Fine-Art Photos by the SeaLiz Huston recaptures a part of her childhood by photographing seashells and coral with the Tamron SP 90mm VC Macro lens. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Liz Huston |
When Liz Huston was a child, she would put seashells up to her ear, like many children do, to see if she could hear the ocean. That poignant memory is the inspiration behind her "The Sound My Heart Makes" collection, fine-art images of her interpretation of coral and seashells she photographed in California's Venice Beach. |
"I have such fond memories of those moments-I really believed with all of my heart that I would hear the ocean," she says. "This collection is a photographic exploration of that experience. Listening to the ocean is kind of like listening to my own heart, so the title of the collection just made sense. Creating and looking at the images now was and is an emotional journey." |
By taking pictures of the shells and coral, Liz wanted to bring herself and viewers back in time. "Those were the feelings I hoped to evoke with these images," she says. "I was really just trying to get back to that place of innocence and magic. These images provide a visual link to those memories-everyone has them, so I thought these could be a type of gateway." |
Liz took her ethereal pictures with the Tamron SP 90mm VC Macro lens. The lens allowed her to get up close to capture a whole new perspective of the intricately patterned beach remnants, intimately documenting the unique details of each of her subjects. "The sweet spot in macro allows me to really control the focus and guide the viewer into my images," she says. "By using selective focus and playing around with my depth-of-field, shooting macro with the 90mm lets me highlight the parts that I really want the viewers to see. There's so much room for their minds to dream." |
Liz's photo shoot took place right before sunset on the beach. "The sun was really low," she says. "It's setting behind the mountains at this time of year in Venice Beach, so the shadows aren't harsh at that time of day. It was all-natural lighting-I was creating the shadows with my back toward the direction where the sun was coming from." |
The 90mm's Vibration Compensation (VC) feature helped Liz keep her images sharp, especially because she wasn't using a tripod. "I was mostly lying on the sand to get these pictures, often digging my elbows into the sand to serve as a human tripod," she says. "The VC absolutely helped in those situations, especially because I was shooting in such low light." |
Liz's use of muted sepia tones were a purposeful choice to set the mood. "That was a very important, conscious decision," she says. "When you look at the images, you can't tell when they were taken. There's so much mystery because you're not distracted by the whole 'this is a color picture that was taken yesterday' element. Instead, you're able to concentrate on the patterns and textures of the shells, coral, and grains of sand. I also chose to use a square format because, to me, that format is nostalgic-whenever I look at a square image, I think it's from some other time." |
Her compositions were dictated by the shells themselves and the Florida coral she had received from a friend and brought along to the photo shoot. "I just picked my favorite thing about each shell or piece of coral, where I felt the biggest emotional connection," she says. "Some of them have these really strange points that stick out, like in 'All Things Grow Toward Light,' and those are usually the parts I love the most. They're like people-they each have really distinctive characteristics. It was neat to consider each one as an individual subject." |
She also relied on classic compositional rules to guide her setup. "I was able to use artistic principles to my advantage," she says. "I'd often follow the lines, patterns, and spirals of the shells to lead the viewer's eye into the photo, like in 'Marks of Transition' or 'Reoccurring Patterns,' or I'd set the shot up using the rule of thirds."
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By focusing in on the uniqueness of each shell with her 90mm lens, Liz was able to create a sort of Rorschach test for the viewer-and for herself. "In 'Gateway to the Heart,' for instance, it almost looked like the shell itself was out of focus physically," she explains. "It had this really soft place in the middle that pulled me in and made me want to go inside. Plus, if you look at that image from a certain angle, it looks like a heart. I get lost in the feeling just looking at it again." |
To see more of Liz Huston's work, go to www.lizhuston.com. |