Butterflies
This butterfly was extremely hard to capture on camera. It kept fluttering away. But I got these great shots plus one more on my flickr site.
I miss you....
But at least I continue to surprise myself with the amount of pictures I have, not only of my grandmother, but of my grandmother with my brothers and I. I have spent months dispairing that I had not taken enough pictures of her before she left us, but as I’ve gone through my old photos looking for pictures that should be on flickr, I have found so many of them. They bring me so much happiness and sadness at once that they cancel each other out and all I can do is stare at them and thank God that I took them.
Digging up some more old pictures...this time not even a year old....
Dan and Dave, my brothers:
Natural Beauty
Ever since I can remember, I always thought my mom looked more beautiful on a day to day basis than when she dressed up for a special event. Perhaps it was the strangeness of the hairdo she would pick or something else. I just feel a stronger connection to the “real” person rather than a made-up idealization.
This view of the world has always extended to my photography. Sure, I took posed pictures, but by-and-large my favorite shots were those candid shots of my friends and family members. Yes, they always complained that they didn’t look their best, but what they didn’t know is that to me, they looked infinitely better than when they stood their with their fake smiles. In fact, you could always hear people afterwards saying, “so and so is obviously faking their smile.” Of course! There’s nothing to naturally smile about when there’s a camera pointed at you. The best smiles are the ones caused by the things we smile about: our children, friends, and family. This has inpsired my latest portrait trend, consisting mostly of candid portraits. I love this work more than almost any other work I’ve done recently with my photography. The only work I love more is the work where I push myself to my creative limits - whether that involves a creative composition or being creative in Photoshop (or, less frequently, in The GIMP).
Rediscovery
When I first started posting pictures to flickr, I thought I had to post photographic art or pictures taken with the purpose of display such as:
and
But recently, as I’ve seen the work of other famous and important photographers, I’ve come to realize that some of the other shots I’ve been taking can also be great photographs. So I’ve been trawling through my archives to look for photos I could share with my fans and friends on flickr. Some of these pictures are even 5 years old already! In fact, searching for these new gems has taken me down memory lane and allowed me to relive some of my favorite memories. These are the reasons why we photograph. It’s not just a process for creating art, but it’s also a process for documenting the world around us and our own lives. Especially precious to me has been the rediscovery of some of my photos of my grandmother Aida who has almost been gone two years. That’s why you’ve seen a lot of my older work on here recently as well as on flickr. Here are some more of my newly rediscovered favorites.
