• My Heart Skips None Of These Beats

    The last bit of summer vacation is pressing in on us, and it has largely become this: the frantic run from pool to platform on repeat, a near maddening loop of frenzied obsession, the intense need to squeeze in as much flight, falling, plunge and ascension as possible before the school bell once more rings.

    He is reborn over and over again in an unrealized effort to slow the sinking of the sun.

    It is both beautiful and somehow tragic in its simple impossibility; it is all at once the sweetness of youth and his slipping grasp on it. My heart swells and tightens as I watch him hurry to soar and float once more.

    I feel him breathing life inexplicably into me as he powers through his, and I realize that I love the bittersweet pulse of this life.

    To license commercially, please email.

  • The Beauty of Change

    We collected a rather large batch of caterpillars that were threatening to skeletonize my sunflower garden recently. I housed them in a small plastic container with slots for air designed to hold buggies and fed them sunflower leaf rations (they turned their noses up at other types of leaves) saving most of my garden from destruction while still feeding them. After several days, they all suited up in their respective chrysalises and made with the metamorphosing. We dug witnessing this, and awaited the unfolding of their wings as they became Bordered Patch Butterflies (Chlosyne lacinia).

     Processed with VSCOcam with m5 preset

    For the past couple of days, they’ve been greeting the world anew, and as they do, we open the hatch on the container and set them free into my (flower filled, butterfly orgasmic) back yard. It is an incredibly joyous feeling to watch one of them lift out of the housing and ascend into the air and off to freedom, somehow making my heart more buoyant even though it is my lungs that fill with air while I breathe in and watch them float.

    Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset Processed with VSCOcam with m5 preset

    This little flapper needed some extra time to dry its wings and visit with another creature who has been rapidly changing right before my eyes lately.

    The Beauty of Change

    I have a tender love that floats on wings of expectation and wonder for them both.

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  • silhouette of a young boy's head in profile against the setting sun

    how to: silhouette photography / self portraiture

    a couple in stark silhouette against a black and white horizon over beachSometimes you can say just as much, or even more, with the suggestion of a thing as you can with all of its details. This is true of silhouette photography – a genre that can be alarmingly beautiful and expressive. If you’ve never shot silhouettes, you may be wondering how to achieve this look. It’s fairly simple to get the basics down. From there, you can let your creativity run wild.

    The Basics:

    The most important thing to remember is that your subject should not be well lit from the front. In addition, there should be a significant light source in the background.

    The subject is whatever you want forming the silhouette. In the case of self portraiture, this subject is you. We want to reduce lighting from the front because we want to obscure most of the detail – this is what creates an outline, or silhouette.

    There are many ways to obtain this, from studio lighting to sunlight. Sunsets provide an amazing backdrop for silhouettes. They are pure, simple, and beautiful. Play around to see what you can achieve.

    Once you’ve identified a subject and have a backlight, attend to camera settings. Expose the image for the backlight, rather than the subject. This way, your subject will be very dark, creating an outline with little detail from the front.

    Voila! This is the basic formula for silhouette photography.

    How To: Silhouette Photography / Self Portraits, Lotus Carroll
    Sunsets and sunrises make an absolutely excellent, beautiful light source for silhouettes!

    A few things to remember:

    • create distinct, clean shapes with your silhouette subject(s)
    • try to reduce excessive clutter or multiple other confusing shapes in the image unless they add to the “story” you want it to tell
    • avoid foreground lighting
    • identify or set up a significant source of back lighting
    • no one formula for camera settings is perfect. the strength of your light will dictate what you’ll need, so experiment
    • don’t forget to pay careful attention to scene setting and composition, as with all photos, once you get the technique down
    • for self portrait silhouette photography, you will find the following tools incredibly helpful: remote/intervalometer, tripod

    Here are some examples of silhouette self portraits I’ve created, with some basic information you can review.

    silhouette of a person dancing behind a screen
    You don’t have to have advanced lighting tools – for this image, I literally stood in front of my desk with my computer display on a white screen so it glowed strongly behind me in a dark room. My camera was on the other side of this “room divider” screen shooting towards me as I posed.
    up close silhouette of a woman's face in profile
    Diffused sunlight through a curtain into a dark room provided the backlighting for this face silhouette self portrait. To get the most dramatic shapes, make sure things like a face are turned to show all the important outlining features.
    silhouette of a woman's upper body with arms raised and stretched out to either side above her, in front of window blinds
    Again, window lighting in a dark room is the source of the backlighting here. The blinds also fall into silhouette, creating an interesting pattern in the image.

    Of course, rules are meant to be broken, and you can play around with the basic setup and then go beyond it, tweaking things in so many ways to create different kinds of photos.

    Here, there is obviously a lot going on, so the silhouette is clean, and there is “clutter.” But it’s interesting clutter, and adds to the mood:

    reflective silhouette on glass with dark city beyond, lit by city lights
    A doozy: reflection silhouette self portrait, at night, inside the top of the tallest building in Austin, TX. Lights behind me inside are backlighting my image as I shoot into the glass against the dark (but for city lights) night.

    You can also adjust lighting on the subject to create “near-silhouette” images. Some details of the subject are lit and visible, while others are dark, as with the following self portrait.

    near silhouette of woman from behind with her head turned in profile in front of window blinds, black and white
    The back lighting from the window and relative dark behind me creates silhouetting, while light spill from the downturned blinds gently illuminates the side of my face, arm, and hair.

    Go forth, find the light, and create silhouettes.

    To license images or text commercially, please email.

  • Life Moves On While You Stand Still

    Parked on a little gravel shoulder that leads into a quarry area in the early evening after all workers had called it a day and gone home for dinner, I leaned against the side of my car and waited. It only took me 5 minutes to shoot multiple images and capture 5 red vehicles in the mix. This was my favorite. Perspective is everything and you only ever control how fast you choose to move – the rest of the world keeps its own pace.

    Life Moves On While You Stand Still

    All Rights Reserved No use allowed without a license. For licensing inquiries, email me directly. [email protected]

  • She Wasn’t Sure Where She Ended And He Began

    I took this sunset image from a moving vehicle over a year ago. It is among my favorite images I’ve created so far. The sun seems to be trying to reach out to the mingling, intertwined trees as they embrace one another, warming this moment and their touch. At the same time, it looks to spread across the land, desperately holding on to each moment that is escaping as it sinks lower. Soon it will be too dark to see anything.

    She Wasn't Sure Where She Ended And He Began

    All Rights Reserved No use allowed without a license. For licensing inquiries, email me directly. [email protected]

  • In These Quiet Moments Love Speaks Loudest

    a father smiles at his sleeping son
    it is in these quiet moments that love speaks loudest

    My little 3 person family took a few trips to the beach last summer. On one of those trips we drove almost all the way there and then stopped in a hotel for the night before heading out for beach frolicking fun the next morning. This is a candid monochrome from that hotel. John is looking over at Braden, our (then) 6 year old, in the other bed. His expression speaks volumes. I love moments like this. Capturing them feels like being able to work real magic, the kind that will allow you to travel through time later, or the kind that lets you see inside of someone’s heart.

    All Rights Reserved No use allowed without a license. For licensing inquiries, email me directly. [email protected]