Photo by: Isabel Fierro Taylor

Traveling someplace new and experiencing a rush of visual information for the first time is part of what makes being a photographer as a profession or as a hobby so much fun. Where to start? New colors, new shapes - an overload of beauty is always present when passing through somewhere that is unfamiliar.

So what about the familiar? As a photography instructor, I often challenge my students to see the world outside their backdoor as ‘new’ and to find visual interest in the ‘everydayness’ of what lies in their own backyard. It is my contention that good photographs don’t just happen because you are in a new place. You must be able to ‘see’ photographs in your own surroundings that are the everyday, the mundane. With that lecture running through my mind, I gave myself a self-assigned project to photograph intensely in my own “backyard”.

Living in a small town, you might think there would be a limit to what I could find to photograph, but that is definitely not the case. I am OVERWHELMED at how much there is to see in my backyard and my neighborhood, much less within five miles of my house! The colors of the season change and the landscape takes on a brilliant cloak of hues. Depending on the time of day, the shadows can either hide or define a barn or an architectural detail. Fog and rain make a beautiful veil of softness around a lake, or a wall of mystery over a field. A business has a newly painted door and the yard sale down the road has an array of treasures on the table begging to be documented.

Then there are the books, the multi-media art pieces, and the jewelry to be made from those photographs and other collected treasures! I have found handmade books to be a wonderful way to engage a viewer, an intimate experience to be treasured and lingered over for pleasure. Sometimes the books are recycled and made into something ‘altered’, bearing witness as a layered memorial or appreciation for life. And now some of the books are finding their way into being worn as jewelry… the possibilities are endless!

I hope you are challenged to see your everyday surroundings as a place of beauty, a place of limitless possibilities, a gift from God. I am reminded every day of the seconds that will never be again, the golden light that will never strike the leaf in the same way, the gift of the NOW moments. Almost without exception, I have my camera with me, even at my kitchen window. Sometimes I am just lucky. The more I carry the camera, the luckier I get.  

Benita VanWinkle is a professional artist and photographer. She has been teaching photography for over 25 years, and has embraced the application of digital to her medium of choice. Besides photography, she is also a bookbinder and a multi-media artist, and has taught classes throughout the southeast. She was a college admissions director, photography and design instructor for almost 9 years at the Creative Circus in Atlanta, a school where she worked with students from over 35 different countries and professionals that consistently set the highest of standards for ad agencies, design firms and photographers all over the globe. Through a series of events that occurred following 9/11, she found herself and her family living (and loving) North Carolina and has never looked back.

Exhibiting in many regional and national art shows, she has won numerous awards for her photography and altered books. She is an exhibiting member of the Associated Artists of Winston-Salem where she also sells her art. (www.associatedartists.org) Many non-profit organizations have found their way into her heart and her photography can be seen at Brookstown United Methodist Church (www.brookstown.org) where she is the former youth director, The Children’s Home in Winston-Salem (www.tchome.org), Riverwood Therapeutic Riding Center (www.riverwoodtrc.org) , and Forsyth Habitat for Humanity (www.habitatforsyth.org).

Benita received her MFA from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL where she also served on the Board of Advisors for the Cinema and Photography department. She is currently a full-time faculty member of the Art Department at High Point University in High Point, NC. . 

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