The apex of my circumstances these last few years have usually taken place behind the wheel of a car, or in the seat of an airplane; there is always and of course, the lens of my camera too.
It has been a period of transition, as they say. But luckily, I believe that we grow the most when placed outside of our regular routine.
(It could be that I believe that because I can’t remember last having one.)
So, in both a blessings wake and what would feel at times like a dare, I traveled from one end of the country to the other; changing as I went, my entire life.
September: Olympia, Anacortes & the San Juan Islands
If W. Clement Stone was correct , and we are a product of our environment, then I am the product of a small green suitcase with one broken latch. In both the state of our living and all the states that we still have to travel through, I have realized what few items are my desert island five, and how to strategically fit them into the suitcase with one broken latch. It is a shame I think, that I can not sift the salty sea air of Washington and some how steal it away in these last days of September; as summer drags her fingertips across the Sound just one more time.
We have been living in one long narrow room for five weeks. The tenants of a local Olympia hotel while Drew will finish what the military calls his ‘ETS’. It stands for ‘estimated time of separation’, one of the many acronyms that I have learned in the last two years. So to break out of the monotony of working and waiting, Drew & I filled the car with our two dogs, his pack and my little green suitcase and headed almost four hours north to ‘Deception Pass”.
(Named by Captain George Vancouver in 1792… “Feeling that he had been deceived by the nature of the inner waterway… he wrote on his chart ‘Deception Pass’.” )
To cross this amazing channel means that you have finally arrived in Whidbey Island, just the first in a long and beautiful string of Islands in the very north corner of Washington. The plan was to spend the weekend on the shore with family, coaxing mother nature into kind temperatures….
She listened so well that we didn’t leave Anacortes for almost three weeks. Instead we combed the beach and made boats, played pirates and always stayed “just one more day.” One of those rare times in life when we followed only our bliss, while we let the rest sit waiting.
October: ‘Our last gasp’, the I-90 stretch and an early Thanksgiving in Mexico.
We finally left Washington in the early weeks of October with two walkie talkies and a dog in each car to keep us company. It took three days on I-90, which meant time to enjoy the way that the color of the sky changed as we passed through Idaho in the early morning, the moon rise in Montana, and
the density of the dry Wyoming air. For me, it was a welcomed change. Like Colorado was waving hello, and I knew it wouldn’t be long.
We only had two days in Colorado before we hopped a plane to Mexico for an impromptu Thanksgiving with my family. (On October 12th!)
It was just enough time to find an apartment and lock it behind us.
What a blessing that we should once again find a reprieve from all the change; with only the shadow of love to fall underneath. It was one early morning on this trip that I stole away to simply sit and give thanks.
A few days later the reality of my ’best laid plans’ surfaced. Seraphim Fire had a wedding booked at the end of the month, which meant that I had four days to get the sand out of my suitcase and pack for the next flight.
Sasha Gil, a beautiful and long ago friend from my days in New York, works in fashion and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Her fiance Wallace is from Greenville, South Carolina. For a chance to capture their southern wedding day, I would head East.
It was my first time visiting one of the Carolina’s, and turned into one of those magical trips that made me want to (despite all odds!) pick up and move again.
I suppose that is the curse of being malleable. Each place I have been, I have left a small but imaginative piece. One that can exist right there, and maybe never go any other place.
November: Coming home.
On the plane ride home, I imagined clicking my heels together slowly.
Like Dorothy would have.
I immediately pictured myself in Drew’s arms, and I thought of the dogs taking up my side of the bed.
I always thought of myself as a gypsy. Someone who flowered along the roadside. I realize now, that my home is not defined by which state line I land within, and it isn’t ‘my next big adventure’ either.
Now, when I picture the future, it always has just those few simple things.
And of course, my camera.
I wish you all the happiest of holiday’s, and I remind those that find themselves absent from my photographs to give me a call.
Because I celebrate life through the lens, you (come one, come all!) are always welcomed.
Please visit www.seraphimfire.com for contact information,
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In the early fall of 2000 I left the small town of Littleton Colorado and moved north… to an even smaller town just shy of Wyoming. Greeley, Colorado is known for its cows.
But it also features the campus of the University of Northern Colorado, where I was slated to get my teaching degree.
Instead, I noticed how much I really loved the cast of the late afternoon sunshine and the way the corn would glow as it swayed. Little torches for the effort of a long day.
I spent most of my time in the darkroom. But in that first year I also met a group of girls that completely changed my life.
In truth we were all very different, but we flourished around each other, and while doing so we saw deeper within ourselves. I found out that I had a little catholic and a little hippie, A lot of music and some Betty Crocker too.
I took photography classes at night at a nearby community college because the teacher let me stay late, and eventually we became great friends.
(Thank you Dan Templeton, for being someone who saw something special in me.)
Fast forward to July 2011, where on the D.U. campus I would follow one of those very special women as she walked (no, strutted) down the aisle.
Elizabeth Houghteling, known as Sassy, is loaded with spirited grace. She is almost nymph like, and for this very special day she allowed her fresh and lengthy curls to fall around her shoulders.
Andrew, her groom, is calm with all eyes peeled and he thoughtfully attends to her every request. I noticed this trait three months earlier during the engagement shoot in their home.
His posture always alert, but with the aire of a deep breath. (Heh heh heh…)
I think It was actually Sassy, in the depth of our junior year, that stirred some of the first confidences that I had in my talent, and as a photographer.
