I wish I could tell you that starting and steering a successful collaborative project was the magic pixie dust that made all artistic insecurities vanish and all paths to greatness reveal themselves. I can’t. I never expected it would. But, like any person who struggles with finding their place in a large, loud, and often competitive artistic community, I secretly hoped it would.

If I’m being honest, I feel like I am struggling more now, as a photographer, than I was when we started Sham of the Perfect. There’s a lot to be said about being at the beginning of a journey. When you are at the foot of a mountain the direction is fairly clear. You start making your way upward. However, when you reach the summit of that small peak, you realize you’ve only climbed one mountain. There are higher mountains to climb and further corners of the earth to explore. Deciding where to go next is a very daunting task. But there’s also something so motivating about knowing there are mountains left to climb. Being a part of Sham of the Perfect has taught me invaluable lessons and given me some wonderful gifts to take with me into the future.

First and foremost this project has connected me with some truly incredible people. Not only has the project spawned close friendships but it’s also helped me find my feet in the photography community as a whole. When you are raising two small people, have a husband who is frequently out of town, and live in a small town, the internet becomes an ideal place to network. But that still requires a certain level of openness, which has always been an uphill battle for this girl. However, getting to build relationships with a small group of contributors made that networking more manageable. And once that was accomplished, putting myself out there a bit more was not nearly as intimidating. And gracefully, our contributors have been collection of truly kind hearted, hard working, and interesting people who have each taught me a little bit more about life each in their own unique way.

Second, this project has kept me shooting even though that has been the last thing on my mind so many times over the past few years. While this project has been running my husband’s travel schedule increased in erratic and dramatic ways. We had a second child, who was not nearly as chill as the first child. And our oldest started school and, thus, ushered me into the world of school pick ups and drop offs and field trips and volunteer hours and and and… It is exhausting. So many times picking up the camera has seemed like a chore. But it is so easy to let every day blur in to weeks, and every week blur into months, and suddenly everything has completely changed without even noticing. I am so fortunate to have albums filled with images of my kids, our family, and our home evolving over the past few years. This project has played no small part in making sure my kids will have photos of our life while living in Washington.

Third, Sham showed me that doing something hard and building something big is not out of my reach. It’s no secret that working for yourself can be lonely. It can also be very disheartening. There’s no one to give you a pep talk when you are down and no one to pat you on the back when you do well. No matter how supportive your partner might be, unless they are in the same industry, their response can feel a bit like talking to your mom when you didn’t fit in in middle school; well intentioned and appreciated, but at the end of the day easily written off. Without a community of coworkers it’s easy to put arbitrary limitations on yourself. This project not only gave me a small dedicated group of cheerleaders and advisors, it also set a precedent that larger accomplishments are achievable.

As the internet and social media have evolved, even over the past few years, blogs seem to be waning, Facebook community pages are abandoned, Instagram is booming, but is likely on a limited timeline as well. I sincerely hope that no matter how the way we connect may change, there is always a space and a way to support and be a part of collaborative projects like this one.

This project has been my baby and it pains me to put it to bed in the best way possible. Like reading a great book, you know the ending is coming and the ending needs to happen, but it saddens you nonetheless. So what next? My family and I are staring down the barrel of a possible (likely) relocation within the next year which leaves me a little uncertain what anything might look like a year from now. But there is something so wonderful about the openness and possibility in that.

But there are a few avenues that won’t be going anywhere and I’d love to connect with you all and stay in touch (seriously! Email me, DM me! I’d love to hear from you) via the following places:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erika.n.roa/
Little Fish Photo: https://www.littlefishphoto.com/
While They Are Gone: https://www.whiletheyaregone.com/

 

 

 

When I was fortunate enough to be included in this project at its onset in late 2014, I had just started dipping my toe into family documentary waters. I had been “documenting” my daughter for 5 years by that point, but without any specific intention. I had no idea, at the time, how many changes the next four years would bring personally, nor how those images for Sham of the Perfect, and for my 2.5 year 365 project (which was inspired by Sham) would end up meaning to me.

 

In 2014 I was married, a full-time photographer, with a 5-year-old daughter. Five years later, I am divorced with a full-time corporate job, a 10-year-old, and managing photography on the side, as time allows.

