How to completely embrace a moment, one image at a time

with guest Bianca Morra
(Transcript was generated by AI technology, and has not been edited for accuracy)

[00:00:00] Bree: Thanksgiving is this week, and we are heading down to Georgia to spend Thanksgiving with my father's family. And it's the first time that the whole family will be together in a long, long time. So we have decided to. A family portrait this Thanksgiving and we have a photographer.

[00:00:30] We have everything lined up and that's great, but I am really excited to be more in touch with the intimate moments in our Thanksgiving. This year, and that's really because of the guests that I have on today. For years, I've sort of not cared about photographs, and part of it is because looking at photographs sometimes makes me sad.

[00:01:02] I don't know if any of you have that response. I talk about it a little bit more in this episode. It's something that I've felt for a long, long time, and yet I'm also sad when I don't have photographs from a particular time period. And so, Bianca Mora, who's the guest today, is a photographer, a mentor, a photographic . A phenomenal artist, a really wonderful podcaster. She has a great podcast called Help Me See, and a Mama. she has really helped me to reframe how I look at taking photographs and viewing photographs in my own life. And I see them now really. An opportunity to be more mindful in the moment so that instead of using the photographs to be presentational, I use my camera to just try to catch, to catch a vibe, catch a vibe from the moment, and it's become far, far less of a chore and more of a gift for myself in that moment.

[00:02:22] Also when I look back on, say, a month or two months, or six months or a year, because now I've known Bianca for a little over a year, so I'm really seeing the impacts of our time together. I'm really grateful for the richness of the memories that I've been able to capture, and also really grateful.

[00:02:48] They're not just smiling photos. They are real moments, tender moments, moments that I might not want to show to other people, but that I can really savor . So in today's episode we talk about that. We talk about using photography as an act of mindfulness, as an act of healing, as an act of engagement.

[00:03:15] And I think you're really gonna love this episode with Bianca. Enjoy getting to know her like I have. 

[00:03:22] So I got no sleep last night, . Why? I think it was the moon. Oh, I think it was the moon. But as I was awake in the middle of the night, staring at the moon and listening to coyotes, I was really thinking about your work.

[00:03:42] I was so flattered,

 I'm so flattered 

[00:03:43] Bree: I thought I should really get out my camera and take pictures right now in this. Space because that's what Bianca would do. , . And instead, I played video games on my phone. , 

[00:04:01] Bianca: that's an abrupt switch. . it's after hours Of lying there.

[00:04:07] And I ended up playing Rumy cub mostly because I'm about to go down and see my family for Thanksgiving, and we play this game Rumy Cub and I have to warm up because your training. Yeah,yeah. I'm serious about the Rumy Cub, but I really, I did think of you because you've worked your way into my head, so deeply over the last year, , 

[00:04:29] Bianca: I'm tickled.

[00:04:31] That's valuable real estate in there,

[00:04:33] Bree: Oh, I don't know about that, but,the work that you're doing is so compelling and so beautiful, and we've been chatting for a little over a year on a weekly basis, so we talk about this stuff a lot, but it's just been transformational. I think that my relationship with my phone camera has been utterly transformed by our conversations every week.

[00:04:59] And seeing all of your stuff, seeing all of your content, but I just heard that content is the bad word to use. Now, did you, have you heard that content is out? 

[00:05:10] Bianca: I didn't know what's in, How do you say it? What do you talk about ? 

[00:05:14] Bree: Media. Media. We're supposed to say media so 

[00:05:17] Bianca: different. 

[00:05:18] Bree: So different. as I explore time and you explore time in your own way, let's just dig in. what for you is the relationship between time and photography? it's, it probably originated in a sick and twisted way of trying to control it, , because my relationship with. Photography, I think really was born after a panic attack when I was like, I don't know, 9, 10, 12. I don't know what I was, but I was in my bedroom staring at my ceiling in pitch black and all of a sudden the idea of death hit me.

[00:06:00] Bianca: And I kept thinking about like nothing. It's and then time stops and then nothing. , I was like in a loop and it freaked me out. I was just thinking everything that is so important to me. My parents, my sister, my favorite band with a bunch of men with mascara, my favorite color, who cares?

[00:06:20] Nothing. Nothing. So everything I just kept on going to likeeverything that was so important to me and then going to nothing and it was freaking me out. And after that I remember just this permanent switch over to how can I. Create things that can transcend me and show those people that I care about,what I feel, or just the world in general.

[00:06:45] I started going to Michael's and getting those wooden boxes, and then like,I would take a million photos with the disposable cameras and I would paste pictures in there. And I just started to use the camera as a means to document, but with that background, with that intention of capturing time, slowing down time, and impacting time.

[00:07:09] so it started really early on. and obviously it's, transformed and grown since then. But I really do think that my initial fear of nothingness has. Been the thing that birthed my whole body of work and will never not be the influence because now, I've come to that realization that, the nothing is everything.

