Mary Jo Hoffman: Mindfulness Through Daily Nature Photography
In this episode of the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast, host Angela Nicholson interviews Mary Jo Hoffman, a Minneapolis-based photographer renowned for her long-term project 'Still'. Over the past almost thirteen years, Hoffman has captured daily photographs of found nature, creating a body of work that reflects her minimalist aesthetic and deep connection with the natural world. Her dedication to her craft has recently culminated in the release of her book, 'Still: The Art of Noticing', which showcases 275 of her most captivating images, accompanied by insightful essays about her artistic journey.
Listen to another episode of the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast
Mary Jo's career path took an unconventional turn; after beginning as an aerospace engineer, she found passion in photography, inspired by her college roommate, an art student who often invited her on weekend photography drives. For 20 years, Hoffman remained an amateur photographer while pursuing her corporate career. However, when a corporate takeover prompted her to leave the business world, she decided to embark on a new creative challenge: a one-a-day photography project. The project evolved into a mindfulness practice, allowing her to stay attuned to the subtle changes in her surroundings, often captured in minimalist compositions that highlight the beauty of everyday nature.
During the podcast, Hoffman shares her thoughts on the scientific and artistic sides of photography. While she originally envisioned photography as a casual creative outlet, the project gained recognition and she has continued her daily practice for over 12 years. Her work is distinguished by its simplicity and the meditative process she follows, often photographing objects found during walks in her local area and placing them against a stark white or black background.
Angela and Mary Jo discuss the challenges and rewards of working on a long-term project, including how she balances her artistic practice with the demands of everyday life. Hoffman also touches on the importance of staying flexible with her process, adapting her workflow to suit busy days, and the mindfulness gained through her daily commitment to photography. Her use of minimal equipment, such as a simple tripod and natural light, ensures that the process remains straightforward, enabling her to focus on creativity rather than technical details.
The episode concludes with Mary Jo answering six questions from the SheClicks community, offering insights into her process, inspirations, and future plans. She hints at a desire to explore new creative avenues, although she remains deeply committed to her daily photography practice.
This engaging conversation offers listeners a unique glimpse into the life of a photographer who has seamlessly blended her love for nature and minimalism with a disciplined artistic practice, resulting in a body of work that is both meditative and visually stunning.
Connect with Mary Jo
Website
Instagram
Episode Transcript
Mary Jo Hoffman
I keep going because I'm enjoying the practice now, and I'm a big being believer in it's all about the practice. It's not about the product, and it's the practice that I'm enjoying so much.
Angela Nicholson
Welcome to the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast. I'm Angela Nicholson, and I'm the founder of SheClicks, which is a community for female photographers. In these podcasts, I talk with women in the photographic industry to hear about their experiences, what drives them and how they got to where they are now.
This episode is with Mary Jo Hoffman, who is best known for her multi year ongoing project, 'Still', where every day for over a decade, she's made a photograph of found nature, no subject too small or too ordinary. Her book Still the Art of Noticing, which came out in May 2024, features 275, of her most stunning photographs accompanied by essays with insights gained through this daily creative practice.
Hi, Mary, Jo, thank you for joining me today on the sheclicks women in photography podcast. It's really lovely to meet you, albeit remotely.
Mary Jo Hoffman
I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you. I'm talking to you from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Angela Nicholson
Oh, fantastic. I'm talking to you from South Oxfordshire in the UK. So I understand that you originally had a career as an aeronautical engineer, and you switched to photography when the company you were working for changed hands. But why did you pick photography?
Mary Jo Hoffman
I had been an amateur photographer since college, so I had a college roommate. I was studying engineering in college. I probably in a different household. Would have grown up creative. You know, I had all those creative leanings. I was a maker. I made things. I did it all. I baked. I did needle point, but I mostly played outside in the woods, but I studied engineering in college, and a roommate of mine was an art student, and she would go out photographing on weekends, and so I started joining her on her Saturday afternoon drives. My undergraduate was at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It's farm country, rolling hills, very, very beautiful, and I go with her on her Saturday afternoon drives. And I got hooked. I loved it. And so I was an amateur photographer for the next 20 years as well. I was a practicing aerospace research scientist.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, very different.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, very different. But I, you know, and mostly I was shooting, like sort of landscape photography, and taking the odd photo class. But when I, when I left corporate, the corporate world in my 40s, you know, I wanted to do one of these one a day projects that were so popular, and it made sense that I would, I thought about doing a collage day. I thought about doing a pattern a day, but it made sense that I would use the camera it. You know, that was what I was most skilled with. And so I thought up a one a day project that would keep me challenged and entertained, if you will, and the found nature on a simple background. You know, one photo a day that I would share to the online community was how it started.
Angela Nicholson
I think for a scientist, photography has quite a lot of appeal, doesn't it? Because it's that really nice mix of, yes, there is a lot of creativity involved. And really, if you're going to take great photos that people buy, you have to be a creative but it's helpful if you understand the science behind it as well.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, it is interesting. It's sort of, I think that, you know, in another life. I may have been a good architect. It's that combination of the art with the science and photography is similar. Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right.
