Introducing myself

Em [no longer around] said Jun 12, 2006, 9:21 AM:

Hi, I'm Em. Just Em. The Essential Em. I try to approach life with just my essence, get it down to the bareness of me, and that goes for my way of taking photographs. I started taking photographs when I was 11. I told my dad I wanted to start and he said,”I have a whole darkroom up in the attic!” and he brought it down and set it up and thus began my apprenticeship. From my first frame, I had a strong preference for portraiture. Very close-up. Cropped. Soul capturing. Black and White. My Dad did landscapes and sports. For ten years we shot rolls and rolls of photos, developed them, printed them and critiqued each other.

I went off to college, left the country, got married, did an MA in history, Dad and I got into computers and writing and a thing called the Internet. Then he died of cancer in 1994. I fell into depression and started quiltmaking in the creative void. I took photos of my baby, rolls and rolls, but of nothing else.

Fast forward to 2005. I bought a digital camera. I started a blog. I started posting my photos on my blog. I began to wake up, creatively. I began to enjoy taking photos again. My daughter, now 13, rides horses competitvely (dressage). I've been photographing the horses and riders, and have become the official photographer of the riding club…

And now I am back. And I want to improve myself. I want to bein to apply my inner eye, to start seeing these horses the way I see humans. I can look at a human through the lense and catch the moment the soul is at its best, really catch a lovely, unique moment– I can catch the horse at its athletic moment, but not as an individual, not at rest. I must slow down, I must learn to look, to wait, to become the horse…

This is what I want to do. This is what I would like you to help me learn.

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Introducing myself

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