Phyllis shares on Mondays and will be heading up our Instagram team.
1. Tell us about yourself...
I am a Mother, Wife and Artist. I homeschool using Waldorf Education Materials. I love the water more than just about anything out there. My husband will joke that if I were forced to choose between him and hot water he would be nervous to hear the answer. I love tea and soaking in hot springs and floating around in lakes and exploring rivers. I love the feeling of the pounding ocean surf in my chest and the rush of a waterfall. I even love to study the beautiful ice crystals that grace the winter here in New England. I have been an artist since I was born, and I am always making something. I love painting with watercolors or oil paints, doing paper cuts, making collages out of old books and glitter mod podge, needle felting wool, sewing with old felted sweaters, making jewelry, if I can mod podge it, or do something with epoxy, I probably will. I am sure I am a challenge to live with, as I am usually doing more than one of those things at any given time, taking up the kitchen with painting and the dining room with felting... And I love to be out in nature, rain or shine, I love to dance and am usually singing, and I know a song for just about everything.
2. What ignited your passion for photography, and what fuels it now?
As far back as I can remember I have been taking photographs. When I was little I got a camera and I spent hours and hours posing my stuffed animals and taking photographs of them. I would drape a background over chairs and I had these little stuffed raisins for some reason, and they had poseable arms and legs, I would have them dancing and I would do photos from way back and then do close ups of them. When I was about 10 or 11 I went to sleep away camp. I signed up for photography class there and we made shoe box pin-hole cameras. We each got to take two photos with our cameras; I took both of my photos of a field of ferns on the side of the path. We developed the film and printed the photographs ourselves. I still have those two blurry photos in a scrap book. I think that was the day I really fell in love with the medium. I just love to capture the world with a camera, I am not sure if I have a different drive at this point. I do love to photograph children, instead of stuffed raisins, but I think the drive is the same. I just love to see the world through the camera. I love to photograph nature and children and especially children in nature.
3. What's in your camera bag right now, what do use the most? the least?
Ahhh... This one is hard for me, because I just don't have the gear I "should" have. I still really love film and use a Nikonos V for a lot of the photographs taken at the beach and all of the underwater work I do. I love this camera a lot, it is bright orange and a range finder. When I shoot with this camera I seriously do not know what I will get, it hardly has a light meter and I can't really tell what is in frame, so I get really excited when I get film from my Nikonos developed. I also love to use my grandfather’s Nikon F2 which is also a heavy duty 35mm film camera. I love the sound of the shutter opening and closing! I also sometimes use my old Nikon N90. I really do love to shoot with film. The digital camera I have is a Nikon 3100. All of my personal work, and all of the photographs I have on my site of my children are shot with the Nikon 3100. I have a Nikkor 50mm 1.4 that I never take off of it. If I have a client shoot, I rent a camera, usually the D700 and I will also usually also rent a 35mm lens. I plan to buy a camera soon, and I am trying to decide which one, the D700 seems the popular choice, but I am on the fence....
4. What's your dream project or shoot?
We really want to travel, so my dream project would be to travel with my family and photograph in all the wild nature out there. When we lived in Oregon in the mid to late 1990’s we used to visit an amazing place called Britenbush Hot Springs in Detroit Oregon. I did a bunch of nude portraits of people in the hot springs there. (and even a few self-portraits of my husband and I) I would love to do more nude studies in water.
5. What is the biggest challenge you face as a photographer?
My biggest challenges are time, money and organization. I wish I was better with the business end of having a photography business.
6. Unlike many photographers in the business today, you actually studied photography in college and were a professional in the days of film. How do you think this may differentiate you from those who have only shot digital?
I went to The Mass College of Art in Boston. My actual degree is from the Studio Of Interrelated Art department. It is the 4D department in the school, so we were able to focus on any areas we wanted. SIM is the only department where any studio class from any department is open to you as an art student. I focused on Photography and Painting. I was lucky to learn the basics this way. We learned the zone system and shot and processed and printed by hand, both black and white and color film. It is really amazing to think about that. I graduated in 1994, I wonder if they still teach photography that way at Mass Art today? I don't know if this sets me apart. In a way I think I may be more confused by digital than photographers who go right into digital, like I had to watch you tube videos just to figure out how to use my camera on manual mode. And I always feel like I should have a hand held spot (light) meter! One of the reasons I stepped away from our old business (Eyes Of The World Photography) was the development of digital. I am not great on the computer and I felt very discouraged with the initial digital photography world. I do think things are changing and digital looks and feels much better these days.
7. Is there any one thing you wish someone had told you at the very beginning of your photography journey?
I worked with some professionals early on in my life. Before I had graduated from Mass Art I interned with a photographer and then actually my husband went to The New England School Of Photography, so I guess I am lucky that way. My husband taught me all about studio lighting, something we never learned about at Mass Art, and he also taught me to use his large format wooden camera with bellows. The professional I worked with as an intern gave me some business advice. The best thing I was told was that if you love photography, then never give up, like with any art form, it can be hard to make a name for yourself. I love the quote by Pablo Picasso "The Purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."
To see more of Phyllis' stunning work, please visit her at
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