Be Our Guest - Sarah Huizenga

by Dotti

This month I'm delighted to welcome long-time FOL follower, Sarah Huizenga to our pages. Sarah resides in western Michigan with her husband {who was also her high school sweetheart}, their college-aged daughter and two Golden Retrievers. An avid photographer, blogger and writer, Sarah quit work in fall 2011 to focus on her interests. You can find her blog at Paisley Rain Boots and I promise you won't be disappointed when you visit.

We challenged Sarah to take an inspiration photograph and create her own photo. Let’s see what happened.

A Still Life Leads to a Memory

I don't consider myself a still life photographer. Oh don't get me wrong I think I am good enough at it. Ideally though I would rather be out exploring back roads and abandoned buildings, shooting decay in its full rusty, peeling paint and moldy glory. This winter has had other plans for me though, more than a hundred inches of snow, polar vortexes with single digit temperatures and below zero wind chills. These conditions have forced me to stay inside and get creative with my photography.

I am half way through my first 365 project, after many failed attempts in years past, this time it stuck. The trick is to start in July or September, not in January. I was not going to let winter keep me from being successful on this project. So I have been stalking Pinterest and building my Still Life Photography board, which you can find here, to fill my homebound world with creative ideas.

I ran across this pin a few months ago and something about the simplicity of it really called to me.

I love to print out pins that really appeal to me and put them on the bulletin board that is in my art room. The more I looked at that photo, the more it reminded me of a similar basket of clothespins that my grandmother had had on her 1950's vintage Westinghouse clothes dryer. Of course when I was little we would have just called it old, not vintage. Her washer and dryer were squeezed into her half bathroom with the beautiful patterned frosted glass window that was located off of the kitchen in her two story white clapboard house. Since that bathroom was located off the kitchen and the frosted window fascinated me, I used that bathroom a lot when I was at her house.

So inspired by the Pinterest Pin and memories of my grandmother's house I set out to recreate the basket and clothespins.

First of all, do you know how hard it is to find peg style clothespins these days? The grocery store doesn't sell them, Target doesn't sell them, and Lowe's doesn't sell them, so I moved on the craft stores. I found two packages of these at JoAnn's Fabric and thought I had won the lottery.

But when you open the package and look at them, they are missing a key ingredient, the beautiful tapered end of the originals and also the staining of weather and time.

Fortunately I found a jar of vintage peg style clothespins at the Antique store located in our downtown. I didn't really need the jar, but I did need the clothespins, so I got another glass jar as a bonus.

Part of the thrill of Still Life Photography for me, is the thrill of the hunt. I had found the perfect clothespins, now on to the basket.

I have had this basket since the last house we lived in where I used it in the main bathroom to hold extra  washcloths. I would roll them up and stand them on end in the basket. This basket has been living in our storage room for the past ten years but every time I clean things out I can never bear to part with it.  See, there was a reason why, it now has a purpose.

I found this baby blanket at my local Antique Mall for $4. It seems slightly wrong to pay $4 for a baby blanket with stains on it, but in reality it was perfect.

With all the parts and pieces gathered it was time to set the scene. This is my still life photography area, our bedroom, it has great north window light and the bed works great to drape a piece of flannel over the end to create a backdrop for my photographs.

The original inspiration…

And my interpretation...

I had to use some of the JoAnn's bought pegs in the bottom of the basket to help fill the basket up and I didn't have as many layers of old blankets. I put the musical stuffed Snoopy in the basket and chose his eyes to be my focus point. The Snoopy was my Grandmother's, I would wind him up at night when I slept over at her house and I would fall asleep listening to the tune he played.

So for me this still life photo was about more than just recreating the photo, it was about recreating a memory.