A Love Letter

This is a love letter of sorts.  As is the case with nearly all of my blogs, this one begins as one thing; a celebration marking two years in business and ends up as another thing altogether;  an acknowledgement of gratitude to the many who have helped me make it through these years of modest but steadily increasing success.

It’s important to celebrate milestones, not only because I love a good party, but also because a celebration helps me recognize what I’ve learned and experienced along the way.  Marking a specific stage of progress acknowledges, in a heightened way, the work I’ve put in and the personal or professioal growth I have or have not achieved.  

This month I celebrate my second year selling photography on Etsy.  It’s been a major adventure that has stretched my brain in ways I could never have imagined.  I finally fully mastered the computer - a beast I never thought to tame and made the leap from PC to Mac, which may have helped in the taming.  Moving from film to digital -- something I swore would never be -- happened almost without my noticing.  I’ve met and made amazing new friends -- many of whom I may never actually greet face to face, but who know a part of me better than some of my oldest, dearest friends.  Each of these new friends is on a similar journey and each has shown a generosity that astounds me.  They have helped me solve problems and maneuver hurdles.  They’ve listened to me whine in my worst moments while pushing me to set goals and grow.  They have each shared personal knowledge and expertise and best of all, they seem to want me to succeed almost as much as they want to succeed themselves. These new friends have been a very great gift.

My lifelong family and friends have shown their support as well, of course.  Offering advice and listening as I verbally think through various challenges, always offering emotional encouragement and support, waiting patiently by my side while I take ‘just one more’ photo.  Some of my friends have become my best customers, coming back time after time to purchase my work.  I don’t imagine they understand how much those purchases have meant to me as I strive to grow a small business and master the mysteries of search engine optimization -- also known as “getting found” in the massive shopping mall that is the internet.  During dark moments when I doubted success -- and those moments came more often than I’d like to admit -- one of them would magically appear to make a purchase for themselves, or for a family member or friend.  Each one of those sales provided enough encouragement to lift my spirits through what were sometimes months of scarcity as I continue my forward progress.

Do you wonder why I’ve chosen sailboats to brighten my love letter?  They were a wet, wild, exhilarating adventure to photograph and they represent a sample of my work, but they also visually represent my journey as I personally and professionally sail forward into bigger seas -- finding grander waves of adventure and discovery and occasional deep and scary troughs of rough water.  The lesson I’m learning over and over is this;  if I wait calmly and quietly for a little while - and try not to battle the current - the weather will clear and the sailing will be smooth once again.  Giant leaps forward may be what I crave, but thousands of teeny tiny baby steps are my natural pace; the one that takes me where I’m headed if I can remember to be patient.

Michelangelo said something like this about sculpture: “Every block of stone has a statue inside and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”  That’s how I feel about the images I choose to offer for sale.  If I can photograph the beauty I see around me in such a way that allows another to see it as well, then a lovely connection unites us;  we are joined in a way both impersonal and personal.  It’s like sharing a wonderful secret -- how better to delight in something treasured than to share that treasure with a friend?

So cheers and thanks to you my loved ones, my friends old and new and my customers past, present and future for your support and recognition of this glorious adventure into beauty that I call my business.  Wondering where my sails will take me in the next two years...I hope you’ll be with me.  

With gratitude & love,

E. England

What Do You Call Yourself

I’ve had many careers in my life.  At the time, each one felt random as I seemingly stumbled into one job after another.  Looking back, I see how each of those careers formed a stepping-stone pathway to who I am and what I do today.  

For so many childhood and teen years, as most of us do, I called myself a Student.   The monkey bars, finger paints and any projects involving glue, glitter or modeling clay were definitely my thing.  I was a tomboy, so climbing the highest trees, being the neighborhood quarterback, and making up a rough and tumble nighttime game we called, oddly, German Camp which involved a “guard” with a flashlight.  Hmmm.  Anyone else spend far too much time watching Hogan’s Heroes growing up?  I remember being fearless, ready for any adventure and I read books like I was afraid they might be taken away.  My very best days were spent sitting in the tippy-top of a cottonwood tree high above the rooftops with a book, looking far away into the distance...wondering what adventures were out there.  

As I got older, I discovered sewing...my grandmother and my mother sewed beautiful, well-made clothing.  I have photos of my mother, myself and my doll wearing matching dresses and two stunning quilts my grandmother hand stitched to remind me of their talent.  How like magic it was to snip snip some fabric and stitch it all together to create something unique and beautiful?  Empowering as well, to create such practical loveliness from so little using my two hands. I excelled at installing zippers and the neighborhood ladies brought their sewing projects requiring a zipper to me.  No one thought to mention that I might actually study such things as I grew older.  Those projects were fun, so I did them on the side.

Financially, college was wasted on me.  I didn’t know what I wanted and flitted from field to field studying a bit of everything - mastering, or discovering a lasting passion for...nothing.  After leaving school, I longed for adventure.  An extended trip to Europe between my freshman and sophomore years had ignited a need to explore the big, wide world.  I wanted to experience different cultures, ancient architecture, spicy, new food  and so I began to call myself an Explorer. 

