On inspiration.

I love my job. Well, jobs. As a reporter I get basically backstage access to certain events, permissions to talk to just about anyone I want, and the opportunity to hear first-hand stories from some of the coolest people. As a photographer, I get to do basically the same, except instead of writing the stories I take photos of them. And the best part is that they work hand-in-hand with each other. As a reporter, it's pretty much required you take a photo to accompany the story (although I seem to find myself frequently writing the story to go with the photograph!). As a photographer, transcribing the story that goes with the photograph is seen as an extra bonus, and a way to make the story more personal.

I spent Family Day weekend in Ottawa with my husband and some friends. We visited museums, ate way too much delicious food and skated (most of us rather poorly) on the Rideau Canal. At one point the guys and girls separated, and the husbands toured the Aerospace museum while the wives traversed the art gallery.

Oftentimes I don't care for much of modern art. If it needs a really long explanation, I'm usually inclined to pass by. My friend Alicia is an absolutely amazing artist, and for her final FINA project her pieces were much more conceptual than literal. But I understood them. They were real enough that all she needed was a title for someone to make the connection between the stained, ripped and sewn pieces of cloth and the word refuge or refugee.

I think that's one of the reasons I love photography. Oftentimes you can tell right away whether or not it's a good, great or terrible photograph. Sometimes a piece needs a second look, but the feeling is usually fairly immediate.

Dan McCullin acted as a conflict and war photographer for years. A huge collection of his photographs were displayed in the National Gallery of Canada, portraying conflict in Cyprus, the Congo, Vietnam, Biafra, Lebanon and Ireland, and more peaceful times in India and England. Usually, I see war and conflict photography as the glorification of war, and the romance of it. These weren't like that. To me the photographs showed the humanity, the cost and the sadness of war and conflict. Even though most of the photographs showed people in dire straits, or in less than desirable positions, there was a serious beauty in.

"Photography for me is not looking, it's feeling. If you can't feel what you're looking at, then you're never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures."- Don McCullin, 1994

Take this photo for an example. The title is something along the lines of '24-year-old mother with child.' Nothing fancy, and yet I can't stop thinking about this photograph. This woman is so close to my age, yet she will never do the things I do, never see the things I see, never have the things I have. And yet, she seems so resigned that this is her life.

I can honestly say this is one of the most amazing portraits I've ever seen. The child searching for something to drink from his mother's dried up breast, the mother's skeleton arm and the resignation in her eyes add up to something so real and stark it's almost difficult to believe it's real.

And yet we see photos like this every day. We dehumanise them to the point they appear as animals or concepts to us.

But I guess that's the task as a photographer. To take one more shot in the hopes someone sees what we see, that someone is moved to compassion, that someone tries to do something about it.

~Steph