Elizabeth Shoemaker is only 24 years old, but through her Photography and articles on the subject, she brings a sense of worldliness, maturity and knowledge that is so refreshing. Elizabeth is one of those diamonds that sparkles so bright she captivates you from across the room.
When did you begin your career in Photography and what was the image that inspired you to do so?
It wasn't a particular image that inspired me to get into photography. My mother is an art connaiseur-- I grew up with signed, limited edition prints on my bedroom wall instead of posters. I've always loved visual art and always been perfectly awful at it. Actually trying photography never occured to me until my roommate bought a digital camera, but I guess the most powerful photographic experience I had was in high school. I was very much an outsider, even inside the typical "outsider" cliques, and didn't really bother with stuff like fashion or makeup. When it came time for my senior pictures, I chose someplace cheap on the outskirts of town-- it'd been ingrained in me that I wasn't that attractive and I didn't want my parents to waste money on pictures. It turned out that the photographer who worked with me was phenomenal-- I got goosebumps when he showed us the proofs. I remember my hands shaking when I picked up my favorite one. That feeling of "Oh my God.. Is that really me? Do I really look like this?" was life changing. I thought photography was all about pushing a button, that it was the poor man's art: I had no idea it could be revelatory before then.
Is there a perfect picture, perfect scene or perfect image that you continue to strive for?
I don't know. There are a ton of concepts on my to-do list; things I want to create but don't have the resources for just yet. I have a lot of ideas. I think, though, that what I strive for the most is a certain emotion-- pretty pictures are nice, but someday I want to take a picture with that amazing heart-in-your-throat quality, something you can't stop staring at. It's a huge thrill when I get a reaction like that from the subject of a portrait. Now my goal is to get that reaction from anyone who sees the portrait.
What are your thoughts on the beauty and fashion magazines photoshopping so many of the images we see?
The first time I'd ever heard of airbrushing photos was years ago, when Kate Winslet went after GQ for photoshopping her legs thinner. She was offended because she loved her curves! That was awesome. I think that drastic photoshopping in fashion and beauty mags was much more detrimental to self-esteem before so many people learned how to manipulate their own images. I don't like to do much at all to any of the images I take, even the rare self-portrait-- but just the widespread knowledge of what is done to those pictures, and the basic ideas of HOW, might actually be good for women as a whole. Smart, empowered women can look at those pictures and know they're not real--and if that small, insecure voice in their head says, "I wish I looked like that!" logic can respond with, "You WOULD look like that with the right photographer and digital artist."
What are you learning and growing in your new creative work with photography?
Right now I'm learning a lot about the studio environment and specifically, about studio lighting. The vast majority of my experience in photography has been with one fixed lens and available light-- maybe a reflector. The vast majority of my technical skill set is based on having absolutely nothing available to me except the most bare of necessities. I've been getting the opportunity to work in more luxurious setups lately, and it's both scary and thrilling. I'm really interested to see what the heck I do when I hit my stride with artificial lighting.
You made so many fantastic points in your Makeup and Photography article, were these things you learned through trial and error or was it information that was passed onto to you to learn and work from?
Thanks to my first camera-- a trusty Nikon D100, one of the first they made-- biting the dust, there was a period of about six months last year when I couldn't shoot at all. As painful as it was, it was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me! I spent the whole time researching things to make my photography stronger. Makeup was the main obsession. Since I am a makeup enthusiast anyway (my makeup kit cost me more than my camera, I hate to say), I read everything I could on how to use makeup to improve my photography. Everything, from forums and pamphlets to books. I'd then try it on myself or on a friend, take crappy test pictures, and see what I needed to fix. Makeup is as fascinating to me as photography. I can't believe I'd been sitting on such a powerful tool for so long, and had no idea how to utilize it.
What is the ultimate thing you want to achieve through your photography?
It took me a long time to figure that out. I ramble about it at length in the artist's statement on my website, but it basically boils down to this:
Photographs are all about frozen moments in time, about capturing every detail in a scene without losing the spirit of the subject. My goal is to take the sort of picture that someone can look back on years from now and think, "At this moment, I was happy. I was innocent. I was in love."
"At this moment, I was beautiful."
You can find Elizabeth in the following places: Her website, iStock.com and iStock.com articles.
Posted by Shannon Nelson on January 17, 2007 1:00 PM
| Permalink
