Do you have a favorite photograph
that brings you back to the exact moment of a place or time
that can awaken your senses…even now?
Does it bring a shiver or tears to your eyes?
However quickly or imperfectly taken,
the photographer caught an image
of the wordless, the present, the now.
Your senses recognize it in feeling.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer. Contact her here.
After creating and editing portrait images for a couple,
it is my practice to put them away and look at them later.
It allows time for different, new images to emerge.
This image is one I am exploring for my dual portrait series.
I love how these images capture a loving husband and wife as individuals
and as a romantic couple.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer. Contact her here.
My website for a time had been with a company
that offers the ability to add and change things at will
without waiting for my webmaster to do it.
Today, in addition to changing ALL the fonts (!),
I had been tweaking the info on my contact form.
The item in question was in scheduling a screening call, to see if we clicked,
and to make an appointment to meet, so over a calmer, more relaxed time,
I could see them and strategize how to help.
Just contemplating the sentence that I could not discuss price before I understood the parameters of the project flooded my nervous system
with past memories of all the people that had done JUST THAT.
This suddenly seemed like a perfect metaphor
for the way I felt people were seeing me and my work,
and filled me with such a sudden, heated surge of memory,
I had to step away from the computer until I cooled down.
But instead of giving in to the part of me
that wanted to let them all ‘talk to the finger,’
I let myself finally feel all these emotions all the way through.
The common thread that ran through all of these incidents
was a lack of boundaries and ‘backbone’,
letting my easy-going nature be misinterpreted as weakness.
I am in a profession I love, and I want to continue to be in a profession I love.
So it is my responsibility to keep searching out the gaps in my protocols and policies,
and strengthen them so that hidden feeling does not steal joy
and cause me to become cynical or embittered.
Though these things have indeed happened,
each step today becomes the next one tomorrow.
I saw that my part in this is slower & more connected communication.
To not be rushed or in a hurry to close the deal.
To know that not everyone who wants my work is my ideal client.
To know my ‘deal-breakers’ and be able to stick to them. To listen to my gut.
And to keep a regular practice of ‘dusting the cobwebs’ that build up in the corners
so I am able to be ready, whatever happens,
with clean sensors in my cameras – and in me.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer.
I enjoyed this event for the organization,
finding conviviality and conversation
in Chicago’s beautiful Cafe Brauer
filtered through many great wines.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.
