Sweet Briar: Behind the Lens

Whether or not you have an iPhone, chances are you’ve heard of Instagram, the  app that lets you apply vintage filters to photos and upload them to a social network. One of the reasons I like using the app is because it gives me a creative outlet while taking away a lot of the control that I’m used to having as a photographer. That is, I can’t change aperture, shutter speed, or zoom (or as some photographers say, I have to zoom with my feet and walk closer!), so I’m forced to think about the angle, framing, etc., in new or creative ways. It’s sort of liberating in that way. And the filters add a fun little pop.

When I think of it while out shooting around campus, I’ve tried to snap some Instagram moments here & there in addition to using my Nikon. If I do, I tag them with the hashtag #sweetbriarcollege (if you’re on Instagram, do the same!) to create a little collection of these images.

Here are some  favorite moments:

Memorial Chapel and some particularly dramatic clouds.

Students walk to the first classes of the day. Benedict Hall is in the background.

A herringbone brick pattern along the walkway in front of the library.

A candelabra in Sweet Briar House's dining room. Love the striped wall!

A pink bike parked below the stairs to the library.

Dogwoods last spring. Can't wait to see these again.

Students gathered in Prothro for the Jeff Carl concert last Friday night. Here, local band Victory Garden opens the show.

It’s been lovely to see all of our students return to campus refreshed, ready to tackle a new semester. Nearly everyone has said that her break was relaxing, and more than one senior has posted to Facebook about the “last first day.”

I love all of the smiles and seeing happy reunions! Just now, on my way back to my office from lunch, I ran into one student who appeared to be arriving on campus after a grocery run. Her arms full of groceries, she still stopped, shifted her bags with a grin and asked me how my holidays went.

I  realize I’ve written nearly the same post twice–this time last year, saying nearly the same thing, about having students back on campus…it’s just so very quiet on campus without these young women! I’m currently reading a collection of short stories about military families titled You Know When the Men Are Gone.  The  title could work here, too: You Know When the Young Women Are Gone. It’s  a completely different place. Prothro and Daisy’s are shuttered, the Quad nearly echoes, the FAC is often dark. And now, the lights burn into the night, and these smiles greet you around every turn.

Next week, author and activist Masha Hamilton will visit Sweet Briar for a week-long residency. You can read more about her visit on our website, including information about the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP–also, the project was featured on NPR yesterday).

One of my favorite details of her visit is the fundraising project coordinated by Sweet Briar business students, involving an art project by two of our students. These artists are creating beautiful engravings that will be printed on broadsides with poems written by women of AWWP.

Yesterday, I spent a few minutes at the Art Barn as Sally (red sweater) and Katie made their final adjustments to their engravings. I’ve always been fascinated by this artform; printmaking requires incredible patience and also a good deal of coordination as the artists carve their art in reverse–not to mention all the steps and technical precision required for the inking and actual pressing (which can vary greatly with the brand of ink, for instance, or the weight and absorption rate of the paper).

If you’re interested, the finished broadsides will be for sale at the reading next Friday.

This summer, I had the pleasure of photographing the new group of Admissions Counselors. I’m so excited for this year’s prospective students and the relationships they’ll forge with these new counselors (and of course, the fabulous Admissions team they’re joining). While we said goodbye to some great women, the young women filling their shoes are an outgoing, friendly & lively bunch!

On a personal note, I was excited to find out that two of them are beautiful alumnae I had the pleasure of getting to know prior to their graduation this spring. A third counselor, Savannah, looked awfully familiar until we realized….we went to a Wilco concert in Charlottesville with mutual friends a few years ago. Small world!

Here are a few favorite outtakes from our session:

Front row: Savannah, Masia, and Abigail; Backrow: Kerri and Allison

Welcome, ladies, and have fun traveling to meet our future Sweet Briar Women!

Here are two recent images that I’ve edited as b&w, becoming sort of character portraits, if you will.