[00:07:30] Bianca: Like your nothingness is your everything. And with the photography that I engage in, in my own life and for others, it's really focused in on the nothing. And I really encourage less and less and less and to not try to make photography a performance, but rather show like the art in your nothing. so it's really funny how I've, I won't say that I've conquered my fear.

[00:07:57] Okay. I'm still pretty freaked out. But I do know and I see comfort in the fact that I have used it to empower myself, and try to give that to others through the work that I create with my photographs. 

[00:08:10] Bree: That's so beautiful. I really, first of all, I'm so sorry for the anxiety, but I'm so glad for what it's led to

[00:08:16] and as you say, I love this idea of not having photography be performative in any way, but having it capture the nothingness or the moments between, which of course are not, there is no nothing. , right? We don't live in a black hole. , there's no, and even, I don't know, I'd have to call it my astrophysicist friend to see we need reinforcements, , we need science reinforcements,

[00:08:39] Bree: Cause we might just have to Google is a black hole nothingness now? have we established that it's nothingness? is that, Anyway, okay, we won't go off on that tangent. We'll leave that for another time, but, It's not nothing. it's the micro moments that are there. And when I see your work as a photographer, it's so captures like the breadth of a client, the breadth of a moment, the the moments where you're not,what is the word?

[00:09:11] The moments when you're not posturing and you're not performing, but you're also not self-conscious in any way. You are just moving through. They're very fluid feeling. I love that about your work what I love in viewing your work. is appreciating those moments for myself even more.

[00:09:34] But I also think that's key in dealing with time management. So often we're looking at the product, right? We're looking at the outcome, we're looking at the performance of how we are using our time. But if instead we are really allowing ourselves to rest in and be aware of the flow, then it's a very different thing.

[00:10:02] , right? I also love that you're not telling people to go and get this super fancy $5,000 camera. I. you're saying use the disposable cameras, Use your, Tell us a little bit about that. About like the tools that you like for people to use. 

[00:10:20] Bianca: I really very deeply agree with the best camera you have as the one you have on you.

[00:10:27] I appreciate very high quality photographs, just as I appreciate, crappy like old cell phone photos. I would say some of the, my favorite photographs, like the most personal, intimate photographs of my life aren't the ones that I took with my actual camera. they're, one that I have, like the things that pop into my mind even as I say this, there's like a picture that someone I don't even know who it was, took on a crappy cell phone of my son walking down the aisle before my sister in her wedding.

[00:10:59] Bianca: And it's the cutest picture in the world and it's blurry, but I love it. And then there's a picture of my dog who since passed. It's really grainy, but I took it in the moment where he had the most hilarious expression and it's like life giving to me. And I think that so often. we tend to quote unquote, not bother because it's like, you know, how many times have you wanted to take a picture of a sunset and you're like, Oh, it won't do it justice.

[00:11:24] Which is true. However, it's not about taking the most beautiful photograph. It's about your relationship with documenting that moment of time and your impulse to take that photograph is, it's symbolic. It's an attempt to engage in that moment. It's an attempt to show gratitude in a way. It's a,it's a calling card back to that.

[00:11:48] So even if it doesn't do it justice, you will look at that and remember that moment. And I think we underestimate the impact of this craft. And we think about using it as a way to like showcase and like, why, why would I ever wanna remember this moment or that moment? But really to me it's a visual diary in a journal of life.

[00:12:10] And I encourage people to not. Just take photographs of what they want to remember, but take photographs of the things that really impact them, even if they don't know if they ever wanna look at it again. Like I think about when I came back from when my dog suddenly passed and we were sobbing and I ended up taking a picture of us, I've never looked at it since and I don't know that I ever will, but in comforted to know it's there, we were like sobbing in his dog bed.

[00:12:37] And it's like a therapeutic, almost way to say like this, all a photograph is saying this like this. and whether it's boring or silly or ugly or pretty, whatever it is, when you sit back in your seat of consciousness, just witnessing the fact that you wanted to take a picture of whatever it is, that's very poignant and that's very important and it's.

[00:13:01] Useful information when you want to, dive into self-discovery or just, witness what it is in life that you're responding to 

[00:13:08] Bree: when you bring up sadness. You've really helped me to transform my relationship to melancholy. And of course, I recently read Susan Kane's book, Bittersweet Thought about You the whole time that I was reading it, which is really about the importance and the advantage of embracing the bittersweet moments in our life.

[00:13:34] So you have a quiz on your website. Everybody loves a quiz. Everybody should go take the quiz on your website. It's fun, . It's totally fun. And, and the quiz is, what do your photos actually say about you? And so I took it and I got, I know this will come as a huge surprise to you.

[00:13:52] Non-traditional flare 

[00:13:54] Bianca: shocked

[00:13:55] Bree: But you also had a quote that went with the tips that followed, and the quote was by one of my favorite authors, Milan Condura. And I'm gonna read part of it, not the whole thing, but the quote is, There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment, and yet it alludes us completely.

[00:14:23] All the sadness of life lies in that fact. 

