Ekphrastic Magic Project 📸📓

Super excited to have a poem I wrote in a fantastic project, “Ekphrastic Magic," a photography and poem collaboration, this summer. It is part of an international photo festival in Barcelona, Spain!

Many thanks to the amazingly talented Amy Jasek at Film Shooters Collective for the artistic camaraderie, for her vision and hard work in putting this project together, and for the wonderful invitation to take part.

Learn more about Revela’t and their festival.

Photo Courtesy of Markus Winkler at Unsplash.com

Great News: Beyond Words Literary Magazine Second Printing

So pleased that this issue of the stellar international literary journal, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, from last June has now gone into a second printing! 😍📸

I have photography in the June 2020 issue as well as in their current May 2021 issue.

Get your copy/subscription today @beyondwordsmagazine . Also, consider submitting your words or art.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

❄Featured in Snowflakes in a Blizzard ❄

Pleased to share that my craft book, Photography for Writers, is featured this week in Snowflakes in a Blizzard, a wonderful book blog.

Learn more about the blog as well as check out their other great featured books here and here.

✨📸 My Photo Chosen for Exhibition 📸✨

Thrilled to announce that my fine-arts photo, "Dad's Razor," was chosen for PhotoPlace Gallery's "The Poetry of the Ordinary" online gallery among the work of so many talented artists.

Check out the whole exhibition (clickety-click on the Online Gallery tab underneath the sofa-and-city-view shot ).

✨New Interview at: But I Also Have a Day Job 📓

Wonderful news: I was interviewed recently by talented writer and editor Ian Rogers at But I Also Have a Day Job. Our discussion dropped today; it’s a perfect way to open March on an artistic note.

We discussed oodles of writing and career topics alongside a few scoops about my photography.

Check it out, along with numerous other interviews with fantastic authors talking about their creative passions and how to balance writing with making a living!

My Conceptual Photo in an Exhibit: Nov. 25, 2020-Feb 23, 2021! 🎉📸

I received splendid news today: my conceptual photo was chosen as part of a photography magazine’s online art show, A Show of Hands!

Check out not just my photo, “I had the Radio on,” but also 49 other fabulous photos from shutterbugs all over the globe. An honor to have my work included in such talented company. Don’t Take Pictures gallery show.

The show will run from today through February 23, 2021.

Fantastic News: 3 Books of Tips in 1 Handy Volume! :)

I’m thrilled to announce that my three reference books for writers are now available in one handy-dandy volume. This includes In a Flash!, Poetry Power, AND Imagery-Making/Photography for Writers.

Packed with oodles of prompts and tips to get your pen moving in several genres.

Get inspired, and get your e-book copy today! Click this link: Flash Writing Series.

Photo Courtesy of Unsplash, Lavi Perchik.

Photography Published in Molecule :)

Check out the latest amazing issue of Molecule, which features one of my black-and-white film photographs as well as excellent short poems, prose, and even a play. Here’s to issue #3!

The bottle was a find in my dad’s workshop— it’s glass, with a wonderful heft, and the letters on the bottle are raised/embossed. I love the font and how the bottle’s inscription includes a place on it.

Photo Published in Aji Magazine

My black-and-white photo was recently published at Aji Magazine on page 102.

Check out the whole awesome issue, with work by over 50 artists and writers, here. They are also currently reading submissions for their fall issue, for anyone interested.

My Article Published: "4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing"

Great news! My article was published today. If you like writing & photography, then this one’s for you. Enjoy the writing exercise at the end.

“4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing”
By: Melanie Faith

Last week, I shot my first roll of film in over a decade.

Up to this point my photos, like a lot of my writing drafts, were entirely digital and screen-manipulated. This analog film process was nothing like that computerized process, refreshingly; it shook up the way I thought about crafting my work.

That first roll of film last week was also a lot of other firsts: first roll of black-and- white film, first time loading 120 film (I used to shoot 110 and 35 mm), first time shooting medium-format square negatives, first time using a cute, plastic Diana F+ camera.