Angela Nicholson
And when you started sort of taking your photography a bit more seriously, was it your intention for it to become your new career, or were you just looking for a creative outlet at that point?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh, it was absolutely just a creative outlet. I still had littles at home. We had a full life. My husband and I are self employed. When I quit corporate work, he became the primary breadwinner, but it was all self employed businesses, so I was helping out a lot, and I had partly left corporate America because I didn't like the acquiring company of my own, beloved one, but I also wanted to be a hands on mom. I wanted to be around so I didn't want to add anything too ambitious that was gonna, you know, require me to go spend three hours a day in a studio, or, you know, be on location, doing shoots or anything like that. So I crafted the project so that I could be around the house, be home when the kids were home, but it was really just to keep creatively limber. Honestly, I talk about it like it's I wanted creative calisthenics, like I thought I would become an artist. Yes, in retirement, right? That that would be my, my ambition. And until then, I was in my mid 40s. Until then I would just do, you know, I'd keep limber. I give myself these, these little challenges, and keep active, keep pushing myself, keep trying to be creative until then, and and then it blossomed into something much more than that, obviously.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, yeah. So, why did you opt for a blog?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Uh, you know, it's, it's a funny thing. I didn't know what a blog was, so I was working corporate, and blogs are around. They were a thing. I just was in a different world. I was living in a different world, you know, and I didn't know what a blog was. And so it was 2010 I started to get this idea. I started my project January 1, 2012 but I'd start to hear the word blog. I was curious about blogs. And then my husband's a writer, and he had started writing the same time I had started my one a day project, and I thought, I honestly thought, well, I'll play with a blog, because I have more free time than you and but I was thinking it would be a good outlet for him. You know what I mean, like for his writing? But, you know, I, I'll experiment with it. I'll see if it makes sense, I'll, I'll just do this one a day project and see if this is a good outlet for you to get your writing scene. And that's how it started. Of course, I started a blog and and then the blog got lots of attention, and here we are, 12 and a half years later, and I haven't stopped. And it was a one year project, so, and he never did a blog. So it was the right fit for me. It was the perfect fit for me, and it never, we never did one for him.
Angela Nicholson
Because I think there's quite a big difference between sort of committing, making a decision that you're going to take a photograph every day and saying you're going to write a blog about that photograph every day. That's quite a big step, isn't it?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, it is. I think, I guess I you know, for me, I started out with the one a day project, and it was always I would make my photo, take my photo, edit it, and then post it. I never started out any other way, Instagram. I wasn't on Instagram when I started, if I if that had been it was around, I wasn't using it. Had I been using it, I probably would have just posted to Instagram. It would have been easier, whatever more efficient, quicker. But I wasn't on it, and I just started on the with this blog, and I made sure the process, one of the reasons I'm doing this 12 and a half years later is I made sure that each step of that process was not too involved, right? It was, is really it was really important. I could find my subject in the morning, I could let it sit on the kitchen counter until afternoon. I would photograph it sometime. Because I use natural light, I would photograph it sometime in the afternoon, edit it sometime, usually around dinner time, and, you know, something simmering on the on the cooktop, and I'm editing a photo and running back and forth, and then I post it to the blog at in the evening, and each of those steps on a busy day can be as short as two minutes. I post the image to the blog, and I write a little paragraph about what I found, why I chose that subject, or sometimes a little personal note about what's going on in my life, but mostly it's why I chose this subject. What is the subject? What interesting thing I learned about this subject? And on most days, I'd say I'd probably spend an hour, maybe an hour and a half, maybe an hour on, you know, the whole process. But there's days like recently, my mom is 88 she was in the hospital, you know? I i do each of those steps in a minute, you know, I pick a subject at the edge of the parking lot at the hospital, I bring it home, I photograph it very quickly, just a simple flat lay, just a single portrait, and then I, you know, edit it very quickly, and then I upload it and just say, you know, mom's in the hospital, and I, this is all I got today, you know. I mean, that's it, and that's my post. So. But that's the beauty of the the one a day project is you get to do that. Not every day is going to be artful. Not every day is going to be a masterpiece assemblage of multiple pieces. You know, some days it's just a picture of the leaf from the edge of the dry of the parking lot, yeah. But over the years, it adds up, it adds up, and you get a bunch of really beautiful images. Yeah.
Angela Nicholson
Oh yeah. Do you always take the photograph in your home? Or do you have a photograph in situ?
Mary Jo Hoffman
I 99% of time it's at home. I have found that the wind outside, it's not necessarily the light. It's problem because you can always find a, you know, a shady spot, or whatever, you know, a nice, a nicely lit corner. But mostly it's the wind that is the problem outside for the kind of photography I'm doing. So I mostly photograph at home. There are times when I just can't, yeah, if you look at my images, a lot of the winter stuff, it's, you know, ice, you know, frozen rain on on branches, you know, I can't bring those inside. They'll melt immediately. So a lot of the winter stuff, I have to go outside, you know, raindrops dripping off of cedar tips, that kind of stuff. I you know, I'm outside, but 90% of the time I'm on my kitchen floor.