[00:14:27] Bianca: I can't goosebumps every time I use the quote a million times. I've heard it a million times, Goosebumps every time.

[00:14:34] Bree: But there's such power in embracing that sadness and I don't mean wallowing in it. maybe we probably have different degrees, of of how much we of wallow. But to recognize that there is a real distinction between sadness and depression, first of all, which I think we, we move really quickly to pathologizing feelings of sadness as a culture.

[00:15:03] where sadness is really powerful cuz it can remind us of the present of where we are in this moment if we can really sit with it. I like that you were saying,it's a reminder, like the sadness, it's almost like, , um,bumpers or it's something to bounce from because it flags what's important to you, and I know there's like the cliche like, Oh, it's beautiful to be sad because it means that there was something worth losing, but, or, something that would make you sad to lose.

[00:15:36] Bianca: But it's really true and it's, especially, in the first thought I have is around raising kids and, lamenting something. You can't separate it from the fact that it means you're welcoming something else. being just gutted over the fact that my kid, decides to run away from me instead of giving me a huge hug at school also means that like he is embracing and coming into his own in some other way.

[00:16:06] So there you cannot separate, you must hold the both and it's really easy to focus on the sad or to try to avoid the sad, but if you don't hold both at the same time, you're missing something really rewarding and, and life giving in both ways. And I think that,capturing the sad in the photograph is healing and it helps us keep.

[00:16:31] In a way, so that we can visually have it alongside of everything that is to come, because that ended. 

[00:16:37] Bree: Yeah. And it makes it sound like we're only talking about these sad moments and crying. your photographs they're not all sad , right? I think it's more that because moments are by their very nature ephemeral.

[00:16:51] They're finite and they remind us of our mortality. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. ,and that is uncomfortable. , right? That can be uncomfortable. And you're, you are willing to wrestle with that . And I think that we can all learn a little more from wrestling with that space between sad and.

[00:17:14] Melancholy, the space between,

[00:17:18] oh gosh, the space between uncomfortable and anxious, right? what are those spaces for us? Can we give ourselves a little more room to explore that 

[00:17:31] Bianca: and explore that in whatever way? the thing I love about, photographs is that they really are a way where we can expand and contract time and explore moments like deciding to make a photograph of something.

[00:17:48] Like you're sitting in a park and you're staring and you're just having this feeling. Maybe you decide that you wanna start photographing like the tiny leaves that are next to you on the bench or whatever, and it just becomes this experience that you're opening to, and you're using your camera as an active meditation.

[00:18:05] it's a way in which, like the photograph itself is like a one, 125th of a second or more or less or whatever it is. So it's fascinating how much of a huge impact such a slice of time can have in our lives. And that's the metaphor where that can just run rampant. it's not just that moment either.

[00:18:29] Bianca: I, in college I did a thesis and part of the thesis was, it was on my family. It was a called a family portrait and. Explored old home videos. And I did it in a really weird way, which some people would be like, Oh my gosh, the quality must have been terrible. But that wasn't the point. I always favored the experience over the end product.

[00:18:51] and I set up my tripod in my dorm and I put the camera on it, and I started playing old VHS tapes of home videos. My dad took so many, and back then when the camera was the size of, a toddler and you would hold it on your shoulder, it's crazy how much footage that he took like that. And I'm so appreciative for it.

[00:19:14] Bianca: But I remember I would lean forward and I would be looking through the, viewfinder and I would snap pictures of when I saw images being made. So it was really weird because I was making pictures of a time before I was able to make pictures and I was in the videos as well. So there was like that aspect of it.

[00:19:33] But there was also this Daydream aspect that began when I was like staring at them in that way for that long. I started to feel myself like in that version of life and it was really disjointed because at that point in time my parents had been going through a really tumultuous divorce and . So I had been immersing myself in hours of footage of Hi Bianca, and then I would call my mom and be like, What?

[00:19:58] I'm on my way to work. What? What's going on? Like it was just like this crazy space that I found myself in of Wow. I just spent hours of my day in this very like sweet like version, past version of my family. And then I'm like at the punched in the face with the horrendous reality that was at the time.

[00:20:19] Yeah. And it was just this fascinating exploration of how My experience in watching those videos was very real. Like I started to feel like I was back in that space and then being able to hold both the beauty and the pain of the transition of that, through the medium of, photographic, capturing,it's just a really rich space to explore.

[00:20:40] And I think that for me, my encouraging of people to just run rampant with their documentation when they feel called to do so,not as a way of like,I feel like I must, because otherwise, that relationship, like anything else can, can end up being a little bit of a crutch, which I am totally guilty of, uh, myself.

[00:21:00] But, I think that when we provide ourselves with a wealth of documentation, We have opportunities later on in life to reflect and use that as we need and wish to use that. so it becomes this kind of self like healing comforting space that we can explore when we need to look back. 

[00:21:19] Bree: Really beautiful.

