Drip Images

Posted on September 5, 2012 by jenniferlitterer

Here are the edited images from the Drip Workshop hosted by PhotoGroup in Austin, TX. With the use of an Eisenstein strobe (stops action at 1/13,000th of a second) and a time machine (a timer that released the drip and fired the strobes), I was able to capture some very interesting moments. Enjoy!

This drip shows off the crown of a every drop.

Here is when two drips are released. The first drip creates a column just in time for the second drip to hit it.

Another "flowered" double drip with added color gels on the lights.

The strobes are so fast that I was able to capture a drip going through a bubble right before the bubble popped.

My final drip shot was when we added half and half to the water.

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Painting With Light

Posted on August 27, 2012 by jenniferlitterer

Sunday night I went to a drip workshop hosted by PhotoGroup in South Austin. This a member based photo studio. While I was waiting for my turn at capturing drips, Robert and Chris had a pen light suspended from fishing line. Here are the three images I created. It’s amazing with one can do with just one small flash light and a lot of time in the dark. Enjoy these images as I edit the drip images.

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Zilker Park Kite Festival

Posted on March 5, 2012 by jenniferlitterer

Today was the 84th Annual Zilker Park Kite Festival. My friend and I showed up late in the afternoon but there were still some amazing kites. Here are a few that caught my eye.

Matt Haley tries to convince his dragon kite to fly.

Some kites ran off course and ended up in trees like these two “angry bird” kites.

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Happy MLK Day

Posted on January 16, 2012 by jenniferlitterer

This past Saturday I was honored to document the 4th Annual Sweet Home Peace Through Pie Social at Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church. The objective of the social was to help promote and celebrate Dr. King and his work – one bite at a time.  Here are selected images from the event. Please go out and share some pie for MLK day.

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Food Stories – Becky’s Donuts

Posted on January 15, 2012 by jenniferlitterer

One snow day in 1977, Becky Litterer (my mom) decided to make donuts for my dad and an neighbor. In college Becky worked for a bakery making breads, rolls and pies and that winter she wanted to try something different. After that first batch, on every snow day she made donuts and our neighbor no longer had to be told.

My favorite memory of her donuts is from high school. Becky always delivered a huge batch on the last practice of all the sports my siblings and I played.When my sister and I started bringing our significant others to Christmas, Becky made them donuts. We knew she liked them and wanted them to feel welcomed to the family. Now for every Christmas along with her cookies, bread, and candies, she makes us donuts.

Food Stories is a documentary series about food reflecting our culture and society. How food is grown, cooked, served, and eaten defines family traditions, holidays, and lifestyles. Food becomes a unifier, purifier, and an integrator. Litterer photographs subjects’ food processes that define them.

 

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Why the mundane?

Posted on October 21, 2011 by jenniferlitterer

If I break down the essence of what I photograph, it is the mundane. Ever since I picked up a camera at the age of nine I have been engrossed, inspired and transfixed by the everyday.

Of course my early exploration of this subject matter was due to growing up in the middle of corn fields and a slowly dying town. My first subjects were broken down tires, cracked sidewalks, sunlight through leaves, peeling paint, dirt roads, cats and junk. Literally junk as it seemed my parents and neighbors hung onto everything that might find a use again.

Now that I’ve moved to a vibrant city, I still find myself excited about flowers blooming through sidewalk. I keep my eyes out for peeling paint and I love to watch the sun break through the trees. These little moments always make me think of being a carefree kid. As a kid the world is so fresh and new even amongst the rusty old junk.

Perhaps that’s the reason why I always come back to the mundane. I want to see the world differently. I want to find a use to what we hang onto.

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The Digital Debate

Posted on July 24, 2011 by jenniferlitterer

I’m a firm believer that with any type of camera you can make expressive, visually appealing images. As long as you know how to use the camera and consider the frame. The body of camera is not as important as the mind of the photographer.

About five years ago, I bought my first digital slr camera, a used Fuji S-2. At the time this camera was consider to be middle age for digital standards. In 2004, the Fuji S-2 was competitive but not so much in 2006. The issue of image quality comes from printing and reproducing the image. Digitally the size of pixels and the type of sensor greatly affect how big you can reproduce the work.