Angela Nicholson
Okay. Sometimes the simpler pictures are actually the more difficult ones to create, particularly when there's, you know, it's quite a minimalist subject, and there's, you know, you've got a clean white background, you've really got to nail everything. It's got to be exactly right for it to sort of pass muster, really.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yes, that's, you know, my aesthetic is very minimal. I do these assemblages, these flat lay assemblages, because they're fun. Every now and then people like them. I like to do them to show a place. I was just in California, and I came home, and this morning I posted an assemblage of bits and pieces of California, you know, and I came home with pockets full of seed pods and driftwood. And so I put that all together in a single image. But a lot of time I'm doing a single subject, and I, you know, I like, I really like, their very minimal, spare images. And I it's my esthetic. So my personal esthetic, I, you know, in I live in Minnesota, it's winter five months of the year here I can I photograph bare branches. You know, for four or five months, I don't get sick of them, but I assume that the people that follow my blog probably get pretty sick of bear branches. You know, winter's longer here in Minnesota than it is anywhere else in the north and so anyway, I have an esthetic that is very spare, but I try on the blog at least. And for my followers, I try to mix it up and have a variety of, you know, some assemblages, some collections, some portraits, you know, single subject portraits. I try to just keep it fresh, I say.
Angela Nicholson
With the flat lays that you do. I mean, some of them are very complex. They're layouts very carefully considered. I mean, I was looking at one where you've got rows and rows of shells. And whilst that's not complicated in itself, you know, they're all neatly arranged. Actually, it's really fiddly to produce that and make that really regular pattern. Is that something you would do in a day? Or do you maybe just lay out a few each day and come, you know? And then eventually, when they're all laid out as you want, you come and take the photograph for that particular day, and you do other photos during the week?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah. Yeah. You know the shells, for example, depending you know the round ones, like the auger shells, they roll in feathers. They, you know, the tiniest of tiniest. I mean, I hold my breath when I work with the feathers, right? So, yeah, some they, they are fiddly. Some of those compositions are very fiddly. And because they're so fiddly, I make them and photograph them immediately, because if they laid around, I'm photographing on my kitchen floor because that's the best light in my house. I tried twice now over the 12 years to set up studios and keep coming back to my kitchen floor. So because it's a high traffic area, so you know, I have to lay up the composition and then photograph it immediately. But I do have this really fun technique that I share when I teach workshops where I'll make a composition very gridded, very orderly, very lots of thought about negative space and all that, and I'll photograph it, and then I'll intentionally, I call It the hip bump, and I'll potentially kick it or bump it, and then photograph it again, and then decide later which composition I like better. And it's about 5050, sometimes I like the very, very intentional one, but sometimes I like the loose one that shows a little bit of order within the chaos of the of the hip bump, you know, but there's still structure behind it. So it's about 5050, whether I like the hip bump or the the tightly structured one. So I leave, I often leave the subjects after my compositions on the kitchen floor, you know, for a day or two, and then to just to see what happens, see how the flower wilts, or see how the the assemblage gets disturbed by people walking by and photograph it a second time, and then, and then choose.
Angela Nicholson
I can imagine that a dog would cause quite a bit of a disruption to some of your displays.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh, yeah, yeah. I have a well, the this. Whole blog called still started because I had a two year old Puggle that needed a walk, right? And a Puggle is a beagle pug mix, very neurotic, very, very affectionate, but neurotic breed, and he just did tremendously better if he got out for a walk every day. So the blog started because the dog needed a walk every day, and now that same dog is 15 and but I have 15 years, or 12 years of his nose in my images, right? He's always, you know, I'm above, I'm shooting above in a flat lane, and I've got my camera on a tripod, and I kick the camera, and there's his nose or his paw, he's he used to be very, very, very interested in everything I brought in the house, but now he's 15. He mostly is indifferent, yeah, but I actually miss those days of him sticking his nose in every third image. Yeah, he's seen it all.