Those hundreds upon hundreds of images I have of our family life as one unit vs. two homes are now important memories of a life we no longer have. That sounds melancholy and, in some ways, I guess it is. But our little family has done a very good job of making it work after a decision we hoped never to have to make; so I don’t see these images with grief or loss, but simply with gratitude that I captured them. I read once that we lose most of our childhood memories before the age of seven. To whatever extent that is true, my daughter will end up with fewer memories of her life with us as a united family than she will of our life as a separated one. I am grateful that I have these photos to fill in those gaps.

As she has grown, it has been interesting to see how the process of capturing her has changed significantly.

Photographing a 5-year-old meant being ready to capture something she was doing, spontaneously. Young children are always surprising us with their exploration and imagination, but moments are often fleeting and suddenly lost when the camera threatens to intrude. So, keeping the camera near me at all times, ready to grab it, was important. And capturing the moment, the expression, and her interaction with a person or place tended to be the overarching goal.

As she has grown, I find she does fewer “new” things. She’s exploring less and settling into a more predictable set of routines or habits. As a result, my photography is less spontaneous too, requiring more thought about how to capture in a new way her doing the same things, in the same places, over and over again. As an only child, this difficulty is compounded because she has no sibling interaction to draw from. Once her dad and I divorced, I also lost the ability to capture their relationship and, since we share custody, I only have her home with me 50% of the time. The challenge in the last year has been, therefore, how to photograph her in a more narrow environment, with a narrower set of circumstances, doing a narrower variety of things, in less time, and with little-to-no interaction with anybody other than me most of the time. I admit that at the end of a long work day, when I haven’t seen her for a few days, I’m not thinking about capturing her. I’m just focusing on being with her.

And yet, everything I have said above underscores the value and importance of family documentary photography. Which is remembering the small things that gain meaning and significance, sometimes, only in the rearview mirror.  A moment that feels mundane and not photo-worthy now, can be the one image you cling to in just a few years.

Every evening, the two of them would head out to the front yard and putter around together. I have many photos of them in the garage, the driveway, or on the front lawn. In many respects this photo is just like all the others. Except it’s not. It’s the last photo I took of them following this ritual in a house we all lived in together. The next day, we were living in separate homes. I distinctly remember standing in the doorway consciously taking this photo, tears streaming down my face, knowing it would be the last time I would get to witness this ritual. I’m not sure if I would have even thought to take it without having been a part of Sham for these last four years. Participating in this project has allowed me to see the beauty in the every day.

As for my business, Memories by Michelle, I have found it hard to sell this concept of family to moms who, understandably, want to see themselves looking beautiful in photos (No judgment). And I admit that I am not often enough in my own images to set a good example. When I do find a mom that gets it, there is nothing more I love than to spend a day capturing those sames kinds of moments in her family’s life.

But I also find that I enjoy creating real moments in lifestyle images too. I have come to realize that for myself, as well as, for some of my clients, it’s not an either/or but an as-well-as. And I find that my documentary work creeps into those sessions.

What Sham of the Perfect has given me is an appreciation for the imperfect moments, a desire to capture layers both within the physical image and in meaning, and a confidence to shoot in almost any situation with any light and any subjects. Documentary photography requires you think on your feet and find art where others see ordinary. Wherever my photography journey takes me next, these are skills I’ll take with me.

How do you sum up your feelings for something that has been a part of your daily life for closing in on 5 years? I wouldn’t be who I am today without this group of women. They have listened and encouraged, helped break down negative thoughts, and held me up when personally I was falling apart. I am so thankful for the value that their friendships have added to my life.

When we started this project, my youngest was a few months old. Now he is almost 5 years old. The beginnings of this project were birthed as I was in the thick of nursing and no sleep. When I was too tired to think, much less think about photography I had this wonderful reason to push myself to pick up my camera and document our days.