“Wow, Regan. I have never seen myself this way,” she said. Without looking I could hear a smile as she went on. “I feel so beautiful.”
And that bloom is still on the rose, dear friend.
I want to officially congratulate the new couple, Elizabeth & Andrew Allender.
It was such a pleasure to be a part of your day…
To see the rest of Elizabeth & Andrew’s photos, please visit: http://pictage.com/1075859
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There truly is no telling when inspiration will strike. For me, as July just started creeping in, it was on board a 220 heading back to Seattle. I can officially call it a trend now. Whenever I am flying, all those dormant thoughts and considerations are pulled to the top; demanding proper notice. And it is not conversation that I want. I long for clean lines on a page, or the familiar click of my keyboard. (Secretly, I wish it was more the clank and clutter of my typewriter. But TSA would have a field day with that.)
Heading west from Chicago Midway, I sat there in an aisle seat thinking about age and memory. I think that ageing is miraculous because it makes us all collectors of people and things that, thanks to our amazing cognitive skill, link themselves to memory. When I catch a glimpse of my tattoos (a moon and baker’s dozen of stars across my upper back) I always recall how I felt the day that I got them. I felt brave and independent, but I had support all around me.
Like all the stars in the sky.
Most of you can relate to this, but if you still need proof, think of your senses. Your mother’s cooking, your grandfather’s aftershave, or the combination of the outdoors and a specific bottle of wine. The sight of the label makes you smile all alone in the grocery store, and even though the memories sometimes hurt, the power that we have as humans to transport ourselves back in time…
In that way, we are never really separated from anyone.
It is the greatest trick that I have ever learned.
As most of you know, I have been in the home stretch of a deployment with my soldier. Since very early March we have each learned the survival skills necessary to make it through months of rare and scattered conversations over very dodgy phone lines. The time difference is a fascinating 11.5 hours between here and Afghanistan, and obviously there were weeks that we could not match our schedules.
So, to survive the time and reconnect with myself, I planned a trip for the last half of the month of May. I had work waiting for me in Denver, and then I would continue east to Chicago and for the first time really take a look around. I have driven through the windy city twice before, but this would be my first official visit. While there, I would also have the pleasure of watching a very dear friend of mine graduate from Rosalind Franklin Medical school of Chicago.
Lindsey Ann Long is a stunning woman of extreme intelligence. She has also been my best friend since 8th grade. Although small in frame, her warmth is consuming. And if you could weigh her heart it would read in quadruple digits. I love her more than chocolate. But mostly, I love the way that she can always some how help me see myself in a new way.
A kind and more forgiving way.
And then, while sitting in the Civic Opera house with ‘Pomp & Circumstance’ playing all around me, I allowed myself to pull apart the dense damn that had been blocking some very pushy emotions; holding them back for fear of drowning. I remembered the day that we met, (I wandered into the wrong gym class. A new girl in a new school, a couple hundred miles away from Texas.) The day we separated after high school because we had been accepted to separate colleges (to me it felt like the severing of skin), and now here we were all these years later and not a beat had been skipped. It got me thinking though. What is it about me that attaches so deeply? That feels so passionately locked into a moment? Inevitably, in this fast world, is it a weakness or a gift?
A few years ago I read a quote by Tom Robbins that said:
“I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred.”
I loved it. What a very clear call for balance.
(The funny part is, I had always remembered it as being “I love nothing, everything is sacred, I love everything, nothing is sacred.”)
See that’s the thing with memory. It is subjective and personal, and usually… wrong.
There are certain parts of ourselves however, that we simply cannot change. We cannot change our family or our skin. We cannot force ourselves to see farther than we do at one time, and we cannot against all effort, stop being who we are. We can say for a time that we are not that. We can even lie for so long that we believe it to be true, but in my opinion we share just as much nature as we do nurture. The key, I think, is to respect the fundamentals.
I am a lover. I love the earth and all it’s simple textiles.
I love music and travel, and when I am driving long distances I sometime imagine myself a tour bus.
I see now that my passion gives me power.
It lets me show a child what their parents looked like at their age. I have seen them, in that moment, transform. He see’s a completely new person in his father and in my imagination that change creates new pathways for the child. Hopefully, they will be courage’s enough to keep exploring. Because the truth is, our parent’s growth is tandem to our own and the lead is always changing. There is never a moment when they are not capable of surprising you.
A few days before my departure I sat with a girlfriend at the breakfast table, our plates nearly cleaned. I said that I loved getting older because no matter what, it meant improvement.
“Improvement for me means joy, and the word choice is important. Joy is different from happiness, which is actually pretty easy to achieve. If you have a good attitude and a little perspective, happiness is always there. It can lay low, of course, but if you just look around you’ll see it is blended into the scenery. Birds fly around with it, the sky sometimes let’s it fall, joy however is a little more difficult to spot. It is usually a gift, given when you didn’t know you needed some, and it has this familiar but far away smell. Like childhood. Joy is stronger and lasts for a shorter time.“
She laughed when I said all this, and gave me an adoring smile.
“Oh Rea, I just love you.”
And right there, joy joined us at the breakfast table.
Regardless of our age, we are all getting older, everyday. You can argue that as our bodies and minds are developing, that we are gaining, but we are losing too. Along with dexterity (and ah! elasticity) we are losing the ability to love openly.
We feel silly, or embarrassed by strong emotion. We just grow out of falling. I wonder if it is because we are so much further up?
