20 on Tuesday: Jaclyn Michele

Art was my favorite subject in school.  I loved drawing and painting and pottery and photography.  “Back in the day” we’d never heard of such a thing as digital photography.  We shot film.  We shot it, then developed it in a dark room that reeked of fixer and stop baths.  Still to this day, those smells take me back to my high school years.

These days digital has taken the photography world by storm.  Most photographers have hopped on the digital bandwagon.  But not all.  I’m always fascinated by those who still shoot strictly film.  I’m completely drawn to the beautiful soft colors and unique dimension that film creates.  Among the blogs that I stalk are several film photographers, one of whom is Jaclyn Michele. Not only am I inspired by Jaclyn’s gorgeous lifestyle images and the fact that she shoots strictly film, but I’m also fascinated by her hippie style and fabulous dreads!  I knew when I “met” her about a year ago that she was someone I wanted to chat with.  And since I have no travel plans to Michigan anytime soon, I thought a 20 on Tuesday interview would be the perfect opportunity!

Hi, Jaclyn!

Where are you from? I grew up in the suburbs just north of Detroit, in Oakland County, MI.

Where is home now? Northern Waterford, just 30 minutes from my hometown.

Are you formally educated or self-taught in photography? Self-taught. Though, I do want to learn to develop my own film one of these days.

What words would you use to describe your style of photography? Honest. Natural. Emotive…

Talk to me about personal projects.  Are they important and what have you done lately? Personal projects are absolutely important. I don’t take on many clients each month, but feel like I am always shooting. There are a few personal projects I am working on right now or that are in the works for the near future that I’m pretty excited about. But having two young children at home makes it a little harder to find the time to execute a lot of my ideas! Shooting for yourself is essential for growing your vision and refining your style. If all you did was shoot clients, I think your work would become stale over time.

In this digital-heavy industry, why did you choose to shoot film over digital? There are many reasons, but there are two main ones that tipped the scale for me. First of all, I just love the look of film. It is so different than digital and in my opinion, stands out. The wide dynamic range is also a breath of fresh air from a technical standpoint. The other reason is time. Being able to shoot it, send it out to a lab for developing and scanning and having to only spend maybe 20 minutes in Photoshop making minor tweaks and resizing for web is amazing. I have a 3 year old and 5 month old baby at home and post-production of digital images was always the bane of my existence! I love shooting, not sitting behind a computer editing photos for hours on end. With my film work, what you see is what you get.

How important is it to your clients that you shoot film? I don’t think it is really that important. I’ve yet to have somebody hire me JUST because I shoot film. People hire me because they like my style or trust the recommendation from a friend about the experience of shooting with me.

If you could be invisible for one day with your camera… Oh gosh.. I don’t know. Photograph wild animals. When I was a kid, it was one of my many dreams to be a photographer for National Geographic so I could see all of the wild animals up close. Being invisible would definitely help with that!

Name a photographer you would like to take a portrait of? Another difficult question. Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai. She is just such an interesting woman.

What’s your best advice for balancing work and family? Shooting film helps, but I still struggle to find a balance. Because owning a photography business is so much more than just taking photographs. It is the business end that takes up the most time and mental energy. I’d love to hire assistants to take care of all my office and business needs and devote all of my work time to shooting, but I also know myself well enough to know I’m entirely too much of an anal control freak to delegate tasks!

What’s in your camera bag? Right now: Contax 645 with Zeiss 80mm f/2.0 lens, Nikon F100 with 50mm f/1.4 lens, Yashica Mat 124-G, SB800 speedlight, and a bunch of other odds & ends and FILM.

When you’re not photographing, where can we find you? At home with my kids, spending time with extended family, or reading.

If not a photographer what would you have been? I am actually enrolled in a community college right now working (albeit slowly) toward both a Social Work degree and Sign Language Interpreter certification. Right now my business is number one and I just take a class here and there when I have the cash and time to devote to it. I’d love to take more classes, but until my kids are in school, it would just have me spread too thinly for my brain to function!

If you could live anywhere on this awesome planet where would you build your dream home? While I could tell you I would love to move to an area like the west coast where the temperatures and weather is more mild year-round, I will probably remain in Metro-Detroit until I die. It is where most of my family lives and no matter where I have lived in the past, I always seem to come back “home” to be near my sisters and other immediate family members.

What talent would you most like to have? I would love to be able to sew and follow patterns.

What are the three words your spouse would use to describe you? Artistically gifted Hippie. I text messaged him at work and that was his reply. Hah!

Something that is over rated… Digital photography. Kidding!

Your favorite movie of all time? Of ALL TIME? Impossible to narrow down. Impossible. But… I could watch Empire Records 89 million more times and still adore it.

Who would play you in a movie of your life? Zooey Deschanel.

Name one blog you stalk regularly: Elsie Flannigan’s – she is just adorable and always posting pretty things.

Jaclyn Michele’s work can be found HERE.

Thank you, Jaclyn!

(In my next life I’m going to be able to pull off the dreads!)