A thing that you see in my pictures is that
I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.
~ Annie Liebovitz
It was the first day of my first professional studio portraiture class when our professor asked the student two questions:
What kind of photography do you want to shoot?
Are you competitive?
I didn’t respond to either question; I listened and watched instead. That was my pattern throughout my photographic studies. I watch, listen, observe, formulate what works and what makes sense for me. Yet, when a young and naïve female classmate declared she shoots weddings and seniors, our "elder" professor eagerly offered an enthusiastic follow-up question, "Oh, you shoot seniors?" "No, not those seniors, I shoot high school seniors," she declared. The instant I heard the dismissive and sarcastic tone of her reply, I silently said to my self, "Challenge accepted."
That encounter gave birth to the series Substantive Beauty, a collection of portraits centered on women over the age of 40. While amassing and scheduling the 25 participants for the photo sessions, a well-respected senior administrator on campus pursued me directly to volunteer as one of the featured women in the series. She had heard about my project, its subject and wanted to be part of it. When she stated her availability the scheduled Friday of the shoot would only be a 10-minute window of time, I replied to her in our email communication, “Challenge accepted.”
What transpired during the six weeks of studio shoots exceeded anything I could have imagined and was an experience that changed all of us involved - for the better. I photographed immigrants, single parents, recovering addicts, ex-cons, trauma and abuse survivors, among others; I helped cosmetology students build their own portfolios of hair and make-up work while also giving them experience of working in a studio setting. I was awarded a grant in the process directly aligned to the body of work I was creating. I had a photographer express interest in mentoring me. Each woman had an opportunity to honor their own individual Substantive Beauty by providing their personalized description to accompany each image. In the end, what came together is a portrait portfolio that is elegant, cohesive, double the initial intended size, and an expressive collection of images I am especially proud of.
This project also crystalized a response to that first question posed by my professor, "What kind of photography do you want to shoot?" I shoot the kind of photography that gives a visual voice to the perceived voiceless. Photography that helps honor, celebrate, and elevate the human spirit, builds community and connection, raises awareness of social, cultural, and environmental and makes a difference in people’s lives. This is exactly what I experienced while compiling the Substantive Beauty collection.
I also concluded I had an answer for the second question. Am I competitive? Hell yes - in an unconventional way. I prefer that.