The past 5 years have taught me, that no matter what is going on in my life, I need to document it. Not the pretty things, or the happy things, but the LIFE we are living. Because I will only regret the images I DIDN’T take. So while I no longer pull out my camera daily, it is rare for me to go more than a few days without documenting our life. I think for me, the pull of this project started because I had stopped taking real pictures of my family. I had let my worry over what my house looked like or didn’t look like prevent me from taking photos. Now I have 2 hard drives filled with images that myself and my family will treasure for a lifetime. The photos bring back all sorts of memories, from the groans of a bad haircut to the laughing as we recall events. This project, while seemingly a small thing, has actually been a pretty big thing. And I am grateful.

I can’t remember exactly when it was that I joined Instagram, but I definitely remember the amazingly small amount of likes I would get from my posts. I was oblivious to the science of hashtags, but frankly I wasn’t concerned about who saw my photos. I was perfectly content sharing my images with my small circle of followers whom were mostly family and friends I’ve actually met in real life. Things were much simpler back then.

When I started taking my photography more seriously and wanted more exposure I was told by the social media experts that if you’re not using hashtags, you’re not doing it right. So I proceeded to go down the rabbit hole of hashtags, algorithms, peak posting times, etc., and suddenly I’m following and tagging all kinds of photography hubs. There were so many of them that it was hard to choose which ones to include in my 30 hashtag limit. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had my photos featured across these hubs, but I noticed a trend: it was always, the cleaner, “prettier” looking photos that were picked.

One day in Instagram land, I’m scrolling and tagging along, and I stumble onto a photography hub with an interesting name: Sham of the Perfect. The images in their feed resonated with me more than any other. There were images of unposed, real life, raw moments which were unashamedly encouraged and supported. I visited their website to find out where this name came from. I found that this group had a pretty cool mission: tear down the idea of perfection in motherhood and family life. At this point I hadn’t seen a hub like this before. It was a space I felt was missing in social media and it was a profound moment of discovery.

Right away, I added their hashtag to my growing paragraph of hashtags saved in my text replacement shortcuts. After some time, one of my photos was finally chosen to be featured on their feed!

I continued to post and share and play the social media game throughout the year, not exactly sure of the end goal with all this. Other photos of mine were featured on this new favorite hub of mine and this is how it went for a while.

Then later that year, I received an email:

“Hi Lisa,

We are reaching out to extend an invitation to apply for a contributor spot with Sham of the Perfect during 2017. You came highly recommended and, after looking at your work, we think you may be a good fit to join our team.”

I read the entire email. Paused. Then reread it in disbelief. Once I realized that the email wasn’t sent to the wrong person, I felt flattered to be considered for a contributor position and humbled that my work made an impact. I was excited to join the group and couldn’t wait to start!

I remember it took a little while for me to get used to featuring other’s family documentary work, when not too long ago, I was on the other end. But my experience as a contributor with Sham of the Perfect was more than just moderating the Instagram account. We did artist features, community critiques, and, of course, our weekly blog posts.

But what a lot of people didn’t see, and what I valued most, was the stuff that happened behind the scenes. This very specific group of people that came together to work on this project, is what really made it so successful. Our online conversations that were most meaningful to me were not about the project. We shared our personal successes and struggles about family, business, marriage, and life. We would vent, encourage, and support each other in our moments of vulnerability. There was a connection there. It’s a strange thing to feel connected to people you’ve never actually met in real life.

And now that our project is at its completion, I’m both sad about the ending, but excited for my own personal beginnings. Because of this project, I’ve connected with like minded individuals, expanded my perceptions, and found value in my own voice as a photographer and as a person. As I move on to new projects and ventures, these experiences will move with me. I’m happy, proud, and grateful to have been part of it all. Thank you to all my fellow contributors and to all of you lovely people who have followed along!

To continue following along with my work, you can find me on Instagram @lisacokerphoto, or on my website www.lisacokerphotography.com.

“The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.” -Andy Warhol

We’re going to go on a little home tour of sorts today, as I show you some of my favorite ways to display our photos.

First stop… my workspace… it’s my place to be creative. It’s very “me” and all my girl things in a world surrounded with boys.  It’s my space to feel renewed and restful in my mind.

Filling the walls of my space are photos and quotes, book passages, art supplies, and anything that makes me feel happy.

But it all started with those Polaroid style photos you can see hanging up there.  Those images were found when we moved into our current house, stuffed in a random box that I probably thought “oh I’ll always remember that I put those in THERE…” except I didn’t and found them months after the move.

