Tomorrow I will be featuring your personal favorite images of 2009, but today, I share some of my own favorites. Dalton Rooney did a similar post on his blog, Third Nature, about looking back at the work he made in 2009 and encouraged others to do the same. I think it’s a good way to take stock and reflect about the year and help me refocus my goals.

I attended three portfolio reviews (Review LA, Photolucida, Review Santa Fe) in Winter/Spring of 2009–probably too many, but the opportunities were too great to pass up. The preparation for those, plus teaching, and preparing for exhibitions put a wrench in my making a significant amount of new work. I am finding that writing this blog, writing and curating, plus teaching, while fullfilling and wonderful, has sometimes left my visual gas tank near empty. I am always questioning my place in this world, wondering if I’m good enough, have enough to say. There’s part of me that is frustrated by the box we photographers are in–the idea of working in projects, the notion that everything has to have a statement, that our single images get lost because they are not part of a series…so I’m going to share some of strays, along with some new project images, and some thoughts from along the way. Oh yes, I still shoot film and the last lab in Santa Monica has just closed, the only darkroom in LA is hanging on by a thread, and it’s all very discouraging…and expensive. I don’t shoot as much as I would like because of the cost, but can’t afford the Hassleblad digital camera…oh well.

One idea that I began to play around with this year was trying to make imagery that didn’t say much. It was almost like trying to take a bad photograph and I think this was the most successful of the bunch…it’s not easy to make a quiet image that says something.

I wanted to take a shot of something dull, and let things get in the way of where the eye wants to go..not great, but a first attempt.

I asked my neighbor to hold this paper doll which I titled, Mother, and it represents much more than the simplicity it presents

There’s been a lot of transition this year in my household, with my last child going off to college, my husband’s parents both passing away and it’s made me want to capture and think about the past and what has been left behind. These are a few images from a new series, A Death in the Family. I look forward to looking the other direction in 2010.

I continued to work on established series, in hopes of creating enough images for a book or a larger exhibition. These are newer images for In Case of Rain.

My favorites from the yearly vacation at the lake…

I loved photographing children on Halloween and definitely want to do it again, this time with a tripod..

I’m still excited to work on the Shadows and Stains series (silver gelatin prints that are hand painted) and these are somewhat new…

I’ve been venturing into more landscape work–these were a few trials, but I’d like to do more.

While working on my In Case of Rain series, I rediscovered paper dolls and created these images for an exhibition titled, Pretty/Dirty. I liked the idea of looking at how sexual paper dolls are and making them into prostitutes and more sleezy than how they are ususally portrayed. I have continued to make images with paper dolls this year, but haven’t found the language that will make them totally pop…hopefully I will get there and have a new series in 2010.

Had some fun working with text in images..

I’m always making work, if only for fun, or to use for stock work…these were some of my favorites..

I’m looking at ways to document this time in history, taking images like this..

And finally, we always need a little more humor…

So my goals for 2010…
keep going…
spend more time in the darkroom…and fool around more
more landscape…
more humor…
more portraits..
more complexity in images…
create a Magcloud magazine…
work towards getting a book (books) published..
start that diet and exercise program (oh, wrong list)
And if anyone has a Mamiya 7 ii that they want to sell at a deeply discounted price….