[00:21:21] So here's a question like you talk about, if you're really engaging with that moment, if you really are as a photographer, , let's say you're taking pictures of your family. How do you make sure that you are really engaging with the moment and not trying to capture some idealized image of a moment?

[00:21:42] What are some strategies that you offer to people to do 

[00:21:46] Bianca: that? It's funny cause I think about when you ask me that question, I'm like, am I doing that with my regular camera or with my cell phone camera? So when I think about, Cause it's the same, but it's different. So when I'm doing it with my cell phone, I am just very fluid with it.

[00:22:06] Sometimes I'll even like just set my camera up that captures the whole room and hit record and just be in it and just let it just roll. because I think that these short videos that we take now are something that will be painful later on. Because I, even with my VHS videos, I found myself like not wanting them to end and they were like an hour long.

[00:22:25] meanwhile, our videos now are like 60 seconds and we're like, that was a long one. . so there's that, that there's this, I encourage people to use their, their cameras in a way that doesn't feel, Quick,let it be what it is because we have that capability. But when I think about taking photographs with my camera,and wanting to really be in it, sometimes when I put the camera to my face, I feel like I'm in my own world, which feels good to me because it's a way of seeing your nostalgia.

[00:22:54] Bianca: Now. It's like when I'm,I'm looking at my family, my kids playing in the backyard, but then when I put the camera to my face, it's like instantly I'm in this like mirage of it being 10 years from now, 20 years from now. And so I can witness them in almost like a more poetic way. Think of it as like a, film trailer or something like that kinda comes over me when I'm looking through my camera.

[00:23:15] and I really just don't. Try to fit them into a scene that I have, I let them lead me because more often than not, their ideas are way better than mine. So I'll just, either be talking to them or whatever, but I just don't move my camera from my face. And I do that even with, families that I'm photographing.

[00:23:37] I'll just ask questions or I will, whatever. But I never stop taking photographs. I have a very heavy trigger finger. it's because you don't know when that, like unicorn is gonna come up. And I just take, I take so many photographs in the process of doing so, and then in my own, like with my sons and with my kids, sometimes I'll do a little exercise as I'm taking the photograph and I study like the screen or the viewfinder, and I'll just think What is it about this?

[00:24:06] Bianca: I'm like, Oh, he looks so cute crawling right now, but why? What's so cute about it? Oh, he's like really unsteady and he's gonna like something sticky on his mouth or whatever it is. Why is that cute? And one day his mouth is gonna be really clean all the time. It's gonna be really sad. Why is that? You know, I just use it as a portal to go deeper and deeper.

[00:24:26] and there's something about putting something in between, which feels very counterintuitive, to put something in between. But I don't see that as impairing your presence. I see that really as sometimes we need that to be able to sink deeper into that moment because what do we say is like 2020?

[00:24:45] It's hindsight. And that is distance. That is time away, That is space. And I feel like when you put your camera up, you're putting something in between that enables you to view it in that sweeter, wiser lens. pun intended, . I love that distinction between the barrier and the blinders that allow you to focus more, right?

[00:25:07] Bree: Yeah. It gives you the space. It also makes me think of in the world of creative arts therapy, you know, Ihave this background in drama therapy that just keeps coming up and in that there's this idea of aesthetic distance, right? Which is like when we have something that we're working through, we can use projective techniques to help to get greater distance or less distance so we can titrate how we are responding emotionally, cognitively, psychologically

[00:25:45] to whatever that is, To whatever the thing is, right? So if I'm working through a new identity as a mom, right? If I'm a new mom and I'm really struggling with my identity, something that would be less aesthetically distanced would be to put on a costume, right? this is the costume of the new mom.

[00:26:11] And to really be like, this is a different identity that I'm taking on. or a mask, right? To create a mask that's the mask of the new mom. That can be a real mask or it can be makeup, it can be whatever. And greater aesthetic distance might be puppets. or directing someone else, as in, in the world of drama therapy, having somebody else play a role.

[00:26:37] You tell the situation and then they play it. And that's, that's a playback technique is based on that. So photography seems to fit in there. Depending on what device you're using and your relationship to the camera, and the moment that it could be different, it could give you varying degrees of observation and reflection.

[00:27:04] And also then of course, you have it as a projective technique where you can look. From a distance you can actually look at the moment, reexamine the moment from a distance, which is really just really fascinating. 

[00:27:18] Bianca: It is so fascinating. And, reexamining from a distance is something that I really feel like is one of the greatest tools and unlocks in living an intentional life so that you're, we all have those moments where you're like, it's almost Christmas.

[00:27:35] what the fuck? what the, what? Like where has this year gone? And so I, I just have to bring this up now because it, and I feel so passionately about it and I've seen it now over, I think we're in our eighth month of my membership nostalgia now, and it's every month I'm fascinated with what it feels like to do what we do.

