Dancing Lessons from God

Why Having Big Dreams Is a Waste of Time

Posted on Wednesday, February 24, 2016 | 0 Comments

As my poor mother can attest after having to endure a rather bleak phone call late last Tuesday night, filled with tears and a thoroughly soaked pillowcase, I've been feeling a rather unpleasant mix of emotions the past few weeks. The kinds of emotional unpleasantries worthy of making anyone want to crawl back under their oversized down comforter and avoid another cold and overcast mid-February morning. I think everyone has gone through this phase at one point or another, so my intent is not to get sympathy in any way I can find it. There is actually a point to my bringing this up.

Now, I don't think it will come as a big surprise when I say that I am a dreamer. This is evidenced by that fact that one of my favorite pastimes is to use anything and everything I can to create whatever prop I need to for my latest photo idea. This has included such items as common kitchen barbecue skewers, yards of fabric from unfinished sewing projects left at the local thrift store, and even a light up two foot tall christmas candy cane decoration.

This tendency to imagine the far off possibilities applies to all aspects of my life, not just my photography and prop making.

I like to imagine what my life will look like when I'm five years older, with my future dog and future travels to Iceland, Croatia, and the Pacific Northwest. Who doesn't? And sometimes this is a really good thing. It fills me with determination and this certain excitement. The kind of excitement you feel at the start of a Saturday morning, sun streaming in through your windows, promising a gorgeous day spent accomplishing all the tasks you've been itching to do in between all the classes, appointments, and hectic grocery runs during the week.

It's a pretty magical feeling, right?

I attribute a lot of the growth I have experienced throughout my life to this combination of being a dreamer and a considerable amount of hard work. I like to think of my dreams as this big white lighthouse on the distant coast, drawing me on through the night towards a better and brighter future...

However, as much as I love my dreams, and I wouldn't trade them for anything, I think they are also the reason I sometimes find myself shipwrecked on the rocks, beaten with the punishing waves of rejection and heartache.

It hurts.

Sometimes to the point where it seems like it would be a lot easier to just let go of that dream and settle into the life I have right now. To stop trying to get to that lighthouse safe on land and stay in the relative safety of this little ship I've created in my 25 years. After all, my little ship is staying afloat just fine, isn't it?

This is my cousin Shari. Isn't she adorable?

I recently finished an image taken during my Christmas break trip to Las Vegas. Generally I try to find some sort of lyric, poem, or quote that represents the message being conveyed in my pieces. For this photo, I spent my entire early morning pre-work prep time searching for a quote that stood out to me. One of the first quotes I stumbled upon was this:

Do not waste time dreaming of great faraway opportunities; do the best you can where you are. Open your petals of power and beauty and fling out the fragrance of your life in the place that has been assigned to you.

- Orison Swett Marden

At first I did not like this quote. AT ALL. I spent another hour scrolling through brainyquote.com, pinterest, and every quote app on my phone (let's just say I really like quotes), getting increasingly frustrated that I couldn't find the perfect one. The thought that I had wasted my entire morning prep time with nothing to show for it left me heading to work with road rage akin to what a thirty-five year old guy trying to make it on time to his favorite sporting event would experience.

All of this, just because of the first phrase. "Do not waste time dreaming of great faraway opportunities."

Despite how I've been feeling lately, I still believe that dreams have this incredible ability to make you believe you can do things that seem 100 miles off the coast. Like that lighthouse burning steadfast through the storm, dreams give you the strength to fight your way towards a land where your biggest goals are your reality.

So how can something so powerful just be a waste of time?

As I spent my free time throughout the rest of my day searching for a better quote, I started to rethink things, though. After a while, a thought occurred to me:

Just because we're not constantly looking at our lighthouses, doesn't mean they no longer exist. And it doesn't mean we can't continue to sail steadfastly towards them.

If the lighthouse analogy is getting old for you, here's another scenario:

When you are driving, where do your eyes fall? Is it on your end destination 1,000 miles ahead of you? Or is it on the car in front of you, the signs as you drive past them, and the next off ramp?

What I've realized is that sometimes we need to focus on what's around us and not dwell on the big goals and dreams... at least not all the time. We would never make it from Boston to Los Angeles if we only looked in a generally westward direction. We would miss all the turns we need to make, and more importantly, we would miss all the beautiful pastures, mountains, and forested hills passing by on the other side of our window.

In the past week, I have realized something that has made me come to really enjoy this quote. I have the power to take the experiences and beauty, all the vistas I have seen throughout my journey, and tell everyone around me about them, metaphorically "flinging out my beauty and my fragrance," if you will.