People usually confuse this tragedy with maturing. So we make fun of people who are uninhibited, and we think we know better about the way some one else should be living. And the sort of lame thing about it is that some of us are right. Some people are frustratingly careless about their choices, and some strangers are rude for no reason. Some children do need more discipline and the younger generations will always be out of touch. Even though if you really stop and look, nothing ever really changes. (Good one big guy, good one…)
The problem is that our focus on those things only personifies them, and then the only thing getting drowned out is the light. With out light (and love is that if nothing else) we are incapable of seeing where we are headed. It is a substance that can be directed anywhere you want it to go, allowing it to enhance things already present. When you really love someone you allow them the pleasure of being just what they are, and forgiving the naturally dark parts. You do this because you remember that you yourself have them. You also know their story, their particular struggles and weaknesses, and with patience and understanding you just love them through it. Because you know that really is the only thing.
That’s what the Beatles meant, that is what God is made of (regardless of which one you believe in), and that is what I’m selling here.
Because there are not many living things out there that ever flourished in environments of darkness & containment.
I am setting up the camera now…
Everyone get together.
I am also happy to announce that my sweet heart finally made it home. I want to thank all our friends and family for their support during the deployment. We are blessed.
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After a life long winter, when the sun finally breaks apart from an ocean of cloud cover to light up the sides of buildings, it makes art with their shadows; and we gleam.
I have always had this love affair with trees.
I am positive that a fair number of you know exactly what I mean. Trees always smell like that first few minutes of morning. Trees reach up, even when we can’t seem to. Trees make my heart sing.
But the trees in Washington are especially lovely. Maybe it is that sunlight helping us to notice them? Or maybe it is just the sheer number? Whatever it is, summer is making its way up and over the Sound, and boy am I ready.
Something else begins to happen here in Olympia when flowers start to bloom, so does the city.
Every year, twice a year, everyone gathers for the Olympia Arts Walk.
The spring time version of this tradition also involves the ‘Procession of the Species’; a most spectacular spectacle of costume and design.
In waves of earth, air, fire, & water adults and children shimmy & shake past me, the shutter on my camera sounding like a drum roll.
I admit while winter held on tight here, trying so hard to stay, I thought: “How do people do it? How do they sustain with as little as one hour of sunshine a day?”
And then that glorious weekend, the way that everyone came alive, the cupcakes, the glee everywhere; such a shine!
I immediately understood. Anything that magical is worth waiting for.
Believe me folks, I would know.
In January I took a job with Harlequin Productions, a non-profit company responsible for 20 years of live theater in the downtown area.
It finds its home in the State Theater on 4th, a main vein that leads you up and around an inlet to the Puget sound. Sharing the view with the capitol building and a thriving local community very dedicated to keeping it that way.
In the last five months of working with them I have fallen in love with my co-workers and without even realizing it, they have helped me write my mission statement.
The production this month was powerful in an unexpected way. ‘Unexpected Tenderness’ written by Israel Horovitz, deals with the volatile relationships within a 1950′s family that is compounded by an overly jealous father. I was lucky enough to shoot the photography for this show, and witness not only the power of the performance, but to also see the input of Mr. Horovitz himself.
When properly done, theater can have an amazing ability. Spoken at any volume it will resonate and the echo, it stays.
It was only a few weeks later that I had the pleasure of shooting a big event with Provail. This company is truly amazing. A group of people dedicated to making opportunities more easily available to those with disabilities. They also remind us that we are all capable of giving something, even if it is just a little bit of our time. This particular afternoon was dedicated to golf, so a few hundred of us gathered at Sahalee Country Club and after 18 holes we all spent the evening eating, drinking and bidding on items in their silent and live auction. The kicker to this amazing day was the presence of Warren Miller, film maker and cinematographer of adventure sports.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Miller after the evening’s events. His attitude and presence was beyond inspiring, and I admit my ego swelled when he complimented my work.
Even after all these years of meeting exciting people, it is not usually what they say that affects me. It is their disposition, a lot of the time it is what their eyes say. But when it came to Mr. Miller, his words are what will always stick with me. He spoke of freedom mainly, commenting that he doesn’t believe in disability.
“We are all just searching for a way to express our freedom. Whether it is a deformity or simply age, we are all uncomfortable with the loss of independence.”
He urged all of us there to enjoy our liberties, and to respect them. Later that night when I said good bye to him and thanked him about a half a dozen times for all his hard work over the years, he hugged me.
I realized that in the four months that Drew has been gone, that is one of three times that I have been hugged.
It’s hard to believe that after all of that, there could be anything more that would excel my happiness.
I have described these last few months accomplishments as delicious. And there really is no other word for it.
As a photographer, I love the power that I have to tell the story.
What I love most though, is reminding people how special they are. Showing a bride’s grace, or a child’s unique expression.
As usual it all comes down to love.
I have talked a lot about my ‘mission’, and eventually I have realized just how much my methods will change as I learn how to capture things in the best possible light.
That right there, that should be the mission for all of us, regardless of the profession. To find the strongest part, the best side, that little bit that makes us feel. How that is done all depends.
So this Sunday, despite a little bit of rain, my fabulous friends Bethany & Jesse Spear, made the trek to my home studio where I had the privilege of shooting my first maternity session in 6 months.
As you can see, the sun eventually showed itself, and in one lovely afternoon I had the opportunity to celebrate new life, the love of a fresh marriage, and friendship.
With my camera I reminded a new mother of a beauty all her own, and there sat Jesse, silently enthralled, ready to assist his partner at every turn (even if it was just to help her up).