Angela Nicholson
He knows what you're doing now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How would you say your projects evolved over the years, apart from your dog's nose not featuring quite so much?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Um, you know, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting thing. I started the blog, as I said, to do a one a day project for one year, and it was to give myself a creative challenge. And I wanted to work on, if you will, composition, like, the art of composition kind of eludes me. And I thought, well, I'll just compose, you know, so I'm making images, I'm not taking images, I'm making compositions, and then I'm capturing them with a camera. And that was, I, that's what I thought I was doing. It turns out, 12 and a half years later, I, you know, this daily practice has turned into essentially a mindfulness practice. It's, I mean, it's, you know, I have to be present at least for part of every day to find my subject. And so I found that it's a really, really wonderful way to live, to be that present and that attentive to my environment. So I, you know, it became a mindfulness practice. I I got extremely knowledgeable about my bio region, my the plant in the flora and sauna of my area. I mean, every single day, I'm looking for something new to photograph, and then I'm photographing it. When I post it in the evening, I'm, you know, trying to find the Latin name and learning about it. And so I got, you know, essentially became a citizen naturalist. One one part of my book is this idea called 72 micro seasons, where I mapped the seasonal unfolding of my place, my bio region, into these five day increments called 72 micro seasons. I'm really proud of that work. So I got, I got very knowledgeable about my environment. I, you know, I created this mindfulness practice that I really love and don't want to stop. But the composition, like, the like that hasn't changed much. Like I still, it still is out of reach for me. I mean, I got techniques and tricks, right? And, you know, I'm faster I you know, I know if I'm going to do a curved branch that it has to be, you know, it will work better if it's a really nice sinuous curve, you know what I mean, like, I know. Or if I'm gonna do a grid of, a composition, grid of of something that, you know, and it's mostly straight lines that the straighter they are, the better, you know, I know I got techniques down. And I, you know, as photographers, we all know, like, rule of thirds and all that kind of stuff. But I, I just thought I would get really a better handle on the art of composition. Like, like, what I did get, I have to say, I did get more confident about saying I like this, or I don't like that, you know, or saying this is done, this is done. You know, a lot of times when you're making those detailed assemblages, for me, they're done. When each time I add a new element, I disturb two or three more, and the whole thing goes wonky, like then I have to be done. Yeah, sometimes that's done, but sometimes I, you know, I got more I got faster, more confident at saying, Nope, I'm stopping here. You know, I'm gonna stop here. This is done so, you know the but the irony is, the composition, the art of composition, I don't feel like I've mastered it, which is what I set out to do. I've mastered all sorts of other things in this 12 year process, all life affirming, all life enhancing, but I did not master the art of composition, which I think is funny. Does that help you keep going? Yeah. I mean, it does. You know, honestly, I keep going partly because it's, it's a practice now that I don't. Know, it's I don't want to stop. It's just too, like I said, life affirming. So that's mostly why I keep going. But, and at this point, 12 and a half years, am I really gonna get, you know, understand composition anymore? Maybe I don't know. I keep going because I'm enjoying the practice now, and I'm a big being believer in it's all about the practice. It's not about the product, and it's the practice that I'm enjoying so much.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, if you go on holiday, do you take some of your like, you know, do you take a background with you? Do you take things with you so you can continue? Or do you try and find stuff while you're you're away?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, so that's a good question. I don't work ahead. Well, I haven't, historically worked ahead. I found I did, you know, early on, so it was a one a day project. And of course, you know, it doesn't take very long, probably weeks, when you're asking yourself, well, what if I just do three photos in a day and then I have some margin, you know, the rest of the week. What I found, and I think what a lot of people find, is it's harder to stop and start than it is to just do it every day. Yeah. And so I found that if I let myself off for a day, then I'm it's even harder to pick it up, you know, the next day. So I learned that early on. And so when I travel. The project was designed, if you will, conceived so that I could do it when I travel. And you know, it's found nature on a white background, natural light and shared to a blog. That's it. And the white background can be a white wall. It can be a white tee. It's often my husband's white t shirt. It can be a white journal, a blank journal page. So it can be anywhere. And I have done it from anywhere. And for the first 5678, years of the blog, it traveled with me. Just recently, I started giving myself permission, if you will, to work ahead when I travel. So I was just in California last week for five day book tour. It was incredibly packed, two events a day for four days. So I pre, I worked ahead and pre loaded the blog. And, you know, explained to my followers. I'm in California. I worked ahead. You know, here's a collection of some and so I that's that's become, that's become more recent, but for the first eight years or so, I designed the project so that it could travel. And so I did it every day.
Angela Nicholson
Do you ever regret your decisions with, for example, doing it every day, or choosing a white background? Or there are any things you think, Oh, I wish I'd done it this way, or if you felt quite comfortable in making changes?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh, that's a good question. So I committed to one year, and I chose the white background. I have a white, you know, white interior, white floors even. And so I could use the whole house as a studio. I could photograph in any bedroom, under any window. I chose white. It on the first year, but I have, I did spend one year doing black, black backgrounds. And I think I'm going to go back to that. I published a book in May with fayden called still the art of noticing, and it has some of my black images, but it was mostly my white images. And partly because of that book, and that book being out there, I'm still doing the white, but, um, it kind of itching to change it up and go back to black. So I it's, you know, found nature minimally manipulated. No, no man made, you know, no vases, no props, no no string, no twine. Minimally manipulated photograph. So it's just very spare presentations of found nature subjects. And I thought about, you know, my first instinct was to do it on gray, but I wanted, when somebody visited the blog, I wanted it to be a seamless scroll. And it's really hard to make gray seamless, right? There's a gajillion Shades of Gray, and so that means each image would have a slightly different gray background, and I didn't want it. I wanted it to be seamless. That's why the bright white or the pure black, because I wanted that seamless scroll. So my idea was that blog would be like this quiet corner of the internet, right? The Internet was too loud, too jangly, too too enervating. Innervating, and I wanted to put a little quiet corner on the internet and so and so, that seamless Scroll of just pause, look at one thing, be still. You know, seamless scroll that was important to me at the time, and I still like it. So I, you know, I, I'm gonna go back to black. I play with different colored backgrounds for my subjects, with different colored papers and stuff like that. But that's more sort of personal. The this project is on a bright white or pure black background.