So here's my beautiful vista (which actually kind of starts out on a depressing note, but I promise it gets happier):

Yes, it sucks to spend the majority of my time at a job that leaves me feeling ready to crawl back into bed as soon as I get home in the evening, still dressed and too drained to even take my coat off.

Yes, I will readily admit that every time I see one of my married friends buying a house or buying a dog, their first car, having a child... it really really sucks to be the one sitting on the couch alone, with no one's arm around me and no one holding my hand or kissing my cheek. No one to cook dinner for, or to tell me how their day at work was.

Being alone really is the pits sometimes.

But despite this, there is so much in my life to be happy for!

For one, I live in Boston!

I also have an amazing group of friends strewn throughout the world that I wouldn't trade for anything.

I have a family that loves me and supports me unconditionally.

I've had the blessing and opportunity to live in foreign lands and travel to many, many countries, gaining experiences and knowledge that will stay with me for eternity.

And it means that everything I can possibly give can be devoted to the pursuit of my passions and spreading love to everyone I encounter. How many people get to say that?

So today I remind myself that this is a process of "flinging my beauty and fragrance" around me in the places I have been called to traverse. I may feel like that tiny petal blowing aimlessly in the wind at times, disconnected from the world around me and hoping for a soft place to land, but if my very existence can add even just a tiny bit of extra beauty into someone else's life, I have served my purpose here in this life.

Life is about focusing on the little things, so that they will eventually lead us to the great big dreams.

For me, that means focusing on my goals just for today. Not for the year, or even the month, or the week. Just the next step. Every once in a while I will look to my right, or to my left, step back and admire the beautiful vista behind me, but for right now, I will set my sights on the next bend in the road and appreciate its beauty for what it is: another step in the right direction.

How I Learned Letting Go of One Dream Can Lead to a Greater Happiness

Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2016 | 1 Comments

In my hunt for models for my Daughters of the King series, I reached out to youth leaders from my church and was ultimately led to Haylie. When I learned that Haylie was a dancer, I did a little happy tango on the inside. When I found out she was a classically trained ballerina, it was as if the entire Radio City Rockettes corp was doing the can can in my heart.

As a six year old in a pretty pink skirt and rhinestone leotard attending my very first ballet class, I gained a deep love for dance that took me through fifteen wonderful years and through every stage of life one experiences between the ages of six and twenty-one. Dance became a monumental aspect of my life that has and will always enthrall and inspire me.

And so it was with all the effort I could muster that I anxiously waited until the next upcoming Saturday when I could finally meet up with Haylie. It was a beautiful late autumn day in Boston as we walked from Haylie's dorm on Beacon Street down to the Charles River Esplanade. On our walk, I learned just how much dance meant to Haylie, as she told me how she had left her family behind in California to pursue her dreams here in Boston. To make this tale even more incredible, she is not even in high school yet!

But that is the magical thing about having something to be passionate about, I have found. It gives us the strength to do things we never thought we were even capable of attempting!

Over the years, it has become pretty clear that photography is something I have grown very passionate about. Sometimes I like to think that as dance was slowly pushed out of my life, photography came in to fill in this space my heart knew was missing inside. So you can imagine the amount of joy I felt as I spent the afternoon remembering all the many happy experiences from my childhood. Those times where I could pretend I was a fairy, or a princess, or whatever my heart wanted to be, so long as I had ballet slippers on my feet and a pretty pink skirt around my waist.

Photographing Hayley, and seeing the passion in her eyes and in her every movement, was like being that child all over again, exploring creative expression and feeling like I could be anything I wanted to be.

I believe that is why photography has come to be the intrinsic facet of my life that it is today. With photography I can create anything, do anything, and therefore be anything. Inspiration and creativity, in whatever form they come in, are what makes me feel the most alive and what provide the strongest sense of passion and happiness in my life.

So twenty years from now, it matters not whether or not photography is the source of creative expression I turn to. It only matters that I have something to be passionate about and that I can pursue that with everything I have and with everything I love. Until that time comes, I will pursue this happiness that I have found with all my soul and with every last piece my heart has to give.

Let Your Light So Shine

Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 | 0 Comments

There is something special about sharing a piece of art that you have spent your love and many many hours on. It is even more special when what you have decided to share also happens to feature someone you love very much as the subject of the piece.

