Shannon Hreha

Pennsylvania based Shannon is only 28 and a mother to 5 - Anastasia Eve, Lillith Marie, Emily Wynter, Hayley Jade and Ian Jasper. Although not yet a mobile photography convert, she creates poignant and striking images that speak to your soul.

Life must be pretty hectic in your household with 5 young children so getting everyone involved in your photography as models seems like a great way of doing something as a family whilst allowing you to do something you love. Was it a conscious decision to do that or were they willing subjects from the get go?

Yes, we have a pretty hectic household. My 5 children are 9, 8, 7, 6, 4 and 3 of my children are also disabled like myself. We have lots of appointments but we always make time to spend with each other. My children love photography, they use my point and shoot Sanyo camera. This camera was one of my first point and shoots that I loved. Now I've moved onto my dSLR Canon Rebel t3 Camera. The kids love playing roles in our photography. I'll give them a line and script like an actor/actress and they play out the parts to the best of their ability i.e.: " You’re in the woods and a bear is coming. Show this emotion". They ask every weekend to have photo shoots with me.

Richard Avedon said “my portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph”. Is that something you think is generally true – and perhaps even more so when photographing your own children?

It all depends on the person, with our photography we use life events, deaths, births, hardships etc. Whatever we all are feeling at the time gets brought out into our photos. If were having a hard day, I tend to make a more descriptive photo to show what has happened, but in our own creative way. With my children, they have come to me with their own ideas and I help them with makeup, and clothing and they pose themselves while I go with the flow and take their photos, along with process them with their ideas no matter how strange the requests are. "My 6 year old daughter Hayley wanted a tea party with an Elephant, we drew on paper an idea of what she wanted, and we went with it"

You got your first dSLR about 2 years ago, having previously only had a point and shoot and you’ve only been working with Photoshop for about 5 months. Do you think being completely self-taught, learning by playing with buttons and going through a process of trial and error, brings a different perspective to your photography as you don’t have to follow set rules?

Yes I've always had a knack for photography, when I was younger we had 35mm cameras, I had a class in school where we developed photos in a dark room. I had a few point and shoot cameras, and always wanted to try a DSLR camera, but due to how big they were I was afraid to have to carry it around with me due to size and weight. I finally got a Canon Rebel T3 camera and just love it. With Photoshop, I was not a fan of it at first, I wasn't sure on buttons, actions, gradients, etc. I used paint.net, Gimp, Photo monkey and a few others that I downloaded. They were all pretty basic and I started learning from there. Since about October 2013 I've been playing with Photoshop. One day I just started putting my kids in different backgrounds, and then it all started from there. I looked at a few tutorials but that was someone else’s perspective, and I wanted to do my own things. I started playing with buttons, making actions and brushes, I've taken simple things such as snow and turned it into sand. It’s a lot of trial and error, if I don't feel the image I will delete it and start over. I never put anything together completely unless I'm absolutely in love with it and I am able to look at the image and be able to think about it and what its meaning is to us.

You’re obviously very creative as you also paint but where do you get your inspiration from, how long do you spend editing your images and do you have a vision of the end product before you start working on a shot or is that something that comes to you gradually?

I am a very creative person in the artsy world. I think outside of the box with pretty much anything that I do. I like to be unique and different than others. My kids, my mother and brother are my inspirations, along with things we've seen in books, life events that happen on tv or where ever we go, I looked in a book with my daughter, a simple ISPY book and seen a key hole, That small object gave me an inspiration to do a photo with a keyhole.

My photos generally take me about 2-4 hours to finish, depending on details. I have never had a photo take me more than 4-1/2 hours to complete. Most times I think in my head what I want to do and what it will look like, some times I've drawn out what I want to accomplish. Some times however I will work on something and have an idea ready but if I don't feel it I will change it to suit myself.

There is a very established mobile photography art scene and a plethora of editing apps available. You don’t currently shoot on a mobile device but is that something you can imagine trying in future - especially as your children get older and the number of electronic devices in the house increases?!

I have used my mobile phone before for landscapes, and have taken random pictures of art that I've seen. I have used a few apps that are on my phone, and loved some of the landscape photos for wallpapers. Also, if I don't have my camera with me when I'm out I will use my phone to capture photos of my children if they are also inspired by something they have seen.

You obviously focus on taking photos of your children at the moment but how would you like to see your photography evolve over time and what does photography mean to you?

I started out taking photos of basic landscaping, then went on to taking photos of my children. I moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a small country town outside of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. There’s not many opportunities to get out where I'm at as I also do not drive. Most of my photos are done inside my home or out in the country side where it is open. I would love to see myself with a studio and become a professional photographer and graphic artist.

Photography means to me the capturing of beauty inside and out. To be able to capture expressions all around me, and how they make us feel. Everyone is unique and has their own personality and taste. Photography means creations - there is no right or wrong way in the art. This is why I love what we do, we can express how we feel in our photos, without words.