It’s a real pleasure to introduce you all to my friend, guest contributor, Amy Jasek. Amy’s enthusiasm for photography, the arts, and life in general, knows few bounds. She is active in her local art guild  in Taylor, Texas; she helps keep the lights on at the Film Shooters Collective ; and she is a  proud member of  the group Shootapalooza, where among other things, she played a role in organizing World Cyanotope Day  and the creation of the world’s largest cyanotype earlier this month. Amy is a self-described black and white film street photographer, but today she shares a more personal color film project with us here at Viewfinders.

I never have dealt well with the passage of time. As a young child, I would cry for hours because I didn’t want to grow up. I couldn’t stand the idea of my life changing and my happiness ending, which was what growing up represented for me. (I partially blame Peter Pan for this.) What I couldn’t see as a child, of course, is that the passage of years doesn’t cause happiness to end: it grows and evolves. It changes, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Now I find myself a mother, and in a state of constant dismay at the lightning fast speed of time as reflected in my daughter. This is something my heart is not yet ready to deal with, so I don’t. I photograph it instead.

This summer I participated in a “100 days” project, specifically with the intention of preserving the precious time my daughter and I spent together. My project title is Saving Daylight: Reflections of an American Summer. The project itself grew and evolved, as all things do, but what I present here is a selection of the personal side of it. These are photographs that are dear to my heart, made in a way that is also dear to me: they are all from various color films (Kodak Ektar, Kodak Gold 200, Cinestill 50D, for example). The color work was a stretch for me, but even grown ups are due for growing pains from time to time.

Amy Jasek has always been a photographer.  There may have been breaks along the way, but she may as well have been born with a camera in her hand, and raised in the darkroom.  She is passionate about the natural, candid beauty of people and things. She believes street photography is a little window into the heart and soul of a place, a time, and the people in it. She seeks out quiet grace in places that are often forgotten or overlooked. She believes the world is beautiful, life is a gorgeous ongoing journey, and this is what she captures that with her camera. 

Amy works almost exclusively in black & white film.  Every part of the process is done by hand, by her.  You can follow her work here.