It seems only natural that we should improve as we age. But in the inevitable glow of accomplishment we can forget that natural is not synonymous with simple.
Improvement is often difficult, and that difficulty can even hurt a little. I believe however, that the presence of that difficulty is crucial. It cultivates awareness.
Like glaciers, they carve through what already exists to make room for what will come next. In those moments of struggle, when pieces of you are being shifted around and you think that you can’t take much more,
remember that what fills that space next is completely up to you. Revel in all that possibility, and then dive in.
As usual, I want thank all of you for your continued support and presence here. Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments.
Seraphim Fire photography is now introducing hand made light boxes! These light boxes are custom made and can feature an image from your own sitting! Call Regan Beisenherz @ 970.371.8282 for details.Also featured on Etsy!
I took my first dance class in ten years on Monday. It was marvelous, and terrifying. Even with everyone’s, “it’s like riding a bike…”, running through my head.
When you choose to try at something, especially something that you have not done in a long time, there is always a moment that you wonder if you will be able to again.
The scary part consists more in the quiet little consideration, “What if I can’t?”
Most of us do not realize that this last thought is even there. but it is, in the form of anxiety; a little monster awoken by the chance of failure.
I am proud to share that in this instance, I could and I did. And I put that little monster in its place.
I shared later in an email to my soldier how good it felt. And took note of something pretty special.
When I first made the decision to try dancing again, all the focus was on how much I remembered enjoying it.
But then I had to actually do it. What if my memory was wrong? Or perhaps I had changed? “Maybe I should just leave it to memory?” I said later, to a friend on the phone.
But when Monday rolled around, I went. And as I was standing in first position, my arms aching as I held them above me, I thought, “yea, the memory was good, but the reality is better.
I don’t think, until that moment, I had ever realized the difference. In the battle of was vs. is, is should always win.
That night I stayed up, imagining myself in an empty theater, dancing.
During these last few months, I have stubbornly sat on my intentions. All the while they’re wiggling underneath me.
I wanted so badly to finish the ‘mission statement’ in a third installment, and on January 8th I sat down to write it.
But all that came out was prayer.
It was about five days after I ran out of fortune cookies that Drew left for Ft. Bliss Texas. He would be there for the month of January, and it was then that I remembered the looming deployment.
The facts seemed simple enough, we would enjoy the month of February together and he would ship off in early March. But late at night, when I considered this while laying in bed, the facts they expanded in long endless ripples. That little monster started waking up.
For most of us there are those things that we just have to do. We have to get out of bed in the morning, go to our jobs, wash our faces, remember where we put the car keys. (Why is that last one so difficult?)
For me, the hardest one of these things would be saying goodbye to Drew.
But I know that I am one of oh, 500,000 army families that have to go through this. So for those three weeks I prayed. For strength, for patience, for perspective.
And I admit it, that little monster ransacked the place.
The prayer helped though, so I just kept on… and I considered all of the challenges that went on around me, separate from me.
I prayed for a particular friend of mine, pregnant with her second child, tired and more sick than before. But each time that we talk she is so strong, and I can feel it shine all the way across the four states that separate us.
I prayed for my sister and her daughter; that they would continue to need each other as much as they do now. There are few things more beautiful and challenging then that bond between parent & child.
And for my aunt, that she would find some peace within a new chapter of her life, and welcome its freedoms with another birthday approaching.
I prayed that the people that I love would always know it, and I asked God to include himself in that. I even said that last part out loud.
But of course, the prayer always came back to Drew.
I prayed for the obvious things, his safety and sanity, But that goes without saying. That he be made strong and feel supported by all of the people that love him, (And the number is substantial)
for comradery between his team members and comfort where so little comfort is available.
I prayed hardest though that Drew see the change that he has made in my life. That he consider the strength that he has given me just in leading by example, and that he know how loved I feel.
He is the strongest person that I have ever met, and unbelievably humble. Genuinely kind & visibly fearless.
But with me, when all the doors have closed behind us, he is the person I have the most fun with.
I let it ache a little when I realize that the memory will have to be enough for now.
But in the battle of is vs. was, love wins.
The Big Parade (1925)
►
“The Big Parade (1925) is director/producer King Vidors most famous, precedent-setting war film from the silent era. It was the first realistic war drama and has served ever since as an archetypal model for all other war films.”
“There is a link between color & light and memory & feeling. And all instances are captured in one of them, or all of them, and those images stay forever engrained in the fabric of our days.
That photo that hangs on every refrigerator, in every house that you have lived in since college; its faded colors are no less vivid to you. In your mind, there are no corners missing, and the yellow sweater that she was wearing hangs now in your own closet. (Only you never wear it, because ironically, you don’t like to think of how much you miss her.) Now that particular color yellow always makes you grin. And even though you never realize it, your lover does. He watches with intense pride as the icing on your birthday cake (that same bright yellow) creaks across your face in a thin smile. One of a million different smiles that you have, and no one realizes except him that it was for much more than just the wish you made.”
I’m not sure what it says about me that in early December, on the eve of my 29th birthday, I am swaying to folk music in my pajamas. It is 6:08 AM and I have been awake for over an hour. I am not thinking about how far I have come during this year or what I want for myself in the year ahead. Not just now, no. Instead, I am thinking about Christmas trees.
I am also thinking about the spelling of Joan Baez, the cold & empty feeling of the house when Drew has left it, and the height of my eye from the ground in its relative distance to sea level.
