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June 3, 2017June 3, 2017

Life Unscripted | April 2017

Unscripted | Scottsdale Photographer | ©CeriHerdPhotography

Another month has been and gone. Yet another month that has flown by in a whirl of I don’t know what.

We started April in Boston. If you follow my Facebook page you’ll have seen that we will be moving to Massachusetts in June. We were decision-making, looking at houses and schools, exploring different neighbourhoods, visiting friends, and getting used to real weather again! Since that week life has been moving a pace: planning and researching, securing a place to live, signing paperwork, clearing through boxes and all the other mumbo-jumbo that comes with moving a family across a continent.

We’ve done it before. We can do it again. Right?!

Since that trip is shaping and driving our next few of months and our next couple of years, I want to share some of our Unscripted moments from that week. This is where our lives on the East Coast begins.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Ceri

May 6, 2017May 5, 2017

Share Six Blog Circle | May 2017 – Street

Street Photography | Share Six | Scottsdale Photographer | ©CeriHerdPhotography

This month’s Share Six theme is Street. Oooh, it’s a good one!

I have appreciated the art of Street Photography for as long as I have appreciated art itself. But since I have been able to call myself a photographer, Street Photography is not an art I have mastered. So I want to take this theme as a chance to encourage anyone reading this who is new to photography and/or new to street photography in particular to say this:

“Get Out and Explore”

You may think of Street Photography is an artsy black and white image of a busker on the subway or moving depiction of homeless man sleeping in a shop doorway. Yes, but Street Photography is that and more. Street Photography is capturing passing moments and freezing them in time. In the hustle and bustle of daily life, we all need to stop for a moment and look and you don’t need to be a photographer to do that!

Whatever and wherever your “street” is, you don’t have to label yourself as a “photographer” or an “artist”, you don’t have to shoot in manual or even own a fancy dSLR, to open your eyes to your surroundings and give street photography a try. The images I’m sharing with you today are from 2014. I had an entry level dSLR and I was only just learning how to use it properly. I was a tourist in Italy, documenting our trip. I was just starting out.

You too can capture images like this, simply by getting out of your house and allowing yourself time to explore. Whether it is somewhere you’ve never been or somewhere you go all the time, whether you’re taking a break and being a tourist, take these simple ideas to view it in a new way:

#1 Soak it in: how does the place make you feel? If you were a tourist, what would you see? What would stand out as different to anywhere else?

#2 Observe: watch the flow and movement of people, of traffic, of birds or flowers in the breeze. How do they enter your view, how do they move across the frame?

#3 Position yourself: think about angles and architectural leading lines, textures and framing, light and shade.

#4 Include people: don’t wait for a gap in the crowds. People give you a frame of reference. They give an image life and scale and perspective. They tell their own story.

#5 Details: if you struggle to narrow down you vision, focus on finding a particular colour or type of texture. A colour story is a wonderful way to get started and explore.

I hope these little tips help you in some small way!

Please click HERE to see how the talented Tori of Roots & Twigs Photography interpreted this month’s theme.

Join us for this month’s theme by posting your {street} images on our Facebook page at Share Six and to our Instagram gallery, by tagging #sharesix and #sharesix_street. A new theme will be posted on 6th June.

April 12, 2017April 17, 2017

Life Unscripted | March 2017

Massachusetts Photographer | Share Six Collections | ©CeriHerdPhotography

Welcome to the next edition of the my month Unscripted!

March has been a bit of whirlwind around here, I feel like my feet haven’t touched the ground. We’ve taken a week long road trip to Texas and back, spent a weekend in Page to visit Antelope Canyon, and at the end of the month we headed to Boston. If I’m honest, almost everything about those trips was really far from Unscripted. For literally very minute I was thinking about capturing the incredible destinations, the iconic scenery, and so my photographic expectations were soaring high. There were nights I barely slept because I was anxious to see what I had captured the previous day or nervous about my self-imposed pressure for the following day. But between all the big moments, there where also plenty of little ones. I hope you enjoy a few of our Unscripted moments from March:

April 6, 2017April 6, 2017

Share Six Blog Circle | April 2017 – Connection

Connection | Scottsdale Photographer | ©CeriHerdPhotography

Connection: A physical connection between two subjects; the connection between the subject and their surroundings; eye contact; a special bond.