Those photos are some of my all time favorite photos of my boys in their early years.  I change around a lot of the prints in our house, but those images will stay there. They are grounding to me. They remind me that even though the boys are growing, they were once tiny little creatures who needed me so much. When I look at them, they make me smile. They also make me remember to never take these days we live for granted.

One of the main reasons I print and display all the many images I take is for this reason… so we remember not to take anything for granted. As we watch them grow, we hang the memories on the walls of our house so that we can really “see” them frozen in time. And the display itself holds memories… it’s actually my crib springs from my baby bed when I was little. My mom kept our cribs, and when we couldn’t use the actual crib, I decided to use it as a fun way to hold images and other inspiring things.

One of the main ways I print and display our images is in photo albums. I pretty much print every single image I edit that I’ve taken of our family. Might be a little overkill but oh well.

Over the years of our little family, I’ve done so many types of photo albums.  I’ve done the simple 4×6 albums you can buy at any store, the “vintage”  style of placing the prints in books with those photo corners that stick to the page. I’ve done digital photo books. I’ve done scrapbooks. One year I even used a calendar and printed out each photo I took of that day, using the pages to journal on.

The last few years though, I’ve been printing our daily photos in 4x6s and putting them in 12×12 pocket style photo albums. Even though it’s less cost effective, we love being able to touch each photos as we flip through the albums. I found this fun cube organizer at Walmart and it’s perfect for storing our photo albums behind our couch. I’ve also started printing out 4×4’s of some images and simply placing them in random boxes around our house!

This is what “print day” looks like. My print lab usually does a quarterly sale on 4x6s so I do a huge order and put them all out on the table to organize them before I put them in the album. The boys love looking through the photos as I pull them out of the packages.
Confession. I am extremely “Type B” while The Hubs is very much “Type A.” In our last house I had a ton of photos on collage walls. This house, he politely asked me to not put so many holes in the walls. So… off to Pinterest I went and found plans to build my own photo shelves! Such a fast and really inexpensive project… I even ended up building more to use as bookshelves in another room of our house.

The photos in this display change over time… I keep a few the same though… like our wedding photo… the boys as babies… and my favorite family photo of us. But the others change whenever I make new photos that I love and want to see every day.

As I was building the photo shelves, I had some remnant wood… can’t let that go to waste! These hold single 8×10 frames along another wall in the house.

Sometimes, as artists, we see things differently than other people. This display and the prints in them feel like that to me. To most people, they’re blurry and random… but to me, they’re a fun series of the life of my boys. They’re always a blur… they’re always doing something sneaky and funny, and always on the trampoline. We had a huge wall to cover, so I found a place to print them out as poster size prints, 18×24, and got some cheap poster frames from Walmart and ta-da! Custom wall art for a large blank wall!

In our entry way, I made these home made clip boards, more remnants of wood from another project.  I think I saw this idea on Pinterest as well… another confession… I’m not that creative… I’m just good at “re-creating” what is there.  They currently don’t have actual photos on them… but would be great for that as well!  And right as we grab our keys I see this photo that reminds me to be more adventurous myself, and also to let my boys be boys and do all the crazy fun things they think are cool!

Ok. Just look past the dull laundry room that I never got around to decorating… except for these photos. The idea was that this was the mud room… so why not display some cute “dirty photos” of the boys. These are just pants hangers! Pinterest again for the win!

The last display idea I had was simple… just a blown up funny photo that made sense to me. This photo is of a dairy farm back home where The Hubs and I grew up. If you look closely, the cows are all fighting to feed out of a trough that says “PLEASE KEEP OUT OF TROUGH.” It’s prominately displayed right over our kitchen table… where it feels like the boys are just like the cows in the photo… always eating and fighting over the food on the table.  Just like the big prints in our living room, I printed these as poster size and got another simple poster frame… great for a big empty wall! Plus, it’s funny and meaningful for us.

There are lots of reasons to display your photos… but this is one of my favorite…

That my boys love going through the albums and prints, seeing the memories, and remembering them.

When you take as many photos as I do, you have to learn how to be creative in displaying them all… I hope you get some inspiration from my hodge podge of styles!