land surrounding our studio. I love these images of Finley with his dad and me.
We spent time taking photographs of course, but we also chattered, played, made up stories and flung our arms around each other.
Whatever you are able to do to get some fresh air this new week, we hope you’ll make room for it. Sometimes we have to make our own light and time to smell the spring, look at the ways hope and renewal surround us and show gratitude for the time we have with each other in it.
It wasn’t until we returned the studio and I began processing these images that I realized that it was exactly one year from the day that we took family portraits in the orchards. I guess it was meant to be.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs newborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States LicenseAll photos are ©2020 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
How We Escape
At some point in the last 3-4 years “Escape Rooms” became a group activity, a diversion if you will. Instead of dinner and a movie or a trip to the bowling alley or comedy show, small groups of friends or coworkers would gather to solve a series of puzzles. If done well, everyone would be freed at the end to go celebrate how deeply smart they are. Pretty fun.
But now the walls we want to escape are the very ones keeping us safe. And we cannot escape because the governor and the CDC and WHO tell us it’s dangerous to gather to do much of anything.
So we escape in other ways.
The Case family loves to read. I’m a big reader and the books we’ve amassed since Finley was born are a treasure trove of escapism. We leave our “sheltering in place” selves and are transported via stories, through using our imaginations (we’re sounding out words already!), and trying to get to know better the characters that are Finley’s newest friends.
And we picnic. It’s springtime and we love our yard and garden and relaxing and snacking in the sun. Our first child Chelsea is a shade girl mostly, but it’s another group activity that keeps us from worrying about the many things that we cannot control.
We’re still finding magic in our home, on our property, through “pretending” with our kid, letting him learn to do yard maintenance, and by slowing down.
Sheltering in place means gratitude for shelter itself. This has occurred to me more than once. I am grateful for our life, our health, our home, our community, for first responders and nurses and medical workers on the front lines. And I am grateful for the ability to identify moments of joy, hope, and grace right in those very moments as they are happening. I’m grateful that I’m able to explore those feelings during this mandated down time.
The image above comes with its own caption built right in. If in the right head space, hearts appear everywhere. This house and place have mine. Every blade and square foot is positively infused with love. Many of our memories can be re-enacted in my mind, just by casting my eyes around.
Of course there is art time – another chance to tell stories, to make it up as we go along (aren’t we all sort of doing that???) and to cook and taste and get super messy together. This little bundle of “Man in the Making” is as tactile and kinetic a learner as his parents. His eyes and surges of energy tell me daily, “I want to touch it, taste it, roll in it and write the Government Study for a Summer Grant about it. Now back up; you’re in my work space.”
And in the evenings, we breathe in the flavors of another day lived. If tempers flared and voices were raised we settle our differences with hugs and apologies and a desire to do better. And guys – some days are tough. Norman Rockwell it is not! It’s life.
But more often than not, we retell our day’s journey across the virtual field (or tablet/laptop in our case) with those we cannot hug at the moment. I saw a great ad that said something like, “we distance ourselves now precisely so that we can gather again later.” And that’s really it. While you can, if you can, soak in the gratitude while marveling at how vulnerable we all are. Ryan and I love you all. Stay home, stay safe, explore and if you can share your escapes with us on social media, we’d love to see them. We WILL escape these walls in due time, and then we can gather to congratulate ourselves not for how smart we were, but how wise we were and how grateful we are.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographsnewborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States LicenseAll photos are ©2020 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
A Change of Focus
During the first couple of months of 2020, I’ve been sharing the types of images, events, projects and portrait sessions that Ryan and I will be focusing on in the coming year and years to come. We are moving away from being working wedding photographers, something that we’ve done for nearly 2 decades and the part of our business that put us on the map. It was and wasn’t an easy decision, but I thought I would speak from the heart about it briefly – because that is how “I do.”
Our Life Shifted
A mere two years ago, we had a child added to our lives and he deserves not only our attention, but our guidance. We are not bubble baby people. Finley is out in the community with us, he meets many of our clients, he is sweet to his young peers having their photos taken in our studio and we haul him to Merlefest. This kid GETS DIRTY with his grandparents and helping around our property.
Ryan and I want our son to be fully immersed in the world – to see and show love and empathy to other people, to experience all sorts of joys, challenges and triumphs.
That is OUR responsibility as his mom and dad and it means making time that would have otherwise been spent photographing, organizing and editing weddings.
Our Professional Passions Shifted
When we began to focus more on Day in the Life and personal documentary style photography, families and babies it was ON. I enjoy it more than I can describe. I couldn’t be more proud of our 15 years as successful wedding photographers and remember many times having to double book weekends and turn potential clients away. Wedding portraiture and wedding day photography require not only extensive amounts of time, creative skills, lighting expertise and flexibility, these types of projects require an enormous amount of technical know-how and our work speaks for itself.
But personal documentary portraits are calling to me and the more we take – during all seasons and with all types of families – the more I know that it’s where I want to really “play at work” as a pro.
