Whether the subtle sensing of intuition
or the sparkling active energy of attraction,
‘woo’ is my personal word
and favorite feeling.
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Category: Creativity
What’s In A Name?
There is something glorious about saying, ” I created something that has my name on it.”
Not only your signature, but your standards.
The something you want to reflect your subtlety and style;
The thing that has your energy in it.
I am a photographer known for my attention to the feelings of things,
and early on, had lovely but shortlasted creative names like Dorothy Perry Portrait, Dance of Life and Double Happiness.
I also obsessed about fonts, but that is another story for another day.
Truly an airy and impractical soul, I did not learn about the value of domain names until I needed one: mine. Little did I know how hard it would be.
In those years, my name in combination with photography was taken off the board.
There are a number of Perry surnamed photographers as well as the other nice Dorothy Perrys living all over the United States,
and names that I desired were limited by others claiming all the variations of the names for profiles and screen names as well.
So now as I locate the threads everywhere to be rewoven back into my nest,
I will produce, post and control the quality of what I want to write here from my home base. THIS ONE.
The one that has my name on it.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago photographer of peoples’ personal lives and celebrations. Questions or commissions through the Contact Page here.
The Albatross
The stereotype of the drugged, drinking or skirt chasing artist personality creates a ‘buzz’ and sells tickets, but actually creates formerly creative people that struggle to imagine and create to push out artwork: to “phone it in” and burn out.
Truth be told, it’s hard enough to find time, energy and artistic inspiration and create without also having the albatross of addictive behaviors around your neck.
The creative impulse is impulsive, and the ‘golden hours’ of activity and creative flow can get hijacked in bad habits and drugs, sometimes never to return.
My message to other artists is that success is not all it seems from the outside. To be successful in you have to turn off the phone, be physically healthy, spend time alone to know your mind, be independent of the crowds and fashions of the time.
To know your mind is to accept yourself, warts and all.
To accept yourself, you have to be in your body, to know when you are happy, tired, engaged, on auto pilot, or fully 100% here. And in time, to be grateful of the subtleties and beauty of your life more and more of your day.
Perhaps that will be what matters most: becoming a person that can experience and enjoy the steps of your journey.
Dorothy Perry is a photographer and a smiling happy warrior of awareness. Contact her here.
Portraits That Do You Justice
To do justice: to treat or show (something or someone) in a way that is as good as it should be.
When we are active in our busy lives every day,
we don’t think about the photographs that ‘live’ after us.
But consider: what photos will family remember you by?
Amateur photos and selfies don’t always do us justice.
Have portraits with vitality and energy to choose from.
Meet someone that values and captures your personality.
My images of families and dynamic couples are calming, inspiring,
and beautifully displayed in elegant albums and framed art.
An amazing energetic now, for valued memory later.
Of you, your loved ones, or your life’s passion.
Images to do you justice.
Dorothy Perry photographs sensitive people and intimate events. Contact her here.
Eleven-Eleven Alice
The art of photography is the continual practice of observing things with a unique vision. But expanding and refining that vision is a creative challenge as well.
We go about daily life distracted by our phones and internal chatter, and mental filters created by our pre-conceived ideas of reality and what should be in it.
Our eyes function with the help of a sensing device called a reticular activator: it picks out the things that we have chosen (or have allowed ourselves) to see.
We all have had the feeling of suddenly noticing things that have been around us all the time – when we allow ourselves to see it, then we can. Instruct your reticular activator to pick out yellow trucks, and they will seem to be everywhere. Rare or uniquely colored objects might take longer, but then your eyes will ‘pick them out’ in advertisements, signs, and packaging.
It also excels with misplaced objects, giving hot/cold feelings or images that ‘suddenly’ guide you to the location. Instead of saying that you ‘lost’ something, say, “I’ll find it’ instead. This encourages your sensing to locate the object that much faster.
And in some cases, it can actually set in motion and create what you desire.
My favorite memory of using this Manifesting skill was the decision that I wanted to own a specific type of car – a vintage Volvo 240 GL.
It happened so rapidly, that the process of seeing to owning that exact type of Volvo took 48 hours, start to finish: a perfect storm of coincidences and circumstances.
I walked out of the Brown Line train station at the moment that this very type of car drove past. It had a “For Sale” sign visible in the side window. The driver got gas at a station across the street. The price was an amount I had available in the bank.
I got to witness this cascade of coincidences in action, and had the exact type of car I desired by that evening. And it was the first in a series of terrific Volvo 240s I have owned – my latest has its own Instagram page! https://www.instagram.com/volvocago/
Creativity energy creates the space and circumstances for success to happen. And to keep my inner eyes working, I shift between different types of perceptive techniques regularly so I have a neutral state of mind that can exist for creative focus, letting go, or just enjoying ‘no mind’ itself.