[00:27:57] Bianca: So it's just, There's no directives. There's no assignments or whatever. It's just whatever photos you take in your life as we normally do, nor normally people just randomly photograph, with their phones, whatever it is. it's not for just photographers, it's for anyone. And we live our month and then at the end of the month we have a two hour meeting and , the first hour is just co-working.

[00:28:21] So it's the person looking at their work, their work, their photographs, like their iCloud, whatever it is from the month, and then plugging whatever, three or four photos make sense to them into the template that I make. And it's just like a very abstract template around like feelings and, ideas and whatever move through you.

[00:28:43] And what's fascinating about it is, It incrementally gives you this opportunity to reflect from a bird's eye view of not that much time, like a month is not that much time. But also I'm stunned at how much has happened in a month because whenever I'm sitting down to do it, I think I know what that month felt like, but really I'm only thinking about it in terms of the last week

[00:29:06] And then when I look at all the photos I took in that month and I remember, Oh, that happened. Oh, that happened. And then I'm able to like, reflect and immerse myself and then decide what is it that I want to, leave behind and what is it that I wanna take with me,after this reflection period.

[00:29:23] it's just like this insane power that we have and everyone has in being able. Look at the collection that you created, look at those little bits and pieces that make up your overall experience. You're like, I'm feeling like this now, and this is all the pieces of why . and it just gives you such power and,and intention to move forward with.

[00:29:47] Bianca: And, I don't know. I just, I think that even as someone that fervently believes in the power of this medium, I am surprised every month like I really am. And we all have the ability to do this. And that's why I love talking about it, about, 

[00:30:05] Bree: So when you do that that membership and you're all getting together once a month, you're co-working and then you are sharing together with each other, are you reflecting on each other's?

[00:30:16] Bianca: Yeah, it's like an adult show and tell, I say, basically I love it. When I thought about it, I thought about how I love the idea of a book club. I love the idea that we all read something and then come and talk about it. I'm just such a geek when it comes to that. I love that. And I love the idea that we all go and live our lives and we live in different places and the world and whatever, and then we come together and we make a little piece of art , about the most important parts of it.

[00:30:42] And then we get to share that in that space. and not only, What I love about that too is that I struggle with words and finding the appropriate words, and sometimes pictures are the only way that I can talk about it. But when I'm in that space, I know that I don't need to, per se, make sense. I can just say I don't know why, but I felt like this was the perfect picture for this prompt.

[00:31:03] and having other people. Oftentimes understand, but even if they don't understand the power that is to be held with showing that and speaking those words, I don't know. there's just something to it that feels very empowering. 

[00:31:17] Bree: Yeah. And having that group reflection makes it less lonely to go to think through it too.

[00:31:24] I think of, I think you know this, that my mother-in-law's house on Cape Cod is covered with photographs from the time that her parents bought the house until now. And so every ex-girlfriend, , every friend who came to visit everything, every, everybody's there. And it's on every surface.

[00:31:47] and I am very sensitive, and for many, many years was completely overwhelmed by this. Mm-hmm. , it's, it's a lot because for me, it actually feels like I can't escape their moments. . Hmm mm-hmm. . .Sorry Brenda, if you're listening, that's what it does to me. . But this past year, for the past two years, we've had some, we've had some teenagers join my kids with us on our summer vacations to the Cape, and they're new and they don't know any of the people.

[00:32:26] And just honestly sharing the experience with another outsider, it was liberating. I stopped being bound by these lives. There's probably some desensitization going on too. but I just think of how different it is when you can talk about photographs, talk about moments, talk about the feelings that come up around them with other people who are not in the photographs, right?

[00:32:56] Mm-hmm. who are not part of that. Mm-hmm. you also use mixed media. You encourage people to use notes and. , think of notes, I think of . 

[00:33:09] Bianca: Lots of notes. those are my favorite. But the, in high school I saw, so the photographer, Jim Goldberg, I saw his work and it changed my brain in that moment.

[00:33:19] I probably had drool coming outta my mouth when I was like, oh, like what? At that point I was like, mouth hanging, opened, staring at this that I just came across and I was like, Wait a minute. And it was called The Rich and Poor is his series. And I'm like, I thought in my mind, photography was like fashion and nature, and I saw him taking these black and white portraits of people living in poverty and people living in wealth and inviting them.

[00:33:54] Bianca: To give their perspective. So there's those photographs, and then he would give them a piece of paper and have them write what they thought about the photograph and whatever came up. And

[00:34:03] so being able to see the photograph and instead of applying your own life experiences and lens like you still are, you can't avoid that, but like hearing their voice next to it and thinking like being able to readjust your ju judgment or, thoughts around what you were viewing based on the life of them coming through.

[00:34:27] Like I would say that the writing that was next to the wealthy photographs were way sadder to me actually the commentary next to the people living in poverty. Were way more heartwarming to me for the most part. And it's just so fascinating how much context, added context, really contributes to the experience of looking at a photograph.

[00:34:54] Because, people are like, Oh, photographs are lies and whatever, and what's straight documentary and what's not. And I, everything, there's nothing that can be like, here is exactly the truth because you just don't know, it's a second in time. It's wherever you chose to, whatever you're cutting out, there could be like a lion coming in from the frame that you're not seeing.

