I’m super excited to showcase Erica Caligiuri in my Monthly Interview series. Erica is one of my favorite photographers who capture their everyday life with personality and beauty. There is a subtlety and humor to her photographs that instantly place me into her home….and life. I love the way she uses color, light and storytelling. Whenever she posts a photo, I instantly know what compelled her to take it.
She’s participating in a monthly video challenge where she documents each month in a short video. Just take a look at her most recent February video – You’ll see her creativity and humor right away. Amazing, right?!?!
Make sure you check out her blog and follow her instagram feed!
Now for our interview:
1| Me and My Camera:
I shoot with a Canon 6D, Sigma 35 f/1.4, Canon 50 f/1.4, Canon 24-105L. I also have an EOS-M that’s great when I want more portability.
2 | My Family:
My husband (and prom date!) Nick, son Ferris, daughter Athena. Funny story about this – in January, I realized that I didn’t have a boring old picture of us in front of the tree, so we put it back up just to take a few! I knew I would regret not having this from our first Christmas as a family of four.
3 | My current photography challenge:
Trying not to overshoot. I don’t want to leave my children the digital equivalent of an attic full of old newspapers. My goal is to keep 200 photos a month, but I almost never make it.
4 | What I have time for now:
My goal for 2015 is to put together 1 video a month. I love capturing the movement and sounds of my children. The process also helps me be thoughtful about what I want to capture and how. Last year, one of my favorite projects was a video of transforming our office into a nursery, capturing my belly growing along the way.
5 | What I don’t have time for now:
I would love to do a color study, and focus on one color per month – working with contrasting colors, seeing how colors convert to BW, experimenting with mood and color. Maybe next year!
6 | My favorite photography subject:
Though my children are often my subjects, they aren’t my favorite. I can too often shoot from a place of anxiety about them growing up and changing so fast. I enjoy shooting new places, when I don’t have any pressure to get a particular shot, and can just let myself be surprised and inspired.
7 | My favorite place to photography inside my home:
Our bedroom.
8 | My favorite time to photograph:
I don’t have a favorite time! I look for whatever light can be a supporting element to a good story.
9 | My favorite photograph right now:
Thank you to my husband for being an awesome human tripod!
10 | What tip, trick or info helped your family photographs the most:
For photography in general: Learn to see light, tone, and contrast the way your camera sees it. Never stop learning about light! For practice, I walk around with my spot meter on, trying to guess how many stops difference between different elements, then I turn on the LCD with histogram to see if it looks the way I envisioned. For family photography, my tip is not to oversimplify your frame. When I was first learning, I thought it was more professional to eliminate “distractions” from the frame. Sometimes that’s a good strategy, but it’s also important to figure out how you can include elements in a thoughtful way. Use the evidence of life (toys, decor, etc.) to add scale, balance, contrast, depth, context, texture, story, etc. Oh, and one more thing- practice with purpose, and don’t practice on your kids! It took me too long to figure that out. It ends up being frustrating for both of you, and getting a cute expression clouds your judgment about whether you’re learning whatever concept you are trying to learn.
Are you addicted yet? She’s really great and I hope you’ll continue to follow her photography.
A big thank you to Erica for letting me interview her!
Would you like to be interviewed? Simply send me an email {info@bookthisproject.com} and I’ll fill you in on the details.
