The Images That Made Me | No. 2 — Donna Hopkins

This is how it all started.

Rebecca Curtis and I first met and established a friendship when we were published together in the Autumn 2015 Issue of Artful Blogging. There’s really a bit more to the story. I went through that issue carefully and reached out to every featured photographer. It was a short note to say hello, to acknowledge their work, and to make new connections. Some people wrote back and friendships took root. Rebecca wrote back. I began to follow her work and fell in love with her deeply moving photographs and her honest writing about her life. Rebecca had begun a daily practice of photography and writing, aiming to continue for the entire year, 2016. It took a while for me to build up the courage to start my own daily project. I started my 365 Project, Like Medicine For Me, in March 2016.

The idea behind the 365 Challenge was to bring practice and discipline to our photography and to foster our own artistic growth. But behind the scenes of our daily posts, we exchanged hundreds of emails, letters of truth and encouragement that revealed both the light and shadow of our inner lives. Our correspondence illuminated the struggles we faced through the project: finding our inner voice over taking in outside influence, facing fears, accepting rather that avoiding discomfort, embracing imperfection, and learning self-acceptance.

Our experience of working through 365 projects alongside one another culminated in an article we co-wrote for Bella Grace, Issue 10, Winter 2017.

A Year’s Worth.

It was hard to choose just one of Rebecca’s images that made me. Her photographs from that year read like a treasured novel, one where you can’t wait to turn the next page and yet slow your reading because you don’t want the experience to end. This is how I felt about her work.

With The Quiet Light, I learned that light alone might be subject of the photo. I began to appreciate careful composition and the arrangement of elements within the frame. Rebecca’s images were often moody and soft and characteristically Leica. Like glimpses or whispers or gentle invitations. Through her work, my own work began to evolve. I tried to emulate her style, make it my own in some way. Even though I was the older of the two of us, I was the beginner. Her voice was more developed than mine. She knew herself and I did not. But during the course of that year, there was a seismic shift in my work and the beginnings of a long journey of healing. Work that was worthwhile in every way. I will always love The Quiet Light.