Linda hails from San Francisco, loves to travel with her husband, and photographs everything, including her grandchildren, baseball, and sea life. She’s also member of our Shutterfly Gallery Guru team, dedicated to supporting your photo book and storytelling creativity. You’ve probably seen Linda’s helpful comments throughout the Gallery - maybe even on your own photo book.

In this interview, Linda tells us about her passion for sea life, her lifetime love of photography, and also imparts some sage advice for us fellow storytellers - do what you love and the rest will follow.

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I am 65 years old and retired 15 years ago from computers at the University of California - San Francisco. I now manage our 59 rental apartments in San Francisco, and travel extensively. I have engaged in many water sports- sailing, skiing and now my favorite, scuba diving.  A camera has always a been a part of the my “being”. I have a photograph that was taken when I was in 4th grade sitting on our front porch in Seattle, Washington with my younger brother, Lane beside  and my sister Prue barely visible in the background. What is interesting to me is that it captured me holding my first camera, a Kodak Brownie Target Six-20.  I might have forgotten what my first camera was if it wasn’t for the picture.  A tenant of mine has the same camera in a display of old cameras and I have coveted one.  I recently went on  Ebay and found a number of them.  I bid on several and was outbid so in typical Linda fashion I got carried away and bid on a number of them.  I now own 5 of them and the last purchase was two cameras with the first being the Target Six-20 and the other camera was the second camera I owned.  I had been wondering how I would figure out what my second camera was called.  I could only visualize it.  I was the photographer of the family.  I won 2nd place in a photo contest with one of these two cameras-a black and white picture of Lane and Prue holding two baby sheep at our Uncle’s farm.

I am married to my second husband, Ron Dion.  Between us we have seven adult children and ten grandchildren in what I refer to as our “blended extended family”. While born in Washington, DC I grew up mostly in New Jersey and graduated from a small woman’s college in Pennsylvania.  There I learned to think and it served me well in the computer field, real estate and in photography.  I have lived in San Francisco for 40 years and we have lived in New Zealand half of each year for the past seven years. We do most of our warm water scuba diving in the South Pacific from a New Zealand base.

What got you interested in making photo books? 
My son, Randy send me a photobook of my grandson, Will’s first year and my husband’s son Timothy send a photo book of his son Everett’s first year.  We received both of these in New Zealand for Christmas about three years ago.  I was so intrigued I immediately called Randy and found out how to make then and that they were very reasonably priced.  Two of my grandchildren lived in New Zealand for a while and then in California so I had many photos of both Josh and Ashley.  I moved the best photos  into two directories on my computer and a new hobby was born. There was a sale on at one photobook site and I rushed to beat the deadline.  I created separate books for  Josh and Ashley lives that chronicled 5-7 years of each of their lives and they were thrilled.  Ashley’s arrived a day ahead of her brother’s and he was so disappointed that his Mom had to call me in New Zealand to make sure I had done on for him.  To the relief of all Josh’s arrived in the mail the next day.  Both books immediately went to “Show and Tell” at school.  I also send a copy of each book to the kids former nanny.  It meant so much to her to see a picture history of the time she spent with these two kids while their parents ran a sailing race team.  Then I moved on to my husband’s granddaughter, Jessica and did the same thing.  In this case Jessica lives with her father and I was able to share a part of Jess’s life with her mother.  I did another “grandchildren” book after we had most of the younger ones visit in California at the same time my camera captured them discovering California and engaging in water play on the California Delta waterways.  I sent out eight books as a memory to various children and grandchildren.  My sister’s husband saw the book and now he is creating his own.
Meanwhile I was collecting thousands of pictures of underwater life and what do you do with them after you have put together a slide show?  I discovered the wonderful way of sharing these marvelous dive sites through photobooks. I now do a book for each dive trip and  I often send a copy to a special guide or new friend.

What are your favorite images to capture and why? 
Fish, coral, small creatures and grandchildren.  But then there is baseball or a cruise on the Queen Mary II.

Who inspires you? 
I get inspired by my own pride in my work and by the pleasure of the relatives and friends who look at my books.  When a new book comes, my husband grabs it and goes walking up and down the levy to show our neighbors.  Many used to scuba dive and don’t any more and just love to see where we have been and what we have discovered.  Others don’t know what is beneath the sea.  A very interesting thing about underwater is that you loose color at various depths.  Red is gone a eight feet and as you get deeper you are left with only with blue.  Shoot a picture with flash and you have color again.  I shot a brown shrimp deep in some coral and was stunned to see blue eyes and brilliant red and white coloring on the digital image. [Also have this picture].  My grandchildren and children inspire me with the reception I get to each book I do.