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, white brings its own challenges, doesn't it? Because it has to be perfectly illuminated across the whole frame, because otherwise it will, it will go to gray. And you can obviously adjust that in Photoshop. But again, that can be quite tricky to make sure that some areas don't look, you know, just burned out, whereas others, you know, maybe got a bit of texture.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, you know, as any skilled or experienced photographer would know if, you know, if you're if you've got a lot of high contrast, if you're doing a dark green leaf on a white background, that's easy to edit. But if, if the subject is light at all, or has light colors, and, you know, white is obviously very tricky, and a lot of nature is white, shells, bones, tips of feathers, flowers, those get really tricky, as does like the, you know, the pale flax, like the washed out colors of dried grasses, you know, that pale, pale yellow, kind of color that is very hard to capture. And so I've developed, over the years techniques. It's a funny thing. I should have probably at some point, taken a Photoshop I do everything in Photoshop. I should have taken some photoshop classes. I never did. I just hunt and pecked and self taught and but now I've got this technique where I can take almost any subject, even if it's a white on white subject, and be quite confident I can get a good image. And lately I've been teaching workshops, and everybody wants to know how I lift those backgrounds to bright white. And I was like, oh, it's very simple. It's very simple. And then I tried to teach it in workshops a couple times, and everybody afterwards was like, kind of glazed over and and so I realized. So somebody said, Can you write this down? So I said, Sure, of course. It's very simple, you know. And then I wrote it down. What I do? It was four pages of instructions. Oh, yeah. So it wasn't simple at all. It's just that I've been doing it for 12 years, and I'm so fast at it. I mean, it does really only take me minutes to edit a photo, but it's a minutes of, you know, click, click, click, click, click, going really fast, right? So, but it's a lot of to lift that background to bright white without blowing out. The subject is the a lot of making layers, adjusting one layer, collapsing it, duplicating, making another, just in that, collapsing it. It's just this really slow stepping up to the right background without blowing out the subject. So really, that's where the time, the time consuming part of it is.
Angela Nicholson
And what about focusing?
Mary Jo Hoffman
I shoot on, you know, I thoroughly appreciate being on this podcast, and what you're the community you've created. Is the irony is, I feel sometimes like I'm, like, not really a photographer, you know, I'm using a camera to capture my creations. I mean, it's splitting hairs, I know, and splitting ears. I just came out with a photo book. Anyway, I shoot at f/22 I started probably shooting at f/8, f/11 slowly inched up, because my subjects don't wiggle and move. I can, you know, I can shoot at f/22 I found something about that F 22 it's not just the depth of field, because my subject, a lot of them, are flat. I don't need that f/22 but I there's something about the shutter being open that long, that gives a little bit of of softness. It's a funny thing with nature, because if you get too sharpened, it looks hyper realistic this. And so I find I want the subject in focus, but I don't want it hyper sharpened so that it looks artificial, so it's a balance, but I shoot it F 22 and like a, you know, with the white background, a plus one, anywhere between a plus one or plus two on the exposure, always soft light. And if I don't have an overcast day, I use a diffuser to soften the light. And that's really my technique in a Canon 5D Mark IV with a 50 millimeter lens on a simple tripod with a joystick that lets me, you know, shoot at 90 degrees. And that's it. It's, you know, by my from the very beginning, I was I wanted the project to be low equipment, low tech, because I knew I was gonna have to travel. It was going to have to travel with me, so I've always intentionally kept the equipment very, very minimal.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, good plan. I think sometimes when you start a new project, it's very easy to sort of fall into the trap of thinking, right? So I'll need to buy X, Y and Z, and then you buy those, and you start using those things, and they say, oh, now I'm going to need and actually, sometimes it's just better to do what you can with what you've got and develop your projects around that.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh yeah, I'm a huge fan of just enough equipment and no more. And so figure out the just what exactly what you need, and then stop. I mean, I've been doing this 12 years. I've gotten pretty. Probably 100 DMS suggesting I use a light box, a soft box, or whatever, or one of those back lighting table, things I've been suggested to use because I'm shooting in my home, to use to connect, you know, the camera to the computer, to wire it, hardwire it. I don't I probably should have a remote shutter, you know, just a simple remote shutter. I should have probably added that. I think that would help. But, and they're probably less than $100 but anyway, I don't do I didn't do any of it. I didn't do it. And I have this little cheap tripod, probably $100 tripod, that I bought at the beginning of the project, and then this, with this Christmas, I upgraded to like, a $300 monroto tripod that I thought would give me more reach, you know, with the Vert to go vertical over the subject, a little bit bigger, a little sturdier, it was gonna give me more reach. I hate it, it. I haven't used it. It's sitting in the closet. It's too much tripod. It's like I'm wrestling with the tripod rather than, you know, and a lot of times. So I'm back to my little cheapo that's barely held together, but I can maneuver it. I can it's light, it's easy. I can because when I'm photographing, you know, a flat lay is one thing that's just a 90 degrees. But a lot of times I'm doing profile pictures and that, you know, I'm trying at the moment decide might be a little above, a little below, to the side, this side, you know? And if the tripod requires a lot of manipulation, I just get frustrated. So I'm, I'm a big, big proponent of just enough equipment and no more.
Angela Nicholson
Well, you spoke about it being a mindful process, and if you find that the kit is getting in your way and stopping that process, being so mindful or so enjoyable for you that it is the wrong thing, isn't it?
