MCDANIEL PREFERS BEING BEHIND CAMERA OVER BEING IN FRONT OF IT

Posted on October 6, 2008 by Ransom County Gazette

By Janet Hansen

Photography by Holly McDaniel, Englevale, is currently being displayed in the hallways at Lisbon Area Health Services. It will be on display through the month of October.

Holly explains that one of the reasons she enjoys taking pictures so much is that she is behind the camera she generally doesn’t have to worry about having her picture taken. She explains that, even as a child, she hated to have her picture taken. “I can remember being in a wedding when she was about six years old”, she says. “I was willing to do everything else expected of me that day except for having my picture taken. I remember that as we were leaving to go to the church for the photography session, my mother said, “and Holly, you’d better not cry!” She new that I always ended up crying when I had to have my picture taken and that day was no different. Her warning did no good. Things didn’t get any better as I got older. School pictures caused me so much anxiety that I would be in tears before I started for school.

By the time Holly entered high school, she has learned that she could sometimes avoid being in pictures by volunteering to be the one to man the camera. In the process, she found out that she enjoyed photography for other reasons. “I used to enjoy taking pictures of kids for whom I babysitting,” she recalls. “I can remember dressing up one of the little boys like a little farmer, putting him on a tractor, and taking his picture.”

She explains that children are still her favorite subjects for photographs. “I enjoy taking pictures of kids just being kids,” she remarks. For instance, one of her favorite pictures is of her four young sons. One day, after the boys had been outside playing, she gathered them together for a picture. Her husband asked if she wasn’t going to clean them up and put good clothes on them before taking their picture. She said that wasn’t necessary, because she wanted them to look like she saw them every day.

Many of the photos that she has on display at the hospital are of children. One features a toddler in bib overalls, sitting in a chair playing with his toes. Another shows the same child lying in the grass. One picture features a little girl in a pink dress holding a pink Gerbera daisy. One features tow red0haired boys in argyle sweaters and white shirts sitting on a iron bench. The boys somehow remind the viewer of young English gentlemen. One appears to be showing the other an apple, which has them both fascinated. She named the picture “My brother, My friend.”

Many of Holly’s photos, which she has framed and matted, have names reflecting the theme of the picture. For instance, the photo of her four boys is simply entitles “Brothers”. A photo of a beautiful young farm boy is entitled “innocence.” The look on the subjects face, as he sits next to the wheel of a tractor, portrays the innocence of childhood. Another shows a young girl, nose to nose with her horse. The photo is entitles “First Love.” It is obvious that the child loves that animal. One is of a mother and her little girl. The toddler is obviously excited about seeing her mother and is holding her hands out toward her mother’s face. Holly named the picture, “My Mommy!”

“Sometime the name of the picture just simply jumps out at me from the photograph,” explains Holly. “For some photo, it is more difficult to capture the theme with a few words.”

“Most of the photographs that I do are for relatives or close friends,” stated Holly. “My photography is not a business – it’s a hobby.”

A picture of her nephew sitting in a pile of leaves, looking intently at the leaf in his hand, portrays the inquisitiveness of a child. Holly took a picture of her twin sons, dressed in John Deere sweatshirts, on their fourth birthday. She calls the picture “Twins?” The question mark reflects the fact that the boys insist that they are not twins. The family has never called them “Twins”, nor dressed them alike, so they have never thought of themselves as twins. Holly explains that when they insist they are not twins, she asks them, “Then why do you have the same birthday?” Their answer is simply, “just because we do.”

One of the more unusual pieces that holly has on display is a collage of five pictures of children’s feet. “I love taking pictures of feet,” said Holly. “people always seem fascinated by a bay’s feet and then, as a child grows, I find it fascinating how their feet grow and change. One of the pictures is of the feet of a newborn baby. The rest belong to older children. One shows a bare foot, the sole coated with dust after having run outside barefoot. The middle picture in the collage is of water from a kitchen faucet running over a toddler’s feet.

