Sacred Lotus Photography

photographer spotlight: vivienne

happy monday everyone! today im very excited to share with you a photographer who is so full of life that it shines through each one of her photos!

let me introduce you to the lovely:

1.) what draws you to photography?
I fell in love with photography during a really hard time in my life, when I didn't feel like I had much to offer anyone else and was needing to be focused on finding happiness within myself. I found that it helped me to be present in the most simple beauty around me and to engage with that beauty. It allowed me to be fill my self up with creative love.

Also love that for the rest of my life, every single day, I have no doubt that I will do something or learn something about photography. That totally blows me away...the learning is endless.

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?
When I first got into photography it was all digital. I think it was good to start that way as it allowed me the room to make lots of mistakes and learn from them. It didn't take me long to fall for film though. I'm head over heels about polaroids and 120 film in my holga, diana or lubitel. Its not unlikely to find me with 7 or 8 cameras in my bag!

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?
I am so all about polaroid right now. I just got another pola camera that has a self-timer, which has me totally swooning and excited for the self-portrait potential ahead of me.

I also deeply love looking down the "contraption" from my digital camera through to my duaflex to do the ttv or through the viewfinder technique. Its a whole new perspective when you look through a vintage camera with your digital. Its total magic.

photographer spotlight: leslie

hello again, we are taking a trip to the beautiful san francisco bay area. i hope your ready to shine the spotlight on another amazing flickr photographer! this lovely lady sure knows her way around a camera. her photos always put a smile on my face.

please let me introduce you to:

1.) what draws you to photography? 
I think it is the fact that after a few adjustments, one can lift that relatively small box up to their eye, frame what they see and, in my case, utilize nature’s light, find some lush vibrant color – then just that click. Out comes a captured moment. And on a good day, a visual story. I get a thrill from it.

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?
For clients, I am 100% digital. It just can’t be beat for the efficiency, speed, and ability to have your “dark room” right at your fingertips. I use Photoshop for minor post-processing, FTP the files and – boom – happy clients. This can all happen in 24 hours on a small job. Having said that, for personal projects, I love my Holga and am excitedly delving back into 35mm film with a new toy – my Pentax K1000. Perhaps if you asked me this question in six months I will have convinced a few clients to go film? Now that would be great.

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?
I am a Nikon girl and love my D200. I am really jonesing for an upgrade to either the D700 or maybe even a D3 but that will take some serious financial planning or a winning lotto ticket!

photographer spotlight: jennifer

today in honor of polaroid week on flickr i will be shining the spotlight on another one of my favorite polaroid shooters. she is a photographer/designer from hollister, california currently living in london, england. i find her work so inspiring and i'm very excited to share with you!

it's me pleasure to introduce you to:

 

1.) what draws you to photography?
light, emotion, expressing myself, i feel as if photography is one way that i can escape....away from everyday life and into this magical world of limitless possibilities...

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?
film by far! I have to have something tangible in my hands after the photograph is taken, that is why Polaroid is such magic to me. Though shooting with 35mm and medium format is something else I enjoy….the suspense is unbearable, waiting for the processing and printing of the images. With Polaroid I am able to see what my eyes had seen through the camera just only minutes ago. Polaroid also has something so different to other analogue films, the photos are like paintings, one of a kind and cannot be replicated, that is why they are so special to me.

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?
At the moment I have two favorite cameras. My Polaroid sx70, and Polaroid 340. I feel as if they are now just an extension of myself, and have become objects that I cannot live without. I love holding this little magic machine in my hands knowing that I will be able to produce something beautiful out of it, and share with the world what my eyes see through this little camera.

photographer spotlight: bradley

happy monday friends! over the weekend i was looking at past photographer spotlights and noticed that i haven't featured many male photographers lately. so this week i will be shining the spotlight on an amazing photographer from the sunny state of california. i absolutely adore his film work and his polaroid portraits are breathtaking!

please let me introduce you to:

1.) what draws you to photography?

perhaps more than anything, it is the immediacy of the medium. i can spend a couple weeks putting a shoot together, and get half a dozen really nice images from it. where as, if i were to try and paint/draw those images it would take me about a year to complete. i also like that part of the process is out of my control. 

