— The featured artist of Issue 39 of Living the Photo Artistic Life magazine, AWAKE artist Cheryl Parris (based in the USA), has emerged this past year as a fine talent with an extraordinary range of work. I’m very excited to interview her here on Quill and Camera . . .
Q. What got you started in photo artistry?
When I was growing up, my father always had a camera in his hand. He was in WWII and had his camera with him in India and documented his experiences through photography and writing. My siblings and I were used to having our pictures taken at every childhood occasion. As a result, we have many wonderful photo albums that documented our childhood.
So it wasn’t all that surprising that one of my sisters would become a very talented professional photographer. And at one point she gifted me with her old DSL camera when she bought a new one, and she suggested I take some classes and learn what all those buttons were for. And that DSL camera became the start of my journey.
I decided to take a beginning photography class offered at a local university and ended up going through the whole certification program. One of the requirements was a Photoshop class. At the end of the class, I was still feeling rather overwhelmed and felt I still didn’t know how to do much, so I bought a Photoshop book and decided to work on it every day on my own until I knew what I was doing.
Around that time browsing through a magazine rack at a book store, I found a Photoshop magazine. There were lots of amazing composites inside and I fell in love with Photoshop.
When I was taking photography classes, I always wanted to “do something” to an image; I could never leave it alone. My instructor was fine with that as long as it was all my own photography. The final requirement for certification was a show and exhibit of our best work, and one of my composited images won the first place ribbon. That definitely encouraged me to continue with my photo artistry.
Q. What inspires your artwork?
I never know what is going to inspire me from one day to the next. I love opening Photoshop, bringing up a blank canvas, and then simply going from there. One day early on I was walking past our koi pond waterfall, and with just a quick glance imagined it was a giant waterfall and I was going over it in a bathtub … and yes, I created that image. I took a photo of the waterfall, found a toy bathtub that some bath products had come in, photographed that, sat in a recliner in a robe with a towel and bath brush, took a photo of myself, then combined them all into an image I called “Over the Waterfall.” And it actually came out rather well considering how little I knew about Photoshop at the time.
So, really, anything can be an inspiration — a color, a texture, a landscape image, a person, or an animal, even a dream. My first attempt at a city-scape was the result of a dream I had of a lady walking down a city street in the snow with her umbrella. I enjoyed creating that one so much that I’m still imagining and creating city scenes. The world is full of unlimited possibilities. You just need a little imagination.
Q. What does “living the photo artistic life” mean to you?
Living an artistic life is so fulfilling. To me, it means I can get up every morning and create something new or grab my camera and experience the outdoors and see what I can find, or learn a new technique I’ve never tried before. I believe to improve as an artist, you need to continually learn, experiment, and create something new every day. That ongoing pursuit is what “living the photo artistic life” means to me.
Q. How do you approach getting started on a piece?
I almost always just open a blank transparent document in Photoshop when I sit down at my computer every morning. That blank canvas signifies I can do anything, and there are endless options as to where I can take it.
I tend to be obsessive and will focus on a certain series or style for awhile before I move on to something else. Lately it has been city-scapes. I have no idea what it will be next. I don’t want to limit myself because I enjoy experimenting and trying new things. Each image I create tells a visual story, so I rarely have trouble deciding on a name. I usually know before I’m finished what I’m going to call it.
Q. What’s your next step as an artist?
I would love to have a local gallery exhibit and be more aggressive about marketing and selling my work. It feels wonderful when someone likes my art enough to hang it on their wall and look at it every day.
Q. Any advice or tips for other aspiring artists?
My advice would be to continue to create and learn something new every day. That’s it. Keep creating. Follow your dreams … and they will come true.