Not all of Holly’s pictures feature children, however. She obviously is also fascinated by nature. Several of the photos in her display feature frost.

“One winter morning I got up to find everything in our farmyard covered with a thick layer of hoar frost.” Said Holly. “Looking out the front door of our house I noticed the bench which I’d decorated with evergreen branches and pine cones. The frost made it look like a postcard scene. I thought to myself, “This is Mother Nature’s splendor at it’s finest.” I have to go out and capture this beauty on camera!” Once I had taken a few pictures of that scene, I took a few pictures of trees near out house. One of those pictures looks like a black and white print. The only way one notices that I was using colored film is that there is a little hint of blue sky in one spot. I was so excited about the beauty of the scenery that I began to wander around the yard. I took a few pictures near the barn. Turning around at one point, I could hardly believe my eyes! There was a large spider web, about two feet wide, attached to the corner of the barn. The white web against the red wall of the barn was so amazing that I just stood there in awe! So much frost had accumulated on the web that it looked as if it were made of butcher’s twine.  I believe that picture was a gift from above! If I passed up the opportunity to get that picture, I would probably never have the opportunity again.” The picture of the web, which is included in Holly’s display, looks as if the spider has included a self-portrait in the middle, since there appears to be a larger barn spider woven into the middle of the frosty web. 

Another winter photo opportunity came about when Holly spent time at the ski hill at Fort Ransom, taking pictures of her son and other people who were snowboarding! “When I saw the finished pictures, I was amazed!” she said. “I hadn’t realized how high the snowboarders actually get when doing their tricks. The snow following the tail of the snowboards was truly amazing! You so often see things you don’t expect in photos. When I used to send them into be developed, the say they came back was just like Christmas! Now, seeing digital photos on a computer screen gives me a similar thrill.”

When asked what she has found to be the most challenging pictures to take, Holly immediately answered, “Weddings!” Holly is the first to admit that she does not have as much formal training in photography as she would like, so she sometimes finds lighting to be challenging. She explains that she does most of her photography work outdoors, so when faced with a wedding to photograph for family or friends, she is always nervous about what type of lighting situation she might run into. She also finds it challenging when dealing with a large group of people, trying to get everyone to be in the appropriate place at the appropriate time to make the photography session run smoothly.

Occasionally she has been amazed at what she sees on the picture when they are blown up to a larger size. “it’s amazing what you may notice in the background,” she said. “Sometimes you see things that you didn’t realize were there that really make the picture interesting. I took pictures at a wedding that took place at a golf course. One of the pictures of the bride and groom has a golf tee in the grass near the bride’s dress. I did not know that the golf tee was there until the picture was enlarged, but it seemed very appropriate.” Holly named the picture, with the bride and groom looking at each other, “Bliss.”

Holly and her husband, Scott McDaniel, a third generation Englevale area farmer, have a family of four boys who provide many “photo ops” for her. Soren, age 10, twins Hayden and Hadley, age 8, and Griffen, who will be four years old in December, are active farm boys. She enjoys capturing their antics in pictures. “If we ever has a fire in my house, the items I would most like to save, after my family, of course, would be my photo albums,” she comments “most other possessions can be replaced or done without. However, photos can never be replaced.”

Over the years, Holly’s love for pictures has grown. “I love pictures!” she says. “I could look at them all day! My own albums are simply that – books of pictures. I enjoy looking at scrapbooks but I don’t do scrapbooking. I don’t have time. But I make time for taking pictures. I believe that when a day is over, photos and memories are all you have left. Memories sometimes tend to fade with time; but photos will bring them back. For instance, just before my dad died we had a couple family get-togethers – an outing in the woods and a family wedding. My dad complained, as he always did, about having to take so many pictures. He even said, “Why are you taking so many pictures? Do you think we’re going to die tomorrow? Unfortunately, he did. And those pictures are all we have left and they are very precious to us.”