All of which I would like to address. But first…
Day 1: The sound of the alarm clock breaks into my dreams without actually waking me. It is one of those mornings where I went on thinking that the house was on fire until the coffee makers rough grumble reminded me where I was, and that that foggy look in the room was just the sleep in my eyes.
The clock on my microwave came into focus, 4:12 AM. By eight the entire pot of coffee was gone. Found my old twin lens camera that a very dear friend gave me, and one rogue roll of film in an unpacked box way up in the loft.
Because I can not remember the films age, I assume it is from art school. two year old film. To most people, that makes this roll of film ruined, to me it seems an opportunity for something amazing and unique.
What ends up being most amazing is how long it takes me to load the film into the camera.
Goal one, Shoot more film.
Day 3: The third in a series of extremely early mornings. It is a Wednesday, and I spend almost 13 hours in front of my computer. I love Wednesdays.
My work space is settled on the backside of our living room. A large open space with a bay window where I have taken over our dining room table and made it my desk. At one point, the sunny sitting bench within the bay could be opened, and may have contained some antique treasure.
Now however, because this house is nearly one hundred years old, and sunk into a damp city in Washington, it has swelled shut. The only things that I can seem to imagine there now are my spooky assumptions of what was lost inside.
This is one of the many reasons that I love this house. This is the one corner of our living room that stays lit throughout the whole day; even when the storm last as long as I do.
Which is exactly what has happened today. The sorting through of nearly 4,000 images shot in the past month. Some will be used for marketing, and with any luck I will find a new logo for Seraphim Fire in the pile. The rest, far more importantly, will be printed and used at Christmas time.
Goal two, make prints & build something beautiful out of them.
Day 5: When I was a kid my parents had this theory that things readily available to my brother & I would become less appealing. For example, a large drawer in our kitchen sat fully stocked with candy. We were famous for this, my brother & I. While over for play dates, my friends would shamelessly eyeball the candy drawer, while I played on unaware.
I must admit that their theory held out well into my adulthood. While I love sweets, ( I am not immune to Chocolate) I don’t really eat much candy. I do however, implement the candy drawer in my home now. It is an act of nostalgia more than anything, but it also continues to make my house pretty enticing.
The trouble with our candy drawer is this, “it is a place where fortune cookies go to die.” At least this is what Drew said to me the other morning while searching through our drawers for something. “I am going to throw these away, ok?”
The funny thing about all those fortune cookies is that while I never eat them, I love saving the fortunes. I love giving them to people as a pick me up, or because they just fit. I like finding them on days that I can not concentrate, and just like a cloud that takes shape, I find new motivation in the day. So naturally, I protested like Drew had just threatened to get rid of the dog.
He gave me kind of a funny look and then kissed me before leaving for work, and once the door had shut completely I looked at Carl (our black lab) and said, ”Crap buddy, now what am I going to do with like 30 fortune cookies?”
Day 8: My lists have begun to pile up around me like waves. Every once in a while when I am really focused, even the rustling of papers sounds like the ocean. I have had the beach on my mind lately. If this has ever happened to you, then you need no explanation. If not, then it is sort of like the shifting of a boat when the current is strong. It becomes very difficult to anchor yourself down. Figuratively speaking.
I thought of all those fortune cookies, and all the piles of digital files that needed organizing. My internal movement took me, without thinking, into our kitchen and emptied the candy drawer into a large mixing bowl. The candy was sent back, but the bowl of fortune cookies sat next to me at my computer, and I cracked one open. “Your future is what you make of it, so make it a good one.”
Goal three, open a fortune cookie each day.
Day 12: Call me crazy, but the fortune cookie idea really works. It is so easy to get weighted down in the monotony of a job, or a routine. The trick is to make it fun, or to give it a fighting chance. That is exactly why things like fortune cookies exist, right?
Some days my fortune doesn’t really apply: “You have the uncommon gift of common sense.” (Heh heh heh).
Some days it rains, and I clearly get someone else’s fortune. “Your day will be filled with sunshine.” (Not if you live in the north west.)
But then Some days I accomplish even more then I set out to. “Your path is arduous but will be amply rewarding.”
And that was the night I finally finished the logo, and then some.
Day 13: We finally got to the beach.
Day 17: Late in the afternoon I Drive to Seattle to shoot an event for PROVAIL and make some amazing new connections.
Back in 2004, during an afternoon art history class, I made a friend in an awesome girl who made her reputation as a screen printer.
Kelly now works with PROVAIL, a company based in Seattle, that is dedicated to meeting the needs of people with disabilities. (www.provail.org)
Tonight they are hosting a wine tasting event and silent auction inside the McKinstry Innovation Center. (www.mckinstryinnovationcenter.com)
The building itself is artful, and huge at 24,000 square feet, but also take into account the art work, free raffle give aways, and the six booths of wine from all over Washington State.
Thanks Kelly, for all the art & the history.
Day 19: “I realized something today,” I am leaning over my plate and I can’t see him, but I know that Drew is laughing at me. He is letting his mind skim blindly over all sorts of things that I could have realized. (That I’m a lousy driver, but will never admit it? That I listen to the t.v. too loudly?)
“I never shoot horizontally. Or if I do it is really rare. I had a hell of a time designing an album today because of it. Stupid templates.” I mumbled that last part.
“Well, you should start. People like horizontal shots and those templates are there for a reason.”
