Perceptions
by Robin Martin-Holmes

Since I was a child I’ve enjoyed art, especially photography. Beautiful things draw me to them and perhaps I see beauty where others don’t. It frequently amazes me how differently people perceive things. Sometimes even when something is absolutely certain, in black and white if you will, people will still disagree as to how things really are or were. Think of how witnesses can contradict each other when recalling an accident. I think we as individuals perceive visual evidence in differing ways as well. I heard a photographer quoted once saying he stood next to Ansel Adams taking a photo of the exact same subject from the same distance and yet Adams photo turned out far superior to his. I’m sure experience should result in increased skill, but I think perhaps it is also the individual way we each visualize a subject that makes our work unique.

I am reminded of a time on vacation when I saw a sunset that completely mesmerized me. I had never before been so moved by a sunset (and I’ve made it a point to watch many – during one six month period of my life I could count on one hand the number of sunsets I had missed seeing). Anyway, after witnessing this particular sunset, my husband Terry and I rushed back to our traveling companions to discuss this amazing sunset and were baffled when the rest of our group just casually said they had seen the sunset too, but didn’t find it remarkable. No one else seemed to have seen the same beauty that we had witnessed. I’ve speculated at times that perhaps we were influenced by our slightly different location, but I really think it was more that we were open to the experience and given a gift to enjoy.

Speaking of gifts, I am so eternally grateful for the support of my family and friends. I have so many fond memories of creating individual photos. My family and classmates and friends have been great models! Who would have thought on short notice that we could get a group of church friends together and dress up like clowns and hobos and run out to LBL and create an award-winning photo, Follow Me? It was a hot August day and yet it was a wonderful experience and memory for me. My friend Carla Johnson has been continuously generous with her time and resources. For that shoot she drove in from Cadiz with a large ladder on her PT Cruiser for me to use. I shot with my own inherited 35 mm and a borrowed medium format camera. It was great we had planned to shoot in black and white because my memory of the great mix of colors we had thrown together in costuming was pretty entertaining, but not as striking as the contrast of black and white. The road we used for that shoot no longer exists due to the construction in LBL, but our memories are good and the images created will serve to share how I perceived those moments in time.

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to study fine art photography for three and a half years at MSU with Michael Johnson as my professor and mentor. At first I’m certain he questioned my presence as a non-traditional student, but he continued to encourage me and to teach me. Whether he hated or loved an image, he didn’t hesitate to let me know. He introduced me to the works of great photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, and Annie Leibovitz, and I have wanted to emulate them all. In my first semester of photography Michael told us some things that he never wanted us to photograph. These included cemeteries, kittens, barns and stairways. After years of teaching he had seen too many trite and repetitive images. A couple of semesters later when he discovered I was indeed taking some photos of barns he informed me that I better have those images perfected before I ever showed them to him. It’s amazing to realize that with his blessings I eventually ended up shooting inside Carla’s barn and later created the award-winning image, Bliss, which also hung in the 2008 Magic Silver show. Through Michael’s and my classmates’ and numerous jurors’ critiques over the last five years I have been able to experience some local success which include first place awards for the last three years in the annual show, Impressions, at the Ice House in Mayfield as well as acceptance into the summer photo shows in Paducah and some awards, including Best Nude Figurative, in one of the Murray Art Guild shows, and a first place and a purchase award at the Glema Mahr center in Madisonville and a juror’s award in the biannual show at the Janice Mason Art Museum in Cadiz, Ky. It has been a delight and honor to see my work hanging in these different venues.

We each are influenced uniquely by the many experiences we have in life. Because my Dad was a nuclear engineer my family moved frequently when I was growing up. After my junior year I graduated high school wanting to be an aerospace engineer and then I spent nearly four months as an exchange student in Japan which continued to fuel my desire to travel. When I turned 20 I became eligible to become a flight attendant and began flying for American Airlines both domestically and internationally. While flying I continued to pursue a degree and received a B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in math. I flew for 16 years, but after becoming a Mom our children became the focus of our lives and I chose to take an early retirement. I mention this because I think what we are exposed to in life influences the way we perceive our surroundings and ultimately what we choose to attempt to capture on film. For me, I seem to enjoy photographing whatever catches my eye, be it people or patterns and I continue to love the magic of sunsets and sunrises and the moments when the light is just right!