A Celebration of Self and Photography: Before and Behind the Lens

I have always loved and celebrated myself...even during those times when I thought I didn't. Whatever it is, it is a human thing. I doubt animals traverse a period when they doubt their self worth, their beauty, their intelligence. Perhaps we move through such periods to climb towards the higher ground of a self-love so deep we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we can love ourselves, in all of our complexities, then we KNOW with an unshakable certainty that we love others.

When I focus my camera on others, I celebrate the beauty of creation, of God's handiwork. I remember the words of a photographer who once told me, "Photography is all about the study of light." The more I venture into photography, the more I know this is true.

Sometimes I play with my pictures and crop them in unusual ways and add colors and highlight the parts of myself or my subject that allows the mind to open to lush possibilities....it's like seeing an old situation in a new way, in a fresh light.

In this pic, I am experimenting with color and focus. So what? Why not turn a picture on its head, as the day pivots us from an up-right position at times, and we wind up bottom's up, wallet spewing cash, our hearts pouring love, or senses short circuited! I know I can fly or swim in this one! Can you see it in my smile? In my pose?

Here, I can hear Jennifer Hudson singing her hit, "Spotlight." Playing up the contrasts in our lives pinpoints realities we might never have contemplated. Red is richer when sitting alongside grey, and yet the grey is sensual and soft of its own accord, inviting us into softened lines and gentle edges. I am engulfed in sensuality here, too. In the pose. In the smile. My body language is playful and womanish, as Alice Walker might say!

The human body is exquisite...from all angles...making the walking away a sensual delight.

There is something about a woman's back that bespeaks a delicacy, sensuality, a poignant revelry, a treasure chest of charms. I love this pic because it paints the effect of time on all things...erasing lines once sharp and straight and crisply firm, the difference between Mother Nature biting into the tight red skin of a fresh Georgia apple and her tongue tasting the sweetly silky fuzz of a peach, ripe in morning light, on a counter, in an orange bowl, metamorphic in its unforgettable sugar.

I adore myself when I am smiling, as Zora

Neale Hurston loved herself when she was

laughing. A magic comes over me when I smile.

All my troubles disappear. So much so, I fathom I had no troubles to start with, for smiling changes my perception on myself and the world.

I thank the Goddess for giving us the ability to smile.

I am the Lady in Pink, shimmering with an inner essence of gratitude and love. Truly I am living my life, as Jill sings, like it is golden; thus, I am the Golden Goddess. Yes, I am a woman of five decades and one year here. Yet in the same breath and sweep of my laptop's keys, I am a girl of one decade and six years, playing with the lens, screaming, "Yaaayyaaaa! Let's do this, okaaaay!"

There now, my back is back!

Girls hold up half the sky...even in the water! There is nothing as sweet as friendship. It is an elixir we all sorely need and must not do without, or we become recluses, fighting to get out of our silences.

Green. The color of life. Possibility. The future. Cash money. The rush in your heart when you run out across a field of grass and wildflowers. Then again, it is also the hue of boldness, of fearlessness. I am getting my swag on here. If Shakira can shake her groove thang and wrap her curves in shimmering flash and baubles and pause the pulse of countries around the world, surely, por supuesto, si, I can shorten my stature and ease into a pose of sensual repose...

Again, I play with focus and sketch muscles and honor colors.

There is something about Black & White that mesmerizes, much like soft and hard, dark and light, meek and bodacious, that stimulates campfires. Hmmm. Contrast is alive and well in the Universe...

Water is one of Nature's most beautiful backdrops as long as it isn't unruly and pooling inside our homes and hearts. This morning as I write this blog and post these pictures, I am captivated with the music of the rain, yet I pray it does not pose problems for those who must encounter it up close and personal in a few short hours.

I feel almost like Spider Woman in this one, scaling the pool's wall, mastering the power of will and gravity. The colors I've splashed here add to my glee of photography and self revelry!

We are all rushing...sometimes...with very little time to stop and watch the world rush along its merry way.

I am captured in time, feeling, in the fabulous now, and I feel what it feels like to note the passing of time, like sand in an hourglass, wave by wave.

Think Diana Ross and the line, "Upside Down and Round and Round."

I call this one "Blue Blanket."



No, I have never taken a photography class. Yet I love taking photographs.

Upon me, my passion confers its own degree. I bow to it; I have known it for years. With my camera in my hands, whether I am before or behind its lens, I am alive, same as I am with a pen and paper or with my chubby grand son on my lap, clapping and overjoyed because we are sharing a moment.

"The Celebration of Self and Photography" emanates from my soul like the rays of a rising midnight sun. I am illuminated with an unspeakable joy. I know that I am on my correct life path, and O oo ooo...I say, Bring it, Life! I accept the gift basket of blessings the Divine offers me in this moment.

The Golden Goddess

On A Rainy Night in Georgia

October 2009