There was 2 1/2 minutes of silence before Seinfeld cut to a commercial and Drew looked at me, still smiling, lips pursed.
It was like he was trying to give me a head start before I launched into a passionate run-on sentence about how vertical shots were so much more interesting, and something about cropping.
It was such a thick excuse that I lost track of it. The next morning when I sat down at my computer I reached for a cookie. ”Bad excuses are worse than none.”
Goal four, stop making excuses.
Day 20: I finally applied to a gallery downtown. ‘Childhood’s End’ besides being a co-operative space, (something I will forever support) is located on a corner directly across from the marina. It looks to be almost 1000 square feet and houses not only pottery & hand made jewelry, but a range of specialized pieces done by local artists;
Artists that I would love to learn from. It didn’t take a fortune cookie to motivate me today, this is the place that I want to be showing my work. I turn my portfolio of Love Letters over to a lovely dark haired woman at the desk and share a short conversation, resisting the urge to ask her a million questions.
She does explain though that I had just barely made the cut off, as they take a three week break from Jurying new work during the holiday’s.
When I got home I opened a cookie, just for good measure.
“People find it difficult to resist your persuasive manner.”
Day 23: I leave for Mexico at 6AM. As is the tradition in my family, we spend Thanksgiving together (the only time all year that I see my siblings and their children) at a little place an hour south of Cancun called Puerto Adventuras.
We have been going there for 13 years. Allow me now, to introduce you to my Clan. My dad, Robert, is a sixty something dark & handsome, with exceptional math & vocabulary skills. Pam, my step mother, is equally stunning. A grandmother to now five grandchildren that fill our home during the holidays, she wanders behind them kissing and cleaning up skinned knees;
egging the children on as they grow. This has become one of my favorite things to watch since the arrival of the first grandchild to grace us.
Pam will light up around children, just like a Christmas tree, and I must admit I share her warmth for them. (The unfettered showering of affection, their candidness, little socks….)
Besides the babies there are four of us, all siblings, but not necessarily by birth. Now each of us have families of our own, ranging in size & development.
Needless to say our family holidays have also been growing.
Day 29: While south of the border and away from my station in the bay window, I focused on the simplest changes to my photography. (Like shooting horizontally. A change that has made the most difference in my work.)
But it was during this vacation that I started to think about this entry and all the time that continued to pass. Right then I said breathlessly and more loudly then intended, “…What the heck am I going to write about?”
My father was working on the Sunday crossword and made a very familiar face as he looked up; his eye lids pushed together in a purposeful squint. “Hm?”
I rambled as his head sat perfectly level over the page, about my impending mission statement and all the progress that I felt I was making but with no real clue of how to illustrate it. Just then his squint softened into recognition.
I waited for him to speak, but he had just figured out another piece of his crossword.
Now folks, for the past year (as long as this blog has existed) my dad has not only taken part by reading each entry, but he usually lets me know that he has by sending an email, a few hours or even days later, with grammatical corrections and a few suggestions. That is his love letter. The deep desire to see his children succeed and act with ambition.
This time though, it only took about twenty minutes before he looked up and cleverly motioned out to the horizon line directly in front of us. “How far do you suppose the horizon is from sea level?”
Assuming this was something to do with the crossword, I guessed. Thirty something? Maybe more? He didn’t know either, so we all sat there, Pam, my sister Michele & me, taking guesses. Looking out at what was now the sunset.
It turns out we were all wrong. The formula for calculating the distance to the horizon is essentially the same old pythagorean theorem that we all learned in school. So the height of the individual person, their geographical location, and the arc in the earth are all considerations in the formula.
For me, the distance is roughly 3 miles. Only 3 measly miles!?
Once the sun had disappeared I finally stood up & brushed my legs clean, swatting away the mosquitos. “It just seems so much further.”
Just then my dad’s face softened.
“It’s a little like life, isn’t it? It would be nice if we could always see that far into the distance, but what we can control is how high we stand.”
His smile was almost wicked when he added,
“You know what else sweetheart? It’s never as far as it seems.”
“You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards” J. Thurber
I love that the beginning of something always feels more like a question. It bends around and then down, and then wouldn’t you know it, there at the bottom you have to make a giant leap! Get it?
Well, It feels that way because that is exactly what it is. In essence you are asking yourself whether you accept the challenge of starting, which inevitably means moving forward. It is not a question of can you? But, will you? Certainly you can choose to dig your heels in and stay put, or….You can leap. Therein creating something new, something out of nothing, which is different from, say…telling about it later. (Although good writers have, for years, taken the act of retelling and made something out of nothing. Heh.)
For me the two acts ended up running smack into each other. My desire to share is strong. Stronger sometimes than my delicacy
With school 400 days passed me, I have to say I have been delighted; so much freedom to choose where my camera falls!
While within the institution, my work changed drastically, either due to serious focus or an obsessive need to explain why.
“…And why, Ms. Beisenherz, did you chose to photograph a wine glass full of old spoons?”
You have no idea the looks you will get when you respond with…” um, well…,” palms sweating as I realized how I was about to sound…
“because I thought it was beautiful…” And I really did.
But I could never explain it beyond that. I started to think of it as ethereal, but I think my teachers saw it more as impetuous. What I should have said was, “I love the way it makes me feel.” But it took me awhile to get there.