What kind of stories do you like to tell in your photo books? 
This is a very interesting question to me.  I never thought of them as a “story book” until I became involved in Shutterfly as a Gallery Guru. To me, they chronicled a part of a life or experience through photos.  I am going to work more on telling a story or writing a description but I also think it is important to not loose site of the fact that many people like to do photo albums and this is a marvelous way to do one especially in this new digital world..  Underwater I try and include the name of the fish, coral or creature but I only recently learned from Rachel that I could add text to any picture so I can now tell you that full page shot is a Hinge Beaked Shrimp. 

What advice would you give your fellow photo book storytellers?
Do what you do best and the rest will follow.  If you did photo albums, do a gallery photo book.  If you did scrap booking, scan the things you used to cut and paste and mix with your photos. Turn your family history into a story book.  There is no right or wrong way.  I do encourage folks to weed down their photos.  One or two photos of the same subject is usually must better than eight or nine. Too many and you can loose your impact.  This is something I have not felt right saying in an individual comment on a book but I feel it is important to be selective.  It is important in family photos to not leave anyone out but I think it is also important to not include too many similar shots.

What’s your next photo book project?
I am currently writing this from Grand Cayman Island where I have been taking underwater photo lessons at Cathy Church’s Underwater Photo School which I will follow with a live-a-board dive trip.  That will become a my second Grand Cayman book of underwater life.
In July I am going to tour San Francisco and the California Delta with two grandchildren, Drew and Jessica and their new birthday cameras.  I want to introduce them to photography in fun ways and then finish up by building a photobook.  Because of all of Rachel’s emphasis on story telling I plan to ask them to write a diary entry each day and then we will incorporate this into a book along with their pictures.  I never would have thought of this without being a member of this Gallery Guru Group.  I would have only done photos and short blurbs.  I think this will engage these girls at a deeper level and I hope leave them with a very fond memory of time with Grannie.
Long term: I have two fantasies.   I did a slide show for my sister’s 50th birthday.  I scanned old photos, mailed throw-a-way cameras to many friends and relatives and I collected my early digital photos.  I took photos of each house she lived in and turned it all into a slide show.  We ran the slide show at her birthday party and what a hit and surprise.  I want to produce a photo book from these pictures and now, thanks to Rachel, I will add a story to go with the pictures.  Her husband would be better at this part so I am going to ask for his help as well as her step-daughter.  Maybe even some contributions from the kind people who returned the cameras I sent them.  “Memories of Prue.”   Actually, I can ask Prue to write some memories also.
My second fantasy.  There is a web site called shoeboxscans and other similar ones.  I am sorting out the best of my closet of family photos and I plan to have them scanned.  You just stack them in a shoebox sorted by size.  Then I am going to use Adobe Lightroom and assign my children’s names to the photos that they are in.  Then I will select then child by child and build a photobook of around the first 20 years of each of their lives.  Can you imagine their surprise?  All those photos sitting in boxes will come to life.  My daughter in law says she hasn’t seen many childhood photos of my son.  Soon or someday. Again, Rachel you inspire me to include story in all this.  Who can help me?  Many I can ask one child to write his memories of our trip to the Grand Canyon or the hail storm in Colorado and include it.  Email could be a help.  I could start collecting now.  Oh, these project I take on. But what fun.  I love being busy.
Actually there is a third fantasy: I have trips from my first digital days that I want to turn into photo books.  A cruise around South America including the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn and the Beagle Channel.  Fiords like you would image in Norway.  A trip to Carnival in Rio as well as Igwasu Falls and the Amazon.   We did a trip to Alaska with 50 fellow Vegans.  My husband is very bored in retirement but does nothing about it.  I think if I got either of these projects started, he could do the story telling part.  He has such an excellent memory.  Rachel - You may have just given me an idea to help get through his knee replacement surgery. 

What are some of your favorite Gallery photo books and why?   
I saw one on spiders that I want to find again.  I have since learned to make some books as favorites so I can go back and look at them again.  I have discovered that I am a very good underwater photographer and a very mediocre land and people photographer.  I can learn so much from the approach of other people.  I love looking at books on people’s New Zealand trips. I like seeing places and things through other photographer’s eyes an lens.  I wish more would say what lens they used.  There are some great closeup sports books and I don’t get shots like those.

Check out Linda’s photo books on her Gallery profile page.