Crush on B L A K E L E E { senior portrait artistry reno nevada }

We've been publishing most our latest in senior sessions on the Steller app. Here's a peak of what's happening with our senior sessions with a fashion twist.

Crush on A D A M { senior portrait artistry reno nevada }

We've been publishing most our latest in senior sessions on the Steller app. Here's a peak of what's happening with our senior sessions with a fashion twist.

Crush on J A L Y N { a portrait series }

Come visit me on Steller as @skyesnyder. Here's a quick peak at to what's been going on for our senior sessions.

land marks : a story about trash

Crush on L I N E A G E II | Project 52 week 11

I liked the play on l i n e a g e  a couple of weeks back and wanted to revisit the theme. I tried the same techniques but ended up with these slightly different results.

iphone project 52 

Another look at lineage through a play on the word and the process of movement--like lineage through a family history. This is from a senior session. I've been playing with this look for a year or so now. Once in a while, the right person and place make it work.

Crush on I N S E C T S | Project 52 week 10

Project 52 week 10 theme was I N S E C T S so this is what I made:

Way too opaque on the butterfly. I flattened and saved the image without saving the psd file. Really? Stupid me. I may revisit the problem.
 I really liked the background so I took a film image that was green from old, heat stroked negatives, scanned it and started playing to see if I could learn something.

Finally, I decided to finish my insect week with some dried biology or bug"taxidermy". I don't like how the eye pin looks in the resin. I tried a pinch bail but those were not wide enough to go around the edge of the piece. I'm sure there is a better way and if you know, I'd love for you to let me in on the secret. All the other items were found around the Sierra Nevadas. A little piece of Nevada/California jewelry art. 

iphone pic of shells from Eagle Lake, Ca, Wasps from Verdi, NV, Pinecones and Moss from Dog Valley, NV

 I like this better-- a nod to Victorian botany and insect collections.

 I think I'll revisit this week's theme and see what else we can create.

Crush on L A N D S C A P E | week 7/52 photo project

For this week's landscape subject I decided to revisit the view I've seen the longest in my lifetime.  Our home was cradled by the Sierra Nevadas and the sage covered desert hills. Today was the first time I took my own children to the lake I spent many hours at as a kid. I would ride my banana seat bike or 50cc honda motorcycle down to her shores and ponder how whales in the ocean would look. Today, we saw a few fish jump.

Join us next week for the theme of GEOMETRIC

Crush on T R A N S F O R M A T I O N | Week 6 Photo Project | Reno Photographer

I didn't want this theme to end. A week simply wasn't long enough for me to explore transformation. My ideas needed a much longer window to complete the project as I wanted to photograph transformation over time, not a makeover/under kind of change. My journal is filled with many more ideas than it had before. Ideas that I'll visit as the year unfolds. To play a little longer with this, I decided to do a subject instead of a theme for week 7--a little lighter while we play around with the heavier topics. Week 7 will be L A N D S C A P E.

Here are my first ideas for T R A N S F O R M A T I O N | Week 6

It has been through photography that I have been able to process the death of my mother--looking at the beauty of life and death, of youth and maturity, of patterns, repetitions, and the inevitable breaking of them--the transformation. 

While photographing, I found myself looking at the divine design of them. The beauty in all stages. Not preferring one over the other. They remind me of Hermann Rorschach's inkblot personality tests of the 60's which in turn brought me to Da Vinci's encouragement to embrace the cryptic to help better interpret our lives/deaths. The flowers are from a condolence bouquet. The sympathy cards and flowers we received have been unexpectedly healing. I'm so grateful for them. They are transformative. 

placed in the garden and now it's time to wait...

Crush on E N E R G Y | Photo Project 52 | Reno Photographer

The thoughts of the prior weeks keep rolling into each new week. They are adjusted, morphed, adapted without her. Questions arise without any answers. Originally, my thoughts regarding this week's theme, energy, were of my children; the endless, boundless child energy that they possess. Instead, my thoughts morphed to the energy of our  soul, the spirit.
This is what happened behind the camera…

Curious to whom "her"above is referring? You may want to visit this or that blog.

Crush on P A I R S | Photo Project 52 | Reno Photographer

Far from ordinary, this week hurled my family into a spiritual world of loss and memories (explanatory blog here) making concentrating on this week's project more difficult.

For me, the point of the project was to help boost my gratitude and creativity while boosting my joy as I got to spend more time developing my artistic side. It did that and more this week. I took photos that are deeply personal to me  but will not be sharing them in this forum. I found old photos that filled my landscape with flashing memories and good times. They helped to ease the sorrow. Photography settles me and lets me feel exactly what I need to be feeling.

There will only be one image this week. A photograph of two yellow day lilies from my "mother's" bouquet after her passing.

I've held her hand so many times,  I can almost touch her.

Thank you to my fine arts colleagues at McQueen High for the thoughtful gesture. xo. 

Crush on Aura/Halo | Project 52 | a themed photography project

This week's theme was AURA/HALO inspired by the photo project of @jalvarezcastillo on Instagram. Check out the #peoplesaura for more photos from all over the world. We were inspired by several ideas:
1) the halo of Christian divinity so often seen in early Renaissance art and ancient Pagan crowns of light.
2) the ancient Sanskrit word namaste - meaning "The Spirit within me salutes the Spirit in you".
3) the study of energy fields and auras. 

Image found on Body Quirks as Aura Imaging Photography

This week was fun as we stepped out on our photo walk as tourists visiting Seattle. It was a fun twist to look for the halos instead of the compulsory tourist snapshots. Although, we couldn't help but take those too.

the amazing desert topography from the plane

 Post Alley

 Pike Place Market

 Post Alley Gum Wall

From inside the Ferris Wheel overlooking the Puget Sound

 Did you get the whole Needle in?

Like this... 

 Space Needle

 Gasworks Park

 Lake Union

 the eeriest darkest water ever and a colorless city...

 COLOR!!!

Ferris Wheel over the Puget Sound

love josh + skye xoxo