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ac

  • Children
  • Family
  • Super 8
  • Podcast
  • Connect
    • About Me
    • Instagram
    • Say Hello
  • Journal
  • Mini Sessions

Love in Paper Prints

June 05, 2017 in Heirloom Prints, Family Photographs, Family Photo Box, Memory Keeping, The Family Story, The Human Story, Weddings

Heirloom paper prints, date-stamped of Madalyn and Daniel's special day. It's my hope that their prints somehow contain the depth of that day, and when they open their wooden photo box they are transported back like a locket, like hand-written note, like the smell of your lover left on clothes. Home. Happily ever after, you two. 

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Welcome

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I'm Anastasia. This is a space where my passions intersect: the physical photograph, the family story, the creative process and my love of all things film. I write about navigating motherhood and creative life, share photographs from my dad's photo box and show you what a shoot with me feels like. Check out my series Experiments In Film to see my 35mm process roll by roll. See Syllabus for creative assignments I give myself to be and stay a producing artist. Welcome!

AC


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These two. Ever-dodging lava, debating who is older, declaring no-boy zones, sticking out their strong and graceful necks to practice ballet moves on the trampoline. See how this photograph was made in the first of a new series called Syllabus. Where I give myself creative assignments to the end of being and staying a producing artist. Full post on the blog and in highlights. #lomographapp
The heartful ones #lomographapp
In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes
#polaroid
The idea of focus is familiar to me — subject crisp, background a blur. As a metaphor for life, tension and stress and pain are felt (they are in the picture) but as a compositional element in relation to the subject. This background is ministerial; providing contrast for the focal point. Amazingly, I find myself with the creative ability to choose; to see suffering (my old friend) in relation to goodness, not as a stand-alone end. Is this the power of positive thinking? (I’m new here) I ask myself lately — have you zoomed out and refocused? Have you seen the pools of light on these grounds we tread? #film
Held #film
I am comforted by the idea that a creative life only requires doing to qualify. I see, I intend to act and then (eventually) I do. I observe the form I’ve made and have a reaction. This feedback loop supplies a quiet dignity amidst practical life; not requiring validation in any form (cough likes cough). I am devoted to the practice, so I create. In this doing I live a creative life. Using this measure (devotion) has been transformative for my work. Stayed simply: just make, every single day. #film
To the man who hasn’t bought new shorts in eight years which “ruin” my pictures. The one who makes me food in just the way my dad did — putting garnish on as he sets down the plate, the message I have gotten and loved my whole life: this food means I love you. Who drives me screaming-in-my-parked-car nuts, but will discuss my art for hours at a time with patience and investment. I like taking photos of him like this. Fathering his girls; he teaches them about the water cycle and how bagels are made. He gives them the physical play they crave that I cannot be cajoled into providing, though they ask. He finishes up dinner so I can “get ready” for our date tonight when we both know I am here. Writing. Resting. “You take a moment,” he says. I hear him singing now. Teaching Vivian a psalm. God has given us a good, hard, beautiful life. Of knowing him. Of waiting. Of pain. Of heart-splitting beauty. Of beautiful births. Of getting back up again and again. Of losing our house. Of traveling more than we can afford. Of background baggage. Of quiet days on a dry creek bed with no sound but little girls. #film
Sunday thoughts written on Monday as I ruin Tuesday by staying up late. I’d like to write a 1,000 word essay about this, but I’d also like to sum it up in 100: I’ve been thinking of life story as an orchard since I last visited my friend’s. A plot of land in a certain climate, with knowable growing zones. A type of soil and a general design. Then the manifold things that occur within a grove. The kinds with their needs — some strong and rooted, others sapling. Weeds and pests and blight and locusts. Frost, drought, rains. One needing full sun that would scorch its neighbor. This metaphor helps me make decisions. Like pausing on a baby right now because my orchard has saplings that need my strength and attention. And you know what else? This lot is full. I can’t always keep up with the weeds. Life: my trials, my past, my gifts, my tasks, my dreams — oh my dreams. My well-worn ruts. And some rare varieties too. The artist-tree, for example, high-maintenance life-sucker that it is. But nice flowers. The abuse-tree that’s been chopped to a stump but whose roots still share the soil as I root it out year by year. Becoming the master gardener of this space... this as a central role, before mother and wife and woman; creator-cultivator. Giving myself to it’s good care is Genesis 1 work — a garden not unto itself but to nourish others with the food grown and lessons learned here. To contribute. #film
I photograph 
To make amends
With the farewell of today 
Growth and 
Change and 
Time that turns 
My babies into women — 
So I daily make this pact with you
Through ritual I get to keep this now
Hidden away in form
#film