Today. Cloudy & cool. My favorite to hike in. Years taking photographs, seeking saturated colors & interesting skies, living in the PNW, have converted me to favoring an overcast day. Conversation with a friend. She’s experimenting with her diet. No dairy, sugar, gluten, grains. A disordered part of me wants to join her. I’ve weighed myself recently & saw the highest numbers of my life. My body continues to change & get bigger despite feeding it vegetables, taking it on walks, joining fitness challenges. Another friend texts to say she loves IF. I told her about it & no longer practice. A strong impulsive desire to join her too. The tracking app is still on my phone. A lifetime spent practicing disordered eating. Years in undiagnosed orthorexia. My mental health would suffer if I tried again. Another friend texts to say she hasn’t lost weight post a serious surgery & wants to use my fitness pal to track her food. I feel tired for her. We’ve spent too much time focusing on numbers. Cosmetic outcomes. Too little taking care of our bodies in weight neutral ways. Moving for the sheer pleasure of it. The afternoon is spent searching for the file with the spreadsheets from 8 years ago when I kept track of everything my body was doing. That year I moved towards a plant-based diet. I required myself to walk, jog or hike a minimum of 5 miles every morning. Just to earn the right to exist in my body. An entire year: no alcohol, caffeine, sugar, anything processed. I ran races, lifted weights, felt strong – but isolated, full of anxiety that one chocolate chip would throw me completely off track. Many compliments on my outer appearance, but rarely felt internal peace. I came across random photos while searching for the ‘body file’ & sent one to a friend because she looks glowy & happy. She replies “you are stunning.” I say “we were both beautiful & had NO IDEA.” She says “well, I knew you were, but you never believed me.” I feel tired again: for the stories we believe about ourselves, the missed moments, the constant chasing of ‘life will be better when,’ the not realizing we are lucky just to be alive. And the not believing that we are enough. Just as we are. Right now.
***Note – this was originally written for Instagram and therefore could only have 2200 total characters. I’ve left it that way for consistency, though I know it would benefit from paragraphs and better wording. I wrote it raw and left it that way. ♥***
The random found photo that I sent to a friend.A dress I loved but wouldn’t buy during the 5 mile a day time because I thought I needed to be smaller to splurge on it.Only fruits and veggies were allowed in my fridge.I spent a ton of time food prepping. It became tedious – but it was always so vibrant looking. The colors made me happy.
End of the day
in a place I only had
a few moments in.
Excited because the light was pretty.
Anxious because I was with
three people and two dogs
who are not photographers
or artists – who were being patient but also,
wanted to move along.
They don’t know how quickly
the light changes
or how long it’s been
since I’ve felt inspired
to capture something.
This is making many photos quickly …
rather than going slowly, looking at
angles and perspectives, or
waiting to feel moved by the subject.
Just hoping one will turn out OK.
In 2010 I was laid off from a job that never really suited me. My boss, the CFO of the company, told me that he respectfully hoped I’d never get another office job again. Not because I hadn’t done my job well – but rather because he felt that I was built for more creative endeavors. He knew that my spirit was being squashed sitting for 8 hours a day in my cubicle, beneath fluorescent lights that gave me headaches.
I’d felt my own nudge from spirit – through prayer and meditation – to once again in my life – take the road less traveled. His words validated what I’d already been feeling. So a few months later I hit the road. With nothing more than a few dollars in my pocket, a belief that things always worked out and a sense of adventure, I spent several months exploring our country and teaching myself photography along the way.
I’d tucked most of those images away. Chalking them up to some of the [really bad] 10,000 photos one is supposed to make before even thinking that they have any idea about this craft. Lately I’ve been peeking through a few and thought I’d start sharing them. Not because they are spectacular shots – but because they are a part of my journey.
So here I give you a scene from Sandusky, Ohio in 2010. I love old buildings. Their layers of color, texture, cracked and peeling paint … remind me of my favorite types of people. Messy on the exterior but filled with stories, character and depth.
Mallory came in to help me play with light and shadow a while back. I keep circling around to a personal project that I’d like to do. I work with it – then find that it has changed or is not quite right. Sometimes the only thing that helps me move forward / get unstuck is to play around with what I have and to let it be messy and undone until more clarity arrives. I’ve heard that as a creative person I have to just show up every day to do the work and hope that one day a creative muse shows up to collaborate with me. Here is today’s showing up. Thank you Mallory for being my model and allowing me to experiment!