"Let Your Light So Shine", my piece for the Young Woman value Good Works:

When I first set out on this adventure of creating pieces depicting each of the Young Women Values, I planned out my images over a period of many many months. I decided on the various settings. How many I wanted to be taken indoors, how many outdoors. What props I would use and the symbolism they would carry. And while I knew I wanted to have a diverse group of girls, I also knew that one of those girls had to be my youngest sister Chloë.

Chloë has played a very important role in my journey from being JUST a "photographer" to becoming who I am at today: an artist. She has been my muse from the beginning, and I think throughout all these years I may have convinced her, if only slightly, that she actually enjoys modeling.

In December of 2008, I got my first ever DSLR (a trusty little Nikon D60 that I literally used until the shutter broke several years later. Apparently that can happen...). While visiting family shortly after receiving my new camera, Chloë was the first person I took out for a "portrait session". Of course, these photos are lacking in MANY areas, but I still love them. They still show the entire reason why I love photography: the preservation of memories and life and love.

Each summer I would go home and take Chloë out for a photoshoot. Some years she loved coming out with me, sometimes I had to force her into it, but as the years went by, our work and time spent together became more and more magical. I would paint her entire face red and yellow or tell her to go walk barefoot in the mud in a wedding dress. While the photos may not have always turned out, the memories attached to them were always worth the effort.

Now, as I have mentioned in previous posts, one of the most important aspects of this Young Women Values series is incorporating the subjects' cultures into my pieces. But how do you incorporate the culture of an incredible little girl who has lived in eight different houses in four countries, all before she even turned twelve?

As I thought about it and puzzled over it, I decided there was a place my family has always called home, where we could always return to after every adventure: Grandma and Grandpa's house. Or as we all like to call it, Paradise. With the location decided, the day quickly came where I could finally take a photo I had been waiting almost two years to take. We grabbed some miscellaneous lamps from around the house, extensions cords, and all the necessary camera equipment, and made our way to the big hill at the end of Grandpa's runway. My cousin's wife Kenna, of Billi Billi Productions, ran around my sister holding up lights here, and flicking skirts there.

Now, the scripture for Good Works is:

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

I had envisioned a girl looking almost as if she were this candle on a hillside, shining for everyone around her to see. Chloë has grown into a compassionate young woman and has always been able to be kind and create friendships with anyone she encounters, so I knew she would be the perfect representative for this value. More literally symbolic, she is wearing a yellow dress, the color for Good Works, and, combined with her blonde hair, I knew she would stand out just as a candle would against the darkening sky behind her.

There's not much more symbolism to this, as I wanted to keep it simple and let the beautiful sky and subject speak for themselves.

I love you miss Chloë. You will always be my favorite person to shoot, not just because of the sweetness you bring to each photo we create together, but also, and more importantly, because of the friendship and love that has grown between us during our shoots. You will always be my little baby sister, and I am grateful for that everyday! Keep shining. :)

** I'd like to thank Robert Cornelius and Stephen Sitton for providing me with some very valuable second opinions and critiques on this piece. You can see their work here and here. I'd also like to thank Kenna with Billi Billi Photography, who ran around flinging skirts and holding lighting equipment like a pro. You can see her work here. I'd be stuck with a significantly less beautiful piece if it weren't for everyone who helped out, so thank you times a million all of you!**

Labels: Arkansas, Art, Church, Conceptual Work, Photography, Religious Art, Teen

Virtue and Growth

Posted on Thursday, January 7, 2016 | 0 Comments

Recently I made the (possibly ill-conceived) decision to revisit my piece Virtueand completely rework this image I had taken over two years ago. This was kind of a big deal for me. When I first ventured into the realms of photoshop and image editing, I made a rule for myself that I would never go back and re-edit an old image for one reason: growth.

I first got Photoshop as a gift from my cousin years and years ago. I immediately made a concerted effort to watch every single tutorial and read every forum relating to Photoshop the internet had to offer.

Spoiler alert: there's a lot.

My efforts were rewarded, however, as I began to see improvement, and found myself enjoying photography more and more as time went on. I also found it incredibly tempting to go back and re-edit photos I had taken months and even years previous. Photography has been a hobby of mine since my family and I moved to India while I was in high school, and I had a lot of really interesting photos that I was sorely tempted to go back and "fix" with my improving talent.

For the pose in Virtue I combined two images. This one was used for the skirt.

This photo was used for her torso.

I will readily admit that am a perfectionist, to a fault, and I realized that allowing myself to rework old photos could quickly lead me into a black hole of "edit, learn something new, rework, and repeat". So I forced myself to recognize that improvement and growth comes from looking forward and trying new things, and definitely not from trying the same thing over and over again. Of course, I'm saying this about a month after I published three reworks of Integrity... But, unlike with Virtue, though, which I was absolutely in LOVE with and was able to proudly display for all the internet to see, as soon as I finished Integrity I decided I didn't like it and immediately started over.