120 film has just 12 negatives per roll. Unheard of in the digital world of endless do-overs and deletes. I still love digital, but practicing image-making on film is teaching me to approach my making creatively.

What can photography lend to our writing process?

• Renew your beginner’s mind.
I’ve been photographing since I was a teen, and yet here I was, trying several new photographic styles that were entirely fresh to me.

Many of us have been writing creatively for years, yet we, too, can capture that beginner’s mind and use it to create innovative drafts.

If you normally write prose, give poetry a shot. If you often write novels, try a short story or two.

Or pick a genre you’ve never practiced: perhaps flash memoir or writing a graphic novel or jokes for a stand-up routine.

Or switching POV from your standby third-person to first-person or second-person.

Or it could be as simple as writing a first draft longhand.

These changes won’t necessarily be permanent; they will, however, bring out new ideas and imagery that will surprise and motivate.

• Add a few restrictions to your art and watch it flourish.

In both photography and writing, sometimes if you put obstacles or limitations in your path, you can create something remarkable.

I know: paradoxical.

When shooting with film, I had just 12 clicks of the shutter. I also couldn’t preview it after taking the shots; the Diana F+ camera has a tiny viewfinder, but it’s not entirely accurate to what the lens will capture—it’s more like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey than aiming at a dartboard. It’s a machine made for teaching how to approach and then let go of expectations.

I had my film for four days before I took that first roll for a spin; four days of narrowing down possible subject matter “worthy” of my twelve little compositions. Seven turned out well enough to submit to a literary magazine. I certainly don’t approach my digital photography that way. 

• Approach your writing with more of your full attention.

Because the camera and the shutter-release (on the side of the plastic lens!) and pretty much everything else about the camera was new to me, I had to slow down… and then slow down again… and then a third time. I watched a YouTube tutorial on loading the film about 12 times; no joke.

I quickly learned to trust my instincts more and to rule out certain subject matter in favor of other options, because I knew that I was paying $7.50 for the roll of film and almost $20 for developing.

Even though the cost isn’t exorbitant to practice film photography (especially getting third-hand cameras at an auction site like I did), that it COST me something made each shot precious.

What does your writing cost you? Sleeping in? Time out with family or friends? We value our art more when we sacrifice something for it.

• Think thematically.
Just like writers begin a novel, short story collection, poetry manuscript, or series of essays that surround the same theme or characters, photographers often challenge themselves to create a series based on the same subject, setting, or motif.

The other day, I took a twenty-minute walk with my new camera and then found, in storage, two lawn chairs that had almost been thrown out several times—their worn green webbing and silver metal bases redolent of my parents’ youth and endless picnics and fireworks displays. Yet they’d been stored away.

Gleefully, I dug them out from behind the staircase and arranged them in various configurations on the lawn. Six of out my twelve shots became a mini-series about the chairs.

If I’d had limitless shots would I have found the chairs as compelling, especially for a series? Maybe. But probably not.

It’s very common for writers, like photographers, to take part in creativity challenges that encourage such project-based thinking. Practicing your art with a group of like-minded people for consecutive days will more likely yield workable results.

We writers have NaNoWriMo in November and NaPoWriMo each April. Photographers have challenges like the 365 Project and monthly challenges, such as at Instagram where photographers post themed lists of ideas.

These challenges are often informal but incredibly liberating.

Both writing and photography rely on intuition and self-exploration. A mixture of knowing some things and making up the rest. Both arts often include elements of self-doubt or curiosity that are assuaged with practicing your craft on a regular basis.

Try this exercise: Make a list of five themes you could explore as a series in prose or photography.

Want to learn more? Try my May 2020 online Imagery Power: Photography for Writers class.

Take a perusal of Photography for Writers, my exercise-packed, creativity-fueling book. Signed copies also available at my Etsy: WritePathProductions.

Courtesy of Women on Writing https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/MelanieFaith_Photography.php