Feb newsletter 2016

INSPIRED B Y NA P C P FEBRUARY 2016

Featuring Willy Wilson of Life Unstill Photography

The

LATEST INSIDE Details on becoming a NAPCP Ambassador

Industry News & Announcements, Workshops, Updates and much more!

N A T I O N A L A S S O C I A T I O N O F P R O F E S S I O N A NLA PCCHP INLeD TO w s lP e tH t eO r Fe b rG u aR r yA2P0 1H6 E| R1 S

Hello friends!

February is the official month of love, and we’re giving you a plethora of

sweet happenings and ideas to fall head over heels for in the following pages!

Last year, we launched our successful NAPCP Ambassadors Program,

enabling members across the globe to host monthly meetings dedicated to kindling personal relations and connections on a local level with other NAPCP photographers. If you’re interested in growing and strengthening our community in this capacity, details and information on applications to become an Ambassador can be found inside!

Our January 2016 Image Competition has been in full force for more than a month! With the deadline for submissions rapidly approaching (as in tomorrow!), we encourage all members to submit your images! The competition will officially close on Thursday, February 18 at midnight EST.

This month, we’re featuring the wonderfully talented Willy Wilson of Life

Unstill Photography in Denver! Inspired by documentary-style photography, Willy’s main focus for the coming year is to not only create beautiful photos, but to also create meaningful art. When she’s not spending time having fun with clients, she’s reading romance novels, gardening and cooking!

For those of you interested in taking your business to new heights, our

2016 Marketing Guide is now available online in the NAPCP store. A huge hit at our recent retreat, this calendar is the perfect tool to ensure you are on the right track for 2016!

Sincerely

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TAB L E O F CON TE N TS Pg. 3 .......................................Last Call For Images Pg. 4 .................................News & Announcements

Pg. 6...............Featured Photographer: Willy Wilson

Pg. 22 .................................Camera Bag Essentials Pg. 30........Video Interview Series: Portfolio Review Pg. 31................................ Apply For Membership N A P C P N e w s l e t t e r Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 | 3

LAST CALL FOR IMAGES

The January 2016 International Image Competition will be closing tomorrow (February 18) at 11:59PM EST! The purpose of NAPCP’s Image Competitions is to recognize the accomplishments and creative excellence of our members, rewarding their talent with medallions, priority listing on our directory, vendor endorsements, member points, titles and professional recognition.

Be sure to review our new Image Competition Rules and Guidelines here.

Click here to submit your images!

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N E WS & A N N OU N CE ME NT S Facebook Community We hope that everyone will continue to partake in our NAPCP Facebook Community page! Join now and get involved with the latest discussions, trending topics, news and updates, and much more! Click here to request to join today!

Napcp Store If you are in the market for fresh, new photography templates and creative client gifts, be sure to hop on over to the NAPCP store! We are constantly adding new products to help make the design side of your business a little less stressful! Did You see our Fabulous 2016 Marketing Guide? Don't miss your chance to snag one now...click here!

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FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHER W I L LY W I L S O N

6 | N A Pby C PWilly N e w s l eWilson t t e r Fe b rof u a Life r y 2 0 1Unstill 6 Images Photography

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H

ailing from Denver, this month’s featured photographer

is Willy Wilson of Life Unstill Photography! Focusing on documentary-style photography, Willy

finds great joy

in capturing clients in their everyday elements. From newborns to family portraits, she specializes in shooting a series of images that explain the journey, not just the current moment. When she’s not behind the lens, Wilson is in the kitchen cooking, keeping up with football in the fall and spending time with her family.

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AT A GLANC BEHIND 1. Started photographing when? 2001 2. Officially opened business? 2009 3. Favorite camera? Nikon 4. Lens of choice? depends on the situation 5. Favorite Lab? Pro DPI 5. Favorite Photographer? Richard Avedon

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6. Favorite subject to photograph? Humans

E WITH SCENES

WILLY WILSON

6. Favorite music? The Kinks, Queens of The Stone Age 7. Favorite movie? The Third Man 8. Recent Favorite Read? "The Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell 9. Favorite Client Product? The Evan photo box by HH Boogie 10. 3 things you can't live without? (my family always comes first – this list begins after them) My cat named “My Cat Named Weenie”, my camera, the public library

Flip the page for our E X C L U S I V E I N T E R V I E W W I T H W I L LY W I L S O N !

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Tell us your story. How you started and how your photography, brand, and business transformed over the last couple of years? Although I was an art major in college, art was never part of my career path. Years later, at a strange crossroads in my life, I did a Myers-Briggs personality survey that told me I should be a film director. When I shared this with my husband, he said he always thought so, too. And so, with that much to go on, I enrolled in film school. There I found out my creativity led to beautiful visual storytelling, that I wasn’t a very good director of actors, and my ideas are often both funny and dark. However I realized within a couple years that the long hours and potential move to LA were not right for our family. Aside from a few small IMDB credits (see H. Wilson if you’re really bored), the real outcome was that film 1 2 | N A P C P N e w s l e t t e r Fe b r u a r y 2 0 1 6

school led me to take my still photography much more seriously. I began creating work with the intention of showing it in galleries. In 2007 I had a portfolio review with Loretta Young-Gautier, who at the time was the assistant director at Camera Obscura, a Denver photography gallery made famous by photographer Hal Gould. Loretta looked at my work, chastised me for my terrible darkroom skills, and said “This is the best work I’ve seen all day but you’re never going to get gallery shows with photos of ordinary people. Have you considered moving into portraiture?” Following her advice, I started taking on some commissioned commercial work and with the help of my sister-in-law, I started photographing families in Carbondale, CO, which established me as a family photographer.