I had never finished an image, been happy with it, and then walked away from it for years at a time before coming back to it, as was the case with Virtue.

Until this past December.

Here is the piece after completion in November of 2013:

I kind of cringe when I look at it now, but man I thought this was the coolest image EVER. Now I sit here wondering what the heck her hair is doing being perfectly coifed when her skirt is blowing as if in hurricane force winds. And what's with the random red splotchy-ness on the right hand side of the frame? The world may never know...

Now here is the same photo reworked in December of 2015:

So why did I decide to go back to this piece nearly two years later?

The same reason I decided NOT to go back and edit old photos: Growth.

(**If you're curious about the meaning and symbolism behind this piece, you can read about it here, in my first blog post about Virtue. Disclaimer: it may or may not contain cringe worthy writing from my younger blogging self. Why oh why did I never go back and edit my posts before publishing?**)

Virtue is part of an eight part series which I am currently working on. Yes, it's taken over two years, and I'm not even half way through. Let's not get into that. I legitimately made finishing this series one of my New Year's resolutions.

I digress.

Considering the amount of growth I'm happy to have experienced in the world of photography, I felt like there were stark differences in the mood, skill, and technique in my more recent photos in the series and I wanted my images to feel like they all belonged together (you can see the other two pieces here and here). In essence, I wanted this series to look like I wasn't such a tremendous slacker and hadn't taken the photos years apart.

So what have I learned from this? A few things:

1) Sometimes it's alright to live life on the edge and break your own rules.

2) However I still wouldn't make it a regular exercise to re-edit old photos. There were many times when I wanted to give up on this one and just let it take its subpar place in the series. To say the least, it was a very fierce battle between my perfectionism and my desire to work on other (newer and therefore more fun) pieces. Not incredibly enjoyable, I will confess.

3) Thank heavens someone invented the raw file format.

AND

4) Perseverance is important if you want to finish a piece that's taken over two years to complete.

Here's a gif on how the magic happened (the second time around):

NYC: Day 2

Posted on Sunday, January 3, 2016 | 0 Comments

Day 2 in New York City entailed a lot of walking. As in the "we almost walked the equivalent of a marathon" kind of "a lot". In my book, that just means all the food and snacks we ate all day (and I mean an almost constant stream of food intake) were 100% negated.

We started off on the east side of Central Park and made our way up 5th Ave:

We also made a jaunt into the New York Public Library, but the main hall was closed for renovation, so we didn't get to see much other than this hallway (admittedly a beautiful hallway) and a few side rooms. Just another excuse to go back, I guess!

The Flat Iron Building at Sunset:

We also went to the Met, where Anna and I went to the Jacqueline de Ribes exhibit. I think this may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip. Look at these costumes! My mind was going crazy imaging all the cool photos I could have taken with these beautiful gowns!

The Met also had this really cool nativity tree, which played Christmas carols and light up various parts of the scene as it played. The angels on the tree actually reminded me of my tree topper growing up, which was cool.

After our marathon throughout Manhattan, we decided to call it a day and grabbed some bagels on the way home. I'm a little sad that my first "New York bagel" experience was not as magical as I thought it would be, mostly due to the lackluster cream cheese the shop had. I generally view my bagel as a vehicle for the massive amounts of cream cheese I slather on, so the fact that this delicious condiment didn't walk up was a little disappointing.

Anyway, enough with my bagel tangent. Until next time!

Welcome to New York

Posted on Monday, December 7, 2015 | 0 Comments

When I got back from New York, I called my mom and told her that I had fallen in love with this city. She asked me why I loved it so much and I couldn't come up with a specific answer. Is it alright to fall in love with a place simply because of the way you felt while you were there?

I felt I was part of something big. Something that had influence.

A city with so many faces and culture, and yet one at the same time.

Our first day in the city, we woke up at 4 am to catch the train into town via Grand Central Station in time to get a good view of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. It was rough waking up that early, considering we got in at about midnight the night before, but it was worth it. Some pictures from the day:

Grand Central

Central Park

Waiting for the parade to start.

