Be SEEN in photographs
that celebrate your family legacy
in all its’ lively, natural beauty.
I always see something extra,
even if that extra is YOU.
Questions on custom personal artwork starts here.
Illumination
Tag: Dorothy Perry Portrait
The Beauty Way
In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
Today I will walk out,
today everything negative will leave me
I will be as I was before,
I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body,
I will be happy forever, nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me.
I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me.
I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me.
My words will be beautiful.
In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen, may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.
Dorothy Perry can be contacted here.
Independence Day
Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.
~Rumi
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.
Contact her studio for commissioned work 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.
Putting It Out There
The most valuable lesson I have learned from my mentors is that
A portrait has to be framed.
so your children can grow up
seeing their lives celebrated in picture form
in art they see around their home.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago photographer of family portraits, modern headshots and personal milestone celebrations. 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!
It occurred to me that I had made an art show
that successfully created a zone of energy.
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.
This show working with vibration worked beyond my expectations,
and created an idea for future exhibitions, rich with potential.
Dorothy Perry can be contacted here.
Quirky Light
Quirky light falls on you
in a special way. Beautifully.
When it’s time, I’d love to photograph you in natural and unique light.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago based photographer of intimate family stories.
Contact her at perryportraitart@gmail.com.
Better With Age
I have a studio photograph of my parents as a middle aged married couple,
a posed portrait with her best outfit on, leaning on my dad’s back,
both with pleasant, fixed smiles.
This is the same pose we always have of ourselves through school, printed in the yearbooks, and remembered by friends.
But years later the children have only these photographs to recall their fathers, mothers, and beloved partners. What is remembered of their sparkle and vitality?
It is no accident the photograph of my parents my sisters share the most is one of them as childhood sweethearts in their youth and energy, graceful in the naturalness of that candid, immediate moment.
And it is kismet that years later, I find it is the seed of my creative technique in my search to capture real emotions for the romantic parents I love to photograph.
It stems from my desire to capture livelier, more engaged and energized portraits of mothers and fathers, photographing parents as the childhood sweethearts and lifelong soulmates they are.
My portraits are moments between two people in love, showing tenderness and affection. Glowing from true feelings inside for life and each other.
This intimate portrait is a gift that keeps on giving.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.
Contact Dorothy here.
Driven
Custom made USB drives
can hold art,
transfer art,
and be art.
I am driven to choose tactile, natural feeling materials
for portraits and documentary that are uniquely personal.
When it’s your special occasion or gathering of loved ones,
I would be honored to be your photographer.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago based photographer of unique moments and personalities.
Arrange a session here.
A Teeny Tiny Love Story
A ring. And a pocket knife.
Two things I held dear because of the people who wore them.
Today, though, I had misplaced the knife, and was quietly tearing my house apart looking for it.
Although I was not saying I ‘lost’ it (since I could not bear to think that I might have lost it), I was saying “I’ll find it,’ an affirmation that sets my inner ‘hunter’ in motion.
Looking in a bag of mismatched earrings and old jewelry, I found the school ring from Aurora University my mom wore on her pinkie finger with pride all her life.
Mom went back to school after raising five kids, to become a teacher of other people’s kids. She was literally an ‘old school’ educator – she went from mimeographs to copy machines: no computers at that time. I remember our garage filled with crates of workbooks, paper, art supplies and decorations we would lug into her newly painted classroom each August.
My mom taught third grade in the Aurora Public Schools because she said they still had some cheerfulness and innocence in them. (By the time she retired, that was no longer the case, sad to say.) She was one of those teachers that parents would thank when they saw her in the store, whose kids waved and hugged her when she saw them in public.
Like a lion tamer, she did not show any weakness or fear while she was in the cage.
How great it felt to see someone who sat in the audience watching OUR recitals and performances, sitting on stage in her graduation cap and gown, watching all the people who came to see HER. At that time she was the only older person I had ever seen going to college, and it made a powerful impression on me.
My Dad was a working-class man who carried a pocketknife; and his little silver pocketknife was in his pants pocket or on the dresser his entire life. My dad was a quiet man (you’d be that too with six girls!) but though he was a bit of a loner, he did traditional Dad Things: tending his front lawn, grilling, and watching the Wide World of Sports in his pajamas – especially Pro Bowling (he was an expert bowler.)
He was not as big a book reader as my mom, but when he studied something that interested him, he made notes, studying what he had done and refining the process, drilling down on technique to create something that was distinctly his. This silver pocketknife was his lifelong possession, and still seemed to hold his energy.
So today with Mom’s ring in my hand, I really wanted to find where I had put Dad’s knife. Bags, boxes, drawers, bowls, under beds, in chairs, each time the guess came up empty, “I’ll find it” put new wind in my sails.
And suddenly, I am led to a new direction, a new area, and the box where it was nestled.
Not for me, but for his companion of over 50 years, whose remains live in a small bag of ashes in my home.
Placing the two objects gently together caused a deep rush of feeling and memories for all the things I loved about them both,
and I said, “Hi, Mom and Dad” like I was greeting them in person.
So while some people keep photos of their parents to remember them,
I am keeping the mana of my parents as they were in life – together.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.
Contact her studio for commissioned work here.