Mary Jo Hoffman
It's exactly right. It's exactly right. So that you know, for me, there's two points in the day. There's one where I find my subject to photograph, which is being hyper present in my environment. That is that, that's the mindfulness. And then there's the part where I'm playing with the subject, trying to decide what is unique about it, what's different about it, what's fascinating about it. Or I'm in, you know, in deep thought, trying to do a composition and, you know, filling in all the little negative space and all that kind of stuff that those for me, that's an opportunity for to get into flow. You know, when I'm in that mindset which is different than the mindfulness it takes to find the subject in the first place. And so I, yes, I part of the reason I do this, part of the reason I love creativity, is it is an on ramp to flow. And I personally think flow is, you know, it's like prayer or anything. It's a, it's a, it's an accessing of the sacred. And so it's a, you know, it's a losing of the self. It's a letting go of the ego. So anyways, I don't want equipment getting in the way of that, like I want. I'm here because I it doesn't happen every time, but it happens enough that I keep coming back. And so yes, equipment can quickly get in the way of that.
Angela Nicholson
I read somewhere that your family and friends and the community started bringing things along for you to photograph. Do you find it easier to connect with stuff that you found? Are you relatively comfortable with saying, Oh yes, yes, that's you know, and making a photo with something that somebody else has provided?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh no, I'm I'm thrilled when people bring me stuff a photo a day, every day for 12 and a half years. If you do the math, it's like 4600 days. If people help you out for a day, I'm all in. I'm all in. Okay. Matter of fact, right before we started this podcast, literally minutes before we jumped on the podcast, my husband left the house to take the dog out so he wouldn't, the dog wouldn't interrupt our our interview. And he ran back in the house, and he had a walking stick bug, about a four inch long bug, on his hand. And he said, Do you want this? And it's I was alive. And I said, Oh, my God, yes, you know, drop everything. And I grabbed my camera and my tripod. So, yeah, now, you know, it's 10 o'clock in the morning in Minneapolis right now. And my, I have my photo for the day. So that's a gift. You know, he brought me, he brought me the walking bug. It's a gift. Yes, I'll take, I'll take subjects from anyone after 12 and a half years, yeah,
Angela Nicholson
I look forward to seeing it on Instagram.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, it'll be tomorrow.
Angela Nicholson
Do you ever have to say, 'but I photographed that. I photographed that before'?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Well, I allowed myself to re photograph subjects.
Angela Nicholson
Okay.
Mary Jo Hoffman
It would be 4600 that would be too hard. It wouldn't even be, at this point, 12 and a half years, too hard to even remember. I could it's an you know, you know this. We all know this as photographers. I mean. Part of, I think what draws a lot of us to photography is you are so present when you're making that image that you like you will always remember it right, like it's a funny thing. Like, you know, whether it's a street photo or a landscape photo, or, in my case, a found subject, I still at 4600 images. I can still tell you where I found most those subjects. I mean, it's crazy, 4600 and I can say, Oh yeah, that was on that trail I found that that plant, that wild wildflower, on that I know, on the snail Lake Trail in August, you know, it just because of the way that that it, it, you know, it makes you so present. So I could maybe remember most of the things I photograph. But I do allow myself to re photograph I, and I especially love to re photograph subjects like in different seasons, right? So we, I have this expression, is an iris, is an iris. Is an iris, you know, is because I will, I have, when I give my workshops, I show the iris in winter, the iris and fall in spring, the iris, which is, you know, beautiful parrot beaked bud, the iris in high summer, which is the blowsy Lion's Mane flower, and then the iris and fall, which has this gorgeous seed pod, absolutely gorgeous seed pod, you know, and then again in winter. So I like, I especially like to revisit subjects. And my point is, those are all Iris. You know, they're all Iris. We only think of Iris is the one in peak bloom, but that they're all Iris? Yeah, yeah.
Angela Nicholson
Well, I think it's a really good time to go to Six From SheClicks. I've got 10 questions from SheClickers, and I'd like you to answer six of them, please by picking numbers from one to 10. So can I have your first number, please?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Sure. Seven.
Angela Nicholson
Seven, right when you started your daily posting, did you have an end date in mind? That was Marie-Ange. So actually, you did mention that you had, it was going to be a year's project. So maybe we need to twist that and say, what made you continue after the year?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, I did. I started as a one year project. And in for these one a day projects, anyone thinking about doing them. They're so powerful. I think 100 days is the minimum. You can see 30 day challenges online. I think that's too short. I think 100 days is a minimum. I committed to a year. What happened is, at the end of the year, two things, I had gotten some press for the project, and the press, I had gotten contacted by Martha Stewart Living magazine to do a feature, and they the feature was going to come out the following July. So it was going to be a year. You know, after my one year, Project stopped, so I felt a little compelled to keep going. But also I found out that I was really enjoying it. It was all these secondary benefits that I hadn't thought about, of mindfulness, placefulness, learning, you know, learning about my bioregion. All of that was I was finding just really exciting. And so I just wanted to keep going. And then I just kept going. And in my mind, it i recommit every year to one more year, and I ask myself at the end of, you know, and sometime in December, am I going to keep going so that it's just how I how I think I commit one year at a time, and I, at this point, I think I'm going to just keep going.
