Over the last few weeks, I have been working hard to de-clutter my life. Get rid of all the unnecessary and organize the rest. This has proven to be much more exhausting then I could have imagined, but I am making some serious progress on my office! Now all thats left to do in my office is backup (in several places and ways) any remaining files left from 2009 sessions.
As I began to look over the sessions and weddings I’ve photographed in 2009, I am blown away with how much has changed! Coming from a film based photographic program we were taught rules to live by. What was acceptable and what was not as far as assignments and projects. I learned the rules and I learned them well. I trusted them, but the more time passed the more I was still struggling to find MY style and approach to photographing a given subject, mainly portraits. This year I tried something different and threw all those rules out the window… well almost all of them.
I began to care less about the “small picture” things like what f-stop, or lens I was using to photograph a person. I cared more about making my subjects feel good about themselves and having a good time in the process. I started to concentrate on how I wanted a photograph to feel and I quickly found that by letting go of the rules I was able to create images that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.
The real turning point for me came when I photographed Clare. I had always seen glimmers of the type of images I wanted to produce, but there would only be a frame or two and the rest were reminiscent of someone else entirely. It was not that I wasn’t producing good photography, it just wasn’t MY style of photography. I went into my shoot with Clare and within a few minutes I knew something was different. We laughed our way through the session and I hurried home to look at the results. I was stunned! Not only did Clare look amazing but in each frame I could see myself and my style finally emerging!
This was a HUGE braking point for me! I originally titled the blog post of Clare’s photographs as “Transformation,” because of how she came alive in front of my lens. It wasn’t until recently that I realized the transformation was equally shared!
I am so grateful for my photographic education while in school, but the more I am away from it, the more I’m finding my voice as an artist. Thank you to each and every person who has graced me with their presence in front of my lens. Each of you have helped me to become a better photographer with a more defined voice and style!
P.S.- BIG thanks go out to the amazing Clare, you continue to inspire me and I can’t wait to photograph you again!
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