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?

film. film is imperfect, which is appealing to me. i like the large variety of film available, and the different looks you can achieve by using them. film is slow. i mean, the process of shooting full manual with film in comparison to full auto digital. when you slow down, you see more. 

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?

i've had many favorites...35mm: canon, olympus, nikon...120 film: hasselblad, mamiya, yashica, holga...polaroid: too many to name! i suppose my all time favorite camera is my current camera, a mamiya c330. although, my polaroid SLR 680 is a close second.

photographer spotlight: susannah

today we will be traveling to the lovely city of bath in the UK to meet a women who is a writer, photographer, and workshop teacher. her creativity and eye for beauty is astounding. this lady really knows how to make magic with a polaroid camera!

it's my pleasure to introduce you to:

 

1. what draws you to photography?
 I often think that if I don’t get all these images out of my head, it will explode. I see photographs everywhere I go – it’s like an illness. Some people walk around sketching and painting, some write vignettes, some fuse the colours into stitches – I see potential images everywhere and want to catch them like butterflies in a net. It is impossible for me to go anywhere and not spend most of my time taking pictures, as all who have traveled with me can testify. Even a simple walk to the supermarket can uncover many photo opportunities. I see a lot of things; I like to record my world... my feelings… my history… in images.

2. do you prefer digital or film? why?
 Film. For the way it records light, for the tactile quality of film grain, for the unpredictability of it, for the link to photographers of the past. Plus I like to have negatives and original Polaroid prints in my possession because you can’t delete them forever with a click of a mouse.

3. what is your favorite camera to shoot with?
 My SX-70 Polaroid camera. I know what it can and can’t do, and so now the picture making feels like an extension of what my eyes see rather than about technique. I also love my Hasselblad 500 C/M but, shamefully, she’s been gathering dust lately.

photographer spotlight: jenny

hello again, i hope your ready to meet another amazing photographer! today the spotlight will be shining on one very talented lady who is not only a photographer but also a jewelery designer and artist. her photography is very nostalgic and makes me dream of someday traveling to far off country's.

it's my pleasure to introduce you to:

 

1.) what draws you to photography?
The ability to stop a feeling, a moment found beautiful, and keep it, be able to hold it, remember it, be a part of it. 

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?
Film... the unpredictability from the cameras I like to use excites me. I've decided I would like the world to look like a polaroid, so the more I take, the more I can get closer to seeing it that way. Maybe I can commission a scientist to create polavision glasses? 

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?
It's really a tie between all my lo-fidelity toy cameras... Maybe it's a weakness, or too much of an infatuation with each of them that I cannot pick just one. They all have their own personalities, strengths and surprises. Holga, Polaroid... Diana... This might be like asking a parent which is their favorite child. 

photographer spotlight: bree

hello friends i'm back again with another wonderful photographer! this week we will be shining the spotlight on one of my very good friends. i'm so happy to share her beautiful photography with you today.

please let me introduce you to:

1.) what draws you to photography?

I love being able to capture a memory in time and to look back and remember how I was feeling,what I was doing and who was there. I also love capturing light being able to grab the morning light seeping through the window and sun flares peeking through the trees.  

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?

That's tough I like being able to grab my digital and capture a quick moment. It also allows me to take hundreds of pictures of my constantly moving children with out wasting to much money on film. I'm always amazed with the beautiful things you can do in Photo Shop and the endless ways to manipulate a photograph into almost anything.. I prefer the look of film though the grain the whole process of taking your time and waiting for your film it's like Christmas morning every time.

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?

