Heather Rodgers is an everyday mother of three busily attending to all the tasks mothering demands. She adores her children, fosters their originality with proud care, gets them to school and fed like all dutiful, loving parents attempt to do.  She’s a bold, brazen, self-doubting, talented artist. A camera fit into this dynamo’s hand like a fitted glove when photography summoned her as a child. Heather says, I have been taking photographs almost all my life. Any time I had a camera in hand I was always clicking, trying to catch people in the candid moment. I have been told I was rather annoying with it at times. My sister and I would get together and pose our doll babies using makeshift backdrops or we’d have each other pose this way or that.”  However, it wasn’t until the past ten to twelve years that she actually realized it was a passion that she wanted to pursue as a significant part of her life and an art for which she wanted to be known. Over the past eight years she has worked to make this dream a reality by photographing weddings, boudoir, senior portraits, and band promotionals while continuing to develop her conceptual and personal themes in the art as well as capturing those candid moments.

When asked why she was drawn to photography, Heather said, “Art has always been at the top of the list for me. I was drawing, doodling, painting, or writing since I was a small child …Both my parents are very artistic as well … I remember watching in pure awe of his ability as my dad would stand at his easel painting …My mother has been known to paint, draw and write as well. I come from a long line of artistic family ranging from musicians, writers, sketch artists, and painters, so my passion for the arts was inevitable.”

“When I was about ten years old I saw the painting of ‘the Girl with the Pearl Earring.’  I was hooked from then on. As I got older I started trying to imitate great pieces of art in history.” Because of this artistic background, her work is often inspired by different classic masterpieces. Heather continued to explain her passion for photography by admitting, “Because in all honesty I can’t paint, I’m not eloquent with words, and I can’t play an instrument to save my life …the desire to express my self in some artistic way was so deep that I had to find a way to create art.” This passion takes her to a wide variety of shooting locations that include clubs covering band’s live shows, lakes, ponds, fields, creeks, back yards, client’s homes, graveyards, swamps, city streets, schools, and pretty much any where the client wants or that tickles her fancy. Heather says, “I don’t ever want to be the type of photographer that puts limitations on when and where I can or will shoot.”

This photographic artist often chooses themes to shoot that she feels strongly about like her recent series focused on the issue of child abuse.  She says she doesn’t consider herself a philosophical photographer but you can find bodies of her work filled with ideas that contain messages close to her heart. And, although she is quick to disclaim a philosophical perspective, her statements about the core values in her work demonstrate otherwise. “Being a survivor of abuse, and a mother, I felt it was sort of my right and obligation to do my part in bringing awareness to the overwhelming issue of child abuse in the world. This is an issue very close to my heart and I wanted to contribute to the cause in one way or another.  So when a friend of mine approached me about the concept for an album cover for his band, “Horse Called War,” using a song they did about child abuse as the inspiration …needless to say I ran with it and I didn’t stop running.”

It is these images along with her series called “Creep Show” that have attracted debated attention.  When you look at some of the collections in her body of work, you might take her themes as dark and Gothic with a rebellious flare.  However, the foundation of her work goes deeper and touches upon the preoccupations and trends of society. Because she is not one to stand by and watch others suffer or be hurt, she defends the underdog, the disabled, and the young. The point of views expressed in her art can be bold but she doesn’t really consider herself a rebel, merely a “free-thinker.”  She says that “most of my somewhat rebel thinking and photography is based on a deeply rooted spiritual up-bringing. I just so happen to take those values and morals to a different level and they are often misunderstood or interpreted completely opposite of what my heart, mind, and soul meant.” 

The challenges of daily life can both detract and inspire her. With a compulsive nature, she can be bold at moments and then become reserved, reticent and uncertain. Handling her emotions means creating more art while simultaneously tending to the tasks of ordinary life. Sometimes her passion, doubts, and beliefs collide but in the end they make for ever growing art with depth and beauty. The power of the woman is in her heart and her eye and the two combined can make some powerful images. She says her “passion for photography is often bitter sweet, intimidating, and emotionally painstaking as well as (being) my air. I can not see my life without photography as a personal venue of expression. It is in a sense my therapy. It is an active, living part of who I am in this world.”  

When I last spoke to Heather, she was wrestling with her portfolio for presentation to local galleries.  Kind to others, murder on herself, the artist at times flaunts her heart and then runs for cover.  It’s a tough trade and a hungry passion that doesn’t die even when faced with rejection and misinterpretation.  Skill, passion and talent don’t always make for a lucrative career particularly when dealing with any of the arts.  But these are qualities that make for a well-lived life when combined with sincerity and intent.  Heather Rodgers is an inspiration to the world of everyday people with a dream.  Her life consists of many common tasks and chores that become an embracement of life when viewed from an artist’s perspective.  We could all learn from this point-of-view and aim to see our lives as living art.  We don’t have to take gorgeous photographs, weave magical melodies, or stand out as geniuses in order to be ordinary people living extraordinary lives. Heather currently resides in Oklahoma. You can see some of Heather Rodger’s work featured at this website gallery or contact Heather here.  All photos copyright and courtesy of Heather Rodgers.