Taking the Leap! *takes a deep breath*
When I was in my early twenties, my stepmom gave me one of her beloved cameras. This was back in the days of film and waiting until Eckerd Drugs (our local drugstore/five-and-dime/oh my goodness I am really dating myself here!) finished processing your photos. Only then could you see what you actually captured on film! I spent hours learning, practicing, making mistakes and… wasting lots of film. One of my first “AH-HA” moments came after developing some photos I took of my cousin posing as Ophelia. There is a photo in that series where I really felt like I captured… Something. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it worked. It stirred something in me, and others that I shared it with.
I have always loved being the “family photographer.” I have made countless Shutterfly books showcasing my beautiful family and friends. Whenever I would present one as a gift, my highest compliment would be: you should sell your work!
Fast-forward to this year and my first iPhone. While my Canon is my first love, I began to find ways to finally photograph things as I SEE them in my head…as I envision them REALLY looking. There is a tintype setting in one of my apps that totally blew my mind the first time I used it. It was like watching dreams unfold in front of me. I made compositions, started revisiting favorite haunts, all to capture them again, but through a different lens. As I started getting prints of those first few images, friends and family again said: you should sell your work! I finally listened and tentatively put my favorite images up for others to peruse.
I have been a happy Etsy customer for years. Buying directly from the artists, becoming a repeat customer in many cases, online friendships developing from those transactions....it's been awesome!
Sharing my work on Etsy is incredibly liberating. I love hearing from happy customers who use the adjectives that I strive to present in my work to describe what I do: haunting, ethereal, bottomless.
