Spring Mirrors
I’m finally back to blogging with a couple new mirror photos. I am slowly growing my collection of shapes and sizes, which continues to thrill and challenge me. I’m thrilled the weather is finally warming up and I have no more excuses not to make new photography. Happy Spring everyone!
Mexico City, Street
I was talking recently with a friend about Mexico City, and she said one of the things that stood out was its blend of European architecture, NYC grit and Latin American color and flavor.
Mexico City, Lush
If there’s one thing I love, it’s plants. Greenery, palms, succulents, all of it. I didn’t expect a sprawling city to be so lush, but Mexico City was as green as they come.
Mexico City, Texture
In the next installment of my Mexico City photos is a collection of photos centering around the rich and varied textures I discovered at every turn, a mixture of shadows, patterns, chipping paint and wires.
Mexico City, Color
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I booked my trip to Mexico City with my best friend Lee Anne. I had heard it was a great city, full of good food and beautiful colors, but never did I expect to be so blown away by its beauty, architecture, lush tropical plant life, delicious foods from all over the world, and incredible size. We spent 6.5 days there and we barely scratched the surface of all that the city has to offer. I took so many photos that I’ll be diving it into 4 sections: color, texture, lush, and street view. Here are some examples of the vibrant colors found all over.
Happy New Year!
I’m 18 days late on this post, but I left almost right after the celebrations for a 10-day vacation to Fort Lauderdale, and then Mexico City with my best friend. I forgot how rejuvenating a few days in the warmth could be, swimming, smelling salt air and leaving my NY worries behind. Here are a few of those memories in Florida, Mexico City next.
Two Months!
Holy sh*t you guys, I haven’t blogged in two months. And I hate to use the NYC excuse of “I’ve been so busy.” In truth, I’ve neglected this site, and my creative work for about 6 weeks now. I had the most incredible experience in New Mexico (more on that soon), I flew back and threw myself into 5 weeks of 8 weddings and 5 engagement shoots, and I co-curated and organized the Camera of the Month Club’s seventh group show, Progression. I’m writing this as I’m recovering from a brutal cold that has kept me mostly homebound for the last week, and majorly realizing how much this website needs work. So to start, I’m going to start archiving a lot of work, narrowing down my portfolio and streamlining this entire site. The next post will be an homage to that. Welcome back Erica, and welcome back faithful readers.
Rockaway Beach
I spend weeks on end at Rockaway during the summertime, and I visit throughout the cold months as well. I’ve decided to archive a number of my bodies of work to the this blog, and this is one of those galleries.
Self-Portraits
I’ve decided to archive several of my galleries from my site to this blog, and this includes my self-portrait series. I really enjoy experimenting with mirrors, and this is a sample of photos I’ve taken from 2011-2018.
NYC on Film
Some of my earlier film work, 2009-2012. I spent several year trying to find my voice as a photographer and my early fascination was with Manhattan and documenting it in black and white. I would roam the streets with my Canon AE-1 for hours. I’ve decided to archive a number of earlier bodies of work to this blog., and this gallery is one of those.
New Mexico Day 3
Greetings from New Mexico! I am deep in Red Rock country in Abiqiu, just an hour outside of Santa Fe. Being here is always surreal to me, the landscape is like none I’ve seen in this world (and I’ve been to a lot of places). It’s equal parts exhilarating, exhausting and exciting to be working with the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops on a new video series. It’s been an adjustment getting used to being filmed all day and night, shooting, hiking and photographing the landscape, and talking about photography. We’ve spoken about our photographic journey, getting out of creative ruts, building strong landscape photos, whether they be classic, abstract or intimate. Here are a few of examples of those.
September
I've been spending as much time at the beach as possible this summer, building my portfolio of Beach Lovers and working on my new project with mirrors. Since I last wrote here, I also shot a few weddings, attended a business workshop for wedding photography, and I resigned from my part-time job as a Program Director at a non-profit. It was a scary move to make, but I knew it was time to throw myself into photography entirely.
Two weeks later, I have no regrets and the freedom of being my own boss feels better every day. I also recently received some very exciting news that I will be traveling once again to New Mexico in mid-September to work with the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops on a new video series they are producing. I will be sharing more on that soon. Thank for following my journey and supporting my news, happy September!
Deep in Summer
I'm very behind in blogging and updating this since, mostly because I have been either shooting at the beach or working. It feels so good to be out in the sun, hearing the waves crashing and capturing moments of summer. Here are a few recent favorites.