Angela Nicholson
Okay, can I have your second number then please?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Number four.
Angela Nicholson
Where does your appreciation for the beauty in dead animals come from? And that question is from, Liz,
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh,. Well, I do do a lot of roadkill, and it kind of goes back to that. Then irises and irises and Iris, you know, the iris in winter, that the the dying back flowers in fall, the, you know, the desiccated, you know, leaves. In November, I just find them every bit as beautiful. Honestly, at this point, after 12 and a half years, I'm finding them more beautiful, more interesting than the subjects in full expression, you know, especially the flowers. Maybe it's just that, because the full bloom flowers are so ubiquitous, I don't know, but I'm finding the dying back plants to be far more interesting to photograph than the full bloom roadkill. You know, it's what I have access to, and I just still think it's beautiful, right? It's so beautiful. You know, I'm not a wildlife photographer. Again, I love nature, but I never wanted to get that much equipment in its equipment, heavy practice, and so that's why roadkill, you know? But I find them still as beautiful. Sometimes I do know I'm not four. Photographing the smashed or bloody parts I'm photographing, yeah, the parts that still look whole or intact, but I just, I just find them as beautiful as as the living subjects.
Angela Nicholson
So can I have your third number then please?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Number two.
Angela Nicholson
How do you make a choice on a day with an abundance of possible subjects? That question is from Paula.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh, good, really good question, Paula. In high season. So take August. I live in the Upper Midwest of the North American continent. It's fertile, fertile, fertile. There's just, this is the time of abundance. It's the time of ripening. It's, you know, it's the time we're, you know, time of growth. It can be decision overwhelm easily be decision overwhelm. And so honestly, I tell people I live in the north where five months a year, it's mostly a carpet of white and, you know, bare branches. I tell people that like winter, January is easier for me than July, because July has so much choice. And so I find I'm almost I even after 12 and a half years, I get overwhelmed in July. So you know that I develop tricks and techniques I go out and because there's so much to choose from I have to say, Okay, I'm just going to look for berries, or I'm just going to look for STEM colors, or I'm just going to look for tendrils, or I'm just going to look for the color purple. So I do this. I call it spotlight, you know, filters where I go out, I take my walk, and I'm only looking for one thing, otherwise, there's just too much noise. Too much noise. I have the opposite problem, obviously, in winter, but yeah, July and August are particularly hard months. It's just too much. I taught a workshop in California recently, and it was, happened to be springtime in California, and I just said to the folks, it would take me, it would take me several months to adjust to the abundance and variety of nature you have here. I, you know, it was like as decision fatigue, but yeah, it can be tricky. And so I give myself these spotlighting tricks to so I can essentially, you know, zoom in on just a little something and kind of quiet down all the other noise.
Angela Nicholson
I think that's a good approach. So could I have your fourth number please?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Uh, one.
Angela Nicholson
Number one. I love the huge range of your in your photographic work. Sorry, I think I'm melting. I'll read this again. I love the huge range in your photographic work. I wondered who you're inspired by, as I recognize hints of Hockney and Mondrian, or is this just me putting my own slant on your images? That question is from Penny.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Uh, good question, Penny, if you look at a photographer named Karl, K, Karl with a K, K, A, R, L, Blossfeldt. Are you? Are you familiar with him, Angela?
Angela Nicholson
I actually went to an exhibition of his just recently.
Mary Jo Hoffman
So I saw his work probably four or five years before I started my project, and I remember seeing it for the first time, and my mouth fell open, and I think he was probably the single biggest influence on me. Now I look for influence everywhere, and I do, I don't look at other nature. Found nature photographers on Instagram. I try not, I literally try not to follow them, but I try to go adjacent. So like Mondrian would be, if you look at my some of my assemblages, you for sure, would see modrian i And that's like a good example, but my original inspiration was Carl blasfeld. And I love, the thing I like about Carl blasfeld is he's now, you know, he's in the MoMA, he's probably at the Tate Modern he's considered fine art, but when he was making those images 100 years ago, which that blows my mind. He, he was making them as educational tools so that the students in the sculpture department would have real nature subjects to to design from, you know, not, and so he was just simply making educational tools for an art school. And now they've, 100 years later, have are considered fine art, which i i love that too. It's sort of the humble beginnings and then the later recognition something because, you know, quite frankly, if you look at my work, is it, you know, is it craft? Is it art? Is it fine art? Is it, you know, what is it? Is it even photography? I'm using a camera to capture the compositions people get hung up on that. I don't get hung up on it so much. It's sort of, you know, I like it. That's all that matters to me. But people do. I have shown my work to. Professional photographers and gotten comments like this will never be considered fine art. You know, those kind of things send chills up my spine. I didn't start out the project trying to make fine art, but I love that. Carl blasfeld didn't either, and now it's very much considered fine art. So anyway, Karl blasfeld, look them up, you'll see the similarity.
Angela Nicholson
I love these little connections. So we had a sheclicks meetup at a small museum a few weeks ago to see an exhibition of his work. So it's amazing that we've formed that connection today.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Oh, I love that.