At the time I needed the Fuji to photograph a couple weddings. I was still shooting film for my personal work because in grad school I had access to top of a line scanner. I love film and my medium format camera. It’s rewarding and nerve racking not knowing what you have captured until the film gets process.

Then I moved away from that scanner and access to another one of the same quality. The mental debate began. Do I save up for my own scanner (which is about the same prices as a car) or do I save up for a better quality digital camera?

The camera won for several reasons. It was cheaper. It’s where technology is heading. Part of my teaching job requires me to be comfortable around digital cameras. I can create videos. This past week, after months of saving, I bought a Canon 5D Mark 2.

For the first time in years, my photographic mind is in a frenzy to make new images. That was worth the digital debate.

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Puzzle making

Posted on May 10, 2011 by jenniferlitterer

This year is the year of saving. I want a new digital slr camera and my boyfriend wants a new motorcycle. I won’t say who’s will cost more.

To help cut expenses on the weekends, we came up with a list of activities that are fun and do not cost a lot of money. One of them is puzzle making. Of course I couldn’t just put together the puzzle, I had to photograph the process. So here is a stop action movie of our last puzzle that ended up lasting more than one weekend.

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Being Positive – It takes work

Posted on April 9, 2011 by jenniferlitterer

Recently, I’ve been noticing unhappy and negative people. This could be because of the times we live in, or it could be because negativity is something that I’ve been working through myself.

For the last six months, my boyfriend and I have been studying being positive. I know this sounds very new age and passe, but we want to be more positive, happy people.

We have been studying this concept in different ways and this morning came to the same conclusion – it takes work.

I took a more artistic approach. With three of my best friends, I spent months studying “The Artist Way” by Julia Cameron. This study is about unlocking creative blocks as well as becoming more artistically spiritual. In a nutshell God (my higher power) gave me the gift of being creative. For me to be closest to my higher power, I need to use my gift. Knowing and practicing this is a positive thing for my life and photography.

Two things that blocked my creativity was anger and fear. Those are two very powerful emotions that I was allowing to run my life. In fact I see those two emotions running a lot of people’s lives. “The Artist Way” gave me tools to push those emotions away and let my creativity come back.

My boyfriend has been taking a more business, analytical approach to this study by reading “Little Red Book of Selling” by Jeffrey Gitomer and “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. His goal is to apply these positive thoughts and techniques towards his craft of writing.

If you are right brain and artistic I highly recommend “Artist Way.” It works, especially if you do this with a small group of people. If you are left brain and analytically, my boyfriend recommends the books he’s gone through.

Artistic or analytical, be prepared; it works.

But, it takes work.

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Just make the picture

Posted on March 29, 2011 by jenniferlitterer

For the past three years I have been teaching photography at the Art Institute of Austin.  For the most part, teaching requires me to prep, grade and connect with students. My job is to photographically inspire these students as well as teach them techniques and concepts. I never thought that they would teach me to just make the picture.

When I started teaching at AiAustin, I was fresh out of grad school and to be honest quite burned out of photography. I had spent grad school intensely reading photographic theory and making a huge body of work. The last six months of my study, I spent writing a twenty-five page paper. Let’s just say by then, I had slightly over thought my photographic process.

However in the first photo class I taught, I saw the tinkle and sparkle in students’ eye when they saw the world fresh and new through the lens of DSLR camera. It was all new to them. It was exciting that they could have selective focus and stop action. Their excitement started to make me excited.

Famous street photographer, Garry Winogrand once said, “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.” That is what many photographic students spend their time in school doing. Photographing the world to see what it would like compressed in their viewfinders.That is how I became a photographer.

Most of the time, I’ve  seen the world students are showing me. The downside of studying photography for so long, you feel like you have seen it all. But then, occasionally they will stumble across something I have not seen before. The way light skims across an object, a look or expression in a subject’s face, or slightly skewed perspective of the everyday.

It is in those moments that I’m no longer the instructor and the student is no longer a photo student. I am a viewer and they are a photographer. I live for those moments. Because it means in this visually saturated world, there is still space and objects to be photographed. It has inspired me to pick up my camera, let go of my over polished process and just make the picture.

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