When I think about {connection} or special connections, I instantly think of my children and in particular the first day my youngest little one went to school with his big brother. They insisted that I drop them off at car line instead of walking them in. Whilst I choked back tears I respected their wishes and admired the little one’s courage. I glanced back as I drove away away and saw the big one put a supportive arm around his brother’s shoulder to support him and gently steer him in the right direction. It was the sweetest most tender moment, I knew immediately he was in safe hands and my tears turned from ones of sadness (for they grow so fast and don’t seem to need their mama quite so much) to ones of pride and gratitude for their special bond.

I may not have a physical image of that moment 18 months ago but the picture of it stays in my mind as clear as day, and I do have countless images of that sum up their relationship, of the times they love each other, support each other and hate each other in equal measure!

If I ever ask them to stop what their doing for a picture (which isn’t all that often, because it normally ends in the 5-year old objecting somewhat angrily) that supportive arm quickly swings over the little’s shoulder.

Here they are taking their “pictures of the day” (just like momma) of a view from a hotel room and admiring each others work:

I think this was actually in the midst of an argument but it looks like there is love in there too, don’t you think?!

Their happy place. Barnes & Noble. Comic books. Side by side.

“Smell my armpit!” That is love!

OK, I think that was more than six. Sorry not sorry.

Please click HERE to see the talented Kathy Ledbetter of KG Ledbetter Photography’s interpretation of this months theme.

Join us for this month’s theme by posting your {connection} images on our Facebook page at Share Six and to our Instagram gallery, by tagging #sharesix and #sharesix_connection. A new theme will be posted on 6th May.

March 21, 2017March 21, 2017

White Sands National Monument | Documentary Photography

White Sands Photography | Scottsdale Photographer | ©CeriHerdPhotography

Spring Break has a wonderful habit of coinciding with my birthday, so lucky me has a habit of making celebratory road trip plans. This year, somewhat selfishly, I decided we should visit Texas. I’d be lying if I didn’t say the entire purpose of the trip was to go to Waco, the home of Chip and Joanna Gaines of Magnolia Market and of Fixer Upper fame. BUT that also meant I searched out all the places to visit on along the route that we might never have otherwise seen. I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that many of our destinations, regardless of the trip, are chosen on their photographic merits. Oh boy, did I have had high hopes for our first port of call!

The first day of our Texas Road Trip 2017 didn’t actually get us to Texas however; it was nonetheless a long day of driving, from Arizona to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. When I mentioned this plan to my dad he said, “oh, they test missiles there!” (yes, White Sands Missile Range is nearby) but there is more to it than that! Here’s how the National Park Service website describes White Sands:

“Rising from the heart of the Tularosa Basin is one of the world’s great natural wonders – the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert, creating the world’s largest gypsum dunefield. White Sands National Monument preserves a major portion of this unique dunefield, along with the plants and animals that live here.”

We arrived shortly before sunset, just in time to play on the dunes and watch the sun dip below the distant Organ Mountains.

Taekwondo on the dunes

We spent the night in Alamogordo and returned the following morning to do some sledging. The Park Service sell used sledges and buy them back from you once you’re done; you have no time restriction and can keep them if you have so much fun you can’t bear to part with it. There is no restrictions about where you can go on the dunes so we had plenty of space and our choice of dune despite the other visitors in the park. Although there is no photographic evidence that I joined in, I assure you I did! Despite my reservations about the height and acute angle of the slope, it was so much fun!

We had such a great time and we were still picking sand out of deep dark “places” a week later!

After the sledging we took a walk along a boardwalk to see more of the ecosystem. I imagine the area looks quite astounding when the wildflowers are in bloom and is unbearable in the heat of the summer.

Understandably, the kids were exhausted after all the sledging. Walking up sand dunes is a tiring business, let me tell you!

If you’re ever in New Mexico I would definitely recommend a visit to White Sands. Whether you’re a photographer or there just to have fun, there is so much beauty to be seen and enjoyed.

After our morning at the dunes we visited the Space Museum in Alamogordo (just the outside of the museum actually, but even that was worth it) and then hit the road again. The next stop on our trip was Carlsbad Caverns; a place worthy of it’s own blog post!

~Ceri