As my work took shape (just like life) I wound up shooting subject matter that I had spent most days fighting against. I couldn’t really see myself spending summer months shooting the wedding circuit, or imagine that I would talk in soft and slow whispers to new parents in the hospitals of two major cities. Admittedly though, when I did, I would leave the hospital always smiling with this warm light of accomplishment beaming from inside. The truth is, children are so fun to photograph. They are small and new, yes. The socks are adorable, but no matter what strange and unique quality that I saw that day, those new parents could see 10. And I watched love multiply.
I really enjoyed being apart of that. I loved the fact that my time was spent doing exactly what I wanted to do, take pictures. Better yet, it would end up being just as special to whoever loved that child. It would continue to multiply. I might not be saving the world, but I am capturing it and, almost literally, holding on to it forever. On those particular mornings that I was tired or cranky, (or sometimes too broke to even get to the hospital to shoot that day) those bad feelings would eventually wash out leaving this realization behind.
Despite everything, life is beautiful.
I am learning that there are rules to shooting delicate moments. Recipes that can be handled any number of ways, some with supplemental ingredients; but there are those few that cannot change. Passion, of course, is one of them. But another is that unnamable feeling that I used to create my images of antique spoons, or crab shells in the sand, or cut up fruit from a Saturday morning breakfast. Over the past year I realized that I wanted to grow up with these people, to shoot with them each year, and grow along side them. Not just the babies, but the families that I have watched begin in matrimony.
The trouble is that when you make the choice to do anything that you really love, you have to work much harder to keep it alive. That is something that people (mostly optimists) always over-look in the hour that they make that crucial decision to leap. To become an artist, or a soldier, or even a mother…It is hard work to keep your inspiration alive. (And the pay can be lousy.) More importantly however, the self-discipline is excruciating. How do you take something you love and make money at it, without turning it into a job?
With this question I sat. I sat for days….But you can’t just look at the big picture all of the time. If you do you can lose focus and things get fuzzy. I needed a few small details to guide me, like the color of the fish underneath a big ocean, or the reflection in the water.
Part of the problem was that I felt stinted, like I was falling behind this ever-growing profession. I had left Denver and no longer had my teachers and peers there pushing me. (I have to give a very sincere shout out to Michelle, Lindsey, Megan, Jake, and Todd right here.) For those of you still in school, take it from me, find your ’round table’. By that I mean, there are always at least three people, colleagues, that will help you keep your eyes open and looking forward. Those special few have the quality to challenge you with positivity and genuine interest and intelligent criticism. They will help you feel it when you have a really good growth spurt, and they know all the vocabulary.
And then my life lessons intersected. During the month of September, we took time and traveled around visiting family & friends that Drew had gone nearly a year without seeing because of the deployment. It was amazing.
My dad had a birthday, I played golf and went surfing for the first time ever, albeit very clumsily. But the best part was the amount of love in any one room. It was literally audible. So much laughter…
I started thinking while on that trip that our gypsy lifestyle was making the same point as my passion to grow as a photographer. I loved the adventure, and I was getting so much out of it. But each new place meant leaving something else, not necessarily ‘moving on’, but still letting go in a way. It was making me stronger, but also it was making me work a lot harder at my relationships; to try and stay connected even when I was busy with other things and other realizations. Growth feels funny sometimes. It can be uncomfortable, but then suddenly, you can reach a little higher.
“So…” I thought, “that is what I have to do. Reach higher.”
How simple.
When we returned home it was work and routine; A complete alternative to the past few weeks. I gave myself a few guidelines and wrote them down. Hoping that the visibility of my scrawled out mission would be a motivator. Even if it was just a post-it note.
I would get up when Drew did everyday (usually before sunrise) and force myself to sit down at the computer. Working from a home office is not an easy task, especially for someone like me. What an amazing use of my self-discipline it has been. Even if I do chose to spend the sleepy hours of the early morning puttering, I can have the dishes done and the laundry spinning in the dryer before nine thirty rolls around. On those days, with my third cup of coffee, I am forced to sit down in the small bay window of our living room and edit or write, or explore new software & equipment. My best days contain all three, but I admit the writing everyday has been my biggest challenge.
I have seen during this time though that when we open up the doors of ourselves for experience to come in, it rushes.
If I count up all of the times that I have moved in my life, it comes out roughly, (give or take the small six-month periods of homelessness here and there) to 19. That is to say that I have lived in 19 different houses, but only six area codes. I have used trucks to carry all the things that I own across thousands of miles between Texas and Colorado, Colorado and Brooklyn, and now once more to Olympia, Washington. The sunshine is cooler in Washington when you are sitting directly in it. My lips do not beg for moisture as often as they did in the Mile High City, (Unless of course it is the moisture from the lips of the man I love best) and I have noticed that people in the North West like the variations of blue and green mixed into the paint of their houses, not just the bottoms of their boats or backyards. I have also noticed that in each place there is a separate culture, and even with all of our similarities, we are also so very different.
It has been a real pleasure to see it, and know how much more I have ahead of me. I have noticed that each time that I move, I do so in the same way, but my process has evolved. I unpack very quickly. I establish a relationship with the things that already exist there, and then show my appreciation for the things that I can make my own. I almost always paint a room or two; three of my houses have had at least one red room.
(Two have had a yellow one, but we will get back to that.)
I am fond of seeing a chair in the sunny corner of my bedroom, and although prone to throwing my dirty laundry on the floor, I try to avoid it as it seems to imitate more of a mess than it actually is. That, and a turned down bed can lure you into a nap, even if you are not the least bit tired.
