Untitled 1 ©Ginger Goekjian
When I first started taking photographs I felt like I was gifted a second childhood, full of all its curiosity and wonder. I began with night photography because I was still working and the only time I had the chance to take photos was when I went with my husband, a professional photographer, on one of his night shoots. One evening he handed me his old Nikon D70 and told me to go figure it out. I was fascinated with working at night when light is low and can be added in different ways and with the way colors can be brought out of the dark so vibrantly. But because I love taking photos, I also started taking pictures during the day using a variety of subjects. I took my camera with me if we travelled, I took photos through the car window on our many drives between Athens, GA and Sapelo Island, GA., and always if I was in one of my favorite places, a mountain creek. It is possible to see de-light even in one’s own backyard or house. As a self-taught photographer, I took pictures where I happened to be and of what captured my eye and my heart without external influences.
I retired from work and my husband and I moved to Sapelo Island, where my photography grew in importance to me. The island is accessible only by ferry and the life here is somewhat isolated. The onset of Covid magnified the disconnection with people. Going out with my camera was a means of turning the yearning of loneliness into the peace of solitude. I became closer to nature, aware of the tides and when the water would be high or low on the beach, the wind speed and direction and the effects it produced, the phases of the moon, when the sun rises and sets and especially how light changes the way things look throughout the day. I noticed the beauty in broken shells and how the imperfections allowed the wind and or water to create lovely sculptures and patterns. I saw how even a small piece of a stick or marsh grass or a plant provides the wind or the water a means to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. I learned not to have expectations but to be grateful for the chance to look for wonder in my meanderings on the island. I learned that photographing is the closest I come to meditating because it is the only time I am completely in the moment. Sharing these moments with others is the joy. -Ginger Goekjian
BIO:
Ginger Goekjian was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1954. She and her family moved to Athens, Georgia when she was eight years old. She attended the University of Georgia where she completed her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in biochemistry. Ms. Goekjian then worked for over thirty years in research in the Plant Biology Department and at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. She also worked for one year in Naples, Italy and ten weeks on a project at Kruger National Park in South Africa. She and her husband, Karekin, have two children and one grandson. Ginger and Karekin have lived on Sapelo Island, Georgia since 2014.
Ms. Goekjian first picked up a camera at the age of 55 one night in January 2009 at Providence Canyon, Georgia at the urging of her husband photographer Karekin. A whole new world opened to her, one which she continues to explore.
706-540-9865
PO Box 95
Sapelo Island, GA 31327