[00:35:14] it's just a wild world of, of limitations that come with it. But when you invite this different materials in, you're given more context, in the world that you're viewing and. And that's why, I mean, I love the idea of scrapbooking and how, people used to include letters and include little mementos.

[00:35:35] Bianca: And I think that in this new digital age, there's no reason why we shouldn't keep doing that. And I love scanning in like writing, like whenever I do portraiture, I give, I've done a few senior portraits recently and I give the senior, a piece of paper and I have them write whatever comes to them about, thinking about this new chapter in their life and like what they're looking forward to or whatever.

[00:35:55] And I scan that in, with their gallery. And sometimes I'll layer it over a photograph of them. And I think it's just so important to, to capture different parts of a person because just the visual sometimes can be misleading. And when you in invite other aspects into the process, then you're really able to get a richer picture of what was going on.

[00:36:18] Bree: I love that. And it's also capturing time in a different way too, This past weekend I saw two films that this is bringing to mind. One was, Bardo the False Chronicle of,uh, Handful of Truths, , and it's about the filmmaker, Alejandro Intu. it's okay, it's not about him, but it is about him, right?

[00:36:44] He made a story that's about a journalist, filmmaker, a documentary filmmaker, who's at a certain point in his life, you know, it's really capturing this one moment in his life, but it expands out and it uses sur a lot of surrealistic. Elements to do that's that expansive side of like, how can you take one moment and expand it?

[00:37:04] you don't try to capture it as a linear thing, right? , and in many ways, even though it's not surrealism, capturing the handwritten note that someone has done in that moment is it's another time-based form . Cause it takes a few moments to write it. It's already a moment of reflection when you're writing.

[00:37:23] Bree: It's whew, so interesting. The other film was Corsage, , which was about the Empress Elizabeth of Austria in the late 18 hundreds. And it also captured this moment in her life, which was like, She was turning 40 and grappling with the end of her youth and what it meant to be a woman and what it meant to be a mother and to have desires and all of that.

[00:37:57] It wasn't completely linear, but there were just these moments of creative expansion where they completely broke the mold. They didn't just do a straight narrative storytelling. They took us into, I don't wanna give away too much of the film, so I'll tell one moment where she was in a room that you've seen before, that suddenly it's a miniature version of the room.

[00:38:19] She's too big for the room. And that feeling is just so expansive. Those are examples in filmmaking, but I think that's one of the beautiful things about some of the layering is that you do with your photographs and the collaging that you do, is that it pulls you into that space of looking beyond the interpretation of an image and into a whole feeling beyond that 

[00:38:46] Bianca: I think filmmaking does a really good job of, of helping us to understand what this is and on a very, on a much smaller scale. I'll do that with a gallerywhen I spend two hours with someone, but I think. It's so easy for us to forget that we are living art like we really fucking are.

[00:39:06] I think about sometimes when I lived in San Francisco, when I would go downtown, the financial district, to go to work and I'd be walking through the streets and I would just see, and everyone's just in their own world and it's when people are the most unaware and they're lost in their own thoughts that I find them to be the most stunning.

[00:39:23] Bianca: And these people just rushing to work and just whatever they're thinking about or whatever they're listening to, and they're like lost in their own space. it's just so beautiful. And I think that the most beautiful moments of us being, were so ignorant to , like I just think that I'll be at a cafe and.

[00:39:43] I sound so creepy, but I'll just look up and I'll just see someone just being, and I'm like, they have no idea right now how stunning they are. Like, and it's easy to miss because that's the beauty of it. Like we're not thinking about what do we look like right now? so in a film that's chronicling a period in someone's life, of course that period in that person's life feels like long and drawn out and anything but gorgeous.

[00:40:10] But you're in your own body and you're not seeing it from that distance, right? That that separation. so you're not able to quite see what is right in front of you or what you are in. And I think that's why it's so important for me to be able to show a family, these are all the moments that you didn't even see in the shuffle.

[00:40:30] And they're all happening. I'm not making them up, And. And now it's my greatest hope that in giving you this gallery of these moments and you being able to see them, that now you'll recognize them. Now you will see them so much more. It's like the whole red car thing. You think about it or you see a red car and you see a million.

[00:40:50] and it's why I encourage, I mean I've even thought about extending it. Like my photo sessions are two hours and uh, my standard ones and are like, I dunno if my kid will be able to make it. I'm like, They will because I will not be telling them what to do. Like they can just exist and live and we're not perform, likelet them be them and then it's all fine.

[00:41:11] Bianca: I could be there for eight hours and it's fine. and it's so freeing and it gives them permission to just be, And whenever someone comes to me like this, one of the last families that I photographed, oh my God, I could cry. she was like, Do we do, can we do this like beautiful setting, like somewhere in the city?