Those are the visual comfort foods of moving to me. Necessary. With high impact and very little effort. When I first arrived back in Washington I had about two weeks to get unpacked and prepare for Drew’s homecoming. The house could have been covered in unpacked boxes, barely cleaned, and he would have appreciated those small efforts, made by me to welcome him back. Hot showers and fresh fruit were his only real requests. “I haven’t seen an ice cube in six months.” He would tell me during a phone conversation wherein I asked him to make a list of grocery store items that he wanted. This would be my second time back to Washington, but my first real summer here. It was also my first real chance to settle into life with someone that I love so completely.
Needless to say, my joy started building on the first mile due North West and the arrow of my internal compass began to spin wildly, not just the literal one on the necklace that I always wear around my neck.
Sometimes a song can set me off like a gun firing. Other times there is a visual element. The color yellow, for example, is a joyful one of those elements. In printed images, yellow is a dominant color in our skin. It is the color of time when papers have been stained by it, and it is the cast that my living room turns to around three o’clock everyday. It sets me at ease, this color, and the way it feels warm, even when it isn’t. I love to watch it change while the day gets older, and as I check back in with the people and jobs that I have put aside it seems to keep me from getting overwhelmed; takes my hand and focuses it with colored light.
With that, I have to confess that I have not sat down to my computer in ten days. I have looked at emails in the few minutes of the morning, and have answered the really important ones. I have taken only a few calls, but still, a few. And then this morning, after plenty of little chores that could have waited, I finally created a space for myself at our breakfast table. With a cup of coffee, a pitcher of water, an empty glass, some pasta salad and my vitamins (that I have also been neglecting) I found the most wonderful thing just sitting idle among the unimportant junk of my digital mailbox.
My sweet friend Michelle had sent me a video, made by and for Vanessa Bruno entitled ‘Le bel ‘te’.
The video features Lou Dillon, a French model frequently associated with Vanessa Bruno, and beautiful piano music by Gonzalez. (Not to be confused with the also impressive Jose Gonzalez; this Gonzalez is a Canadian musician who currently lives in Paris.)
I admit that I do not make a habit of sharing much media except for my own. It is not an act of rebellion against anyone, or frustration with what is being put out there, although I suppose sometimes it is. I have watched it now about a dozen times, and in the curve of Lou Dillon’s shoulder and the extreme change in tempo, the dip of piano keys against some kind of chaos in the hidden glee of washed out video, I might have found the words that I was almost certain would be lost to me somewhere in all the time and space that it took me to get set up.
It is an overwhelming feeling trying to capture happiness in something as simple as words and pictures. But to capture it in the promotion of a shoe or a silk knit top? It was in the moment of first seeing this that I felt somewhat understood, and less ashamed of all these days that I could only tuck the way I am feeling into the lining of my own garments, and hide from the outside world with such resolve. (I would put my giddiness in the giddy up of my nightshirt and ride off into the sunset of my sleeping dreams. The reality of my waking life and the wide-open pasture of those dreams had begun to blur together.) I found myself in a love coma, my only release, a few engagement shoots that I could use as a catalyst to discuss my school girl frame of mind.
It was then that I discovered the translation of ‘Le bel ‘te’ ……………
There is a space between, open like a green belt, in the midst of all our choices I figure. It is a space to first be quiet, and then make a move forward or back or to the side. In this space, we are free to remain still however, with reality on one side and romance on the other. Both are possible in this open space, and no decisions need yet be made.
But then, of course, life happens and we are thrown gleefully forward…..
he reason for all this forward motion has to be so that we can grow. So that we can fall in love and evolve and be surprised; most of the time, surprised by ourselves, with all that we are capable of.
When I was younger, during the time of adolescence, I would ride my bike all over the neighborhood until dusk would suddenly break, leaving me to rush home, racing the sunset. My pedals would spin so fast that my feet couldn’t keep up, and the strength of this supposed ‘inanimate object’ would fight against me. I admit, I enjoyed that feeling. The somewhat reckless speed made it fun, and after all it was forward motion.
With all of the different ways to approach a situation, I usually chose the optimist’s. I try to activate the more logical parts of me too, but my emotions are certainly driving the bus. So over the years my friends and I have adopted the awesome ability to ‘seesaw’. Long after we have left the playground we still support each other with balance by trying to find a way to stay up when the other is down, or keep the other from floating away when their mind has ascended; daydreamy in the wide open space of possibility. Not too terribly far away from romance & reality.
(Now that I really think about it, our term is much more appropriate than I had realized. If we could only see what we now saw?… or something like that.)
…that’s the underlying sort of poetry.
A few years ago, I found an image by Imogen Cummingham, of an unmade bed full of hair pins. It was seductive but undefinably innocent. In a way this image seemed childish to me, but I could never explain why?
What I did know was that it captured apart of my heart. Then & now, I wanted this to be the snapshot of my life.
The way the scene seemed to change each day from adventure to lazy Sunday. It captured such a simple essence of what made everyday life beautiful. It was not childish at all.
It wasn’t until the other morning, when I woke up nose to nose with my black labrador, Carl, that I realized that I am getting down to the grain of that shot. (although slightly altered in composition.) Lifes momentum is seductive & innocent indeed, but it is not fixed. The balance is created by all that growth and of course, forward movement.
So we continue watching the woman we call our sisters move into being mothers…and our children change from babies to boys. And we try to capture it, with our cameras or our pens or with the everyday things…. and we hold on to it in that sweet slow space between romance & reality.
