I want desperately to be an artist. But I just don't have it in me. I'm a technical person through and through. Photography seems to be the one artistic medium where a technical person can at least pretend to be artistic. So I found my way to this hobby.

What do I shoot? I grew up around the water so I love photos of boats and coastal life. As an adult, I've developed a love of history, so I like to shoot things that have stood the test of time. I also love to travel (mostly to foreign lands though I don't do it as often as I'd like) so I shoot like crazy when I'm on vacation. My friends don't always like my resulting vacation photos because they rarely feature people, except for guerilla style photos I've captured of locals. The only photos I like to shoot of people are completely candid - "no, I don't have a camera in my hands" type shots. That is very difficult to do with adults so I end up shooting kids quite a bit.

Film versus digital. I finally caved and bought a prosumer DSLR in Jan 2007 (in preparation for a three week trip to Asia). Up to that point, I had been a staunch advocate of film. I seriously love Ilford Delta film for black and white, Fuji Provia for slides (non-people) and Kodak Portra for people. Before I went digital, people seemed to connect more with my black and white work. Now I can't seem to get the right contrast and tone to my digital black and whites. I guess it's a learning process. My color digital shots are all very saturated. I do this on purpose. This is the only way I can capture the richness I used to get with slide film. Ultimately, I do enjoy the immediacy of digital and am searching for a way to get quality digital copies of my film work.

I am excited about the prospects of HDR although I don't shoot for it much - only really special shots. I started editing my images with Paint.net. (OK, actually, I started editing images with Microsoft Image Composer a million years ago, but who still has access to that program?) I have finally moved on to Photoshop. I can do pretty much everything I need to do, but I'm by no means an expert. Give me time, I will be a PS nerd. But I will NEVER go Apple. (At least not while Macs are still so much more expensive than PCs.)

I love Flickr because I am exposed to so much great work. Within my circle of friends, I am told that I am "so talented." But when I look at what is posted on this site, I realize how much I still have to learn and how far I need to take my images to be truly talented. I want to thank the whole Flickr community for inspiring me and making me a better photographer (who hopes one day to be an artist).

My Projects:

1. Project 365. DEAD. There simply isn't enough interesting things in my life to shoot a photo every day. I'm pretty much an indoor kinda girl and that is not conducive to daily photography.

2. Counting Time. This project is already dead. I was trying to shoot a different number each day. I thought this would help me to be more observant. This became less about being observant and more about just shooting the number. When the quality of the photos really began to suffer, I bailed on the project. I only made it to number 23.

3. Toys / Action figures. Suspended. I was shooting Barbie (and other dolls) in situations to make her look like a real person. Instead of just shooting portraits, I'm trying to convey some concept in the shot. I create most of the scenes to be humorous, either because what the dolls are doing is funny (i.e. "Love Bears All Things") or because it's funny to see Barbie in these real human situations (i.e. "Hang Over Barbie"). This project is designed to help me CREATE a scene. I tend to only shoot what I see and not manipulate the setting at all. This is part of why I prefer shooting candids to formal portraits. I hope that by taking control of these Barbie photo shoots, I will learn to translate an idea into an image. Hopefully, that will spill over into my work with real humans. I love this concept, but I have to find a permanent "studio" for it, 'cause my living room just ain't it.

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