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Background and History:
I’m a Guyanese American who’s learned enough Spanish to initiate and follow a conversation. After graduating from Amherst College and earning my Master’s in Health Care Administration from the George Washington University, I settled in Laurel, MD, where my family and I currently reside.
Photography officially ‘grabbed’ me in 2008. In 2011 I formally graduated to a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR ) camera and pro-lenses. Looking back over the decades, my images have always trended toward capturing moments in a documentary style of photography.
What Do I Photograph? Children from about ages 1½ and up, small events, family gatherings, funerals, and memorial services for both human and animal companions.
What Don’t I Photograph? Weddings. Nope, none, period, full-stop.
I excel and enjoy capturing those moments in time that are truly ordinary from an extraordinary point of view. A moment may be as seemingly fleeting as your son or daughter at play, concentrating while doing homework, answering a question at school during Career Day, practicing an instrument or performing at a music recital, receiving his or her first haircut, manicure, their first day at school, or first times getting off the school bus.
My abilities and technique also transfer well when documenting annual or life marking events such as: Birthday Parties, your baby's Dedication, Christening, First Communion, Quinceanara, Bar or Bat Mitzah, Graduations, Girl and Boy Scout Award and Bridging Ceremonies, along with funeral and memorial services.
Why funerals and memorials? They are one of the two main occasions in life when we really get to see our extended families together at one time. I've spent over a decade helping elderly and sick members in my community while working in nursing homes, in an intensive care unit, and through volunteer work. My daughters and I have positively marked the passing of neighbors, and my members of our own family both with sadness and joy.
They are able to continue to remember and love those people through little physical mementos, recordings, and ultimately in photographs. Once all is cleaned and put away, given away, or thrown away… what remains?
Photos, snapshots, moments caught in time, precious images in a book, magazine, or left on someone’s phone, that’s what we really hold on to, what links us back to our past, our vital history, and what offer’s hope for tomorrow.
I believe that my work is frank in how it truly tries to capture unguarded moments and moods of children and of people of all ages at family and small events. Documenting and chronicling those ordinary times in a unique way will bring forth both laughter and tears, all part of remembering particular situations and times of our busy lives.
There is so much that I have accomplished in my life, but photography is the only thing that has permeated ("infected") my daily discussions, by nightly dreams, my very vision. It is a gift that I’ve been given, something I’d like to share with you. Let me show you what I can make. Do you accept?
Background and History:
I’m a Guyanese American who’s learned enough Spanish to initiate and follow a conversation. After graduating from Amherst College and earning my Master’s in Health Care Administration from the George Washington University, I settled in Laurel, MD, where my family and I currently reside.
Photography officially ‘grabbed’ me in 2008. In 2011 I formally graduated to a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR ) camera and pro-lenses. Looking back over the decades, my images have always trended toward capturing moments in a documentary style of photography.
What Do I Photograph? Children from about ages 1½ and up, small events, family gatherings, funerals, and memorial services for both human and animal companions.
What Don’t I Photograph? Weddings. Nope, none, period, full-stop.
I excel and enjoy capturing those moments in time that are truly ordinary from an extraordinary point of view. A moment may be as seemingly fleeting as your son or daughter at play, concentrating while doing homework, answering a question at school during Career Day, practicing an instrument or performing at a music recital, receiving his or her first haircut, manicure, their first day at school, or first times getting off the school bus.
My abilities and technique also transfer well when documenting annual or life marking events such as: Birthday Parties, your baby's Dedication, Christening, First Communion, Quinceanara, Bar or Bat Mitzah, Graduations, Girl and Boy Scout Award and Bridging Ceremonies, along with funeral and memorial services.
Why funerals and memorials? They are one of the two main occasions in life when we really get to see our extended families together at one time. I've spent over a decade helping elderly and sick members in my community while working in nursing homes, in an intensive care unit, and through volunteer work. My daughters and I have positively marked the passing of neighbors, and my members of our own family both with sadness and joy.
They are able to continue to remember and love those people through little physical mementos, recordings, and ultimately in photographs. Once all is cleaned and put away, given away, or thrown away… what remains?
Photos, snapshots, moments caught in time, precious images in a book, magazine, or left on someone’s phone, that’s what we really hold on to, what links us back to our past, our vital history, and what offer’s hope for tomorrow.
I believe that my work is frank in how it truly tries to capture unguarded moments and moods of children and of people of all ages at family and small events. Documenting and chronicling those ordinary times in a unique way will bring forth both laughter and tears, all part of remembering particular situations and times of our busy lives.
There is so much that I have accomplished in my life, but photography is the only thing that has permeated ("infected") my daily discussions, by nightly dreams, my very vision. It is a gift that I’ve been given, something I’d like to share with you. Let me show you what I can make. Do you accept?
© Stephen E. Jackson