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nature photography

Look out Ansel Adams. Move over Margaret Bourke-White. Carrie Grisham is looking at life through a lens and is getting noticed for it.
On March 29, the Smithsonian notified this 24-year-old from Crownsville that she is a finalist in its fifth annual Photo Contest.
Her photograph of a Sri Lankan fish market earned her a finalist spot from among 7,500 entrants and a chance to compete for the grand prize: an all-expenses paid trip to the Grand Canyon. If she doesn't snag that one, she has a chance at one of the $500 semifinalist prizes.

Carrie seems to be a genetic shutterbug. Her grandmother, armed with a twin-lens reflex Yashica camera, took pictures all the time. Carrie's dad, George, photographs people. According to her mom, Nancy, they have very few bare walls left in their home. Smiling faces of family, friends and pets cover the available flat space.

Surrounded by cameras and photos, Carrie got the bug early on. At age 10, she aimed her camera at landscapes and nature. Back then, film was the medium, and she made it work for her. She entered her photos in the county fair and came home with ribbons.

Later, she took over the basement and created her own dark room. She used the drama of black and white photography to convey the message of her images. As a student at Archbishop Spalding High School, she didn't have much of an opportunity to pursue her interests, but college opened up a whole new world.

While at St. Mary's College of Maryland, she wove her photographic interests while she was a psychology major. She even turned that old camera of her grandmother's into a project.

For Carrie, what could be more natural than using an old camera to photograph old stuff?

She roamed St. Mary's County.

She captured the complex, less-than-aerodynamic shapes of old cars, and traveled down the road taking pictures of old mailboxes. Of course, an old camera meant film, and procuring it was perhaps the hardest part of the whole project. She found some at a store in New York. When the edges of the photographs looked as though they had been burned a bit, Carrie was pleased. The flaws gave the photos a feel of authenticity.

Even with all her running around southern Maryland, Carrie managed to graduate a semester early. Since she'd saved her parents a semester of tuition, they suggested that what would have been her last semester would be, in fact, the perfect time to see a little bit of the world.

A college friend from Thailand was going home to visit family, so Carrie made the natural choice. She would go to Thailand, and she would go with her camera. Thailand might have been the experience of a lifetime, but she would find more.

As luck would have it, her mother's cousin, John Beebe, was living in Sri Lanka with his family. So, because Carrie was "in the neighborhood," she hopped on over to Sri Lanka. While her mother admits to some nervousness about this portion of the trip, Carrie produced some of Nancy's favorite photos during these weeks.

The tea plantations filled frames with green, but the train provided what Nancy feels was the most interesting travelogue. The train in Sri Lanka moves slowly, providing photo opportunities. In addition, a path parallels the tracks and is a thoroughfare for people walking to their daily activities.

Carrie's adventure lasted about six weeks. Her family was glad to have her back, as events began to heat up in Sri Lanka. Even John and his family cut their plans short by one month. Carrie came back with an iPod loaded with photos and a library of CDs.

A trip west followed her trip east. A photography course at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography offered a chance for some mother-daughter bonding as Nancy and Carrie headed off to the school in Missoula, Mont. Carrie found an apartment for the duration, and Nancy found a town that stole her heart. Missoula was fun, full of folks bicycling and being healthy, and environmentally green.

Nancy flew back home, but Carrie was able to explore the west with her camera. Trips to Yellowstone and Olympia offered endless landscapes. Noises outside her tent provided an outstanding photo of bison in the morning fog. It's not surprising then, that Carrie found a job out west.