SAN ANTONIO — A local photographer and business owner in the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood is working on a project to highlight the diverse and vibrant energy that made her want to call it home.
"Kind of hold your hands like this for me,” Nancy Beal Canseco said, gesturing to her subject’s paint-covered hands.
“I love that,” she said as the shutter on her Canon mirror-less camera came down.
Canseco is the owner of the Artist’s Collective, but it’s a different project that has her attention lately.
She is looking to capture the spirit of Beacon Hill.
"Lots of artists in the neighborhood,” Canseco told Liz Lindstrom, one of her subjects.
“I didn't even know when I moved here. It's like I moved to my dream neighborhood," she said.
The photographer moved to San Antonio from Chicago three years ago, she says she was inspired by the atmosphere she found in the historic neighborhood.
"We were looking all over Alta Vista and Beacon Hill and found this house,” Lindstrom said. “It's way smaller than any house I've ever lived in, and I love it.
She's calling her project "The People of Beacon Hill" but she's just as interested in photographing their homes and the local businesses she feels make the neighborhood truly special.
"I was really struck by in the neighborhood was how the houses have just stayed,” Canseco said. “Like, people don't tear them down. They restore them calm and the character of the houses and just of the neighborhood is so special."
Conseco spent Saturday morning taking portraits of Beacon Hill residents in front of a backdrop at Bright Coffee, but in the afternoon, she was traveling from house taking shots of her neighbors in front of the places they call home.
She also took photos of local business owners like Karolina’s Antiques Owner Maria Vega.
"We see this neighborhood changing a lot,” Vega told Canseco during their session.
Vega said she and her family have been running their business in the Beacon Hill neighborhood for 18 years and have watched it go through a lot of change.
“It's a good feeling to see all this new stuff around like, to everything combine, like old, new," she said.
Canseco has taken portraits of 25 of her neighbors so far and she is still looking for more people to participate.
Canseco said she is hoping to include at least 100 of her neighbors in the project, which will go on display at Bright Coffee in January and eventually become a book.
"I'm really just trying to paint the, you know, a full picture of the neighborhood in this project," she said.
Canseco is asking beacon hill residents interested in participating in the project to reach out to her through the website of her business, The Artist’s Collective.