The Photography Landscape Shifted
Andy Warhol……. how did you know? In 1968, he said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
You all don’t need me to tell you that there has been a democratization of creativity over the last decade. If you have a smart phone, you can be writer, photographer, philosopher, curator, documentary film-maker and archivist, regardless of your age, socio-economics, gender or race. Capture every aspect of your life, publish it to social media and in your circle you’re seen and known. I’m not even remotely “mad at this.” Expression is one of life’s most important and even most healing joys.
What I have found, however, is a disintegration in our concepts of and respect for experience, skill and professionalism. Companies like Voice Bunny, Fivver and even Craig’s List allow pretty much anyone – untested – to have a hand in what used to be professional work that people trained and worked to be good at. Again, if it’s lightening in a bottle, fabulous!
But when I saw a poorly dressed person (ripped jeans and tee shirt) show up as the hired photographer for a wedding, I began to wonder. She was not a close family friend. She was hired to capture what most of us agree is one of life’s biggest days. Her backup equipment was a single smart phone.
At Pixels we understood the mosaic of skills it took to shoot a wedding: the technical, the creative, and the personal.
We knew how to adjust the light at the right time to get the shot that a bride dreamt of all her life. We knew timing, gentle coaxing, coordination of personalities and spatial relations. We never photographed a wedding hoping to “get lucky” with lighting, weather, relatives, or venue. We were always ready. Always.
On average, we spent 134 hours per wedding. That is just over 3 work weeks in corporate America. From the first communication to the last bow tied around the final products delivered, we were committed to perfection, service and dreams delivered.
Now if you know me, you know that I’m not an elitist, but I do believe in expecting that people will pay for experience, decorum, knowledge, cultivated creativity and true expertise. If the marketplace no longer values these things, that’s sad, but I’m cool with it. It’s time to take a break and reevaluate.
Saying “I Will”
While Ryan and I are focusing professionally on photographing more community events, more babies, more family portraiture, more Day in the Life and commercial photography, we are saying “We Will” to some weddings, but are no longer promoting ourselves as working wedding photographers. At least for the foreseeable future. If you are what we define as a “legacy client” (ie: we’ve photographed you, your immediate family, best friend, or you have a strong recommendation from a client) we will consider photographing your wedding. If you want to reach out about your wedding, we can chat, but we aren’t actively seeking that business.
Thanks for listening and understanding. This blog may not have been the hike you were looking for – the quickie 1.5 mile loop – and you ended up on Mount Pisgah. My apologies. I simply love you all and wanted to be as transparent about the future as I am thoroughly excited about it.
Love,
Misty
A Photographer’s Inspirations
Or I could call this blog, “merely a glance” at my inspirations. They are varied and plentiful. That’s rights, kids – I’m doing another little blog flashback today.
My brain’s slideshow of memories, my new normal (think: I gotta 2 year old in the house!!), my priorities and goals have me feeling contemplative. And the good news is that I’ve been renewed by this thinking about what inspires me and what I love about my crazy life. That’s not a bad place to be. I’d rather feel hopeful, even when I’m exhausted, than joyless. “Did I get it all done today?” NOPE. But, but did my husband and son feel loved? Yes. Did I share a giggle with my mom over the phone? I did. Was I available to give a pep talk to my girlfriend in Asheville? Yup! Days like that when I am productive AND RELATIONAL get marked with an “A” grade and I call it good.
As I’ve mentioned in recent blogs, Ryan and I will be focusing more on relationships and the kind of photography that allows those to thrive: day in the life, family, children, community, and those milestones that may not be first on the list in people’s minds. We’ll be tapering off certain types of photography to make room for the abundance of other work that brings us joy and keeps us sane.
I’ll be sharing more in the weeks ahead, but for now, I want to take a look back at a blog I wrote a while back titled Things I Love to Think About. It still makes me smile.
I hope you all will do the same today. What inspires you? What do you love to think about? Spend a minute in that place in your mind once you’ve identified it…. even a minute. You’ll feel better.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
Inspirations for 2020
Ryan and I are excited about not only this new year we’ve found ourselves in, but what our shifting goals and priorities are showing us. Some of this is a function of having a business and a two-year old. That’s quite a lot in and of itself. You cannot say yes to everything and when I “Marie Kondo it” and work on projects that spark joy, I’m a happier human.
We are making more time for relationships and people. You’ve heard me say this before, but our long friendships with clients are a trademark of who we are. And YES we are always taking new clients!!
We’re saying yes to photo shoots that allow us to capture people doing life together, just as we are behind the camera. We hope for more A Day in the Life, more maternity and baby photo shoot sessions, more family, more events that allow us to serve our community and more time with our boy.
We want to stay inspired!! A while back, we shared what inspires us and I thought we might revisit those blogs AND in the weeks to come share even more with you all about our priorities and the future of Pixels. NO, we aren’t going anywhere!
What is inspiring you? What parts of your life would you like captured on film in 2020? While you think about this, let’s revisit Ryan’s take on What Inspires and Fuels Us!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License