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.
This is my solo exhibition of artwork displayed in a beautiful Chicago church.
100% an artist’s dream until I added imaginating: the art of visualizing in 360 degree detail.
I walked the hallways, looked at my pictures like a visitor, touching the frames, greeting guests.
I said (and felt) the emotion of thanks and gratitude while I was doing it.
How long? Sometimes it takes a bit. You must be specific. Down to the smallest details, yet not have to have it in stone. I don’t know how else to describe it.
When you begin to have experience and success with smaller goals, it can appear in shorter amounts of time.
When I deliberately concentrated on it was when my partner was working on exhibiting. We spoke of details, frames, deadlines.
Then out of the blue, the thought formed in this exact sentence,
“I would like to have a show, too.”
And my thoughts were set in motion in this manner.
Within two months, I learned one of my photographs was included in a show of female blues artists in Evanston.
I enjoyed the reception experience and happiness of seeing my art on the wall.
Months later came a request to see if I was interested in exhibiting here.
My own show.
And I was able to display artwork from a personal project
that had given me a lot of happiness in making it.
Thinking in the way of imaginating begins by deciding what you want
and then creating a clear mental picture of it.
Then, you must keep that image in mind continually,
like a port toward which you are sailing a ship.
SEE IT in detail, and add your emotions: happiness, contentment, excitement.
FEEL the weight, shape, or heat.
BREATHE IN the scent of what you are touching, and
HEAR the clink or creaks of materials or background noise.
Gently add one by one until ALL senses are participating.
Our minds can do it with our eyes open. No rituals, chants, or changes in breathing are needed.
Each time you imaginate the picture, let the feeling linger.
Pay attention to the directions and choices in your daily life that come your way.
These ‘random’ things direct the next steps towards your goal.
Advance your dream with preparation and confidence (get passport updated, check out class tuition, go see the house)
and feelings of gratitude for what you have.
Interestingly enough, the solutions that come will have the unique circumstances that you need. This is also something that you can request.
We all can do this, but we have been taught many patterns of behavior that suppress our natural inclinations in creativity, curiosity, and play.
This manner helps create a personality who has tenacity, faith, persistence and focus on their goals.
You can make some of your dreams and desires come true. May you have God’s blessings of abundance over your life.
Chicago personal photographer Dorothy Perry creates portraits and art with the distinctive signature of energy. Contact her for commissions or exhibitions here.
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.
I go online and Google myself sometimes, and saw an 2006 post from a fellow photographer, riffing on the theme of being a psychic photographer based on an ad I had written for my services. (To read the original post, click here.)
It was good-natured, but it stung a little that I had tried so carefully to describe what I did, only to have it be the butt of someone’s joke. And it apparently had still been smouldering, since it had caught my attention during a moment I had not expected.
I think to practice ones’ gift is to know that many times, it will be misunderstood.
The difference is that now I am choosing to see these kinds of situations with a mindset of appreciation for what it teaches – (even though I could not see it while it was happening.)
Some memories arise to a neutral, dispassionate view that acknowledges that yes, something happened, and despite potential for a cautionary tale, yes, it is done.
Others create laughter: I can take a deep breath and smile at challenges to my ego or my vanity. And others can be seen with compassion for a young person’s mis-reading of emotion and information.
When this comes up again in the Slideshow of my Mind,
I will choose to see and feel it differently.
I’ll bring a gentle, open, and curious self to those formative incidents,
especially ones that ‘ring up’ old memories or create unexpected charges of emotion.
I see it in the light of day,
the drama of the story dissolving.
I see it now for the best for everyone involved.
The energy of releasing old stories affects people differently.
Sometimes the act of getting it out happens quickly,
and other times, I have to let it work its way and have its say quietly,
as there is more under the surface that takes time to unfold.
The years since have created someone new:
Someone with a dream, even when another cannot see it (or see it yet.)
With that vision, even the irritations of life are welcomed for the ‘pearl’ created.
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.
A bit of counter-intuition for friends, photographers, and everyone in between:
Don’t be so eager to photograph the daily treasured moments of your life
above all else.
To be in ‘pictures or it didn’t happen’ mode, twenty-four seven.
To be removed from the reality of interaction with family, children, experiences.
Take time to enjoy and feel the depth and beauty of what you witness.
Bring the energy of your presence – go quiet –
be fully there.
Even a second of this type of connecting brings this beautiful state of present energy to the photographer –
and within the photographs you create.✨
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.