My polaroid sx-70 hands down even though I am still learning I love every minute of practice!

photographer spotlight: astrid

today we are going to take a little trip over the ocean and through majestic mountains to the beautiful country of norway. there we will find our next flickr photographer!

please let me introduce you to:

 

1.) what draws you to photography?
The possibility to capture moments and keep them forever. 

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?
It depends on what kind of photos I’m taking. Sometimes I take photos for my articles (I’m a freelance journalist), and then I prefer digital, mostly because of the instant gratification and because I like my Canon 40D a lot. Other than that, I prefer film. I just wrote a blog post about why I shoot film; this is what I wrote:

I shoot film because I like the feeling the photos get from using different kinds of film. It's different than digital. I also like that each photo I take with film is (often) more special than the ones I take with my digital cameras. I don't want to waste film, so I just don't snap away when shooting film. I take my time to get the photo right. And of course there's the excitement of getting film back from the lab, seeing how the photos turned out. Sometimes it's not the result I wanted, and sometimes it's better than I hoped for.

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?
My Canon EOS 500N with 50 mm lens. 

photographer spotlight: steph

today i have a very special guest to share with you. she is the editor of light leaks magazine and an amazing photographer with a deep love for film.

please let me introduce you to:

1.) what draws you to photography?

Oh gosh. I could go on for pages here. I'm in love with just about everything there is to photography. From the heft of my K1000 to my barely-there, it'll-break-if-I-drop-it Banner; the click (or thunk) of the shutter to the sound of an ejecting Polaroid; the smell of developer chemicals to the stink of Polaroid goo; the mad rush to the photo lab to pick up newly developed rolls to the slow hours spent scanning negatives... I love talking about photography and cameras, although I'm not a huge fan of talking about my own work. I love spending time documenting subjects and moments that others would never notice. But most of all, I love that my grandpa loved photography. I love that my grandma gave me his cameras, his film, his Polaroids. I love that his hobby is alive and well in me.

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?

I'm a film girl wholeheartedly because that's what I learned with, fell in love with, and just feel right about. I'm a sucker for square format and I can't inherently get that with digital, and cropping just seems unnatural to me. I have to use a digital SLR at work (I'm a photographer at www.backcountry.com and seasonally for the US Forest Service) and I feel like I'm using my DSLR like someone working in an office uses a stapler or a copy machine. Digital feels like a boring piece of office equipment rather than a worn-in and well-loved tool of my trade. 

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?

I'm never good at answering this question because I've got too many favorites. I've most recently fallen head over heels for my Banner Diana clone. It's perfectly soft and blurry, leaks light at the most opportune times despite the gobs of gaffers tape on the outside, and vignettes ever so nicely. It was such a nice change from all the super-sharp digital images I've made out in the field for the Forest Service this summer. I had never been a fan of overly blurred images, but this little Banner changed my mind the second I saw my first roll. My all-time favorite though is my Polaroid SLR 680, a "Sold as-is, worked the last time my dad used it in the 80's." lucky eBay find. I took a chance and -- I hope I'm not tempting fate here -- she hasn't let me down since. 

photographer spotlight: tina

today's spotlight shines on a wonderful flickr photographer from anchorage, alaska!

it's my pleasure to introduce you to:

 

1.) what draws you to photography?

I don’t really know specifically. I suppose it’s the feeling photography evokes. To be able to capture beauty, heartache, sorrow, happiness…that appeals to me. Even though I’m mainly a still life photographer, I believe the right placement of things can set the mood.

2.) do you prefer digital or film? why?

ooh..this one’s hard. I love the versatility of digital. To be able to alter the image with layers and such is always fun. But if I had the funds, I would prefer to shoot with my my sx70 exclusively. It captures light so beautifully and I just can’t seem to achieve that with my digital. That grainy soft texture is so beautiful and desirable. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a Hassleblad this year. If I do, I’m going to try and go film all the way. 

3.) what is your favorite camera to shoot with?

sx70, hands down. Instant gratification, beautiful light and grain. All good.