February 2015 FEW Meeting Recap: Documenting Your Life
Are You a Digital Hoarder or Digitally Focused?
By Christina Hanazawa-Gallagher, FEW Programs Director
Dee Green and Tracey Taylor, owners of 37 Frames Photography, provided a much-needed dose of inspiration with their suggestions for documenting our lives in Tokyo.
They divided people into two categories: Digital hoarders and Digital focus. Which one are you?
Clearly Dee and Tracey are digitally focused and recently were awarded the title of storytellers, a name industry peers designate only to photographers who have cultivated their art and proven their photographs interpret, reveal and document fleeting moments that can never be recreated.
For most of us, great memories sit idly on our phones and are not taken off until we hand over our credit cards in defeat against the daily reminder to purchase a monthly space storage service.
Dee and Tracey shared great tips for organizing your photos:
Some tips:
1) Unloading
2) File naming
3) Culling and tagging
4) Editing
5) Doing something with the pics
The other benefit of doing this regularly is a seemingly lucky shot could turn into a lesson about lightening, capturing emotion and maybe gaining a technique that you can be applied to future photos.
Some of the ways they take award-winning photographs is to play with their surroundings. Often wedding photos are quick, spontaneous and the photographer has to somehow dodge the smart phone enthusiast also trying to get the ideal shot. Dee and Tracey have perfected the art of taking photos from different angles: up, down, near, far, through objects. The results are capturing emotions that literally last for seconds like the face of Japanese bride painted with serenity while wearing her traditional, wataboshi or white, hooded head covering. Or the instantaneous release cry of a man who has just pledged his life to his bride.
Never fear if you are not an award-winning photographer, but simply a person with a desire to photograph something other than that French crème puff that has become a perk of decadently dining in Japan. Dee and Tracey suggest taking on photography projects to really see your surrounding in Japan.
FEW is hosting its own project. Simply post objects that look like an F, E or a W on ourFacebook page as we take on the challenge of embracing our experience in Japan together and kicking off International Women’s Month.
Speaker profile
Tracey Taylor & Dee Green are the creative force behind 37 Frames Photography. With a background in fine art landscape and travel photography, they now specialize in weddings and contemporary portraits in Japan & worldwide. Telling life’s most beautiful stories.
Award-winning international wedding photographers, “creating images that are evocative, emotional, and truly extraordinary, these accomplished women tell stories with their cameras that read like novels you simply can’t put down.” ~ Junebug Weddings.
Tracey & Dee are dedicated to producing stunning imagery & stories, with their work gracing international magazines and having won awards on 4 continents.
In March 2014 they were invited to teach a Master Class at the WPPI Convention in Las Vegas (with 20,000 attendees & over 100 of the worlds best photography educators). And were delighted to win First Place in the prestigious WPPI Print Competition (considered the worlds premier wedding photography competition) in the Bride/Groom Alone Category with an image of a Japanese Bride on her Wedding Day. Trace & Dee are thrilled to showcase the beauty & traditions of Japanese weddings on a world stage.
They are the only photographers from Japan named in the prestigious Asia Wedding Photographers Association (AsiaWPA) Top Photographers List and are also included on Junebug Wedding’s Top Wedding Photographers of the World hotlist as well as Junebug’s Best of the Best Wedding & Engagement collections. They are also award-winning members of the WPJA, the ISPWP, & Fearless Photographers.
Tracey & Dee are regularly invited to speak at photography conferences and teach workshops all over the world in conjunction with their by appointment sessions & pre-wedding & wedding engagements.
Tracey & Dee & the 37 Frames team are forging their own brand of unforgettable photography in Japan. Going their own way. Passionately.
More about the 37 Frames Story can be found here.