FILM SOUP

In early 2020, the world was on fire with the COVID-19 pandemic, so I took the opportunity to take the time to learn about film soup. I was lucky enough to have someone help guide me with my first rolls, but I incorporated film soup rolls in with my personal work to continue to learn more about the process. I wanted to "perfect" my film soup process, but I learned that was only possible to a certain degree. It involved me taking note, measurements, experimenting with different ingredients and different film stocks. I learned you can get an idea of what might happen, but also that film soup is just going to always be film soup and give unexpected results. Over the past four years I have continued the project with experimenting, still trying new ingredients, still using different compositions and subjects to see what I like and don't like. The project has given me not only incredible works of art, but also a freedom in creating just to create. With film soup always being different, it makes me let go and just create. It's been an incredible project to embark and one I'm looking forward to continuing.

MIRROR SELFIES

Shooting mirror selfies never started as a personal project, yet after two years of shooting them, I quickly realized what a beautiful project I was creating. What started out as something fun to do to document outfits I wore (I love clothing and style, what can I say!), eventually turned into documenting my life. Through the images, you see my mirrors change, the backgrounds, pregnancy, babies, new rooms/houses/location, moving, my children growing, and yes, even my style and how it's evolved. Each image is a little piece of my day-to-day life from the last eight years, and I cannot think of a better way to have it documented. It's my most meaningful project to date and one that continues, with no end in site.

POLAROID SUMMER

A couple of summers back, I had a fellow photographer friend who did, what she called, "Kodak Summer". She shot Kodak all summer to document her family's adventures and it was absolutely perfect. I wanted to do something similar and had recently fallen in love with shooting Polaroid cameras and film, thus began Polaroid Summer. I used Polaroid to document my summer, from kids swimming at the pool, travels across, Iowa, the state fair, family reunions and more. Shots I normally would not have taken with a Polaroid, I took. The result? A classic summer collection of memories in ever nostalgic Polaroid frames. Long live summer and long live Polaroid!

FIND YOUR RAINBOWS

In the beginning days of the pandemic, I knew I needed something to help occupy my brain to keep from spiraling. There was SO much going on, I needed something to help quiet my brain and give me a personal sense of purpose outside of keep your family safe at home. Find Your Rainbows was born, with the idea of creating magic on regular images to symbolize the beauty in those hard days staying home and away from others. Zoom calls, coffee at home, trips to a nearby state park to roam alone, lots of swinging in the backyard, dance class on the computer and more were captured, using colored pipe cleaners in front of my lens to give the rainbow effect on the images, a reminder how special life really is in such a trying time. Like the pandemic, I didn't know how long the project would last. It was in May of 2020 that I felt a shift in my own personal journey of the pandemic and immediately I knew the project was done. It had served it's purpose, served it well. To this day, I find it hard to shoot with pipe cleaners. The feelings come rushing back of those first days, weeks and months, when so much was unknown. I'm so grateful for these images and what the symbolize.