I call this “Eleven-Eleven Alice”, because I do it at 11:11 and it uses a picture idea from Alice in Wonderland, the illustration of her expanding in a small room.
I also am going to do imaginating (mentally picturing an object in all five senses) to briefly step outside the box.
Before the start, sit quietly, and gently relax your lower jaw. Relax all the muscles descending down your body. Settle down into its weight.
Feel the top of your head touch the ceiling: feel your hair against the ceiling. feel the texture of the trim, the coolness of the paint. Get big so your cheeks, ears press against the windows.
At the same time, expand your body and lower torso. Feel both shoulders widening and filling up all four corners of the room. Feel the smoothness and coolness of the painted wall against your skin. If there is furniture, feel its material as you expand. You are as wide as the room and growing.
Move your vision to other rooms, your lower torso going down several floors. I imagine my feet touching the ground three floors down, my head above my building, slowly looking around. Feel your immensity.
Gaze around as though your body is gargantuan: a full buildings’ tall. Take giant breaths. In this state, be grand as you feel this gigantic self.
Then come back slowly, gently back down into your body. Stay neutral, eyes soft focused. If you can, let more time pass and feel this nice vibe.
Expanding and enlarging the self allows you to step out of your mind and daily worries, calms the chatter, and is something you can enter and re-enter in different circumstances. Widen yourself when you are sitting on a bus or in a car, practice in public when you are sitting in an office, be BIG when you are talking to someone.
There are times I do combine it with an intention to let things go, or to send out an energy of happiness to everyone in this surrounding vicinity.
But most often I feel its usefulness in creating a fluid, more creative state of mind –
and 11:11 happens twice every day.
If ‘Eleven-Eleven Alice’ becomes a favorite for you, I would love to hear it.
Dorothy Perry photographs sensitive people and intimate events. Contact her here.
Photos for Feelings
The image was a beautiful moment in the ceremony, deep within the photo, taken by a guest in the wedding party.
The groom is a photographer friend, and I know so well the axiom that “the shoemaker’s kids have no shoes,”
and how a photographer may sometimes never own any decent photos of their own important life events.
I saw another moment within the image – to be ‘brought out’ and brightened, so that it can be seen – and felt.
The difference between retouching and my creative ‘caress’ is that I use a quieter, more intuitive eye to see the newer photograph inside the original one, not just a cropping. I wrote another post about the technique in a June 6, 2020 post, Finding A Something More.
So happily honored to see that the bride posts this as her profile photo online. I wish Daphne and Jeff Happy Anniversary, and many dances together to come!
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.
Contact her for commissioned work here. Thank you.
Cartooned Culture
Anyone who knows me knows I love cartoons!
Some make me laugh, and some make me go “ahhh,” with tears in my eyes.
This cartoon is “Les Triplettes de Belleville,” by Sylvain Chomet. I saw this with a friend years ago in a Chicago theatre, and it remains one of the very few movies that I have viewed more than once.
It is a poetic animated story with very few spoken words. Imagine a plot that brings together cycling, a small family, and three quirky sisters who are part musicians, part muses, and, when necessary, molls familiar with the darker sides of Belleville/Parisian nightlife.
There are some picturing of rougher things of life, so it is not a movie for children, but perhaps saved for when they can appreciate it: the story, characters, and lovingly drawn details create a world that stays with you long after the cartoon is over.
The emotion of amusement also creates access to consciousness, a powerful way to allow the ‘firing of the synapses’ that lead to fresh new ideas and thought patterns.
Do you have any favorites that have this evergreen quality? I’d love to see them!
Keep laughing – watch cartoons!!
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago photographer capturing the closeness of todays’ urban families. Contact her here.
Sane Spaces
“I’m going to miss this show.”
This student used to come to the UIC African American Art Gallery
to do her home work and study along with other students:
making art, practicing yoga,
and on Finals week, even eating breakfast there!
For four months, 11 photographs in the AACC gallery
imbued the space with energy, serving as an artistic ‘power station’ –
and creating a room that felt really nice to rest in.
Alchemist and Photographer Dorothy Perry can be contacted here.
Quirky Light
Quirky light.
It falls on the freshness of an energy exchange
with authenticity and beauty in the frequency.
Dorothy Perry is a portrait photographer of the Divine. Contact at perryportraitart@gmail.com.
Driven
Custom USB drives
can hold art, transfer art, and be art
for tactile human scale communication.
Dorothy Perry is a multisensed photographer based in Chicago.
Arrange a session here.