Beach Lovers Season is Here
It's finally summer, it's finally hot, and I'm finally starting to make my weekly treks to the beach. Pretty soon, I will be trying to go as often as possible so that I can amass a large collection of Beach Lovers work this summer. Here are a few shots from Rockaway and Coney Island. Stay tuned for more!
NY Photo Salon
Talking about Beach Lovers at SVA was an honor and a privilege. I haven't spoken about Beach Lovers to an audience like that before, and it gave me the chance to reflect on how far I've come since I started the series, where I want to go with it, and why so many people relate to it. It also reminded me how excited I am to start shooting a new summer of couples. A huge thank you to the NY Photo Salon for including me in the inspiring line-up of photographers. And many thanks to everyone who came out to support me.
38: A CMC Member Showcase
On Thursday May 3rd, Camera of the Month Club hosted our 6th group show to date! Pop-up show are a lot of fun, and a lot of work. We arrived, measured, and hung everything on the same day, and opened the doors to the public at 6PM. We had a full house and lots of positive feedback. It was my first time curating a CMC show, with fellow Director Marko, and I really loved doing it. Many thanks to everyone who helped put this show together, the hanging team, participants and all of our community who came out to support us.
A part of 'Water'
I'm excited to announce that my Beach Lovers image 'Rolling in the Deep' was chosen to be part of the permanent online collection, "Water". This exhibition is hosted by PhotoPlace Gallery in Vermont, and curated by Ann Jastrab. She writes, "When I narrowed the nearly 3000 photographs down to 290, I stared at them and thought: I could curate a show of the sea, the wild, unpredictable sea. Just the sea." As I am such a big ocean lover, it is especially meaningful to have been selected to be part of this show.
I'll be sharing the online catalogue when it is published, but for now please visit the link here.
BERLIN
I am thrilled to announce my photo was selected to be in an exhibition in Berlin in late May 2018. I submitted this photo to Featureshoot as part of a contest, and I was thrilled to learn that it will be exhibited at BERLIN BLUE art. Alexa Becker, the Acquisitions Editor for photography and art books at the influential publisher Kehrer Verlag, has selected 30 images from The Print Swap collection to be part of our upcoming exhibition at BERLIN BLUE art. This will be the fifth-ever Print Swap show and the first in Europe.
Women in Focus: Success!
Two days ago at Studio 7 Gallery in Fort Tilden, Queens, I hosted the panel discussion Women in Focus: A Discussion about Women in Photography,' featuring photographers Jennifer Pottheiser, Tara DiGiovani, Armelis D'Orville and Angelica Briones. Between the distance and weather, I was not very helpful about the turnout. T o my delight, we had a solid turnout, a rich panel discussion, and engaged audience questions. We talked about our work, our career highlights, and the unique issues we've faced as women in the industry, including a lack of representation, pay inequality, and safety and harassment in our work. We all agreed that a photograph has no gender and that our work must always speak for itself, but that it is important to recognize these challenges. Finding or creating community, mentors, and allies in the field was something we agreed helped alleviate the isolation many of us feel at times in photography. I'm thankful to the Rockaway Artist Alliance for hhaving us, and to have been included in the 'Of Women' exhibit.
Reflections, Self-Portraits and Selfies
Every so often, I look at my website analytics because I'm interested in which photos appeal most to people, and which blog posts are doing well. It turns out that my most-read blog post to date is "On Selfies: The Modern Day Self-Portrait, Female Empowerment & Beauty." I wrote it in 2014, as I was getting more serious about photography and selfie culture was exploding. After seeing this statistic, I almost deleted the post. Was talking about my own selfies more interesting to my readers than seeing my photographic work? Are women more interesting to people when they talk about beauty?
But before I spiraled down a rabbit hole of questions, and pressed 'Delete,' I changed my mind. My thoughts, feelings and anxieties around beauty, vanity, body image, aging and our obsession with youth continue to preoccupy me, as much as I don't want to admit that. Maybe it makes me a 'bad feminist' to think so much about these things, but it's almost impossible not to given the toxic level of messaging around we receive on those issues and the daily pressure to look young and flawless.
I'm turning 35 in a few weeks, and I can say that I have earned my face, for better or worse. Sun, stress, late nights, too much wine, much laughter, tears, teenage acne, bouts of insomnia. It's all there. Embarking on my Reflected project using mirrors hasn't helped, as I inevitably catch glimpses of myself that I don't like and immediately put down the mirror. But I try to fight my harsh criticisms, as I remember there is an entire industry built upon women's insecurities and self-loathing, and I don't want to give into that. So I'll leave up my post about selfies, I'll continue to project with mirrors, and I'll work hard on being kinder to myself.