When we got to the parade, we couldn't figure out how to get to the side of the street where we were allowed to stay and watch, so we wandered around for a good twenty minutes before we decided to ask one of the police officers which way we needed to go. Surprisingly, he pulled open one of the barricades and let us walk through an area where my roommates and I were literally the only people without a costume or some sort of identification badge. I'm pretty sure we weren't technically supposed to be there, but we just kept saying to ourselves "act cool. Act normal. But take ALL the pictures!" as we walked past all the huge blimps and costumed people.

Definitely a once in a life time experience!

Toothless is, and always be, my favorite. I just love him so much!

After the parade we walked up to Times Square and ate at Brooklyn Diner. I got a pastrami reuben, because as they say "When in New York", and it was heavenly.

Now that I know it's only three hours away, I think I will be visiting much more in the future.

Integrity.... Again.

Posted on Wednesday, December 2, 2015 | 0 Comments

Remember that post I wrote about Integrity a while back? And remember how I wrote another post about a different version of Integrity a few weeks later?

Well let's hope the old adage "third time's the charm" holds true, because I'm about to hit you with another rework of Integrity. This time, though, I completely scrapped the original image and started over again with a different photograph from that day.

Now this isn't to say that I was lying in my last post when I said my second version was "SO MUCH better" and "I loved it", because it really was SO MUCH better and I really did love it more than the first. Seriously, I still cringe when I see the green fog from my first edit. You probably couldn't find a grilled cheese sandwich that was cheesier than this:

Uh... that failed attempt at a light ray coming down. The fact that the fog isn't even green in the area surrounding here. It was just.... bad.

So I asked for second opinions and the photo evolved into the latest version of Integrity, seen here:

And being 100% honest, I really did love it at first! But as time went on I realized it just didn't fit me. It didn't fit the story and it didn't fit my style. I strive for elegance and an air of authenticity in my photos and I didn't feel like this image was indicative of that. Was it really cool? Yes. Was it all kinds of fun colors and cool smoke? Yes. But of all the traits I claim to have, flashy is (I hope), not one of them. I love to work in the subtleties and so I attempted to take a more subtle approach this time around.

As I was reworking attempt #2, though, I was having a hard time visualizing what exactly I wanted to change. All I could see was what I DIDN'T want the picture to look like, blatantly staring me right in the face. It's like when people take a bright light and shine it right in your eye. You can't see anything but that light. You have a hard time believing there is anything else out there except that light. I was stuck, staring at this bright.... purple.... flashy.... light.

So I went back to square one and began looking for another shot from that day that I could use. Amidst the thirty or so photos I had taken, I found this one:

And this one:

Well photoshop exists for a reason.... so I combined them. And then added a lot of fog. And rather than listing ALL the things I changed.... I think I'll just show you. Because... you know... "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I stand by that statement. Without further ado, attempt #3:

3 All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;

4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.

5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.

6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

Job 27: 3-6

In my original post about six months ago, I explained all the symbolism behind this image. Since I'm nice and don't want to have to make you go track the original post down in the archives, I thought I'd give another explanation (largely copied and pasted from the original post):

Since the color for Integrity is purple, I made the obvious choice of dressing Kacey in purple. The ornament in her hair, a kanzashi, and the cherry blossom flowers wrapped around her crook are all nods to her Japanese heritage.

The image is representing her staying true to her beliefs and her principles and following the words of our Heavenly Father no matter what may cross her path. To me, this is the definition of integrity.

The shepherd's crook, long recognized as a symbol of our Savior, represents Christ as the Shepherd. He guides us to safety and eternal life through his example. I wanted to have Kacey holding onto this staff as she walked down the path, just as we must hold to the words of our Savior throughout our lives, during easy and difficult times alike.

The light represents her goodness and the "light" of Christ we can bring into the sometimes dark and dreary world around us.

Finally, as you may have guessed, the forest in winter and the fog creeping in represents not only the evils of the world, but more importantly, the difficult times in our lives. It's so easy to think that it's "evilness" that pulls us away from our Heavenly Father. But like a gentle fog rolling in, it's the daily struggles and the sorrows that occur in our lives which obscure our path back to him.

So hopefully this is the final version I am sticking with. I've been staring at this photo for the past two weeks, making tiny adjustments here, and tiny adjustments there. When I finally opened it up last night, and again this morning, and couldn't think of anything I wanted to change, I decided it was time to share.

Hopefully this is the last time I will be posting about Integrity!

Labels: Arkansas, Behind the Scenes, Conceptual Work, Photography, Religious Art

⇐ Older Posts ǀ Newer posts⇒

About

Arkansas native.

Currently based in Boston.

Travelling soul.

"Unexpected travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Contact

madeline.s.stoker@gmail.com