New and Improved! Gemini Photographs Site Released & Re-Vamped!

- Gemini Photographs - 

The official site has been released with new features!

What's NEW:

• Galleries have been updated with numbered codes for easy ordering
• Artist bio
• Prints & Products page has been added with easy, secure Paypal checkout options
• See our specials on (3)-print sets and SAVE $!    
• Portrait photos have been added to the gallery ~ Check out "Funny Girls" under 'People' for a look at Mother & Daughter together
• For a LIMITED TIME ONLY - First time buyers can save 10% on a print or product order!  
• Paypal account users - Reference code: FIRST10 to receive your discount!  
• Non-Paypal account users (i.e. credit & debit card payments) can claim their 10% discount by requesting a CUSTOM LISTING with the final discounts applied immediately.

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And You May Ask Yourself...Well, How Did I Get Here?

 

It started with a pitifully poor long-term memory.  And postcards - Florence, Italy,  Australia's Outback, jalapeno cheese nacho recipes in all their neon-orange glory printed on the front of "What's Cookin' in New Mexico" cards.

I have a great aunt whose globe-trotting spinster lifestyle piqued my interest in all things worldly and cultural very early on, and from her, before I was ten years old, I learned about the beauty of roses and the special care each one required.  I was exposed to the rituals of afternoon English tea, vegetarian cooking and opera arias on the record player at dinner time.  She showed me poetry and journaling, crafty ways to conceal clutter (she called it organizing) and how to act like a lady.  Sometimes all of this prim and proper stuff was stifling, but mostly, I relished in the unique and strange items she kept in the house as mementos of her travels to exotic places.


And every so often, a cheerful little square would arrive in the mail proclaiming "Greetings from Iceland!" or "Walking the Great Wall in China!", with her old lady handwriting scrawled in big cursive loops across the back.  They had strange stamps and indecipherably spelled places and were utterly intriguing.  In just one image, I got a glimpse of a huge universe outside my dusty Phoenix suburb, and I was hooked.

Then when I was about fourteen, and started to travel a little on summer vacations and whatnot, I rediscovered those fabulous postcard souvenirs, for 25 cents a piece.  On my five dollar allowance, these glossy, perfect images of far away enchanted places were the bargains of a lifetime.  They were easy to carry, cheap, and certainly better photos than anything I'd ever capture with my 110mm Mikey-Matic camera, complete with little cube flash packs attached to the top.  Man, I think I might be dating myself with that reference, ha ha.


The best part about postcards was that any time someone I knew (some grown up, usually) went off to Mykonos or Spain or Sweden, I would say, "Hey, bring me back a postcard!"  And most people are cool enough to drop a quarter on something that won't clutter up their suitcase, so the collection grew easily.


Within about six or seven years, I had amassed something like 300 postcards from all over the globe, in a variety of odd sizes and shapes, colors and themes, all of which featured some wonderful photo of the culture, the flora and fauna, the architecture and the claims to fame for each destination.


And soon I started to see some of those images through my own viewfinder.  My parents lovingly supported my solitary, nerdy interests in books and collecting of things, and presented me with a shiny new camera every few years with the advent of technology.


Now, I find myself carrying a piece of equipment that is so sophisticated and loaded with buttons and other electronic digital features that I am not sure I will ever use it properly, but I'm enjoying the learning process, and find that it's all experimentation, where as they say, a good camera is only as good as its photographer.


In a way, I also started taking pictures to remember things, because without those images, or some recorded words in a journal, my memory inevitably fails me after one year, or two, creating fuzzy lines around what I think my life had been.


So here I am, and here I go, trying to illuminate hidden beauty in fragments of the everyday.  I don't know where it will take me, but I'm excited to share the experience.