First Call: Autumn Leaves — Cheryl I chose Depth as this week’s Call, because I’m desperately trying to find some in my work. When you know you can spend a mere five minutes underwater, though, you don’t put on the diving suit, strap on the air tank and head down 30 meters. I know it’s […]

Second Response: Window Washers — Cheryl When Bridget and I got home from her ballet class, neither Stella nor Jack ran to meet me. I asked after their whereabouts, and Henry told me, “They’re washing windows.” I wasn’t sure if I should laugh, cry or applaud. After a quick peek in the living room, I […]

The Second Call: Alpha Dog — Jessica Sitting on her maple tree root throne, India is the queen of all she surveys. Her bark certainly lets her subjects know that she is in charge. The squirrels, chipmunks, deer and sparrows are subject to her rule. Or at least, she likes to think. Enclosed in her […]

First Response: Analytical Dennis — Cheryl If I was writing a novel and wanted to make my husband, Dennis, a character in the book, he’d likely be the main one. I might name him Atticus O’Neill, with a tip of the hat to Harper Lee and Leon Uris, for he’d have as much integrity as […]

First Call: Nicholas, Reading — Jessica …the camera machine cannot evade the objects which are in front of it. No more can the photographer. He can choose these objects, arrange and exclude, before exposure, but not afterwards… Your photography is a record of your living, for any one who really sees. … The photographer’s problem, […]

Take Three is a very appropriate title for this post — it has taken me three attempts to a: take a series of photos, b: figure out what my subject really is, and c: find the time to sit and write it down. For me, one of the main attractions of switching to a weekly […]

Second Call: A Single Rose — Cheryl Yesterday, Bridget came home with this lovely red rose. Today, I decided to use it for a relatively straightforward series on backgrounds. I tend to favor clear, bright colors (the blue background is the wall of my studio), and I like the contrast between the red of the […]

First Call: BMW Isetta 300 — Cheryl I thought it would be kind of neat to take a look at one subject in three different ways. A photographer has a seemingly endless list of choices to make when capturing an image: ISO, shutter speed, F-stop, exposure compensation, point of view, where to focus, where to […]

Second Response: The Joy of Digital Photography — Cheryl When Jessica passed along the advice about including more than one person in a shot to introduce the concept of relationship, I balked. My mind immediately conjured images of crowd scenes: images that have traditionally left me scratching my head when trying to figure out the […]

The Second Call: Pinochio — Jessica Confession time: for as long as I have been interested in making photographs that tell stories, I have actually never (until this week) googled the term to see what others had already written about the topic. In some ways I think I always thought, “next time I’ll find a […]

First Response: First Dance Class — Cheryl In Jessica’s first Call for Story, she posed the question, “What is the secret to unlock the story of our lives?” It’s an intriguing question, but one that’s impossible to answer. Here’s why: A life is not one story; it is a series of stories. Even an 800-page […]

The First Call: Let’s Play a Game! — Jessica My six year old has reached the stage where he loves to play board games, until, that is, he is about to lose. We were fortunate to have a lazy morning yesterday and plenty of time for a couple of rounds of Dogopoly. So that’s the […]

The Third Response: Picture Within a Picture — Jessica The popular phrase “trust the process” has always grated on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. And now, thanks to Cheryl’s observation in her last post, I know why! I also know why I just can’t get into the whole art journal thing — even […]

Fifth Call: Bird of Many Colors Yesterday, I wrote about Jessica being my own personal contemplation trigger. Today, I’d like to explore at least one of the thoughts she put into my head. First and foremost: I’ve discovered that Jessica and I (seem to, at least) approach art/photography in completely different manners. Jessica, please correct […]