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Local photographer captures "What Time Creates"

Photographer Anastasia Pottinger has won international awards.

By Grace Lyden

Published Oct. 22, 2010

Anastasia Pottinger was 8 years old when her parents gave her a Kodak 110. She was preparing to visit grandparents in Georgia and remembers being in the bathtub when she received the gift.

“That was my first camera,” Pottinger said. “I’ll never forget.”

Called Stacie by all who know her, Pottinger doesn’t remember what specifically she liked to photograph at age 8, but she suspects it was everything. At a young age, photography was already more than a way to document memories — it was a way to understand her world.

“I feel like photography has always been that tool for me,” Pottinger said. “When you can stop time, you can sort of see it differently.”

Pottinger has won competitions in Missouri since 2002. In August, she found out she placed second and third in the nude category of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers international competition.

The winning images, “What Time Creates” and “Back,” come from “The Centenarian Series.” The series’ subjects are all at least 100 years old. Although nude photos, few in the series are actually explicit in the common sense of the word “nudity.” Any photo of uncovered skin is defined as nude, such as “What Time Creates.” The image is of now-102-year-old Lucy Hall’s torso.

Pottinger’s mother is Hall’s personal assistant and concocted the idea of the nude photography shoot last October. The day after the shoot, Pottinger looked at the shots and cried.

“I knew I had something really special,” Pottinger said.

As people started to talk about her work, which was featured in numerous local contests and shows, they began suggesting other models more than 100 years old, and the series was born.

“I didn’t set out for it to be a project,” Pottinger said. “I just set out for it to be an experience.”

She didn’t photograph a second model, though, until earlier this month when she visited Kansas City resident Meryl Sparlin. Her hesitation to call elderly strangers and ask them to model nude has kept her within a circle of people she knows. Sparlin is her friend’s grandfather.

Pottinger said other cultures respect the elderly, but this country forgets they have incredible experiences to share. She has never seen work like hers on the bodies of the very old and wants to show their stories are worthwhile.

“A body that’s been alive and on this earth for over 100 years — just the opportunity to capture that in a beautiful, artistic way feels like quite an honor,” Pottinger said.

Pottinger is now a professional in children’s and family portraiture, and she does commercial work for local businesses, but she has no degree in photography. She attended Girl Scout photography camps and worked in a studio darkroom for two summers after high school. More recently, she has been attending professional workshops.

“All the rest of it is just self-taught,” Pottinger said.

Pottinger said she loves her studio work, but her heart is in the projects she has developed this year. In addition to “The Centenarian,” she is building a portfolio of work focusing on her bipolar son Isaac. One year ago, at the same time he was diagnosed, she was advised by mentor Gloria Baker Feinstein to start photographing her family. So, she began documenting the disorder that suddenly became a part of her life. Her job is a careful one.

“I haven’t been able to shoot him when he’s just screaming and yelling, because I’m a mom,” Pottinger said. “I’m his mom, too.”

The photography is not meant to be violating, though.

“Sometimes the camera helps me see it differently or place myself in the middle of a situation,” Pottinger said.

Whether via her new Nikon D300S or a Kodak 110, photography is how Pottinger makes sense of her world.