A few weeks back I had the honor of being asked to photograph a birth – AND – as my other career hat is as a massage therapist – be the stand in doula. What an experience! I met the couple at the hospital and photographed the experience from hours after the water broke ’til 30 hours later when a c-section had to be performed – alternating between taking a few pictures and then doing a back rub with some essential oil infused lotions I’d brought along. This photo-journalistic / documentary style is a departure from the usual head shots and portraits I do and I really enjoyed witnessing and capturing the untouched, non-staged, real life moments.
The hospital staff were kind and accommodating and even allowed me in the operating room to capture a few images of babies first breath [as mom had hoped for] when we found out the c-section was necessary.
I’ve got a few goofy photos of me and dad in scrubs, along with some beautiful shots of the raw reality of bringing life into this world. [What our bodies can do is amazing!!]
But for today’s sharing just a few cute shots of this beautiful blessing.
Congratulations to the new mom and dad and thank you for trusting me to be part of the experience with you!
In 2010 I spent 4 months on the road – camping out on the couches of old friends and tenting in our country’s magnificent national parks. The purpose of my travels was to teach myself photography.
I took the “wrong road” several times and got lost in nature – serendipitous moments that always awed me. This is one of them. A fog filled, back country road in Montana – one of my favorite pictures from my travels because it expresses to me the ‘soul of the road’ – the inexplicable longing and mystery of the journey.
What a fellow artist said of this image:
“….this one looks like it’s been taken by a plate camera, exposed by the Montana sun, developed in caffeine and fixed by the dirt and grit of the road.”
A 30″ x 22″ framed print of The Soul of the Roadis available for purchase in the studio.
We are open Tuesday – Saturday by appointment at 264 Main Street in Manchester, CT and can be reached by phone: 860.306.0067 or email: tania@taniapalermo.com
A local photography group I’ve just joined has decided to challenge ourselves with a 52 week photo project. Rather than coming up with our own list we are following along with one that has already been published online – the Dogwood 52 Photography Challenge.
It’s a lot of fun to see how other people choose to express themselves and it’s motivating to be accountable to a group of people. I’ve been batting around an idea for a while now, but always put it last on my list of things to do. This week 1 challenge at least ‘forced’ me to start playing with the idea and to take one step towards executing what I really want. Yay!
I had to run to the grocery store this morning. Last minute, 5 steps behind in my day – running from my car to the front door in the pouring rain. I got what I needed quickly enough, then made my way to the front of the store to find there was only one checker line open. No problem, I got in line with everyone else. The woman in front of me was turned facing the line – rather than the check-out – and she kept looking at me, wanting to connect over our shared predicament of the slowness of service.
Eventually she asked, “You wanna go ahead of me? I don’t mind.”
“Um, no – but thank you,” I replied. I wasn’t sure why she was offering.
She asked again, “Are you sure. You can if you want.”
“Thank you, but no” I repeated, “We have the same amount of stuff in our carts. No worries. Very kind of you though.”
We then joked about how it seemed like her cart was overflowing because she had no less than 5 bags of pet food piled up in it. They were buy one get one half off – so she’d decided her animals could live for another month. She indicated one last time that I could cut the line. I had an overwhelming sense that she just needed to talk with someone.
After a few moments of hesitation I told her …”You know – we are having a workshop in my studio tonight. In light of Robin William’s death we are going to talk about living from a place of gratitude and keeping our hearts open. I’m going to share with the group how kind you were to me. Sometimes all people need is for someone else to acknowledge them and connect in our humanity to make a difference in a day….”
She immediately welled up. She said she has cried twice over his passing and that she feels very concerned for many people in her life. I won’t go into all that she shared – just that she did need to talk for a minute. She needed someone to be kind to her – just as she was offering a random act of kindness. After she checked out she turned back to me, wished me luck in the workshop – and in life. Then she giggled and said “Don’t tell them this story – I didn’t do anything. Make something up. Make it really good ….” I laughed with her – but told her- it’s the smallest acts of love that make the biggest difference. She touched my heart with her gesture and really did make a difference in the course of my day.
Tania Palermo [Studio on Main] 