[00:41:28] And I was like, Why? I get curious. Is there a sentimental, what is it about that environment? Like why not home? Just why not home? Not like trying to influence, I was just curious. And you know,she's like,Oh,whatever about her, their space. she wasn't like wild about it. and I always like to gently ask questions that help someone understand what it is about what they're trying to capture.

[00:41:55] Like what is actually the point of what they're capturing. Oh, you're not actually gonna live there much longer. And that was like the first home of this baby. Like maybe we should do it here. And then it's just comfortable and it invites so much more in another, another client. The day before, she was like, Oh my gosh, my two year old has a black eye and I'm so torn because we were so excited but I want her to look like herself.

[00:42:19] And I was like, I so hear that and I will do whatever. I totally get it. I get that. But what is that black eye say about this period of time? Like this portrait of this beautiful little girl with a black eye? It gives you so much more context into what that season of your life was. like what a gift to be able to have her being her with a black eye.

[00:42:46] you'll have a bajillion photographs of her not with a black eye. So while I am so happy to reschedule, let's just take a moment to think about what does that, having that in these pictures mean does it like,Sweeten this memory, or is it really gonna bother you in five years ? and she went ahead with a shoot and I was secretly so happy.

[00:43:05] Bianca: Um,the sally man in me was like, Yes, . But you know, I just love being able to be a stand for this and because it's so easy to just forget you. we want to capture the most beautiful version of these memories because we know and we believe in them, but we forget that the most beautiful parts are the quote unquote ugly parts.

[00:43:26] The parts where we don't have our makeup on and we're looking like a mess, and it's in the morning, we're in our robes drinking coffee, and our kids are extra snugly or crazy or, you know, Um, and I love to be able to remind people of what's the most beautiful, because I know then they'll see it, they'll see it more in the, for the rest of their lives.

[00:43:45] Really 

[00:43:46] Bree: redefining beauty. . What a gift. What a gift.

[00:43:51] Okay. I had some other questions for you, like practical questions. Yeah. as practical as we get . Yeah. 

[00:43:57] Bianca: We have a different threshold for practicality, . 

[00:44:00] Bree: Okay. So when you are working with subjects, right? Do you call 'em subjects? What do you call them? I don't know what to call them. I don't even like staying clients.

[00:44:10] Bianca: I say clients, but I spend two hours with a family and I'm in love with them. I don't know people, 

[00:44:17] Bree: I guess humans. When you're working with people. Yeah. When you're working with humans and you want them. To really be in that space of just being, you talked about before how you don't tell kids what to do, that you just let them be in space, but I would imagine that they get a little self-conscious.

[00:44:37] Do you use that self-consciousness like how do you move forward and through that? 

[00:44:42] Bianca: one, I think normalizing the experience by being relentless with it and keeping my like, like this is just me. I'm here hanging out with you, and I have this thing on my face and that's it.

[00:44:53] I don't prepare someone for a moment or whatever. It's just constant. and I think that subliminally, reinforces in them that everything I'm doing is okay. Everything I'm doing is okay. and as much as I like fly on the wall, I also recognize that I'm a new person in that space. I wanna just encourage them to show me, show me, just show me what it is in your life that's important.

[00:45:14] So I'll ask questions like with kids, I just ask questions. And sometimes of course I see like an opportunity that I'm like, Oh, that would make a beautiful picture. And I'll ask a question to see if it would inspire them to do so. , but you know, I always prioritize the energy of the experience over whatever picture I wanna make, because that is really of greater service to them and not to me.

[00:45:39] It's my biggest goal that I walk into a space and I,I'm not templatizing the family into like,I know it'll look beautiful. I'm like, Okay, show me. I could cry. Show me what's so beautiful and then I'll show it back to you. so I just completely will just. Talk and take pictures at the same time and just ask questions.

[00:46:01] And, you know,if I could tell someone's uncomfortable or, you know, is this okay? Like,Oh yeah, that's fine. I just shrug it off almost. Like I want them to just constantly be reinforced with this idea that, Oh, I'm as I am, if everything's fine, Oh, I don't have to, Oh, we don't have to do anything.

[00:46:19] it's just fine. so I think, isn't that what we all want in our lives? like I think I do that for other people because I want someone to do that for me. 

[00:46:30] Bree: You wanna be told that you're fine, that it's all fine and that it's all beautiful. Yeah. And I even the ugly parts.

[00:46:37] Yeah, the ugly quote, air quote parts. . But they're all beautiful. 

[00:46:42] Bianca: They're all beautiful. Yeah. When your kid's having a tantrum and you're comforting them, like that's a gift. I'm so glad they're 

[00:46:50] freaking out. Do you know what you look like when you comfort them? Do you have any idea how beautifully you take care of that human being?

[00:46:59] That's like having that outburst. One of the families I shoot, I've shot them twice. I've had, it's such an honor to do The mother is like an inspiration for me. the gentleness in the way that she handles them and fosters their own individuality. I'm like, You have no idea what you look like and I need to show you what you look like.