Angela Nicholson
Okay, so could I have your penultimate number, please?
Mary Jo Hoffman
Number Five.
Angela Nicholson
I love the clarity and lightness of the photographs when using a light or white background. But have you ever thought about doing shoots using a more natural setup in the field, rather than at home? And that question's from Maribel,
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yeah, I have, as we mentioned, there's a lot of artists doing that, some that do like there's a guy in in California, who does these things. He calls them morning altars, where he takes a morning walk and he makes a composition. Photographs it, you know, on the trail, photographs it, shares it to Instagram and then leaves it to blow in the wind. You know what? I mean, it won't be there. It's maybe another person or two will find it, but nobody else after that. And so I love that idea. Yeah, I like I said, we I kind of explained it. I picked the white because I wanted the seamless scroll on the blog. And as soon as you depart from pure white or true black, you get the, you know, Image, Image, Image, you get the edges of the image. And some people, you know, honestly, you know, that's one thing professional photographers told me, you can't have images floating on white. You need a frame. They need a frame. And I was like, why are there so many rules? I just wanted to, I just want to photograph phone nature on a white background and in, you know. So anyways, I just did me, and this is how it came out, and I've seen a lot of what she's talking about, doing it in the field, or doing it on a picnic table, or doing it on a sidewalk. I love those. I think they're great. I especially like the weathered, cracked sidewalks. Personally, I like the gray backgrounds. But I wanted something else when I started out and I'm and I like what I've created, the body work I created.
Angela Nicholson
Which is the most important thing, it's your work. So you're the one who should like it and appreciate it the most.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Right, right.
Angela Nicholson
But clearly a lot of other people do, so well done. Okay, so your last number then, please.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Three.
Angela Nicholson
Number three, I read your amateur photographer article where you talk about 'Enough'. Do you have any parallel projects which you're taking further? For example, an arranged collection of objects found over a period of time? That question is from Paula.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Hi, Paula, I started this project when I had kids at home, school age kids. My youngest just went to college, and so I'm now an empty nester, so I'm going to be adding some kind of project. I do think I want to continue this project still. And like I said, I've done it for 12 and a half years. I'm quite efficient at it now, and I kind of the idea of being like the crazy lady who makes 20,000 images in a row kind of interests me, so I'm going to keep doing it, but I with my son going off to college. I'm an empty nester, so I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna add a new creative practice, and I haven't decided what that is yet. I launched a book on May 1, and my husband launched a book on July 9, and so we've been on book tour together, and that's taking up all my time, and we've committed to doing that through the end of this calendar year, through the end of 2024, and then so next year, next year, it will be time for me to start a new practice, and I haven't decided where I'm going to go. I I'm I like all the visual arts. I like to dabble with paint. I love mark making, and I really like collage. Essentially, what I do is collage with nature bits. So this would just be collage with paper bits, I guess. So maybe too similar. Anyways, I'm going to start a new practice here soon, because I have now the more time in my day. I just it's on the horizon. But it's a good question.
Angela Nicholson
That's very exciting, very exciting. Now that you've got a book, has that sort of changed your perspective slightly? So I will you be thinking about your next practice that could be a book as well? Is that? Do you see that as an outcome?
Mary Jo Hoffman
No, that's yeah, that's a great question. So I started this as a personal practice. It evolved into more than that. It got attraction, it got visibility. I fully understand that that was chance. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, yes, you make your own luck. Yes, I've been making one image a day, every day, for 12 and a half years. So you can say I made my own luck. But. Probability, the possibility of that happening a second time, of me picking a project that kind of tapped into some kind of Zeitgeist, you know, the calm Zen, like compositions people clearly needed those at the time, the possibility that I could repeat something like that and get the same kind of traction. I just don't, personally, I don't expect that to happen twice. Feels like lightning striking twice. So no, I'm not going to pick my next project with a book in mind. My projects tend to be more I know myself well enough that if I'm doing them because I enjoy them, and if I don't, if that's not the reason I'm doing them, then I won't keep doing it, right? And so I will pick a project based on, you know, what I find interesting, what will challenge me, which will keep me excited and interested, where I can continue to grow and learn, and then if it gets traction, I will be really fun. Because I do have to say that publishing a book was really fun. I got so lucky with my publisher, and the every step of it has been fun, and so I would love to do that again. Really. Love to, but I don't expect it to happen twice, because it felt like a gift, a little bit of a gift.
Angela Nicholson
Oh, well, I'm excited to see what you start producing next year.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Yes, yeah, yeah, me too.
Angela Nicholson
Well, Mary, Jo, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's been absolutely delightful speaking with you.
Mary Jo Hoffman
I really enjoy it. Thank you, Angela. I'm super impressed by the community you've created. It's really beautiful, and I'm honored to be invited in for this discussion. Thank you.
Angela Nicholson
Oh, thank you very much. Thanks for listening to this episode of the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks to everybody who sent in a question. You'll find links to Mary Jo's website and social media channels in the show notes. I'll be back with another episode soon. So please subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform and tell all your friends and followers about it. You'll also find SheClicks on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube if you search for SheClicks net. So until next time, enjoy your photography.