First, Miss Shirley just retired from the library after 57 years of service to the college. I will miss her sweet smile at the front desk! I recently took staff portraits for the website, and while it was just before Miss Shirley’s last day, I couldn’t miss an opportunity to photograph her in the Browsing Room.

I really only needed head & shoulder images that day. Here, I stepped back for a moment while adjusting the lighting, and ended up capturing this wide shot because I loved her sweet smile. In black & white, all of the textures & patterns of this room are so interesting to me. And I love Miss Shirley’s butterfly shoes!

Second – this was a serendipitous moment. I’d just finished photographing some picnickers at a dress rehearsal for Endstation Theatre Company‘s outdoor production of Twelfth Night. It started to rain, so I packed up & left quietly before the play ended. I happened to see Walter, one of the leads, in the “wings” waiting for his entrance–right next to that fabulous, perfectly detailed antique car (which happens to belong to the school’s chaplain, who was already pretty cool before I saw this awesome car).

There’s just a mood in this photo that I love. Walter is lost in thought, concentrating on his lines, perhaps. The car is glossy in the sunset. Even the tree’s texture and the juxtaposition of the Jeep behind them works for me. It’s a jumble of eras, and it was a moment I was happy to discover on my way out.

Oh–and if you have a chance, there are still tickets to see Twelfth Night, which runs through this weekend. Bring fans, but brave the heat: it’s just so enjoyable, especially once the sun begins to settle below the mountains.

Most of my work here at Sweet Briar is used in color, whether in print or on the web. I shoot in color digitally, but I always enjoy making certain images black & white. It’s usually either a particularly moody photo, or perhaps one with interesting textures that are sometimes secondary to the color in the image.

It’s June at the Briar, which means the last couple of weeks have been very quiet around the Quad. Our administrative offices, on the other hand, are still quite busy!

MMC is quickly wrapping up the next Alumnae magazine and updated viewbook (both of which will be very lovely!) and Shane (our friendly web developer) has whipped up a new, easier-to-use gallery for the Sweet Briar website. I’m still getting used to the navigation system, but we’re hoping that it means our community has wider (and free!) access to a variety of images.

And while the Quad may be missing the echos of student conversation, here & there on campus you’ll find anything but quiet. The tennis courts this morning were full of the “thwack, thwack” as the Van Der Meer tennis camp held drills. Babcock is full of the buzz of power tools and frequent laughter as Endstation Theatre Company (now officially the Resident Theatre Company of Sweet Briar) builds the set of Assassins.

I’m excited to share some images here from the final weeks of spring semester: Senior Week, an update on our Favorite Places project, and a few other highlights. For now, some favorites from last week’s performance of “Good Good Trouble on Bad Bad Island,” the first Endstation production of this summer’s Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival. As you may tell from the images, it was a very silly, very fun production!

Face painting and mask-making activities for kids before the show.

Back at my alma mater, I was a DJ on our college station for the entire time I was a student–and then, when I stayed in town for a year after graduation, I was lucky enough to continue my show a little while longer. And I loved it.

This was before the station went fully digital and when only a few people owned the coveted new iPod; we played everything on CDs that had to be switched in & out and carefully monitored to prevent dreaded dead air. Not as old as spinning records, but not the stuff of instant playlists either.

And I loved it: carefully choosing songs for mood, for continuity, and often, just for fun. I played Ben Lee’s “Cigarettes Will Kill You” nearly every week, and The Black Eyed Peas were still a new, indie band. There was Dave Matthews followed by Phish, Rosie Thomas and Over the Rhine, and often a dash of Tori Amos.

The shows themselves changed nearly every year: I had a short-lived run at an early morning show, and I think I even tried to do a classic rock show (totally because of a crush on a guy who liked…yep, classic rock), but I found my groove playing mellow indie music on Friday afternoons. Together, a friend and I co-hosted “The Girls From Canton” doing just that. As for the name, well, she was from Canton, MI, while I grew up in Canton, GA, united by our collegiate music tastes and that one time when she broke her back while on my birthday ski trip. That’s a blog post for another day, but safe to say she was really, really lucky and is still walking today. And, I don’t doubt, still skiing.

