Clary Estes
Paris, KY, United States
When I was young, my mother gave me a camera as a means to stave off boredom one afternoon. For the next 6 hours I photographed non-stop. I was hooked. It was as if I were seeing the world for the first time; the colors where brighter, the people were more interesting and the horizon was endless. The camera has since become my voice, my eyes and my very essence. It is how I communicate with and understand people. It is how I grow and evolve. I am never more myself than I am when I have my camera. As a photographer, I have come to understand my work as being a delicate balance between a record of life and a testimony of the human condition. Each series I create works to strike this balance and tell the story of humanity in new and different ways. Sometimes, these stories are manifest in a linear storytelling method where I listen to and see someone’s life unfold in front of me and they share their most personal and intimate moments with me. Other times the boundaries between past and present blur to create a quiet melancholy that questions life and our place within it. And sometimes my work simply rejoices in the brevity and innate excitement of life and all its uncertainty. I photograph all of this while trying to be as open and honest as possible. I ask those who came before me for insight and I teach those who come after me what I have learned. I ask questions and challenge the boundary between subject and photographer – what is it to be seen and what is it to see? Through my work I can reflect, I can grow and I can move forward. I used to believe that as a photographer I helped others with my work, but in reality, my subjects are the ones who help me and in return I show a part of my soul to convey the charity that I have received.
2013 - Ishibashi Zaidan Fellowship Award, 2012 - Graduate Fellowship Award, Corcoran College, 2012 - Polly Logan Award for Women in the Arts, 2011 - Dean’s Award, Corcoran College
- Arts
- Breaking news
- Conflict
- Editorial
- Events
- Interview
- Military embed
- Portrait
- Video capture
- Video editing
A Room of my Own
Clary Estes
Bunica Pasha sits in the evening as we talk about her life. She is frequently very sad and moved to tears. We discuss her life in Kazahkstan and her memories jump from the distant to the more recent as she tells me the day that she requested Bunica Ana and her family to take her in and let her be part of their family. She can no longer walk due to extreme leg pain and is confided to her one room in the small separate house she and Bunica Ana share. Bunica Pash is typically unseen and unknown in the village due to her disability, so I was surprised to find another woman who knew about her situation. She mentioned to me, "Pasha used to be so beautiful. It is such a pity she that is as sick as she is. She used to be so active."
Portrait of Rural Nurse
Clary Estes
China is a country of haves and have-nots. In the city, people have access to good health care in good facilities, but in the rural countryside, people have to scrape together what they can to pay-as-you-go for the most basic of services or, at times, lack-luster hospital care. Many times, rural Chinese provide their own healthcare through traditional Chinese Medicine and family inherited methods of care.