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You have a stunning gallery of images. Can you tell us more about your vision and style? In the beginning, my photos were all sweet and soulful, and predominantly black and white. I love the innocence you see in the eyes of children, eyes unsullied by the world, the eyes of people who can imagine growing wings, the eyes of a person who does not know darkness, disappointment or defeat. When I began shooting families I had to find a way to express the joyfulness of family life without being static and boring. One of the things I’ve worked hardest at developing is a balance between that sweet, soulful shot, and the shot where you feel like you’ve caught something fun and wonderful happening. Perhaps because I really started my photography work in film school, I have this desire to have a sense of movement in my images. I hope my work conveys, even in a static shot, a sense of life, someone caught off guard, a feeling that there’s more happening than just that photo.

Your ability to capture moments from a truly unique perspective is amazing. Tell us about it! In a complete contradiction to what I said before, I also find great beauty in stillness. In fact, I think in the last two years, I have changed my work to focus more on the moments of humanity when stillness just organically happens. I love those moments when people stop paying attention to me and I can catch an expression of vulnerability. Ordinary life is pretty amazing. I feel like the magic happens when my clients get bored - they finally begin to let down their guard.

I’m not particularly interested in finding a recipe for a great photo and repeating it a thousand times. In fact, I would say that I try to bring as much inventiveness and freshness to each shoot, even headshots, as I can.

I invite my clients to explore with me during our session. We play and I try weird angles, shooting with my weaker eye, my opposite hand (nearly impossible), or just using equipment that’s been collecting dust in my bag. Lately I’ve been trying to shoot upside down. If you’ve ever read Drawing From the Left Side of Your Brain, I think it’s a similar concept. Upside down, I have to read the scene in reverse and it causes new things to happen.

I also look ridiculous which causes clients to laugh and join the game.

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This time of year is sometimes thought of as "slow", or a "post-holiday lull" ... what are your secrets for staying focused and motivated through these months? What I do in the winter is learn, learn, learn, personal projects, and learn. Last year I participated in a 100 day project where I worked with demolition photos I had taken over a period of about ten years. In anticipation of the slow season this year, I launched my 100 Days of Ten project this January.

The project challenges people to dedicate 10 minutes a day for 100 days to a specific activity. The hope is to inspire people to explore different avenues of their own creativity, or give time to those tasks that don’t get enough attention.

To see more of Willy's work, please visit her site here!

Thank you so much Willy!

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Three Tips F O R F R E E I NG Y O U R A RT | BY W I L LY W I L S O N

1- Be multidimensional. Creativity is cumulative. Expressing your inner chef, illustrator, or writer only helps your work as a photographer. Every creative outlet you experience adds to your breadth and depth as an artist.

Give yourself freedom to enjoy a multitude of creative channels.

2- Be prolific. The best way to find yourself as an artist is to create constantly.

Try to make space for yourself to create something, even a journal entry, every day. The more you exercise your creative muscles, the more musclememory takes hold and you find your view of the world shifting.

3- Be lawless. Art has no rules and there is no right or wrong way to express your creativity. They say you must first know the rules before you can break them – but that just sounds like a way for other people to diminish your creativity. If you are creating something with joy that feels good to you - remember rules are for driving, not for creating. But please: don’t create and drive.

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CAMERA BAG ESSENTIALS W I T H w i l ly w i l s o n

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Camera /Lenses • Nikon D800e • Nikkor 24-70 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 60mm 2.8 Micro, 35mm 1.8 • Sears KS-1 film camera w/ 50mm 1.4 (my first SLR camera from high school) • Ilford 400 black and white film and Lomochrome Purple film • Lensbaby Edge 80

Camera BAGS Tamrac rolling camera case Kelly Moore 2 Sues camera purse

EXTRAS Fingerless gloves, Bug spray Fake mustaches, candy, tumbled rocks (things to give kids), Jack Black lip balm, Lens Pen, Black grip tape, Small bells (to attract babies), Thank Tank Pocket Rocket card holder, Go Wing Lens Flipper, Bongo elastic ties

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BEHIND

We asked Willy to give us a peek into her busy day to day life with a few of her favorite

24 | NAPCP Newsletter Januar y 2016

SCENES

WITH WILLY WILSON

Instagram captures. Enjoy a behind the scenes look at some of her favorite moments!

ambassadors

announcing our 2016 #NAP CP G AT H E Rs dat es march 16

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september 14

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december 7

An extension of the National Association of Professional Child Photographers, the NAPCP Ambassador Program takes an active role in building thriving communities of artists committed to growing their skills, their artistry, and their business. NAPCP Ambassadors are literally the eyes, ears, and face of the global association, kindling personal relationships and connections on a local level. By fostering connections and conversations, NAPCP Ambassadors enable the compassionate collaboration that is a hallmark of the NAPCP vision.

A R E YO U I N T E R E S T E D I N B EC O M I N G A N A P C P A M B A S S A D O R I N YO U R A R E A ? I F S O, W E W I L L S TA R T AC C E P T I N G A P P L I CAT I O N S H E R E O N F E B R UA RY 1 8 F O R N E W N A P C P A M B A S S A D O R S !

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The distinguished title of Photographer of the Year for NAPCP is the highest award, showcasing outstanding achievement in our International Image Competitions. points, titles and professional recognition. To learn more about this award and to view past winners, click HERE!

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Do not miss are latest Video Resource - a Live Portfolio Review, hosted by Dan Brouillette, and 2014 Photographer of the Year Jennifer Kapala, from the NAPCP Retreat. This video has wonderful tips for submitting your images in the January 2016 International Image Competition (open now!, and ending February 18th).

JEFF SHINABARGER

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