As a student leader at the station, I travelled to New York City to meet other collegiate broadcasters and even considered making radio a career for awhile. The station wasn’t heard more than about 15 miles away, but even still I developed a faithful following–or at least, that one guy who called during my final show to say he’d miss my laughter on air (I know, I know: a little creepy, perhaps?).

Fast forward ten years or so, and all that’s left of those days are fond memories and a slightly warbling cassette tape recording of one of my last shows. Now, I’m back on a campus but as an observer of the experiences of the students around me.

You may not be surprised, then, that when I started making a list of experiences to photograph on campus, the Sweet Briar radio station was near the top (and in a happy coincidence, the frequency is the same as my alma mater). I stopped in one night while on campus and met Vianey, in the middle of her show. She let me snap a few pictures, but mostly indulged my nostalgia for a few minutes.

Recently, we’ve started a new project in MMC: a photo essay of favorite places around campus. We’re starting with a handful of young women, photographing each in the spot that’s truly “her” Sweet Briar experience. It will make its official debut in the spring alumnae magazine (and online), but I’m sharing this sneak peek with you now.

When we started soliciting location ideas, Vianey’s name popped up on the first list. So I was more than happy to meet her back at the station and take some time creating photographs that, I hope, capture what I’ve seen of her personality and her love for college radio. My days on the airwaves may be over, but thanks to Vianey, I lived vicariously for a few more minutes.

It’s so quiet on campus without the students to fill these spaces with laughter, chatter, and sometimes even bells (at least on Senior Robe Days).

So what do I do when there aren’t students to photograph? Well, besides catching up on editing, I photograph t-shirts. And mugs, and keychains…you get the idea. The bookstore is preparing a revised online ordering system, so I’ve spent some time getting product shots. I can’t to buy one of these cute shirts after maternity leave–here’s a preview (the system will be up by Jan. 25):

I also get time to photograph the folks who are still around, who help keep the campus running year round. One such fellow is Joe Malloy, associate professor, librarian, and outdoorsman. While he wears a few hats on campus, you can often find him playing a banjo, though usually somewhere warm indoors.

Thankfully, Joe was a great sport and let me take him out in a field in the middle of January, with a windchill somewhere south of 30. We weren’t out there long, but got a few great shots. Here’s a favorite:

Thanks, Joe!

And come back soon, Sweet Briar Women. You’re missed around here!

Last week saw a blanket of snow on campus. Here are two images from Friday–first, the campus drive, still being plowed:

And a view from the Quad:

This last photo feels fitting for this week–there’s a rare hush on campus, now that students are scattered back with family & friends for the holiday break. Needless to say, it’s almost too quiet, and I’m looking forward to seeing our Sweet Briar women back in January!

Have you seen the nests around campus? They’re a project of this fall’s Land as Art class, and I spent an afternoon last month tromping around campus with the class, looking at the various creations.

Students spent several weeks gathering natural materials around campus and crafting the nests. Collectively, the nests became a public art project. Victoria Trudeau ’11 wrote a bit about her experiences with this project here and describes some of the nests here.

Below, Kelly Winer ’13 weaves ivy into the largest nest, located along the drive to the Riding Center:

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Earlier this month I photographed Catherine Tooke’s senior directorial project, “The Glass Menagerie.” What a wonderful production! Yet another reason I greatly enjoy having the privilege of capturing Sweet Briar life on camera.

Senior Kat Alexander played the lead character Amanda, and nearly stole the show with her humor and stage presence.

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One of my favorite photos this month is this one, taken outside the Fall Horse Show just as the snow began to fall that day:

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Finally, if you haven’t seen it already, here’s the new Sweet Briar College film. I couldn’t stop watching when it first launched–it’s so very lovely. And if you like the song, you can buy it on iTunes here.