[00:47:18] Like I think about her in my own life when I'm getting frustrated, I think about her. so I just, I love to be able to help people realize,just some of the most important parts of their lives that they are not privy to seeing because they're in it. They're in it. In it. 

[00:47:34] Bree: Yeah. I love that you're doing that.

[00:47:37] I wanna talk a little bit about the programs that you have to offer, because you're in Ohio, , so not everybody can hire you as a photographer, damn it, . but you have some programs so that people can connect with you. And you talked a little bit about the membership. . So tell us a little more about what's, what you had there for Normies and and maybe what may be coming down the line.

[00:48:04] Bianca: Normies, I've always had such problems with words because I'm like, of course. but. 

[00:48:08] Bree: Yeah, so hold on. I have to interrupt this because Bianca says that she has such problems with words. Her emails are gold. Her writing is extraordinary. It's really beautiful. It's worth it just to join her email list, just to get the emails from her.

[00:48:26] So I'm not buying that. 

[00:48:28] Bianca: You're a thank you. I don't, I don't, I just feel like anything that I tried to say, it doesn't, whatever's in my brain, it doesn't do it justice. It's just so people that are not professional photographers, I have just have such a passion for what this medium can do for everyone and anyone.

[00:48:43] And I, I never want anyone to just defer the most important things that they could be doing in their lives of these pictures to, Oh, I'll just wait for a professional to do it. no. so that's why I have, nostalgia now, that's the membership where we get together and just. Do a show and tell of the last month of our lives, Manifest Your Memories is a course that, I'm not quite sure when I'm launching it next, but that course was created, to be able to do what I just talked about actually.

[00:49:06] in that, when we see these pictures of the things that we choose to notice in our life and we notice what we're noticing, then we can see and create more of them just naturally by just being familiar with Oh, this, I'm like training myself. this is what I love and I actually take pictures of this because of X, Y, Z.

[00:49:25] Bianca: So it really goes through the whole foundation of what did you grow up with? What foundations of memory keeping, did you grow accustomed to? And what is it about that that is unsatisfying to you? What is it about that you want to change or take with you? And so it's this huge exploration over, just using your picture taking and your memory keeping as a way to harness.

[00:49:45] The vision that you have for your life. Um, 

[00:49:48] so, and that has exercises todo, that is exercises. It's a five week course, and it's,it's really for anyone and I, that course has a very special place in my heart. my newest course that I'm creating is for photographers. It actually, it came out of the session I did where I was like, Oh my gosh, everything was imperfect and quote unquote went wrong.

[00:50:11] And it's one of my most favorite shoots, and I have to talk to photographers about. About how, like it's really not the camera, it's really not. If it's bright sun, it doesn't matter. It's all about connecting to calm and presence and just remembering how to be with human beings. so that course is called your Bigger Picture, and that's coming out soon.

[00:50:30] and that's all around how to connect to your vision and calm in any circumstance because I have such a soft spot for, photographers with the purest heart that's going into a session wanting to capture this, but. When someone's What do I do? What do I do with my hands? And then you feel this pressure of Oh no, I have to be the expert.

[00:50:47] Bianca: I don't know what to do with your hands. And it's okay. It's okay to be, I think that's the most important part is when you're okay with not being the expert, then you get to just be a human with them and everything else is so much easier. so that course is coming out soon, but, I love this space so much and I envision it being just a million different courses and workshops and whatever full of helping people use their photographic practice as a way of engaging more deeply in their lives and in their consciousness and self-discovery.

[00:51:15] Bree: Wonderful. And how can we get in touch with you? How can we find you? I am on, Instagram. It's Bianca, Leah, Mora. And, and in that Instagram is really where you can like click on my link, in bio and just find all my other places and spaces where I hang out. Wonderful. And you 

[00:51:30] also have a podcast.

[00:51:32] Oh, I was actually plugging your podcast in my podcasting workshop that I did yesterday, by the way. Oh, thank you. 

[00:51:38] Bianca: So the podcast is called Help Me See. And it's all around just vulnerable conversations and challenging norms and really the background of all the reasons why I even take pictures in the first place.

[00:51:50] And, so yeah, I love that space. 

[00:51:52] Bree: Bianca, thank you for challenging me to see more beauty in my life. And I appreciate you and I think you're beautiful. Oh 

[00:52:03] Bianca: my gosh, thank you. I am so honored to be in this space with you, and I'm so honored to be your friend.

[00:52:09]

[00:52:09] Bree: Here are my key takeaways from this conversation with Bianca Mora, number one. Consider for a moment that your feelings of nothingness can also be your everything. What happens if we embrace the nothingness, the space in between, the big moments in our lives,

[00:52:28] how does that change what we see and how we experience the. world. Number two. Taking photographs is not about capturing the most beautiful image. It's about your relationship with documenting a moment in time. And number three, the best camera you have is the one you have on you. So whether it's a fancy Nikon or a disposable camera, get out there and take some pictures and share them with us.