level 3

I was taught once, that there are three levels for categorizing photographic images.

Level 1- Descriptive

Every photo describes something. A red wall. A foot. Black teeth. Easy enough to grasp. Every photo every taken is a level one photo, it has to describe something...even if only to describe light and dark.

Level 2- Story Telling

Level 2 photographs tell a story. There are verbs in these images. A man painting a red wall. A foot being stepped on. Black teeth chewing on meat (gross..sorry). Not every photo is a story telling image, but if you succeed in creating one, you have taken it above only the descriptive and are entering the realm of photojournalism.

Level 3- Emotional

Evoke emotion. What good is any piece of art if it doesn't make you feel? I don't care if you hate, cry, feel uncomfortable...or maybe even experience some surreal state of euphoria. What good is living if you don't feel something? What good is art if it doesn't change you? If I was really trying to create an image I loved, I would always look to make it a level 3. Level 3's matter. While the 1's and 2's are nice and pretty and important in their own right, the 3's change you. I want to be changed.

The reason I went off on that photojournalism 101 lesson was because I've been thinking about those pesky level 3's. The tricky part to a level 3 is that most times it's subjective. Others feel what others don't.....also if you are there, or have experienced what the picture shows, this may give you an unfair advantage when it comes to connection with any given image.

When I look at my Colombia images I feel things. When editing through some of them yesterday I even got teary eyed. I don't expect that everyone (or anyone) will have the same response as I did because I was there. I held the baby, whispered the song in her ear. I kissed the hurt finger put in front of my face to make it all better. I saw the beds and smelled the roads. I touched hands and kissed cheeks.

My greatest hope is that I am not the only one that feels something... I honestly believe that my photography is pointless if it doesn't push emotion...but don't get me wrong I take tons of descriptive images. I love signs and details and colors and walls....but I would be lying if I said taking those images made me feel purposeful.

The whole purpose of me going to Colombia was to tell the story of certain people, certain children in need and hopefully in the story telling effort strike a cord in the viewer to act.

Global family. Everyone is responsible. If there is just one baby in a town starving it is everyones responsibility, not just the orphaned mothers. This is the part about knowledge that I think makes most people comfortable in a state of ignorance. Knowledge means you know and knowing means you then see and seeing means you have become responsible as a resident of human earth to do something.

Colombia was a level 3 for me, I know... because I came back different.

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Lily Louise Born Oct 11th-Laguna Hills, CA

How amazing is my job? Can it even be considered a job if it's this amazing?

Yesterday I witnessed the birth of another baby. I was there photographing all of the "firsts"..and some of the lasts...the last moments before Heather and Scott's' family went from 4 to 5.

One thing that always amazes me is the amount of love I feel for these people as I experience these changes with them. My responsibility as a photographer is to observe, and so I do. I observe everything. Not only lighting and potentially good shots, but I get to observe as these new parents and grandparents go through a whole evolution of emotion. apprehension, fear, letting go, giving in, needing and feeling support, shock, delight and after a baby is born everyone is always in love.

When you photograph a birth the people involved can't help but be real. You never leave wishing they had opened up more. I can walk into the delivery room barely even knowing them and leave feeling like we've become good friends.. I love it. People in situations like that can't help but be real.

One of my favorite parts of lily's birth was watching her grandfather. He was nervous and uncomfortable anticipating his own daughters discomfort and the second Lily was with us, melted into a tender, cooing, tear filled man. He just kept saying, "she's perfect...she's perfect".

Heather and Scott thank you so much for allowing me to be there with you. Lily is as perfect as her grandfather says...and her name... Lily Louise...it makes me want to write a song for her. maybe I will.

this is the reason.

As a lover of the senses..touch, taste, sight, sound, smell...I often find myself searching for the meaning in the tangible and the not so tangible. What gives meaning to my life? It has never been enough for me to be OK with the "doing" without the "why". I want it to mean something to me. I want it personal.

Many times in my career I have contemplated why I choose photography, or why photography choose me. I have wondered about the course I should take with photography and how within that given course I can make a difference, or contribute to something more, something better.

I am still on my journey to finding out all the ways I can and should make a difference with my photos, but tonight one of my reasons was set in concrete.

I was musing through my friend Nikki's blog and came upon a woman's blog. This woman is a photographer and has taken beautiful photos of not only others peoples children, but her own. I started reading and was immediately sucked into something real and something unmistakeably meaningful.

Her daughter Ava at the age of 3 died in a tragic accident. Her blog, started before the death, chronicles a beautiful life before and a beautiful life after. As I read and watched her photos tell their family's story I was..in a trance. I knew that these photos she had taken of her baby were some of the most important reminders of happiness, hope and life that she will ever have.

Read her story and ask yourself the questions that a story like that demands you ask.

What gives meaning to your life?

For me, one of my "meanings" come from trying in my own way to help people remember and cherish the nature of their lives. To document something that is real for them. To be there when important moments happen and try to give them something tangible as a reminder of the intangible things that can only exist and stay deep in the resting place of ones soul.

There is a Native American and Aborigine superstition that taking a photograph of a person steals a part of their soul. Maybe they are on to something. Maybe its less like stealing and more like copying or borrowing. Maybe its the reason so many of us are drawn to beautiful photographs. Maybe.