When two friends moved to the exotic and very far-away West Coast, I thought that sounded fine.  California might well have been a foreign country for all I knew of it, so I slept on their sofa for a few months while I found a job and a place to live.  You don’t need great skills to show up, look presentable, answer a phone, make coffee and work the crossword puzzle all day - so I mastered my first office job and earned enough to pay the rent, drink margaritas and play at the beach.  Gathering a little polish, I moved on to bigger companies to answer their phones and make their coffee until someone discovered I could type like a fiend and so I could now call myself Secretary and then an Executive Secretary and then Executive Assistant right on up to Assistant FF&E Coordinator for a large hotel construction project.   

Volunteering to work a fundraiser for a big-shot East Coast politician landed me in the weird world of politics - for which I was (and am) entirely unsuited.  But it was an adventure and I was thrilled to explore a brand new Coast.  During this time I called myself a Fundraiser and Event Planner and I became quite comfortable asking perfect strangers to write checks for absurd amounts of money without blinking.  The first time I asked someone to write a $10,000 check and they did -- on the spot -- I almost choked.  

It wasn’t until a number of years later, when “my Party” ended and I was rudely booted out of a job, that I took some years to stop and wonder about what I might choose to call myself next.  Nothing in particular leapt to mind, so when my husband and I moved and I had the leisure to pay attention to the world around me -- very much like a child again -- I searched out a new home and nurtured my inner Interior Designer.  I became reacquainted with my old love of textiles, color, things that sparkle in the light and creativity.  After tossing a well-made camera into the mix, it became  something of a challenge, to end up as anything but a photographer. 

In this present moment of time, that’s what I call myself, a Photographer.  It’s a good fit.  I am filled with delight when I become aware of unusual, or unnoticed, visual treasures that surround us as we journey through life.  Mostly, they are ordinary things, there for all to see, but I capture them to show you their simple, perfect beauty --  each one a visual gift.  I’ve called myself so many things.  As I look back at the personal path I created with it’s jogs and turns and mis-steps, I am surprised to see each one leading rather naturally to the next and I turn forward and wonder what the next stepping stone will be.  

Come visit my shop www.ninedragons.etsy.com  Wishing you great adventures along your own path,

E. England

Note:  The lovely stepping stone path shown here is from:  http://tedwiebe.wordpress.com/tag/rhubarb-leaves/

Sailboat Racing Photography -- Or, Say "Yes"

SAILBOAT RACING PHOTOGRAPHY -- OR,  SAY “YES”

So…I love the water and I love boats – and I adore being out on the water in a boat.  But my work – my passion – my focus (pardon the pun) is photographing architectural details.  You know, those quietly unique objects that surround us, but that no one actually sees.  Things like ancient door knockers, or painted dragons on a ceiling or creatures carved into buildings -- those quirky, colorful, sometimes strange things that a highly skilled craftsman or woman took the time to mould or paint or sculpt.  They’re everywhere, we just don’t see them anymore because we’re very busy looking down at our cell phones. 

It’s not as easy as it may appear to get a really good, clean, interesting shot of those “details”, but I’m never happier than when I’ve gotten one to the point where I’d be proud to see it hanging in someone’s home or office.  I’ve had the occasional, brief flirtation with landscape photography and exchanged the sly glance with a cuddly creature.  For a while I was obsessed with nature…and tree bark, but they weren’t serious relationships.  I always go back to my first love -- the details.

Recently, I was invited to join a group of friends in Newport, RI to help celebrate a “major” birthday.  Coincidently, my very favorite neighbor here in Philadelphia was driving up a day earlier than I’d planned to leave, to photograph the start of the 2012 Newport to Bermuda sailboat race.  He invited me to join him for the long ride up and then spend the following day out on a boat with good friends.  I’d never met his friends, nor had I been to Newport, and I was itching to spend that gift-of-an-extra-day alone, roaming the town, photographing the thousands of charming details I knew must be there waiting to be discovered.  The mansions along the famous Cliff Walk could have kept me fascinated for weeks at the very least. 

Something kept tugging at me though.   A persistent little voice kept whispering:  “Oh, say yes.  How often are you invited to spend the day on a lovely boat?  Don’t be dull”.   In the end, the little voice won.  Rather grudgingly, I grabbed a camera with a decent zoom lens and figured I’d snap some fun shots of my pal as he photographed the race.

The day was glorious.  The sky was a stunning shade of turquoise with the occasional puffy white clouds billowing by and sparkling navy blue seas.  A refreshing breeze meant wind enough for a visually vivid downwind spinnaker start.  Sounds like I know my stuff, doesn’t it?  I don’t.  I just wanted to show off the only sailing terminology I know!  A downwind spinnaker start simply means that the great-big-pretty sails were up – and they were fantastic. 

The race began, I took my first photograph and couldn’t put the camera down.  Photographing out on the big wide water felt so…expansive!   I could almost feel my middle aged brain cells start to multiply as the sea air and the excitement of the race kicked in.  Photographing racing boats, from a boat, amidst hundreds of other boats and circling helicopters is a bit like trying to shoot while astride a horse – everything is in motion.  It was wild and very wonderful. 

My hosts for the day, and fellow boaters, were a delight – I felt like I’d known them for years – they made me a very warm welcome.  Sometimes the details can take care of themselves I’m learning…and always, always, say “yes”.

I hope you enjoy the resulting photos – I’ve attached a few here and you can see more at www.etsy.com/shop/ninedragons