I enjoy almost everything about the process of plucking an image from the world around me and preserving it. Keeping the process as simple as possible is a big part of the enjoyment for me, so you may find the following explanation paradoxical. Believe me, this page was not the first task I undertook when getting my website up and running! It's meant as much to reveal a bit about my photographic process as to reveal just a bit "about me."

WONDERING | WANDERING | ANTICIPATION

In school I liked drawing maps for social studies, history, or geography projects. I've always loved just lookin' at maps and wondering what it would be like to be in that particular place in the world, what it would look like, but, most of all, what it would FEEL like. The "wondering" part, the anticipatory part of studying a map, charting a course, gathering all the "be prepared" kind of stuff for a trip, and finally the setting out on an early morning at sunrise, were always favorite elements in any excursion of mine. For me, preparing to "take some pictures", or rather to "photograph a landscape", is much the same and usually involves a map at some point. Anticipation and the "wondering" about the upcoming "wandering" continue to be a big part of the fun. The area around Lake Tillery in our beautiful Uwharrie Mountains, including Morrow Mountain State Park in Stanly County, and the country roads, farmlands, and forests of Montgomery County, have kept my "wanderings" pretty close and easy lately.
 

DISCOVERY | BEING THERE | CAPTURE

Now you know I like the "wondering" and the "happy surprise" part of "wanderings". I delight in the unusually twisty, narrow country road found on a mandatory detour or the ridiculous, silly roadside souvenir stand holding onto its time warp quaintness like my dog Scout hangs onto her "squeaky cheeseburger and French fry toys", or to her ability to hide from my camera.

The same location, say a pier in the Woodrun on Tillery subdivision where I live, never, ever looks exactly the same. Any artist or photographer knows this, but until you emotionally experience the subtleties and variations in light, mood (mine and the scene's), color, sky, wind, season, time of day, etc., it's tough to explain the lure of local landscape photography.

Shooting the familiar paradoxically makes for continually unique discoveries. "Being there" is always unique and worthwhile, even if it turns out that "being there" doesn't produce a single worthwhile image on that occasion. The next time, or the next, or the next might just hold the treasure, and it's that possibility that keeps me coming back. Capturing one single moment of an extraordinary balance of light, color, and mood doesn't usually happen by accident -- or by showing up one time, even if the location is a great one. The Swift Island Bridge connecting Stanly and Montgomery counties is an example of potential treasure always waiting for me.

EXPERIMENTATION | POST PROCESSING | PLAYTIME

This has become an unexpected and most satisfying part of the photographic process for me. The digital age of photography has made playing with images so easy -- and with such immediate gratification -- that it now competes with the anticipatory parts of the photographic journey. I unabashedly frolic in the world of transforming original captures from my camera into whatever suits my fancy. Bending proper techniques, breaking traditional photographic rules (even being oblivious to many of them) no longer bothers me much. What usually winds up bugging me most is my inability to stop playing with an image. Often, I have trouble deciding which variation I prefer, much less which variation someone else might like as a fine art print, on a canvas or in a coffee table book.

For example, all variations in this collage are from the same image, and these aren't the only versions I created.

Now, perhaps, I've spoiled some of the "wondering" about me by publishing this page. But I hope you'll enjoy "wandering" around the rest of my website. If you don't discover a treasure this time, check back later...maybe I'll have one for you on your next visit.

~ Deb