So what do photographers do at the end of every year? The winter comes the scramble begins to end and we are left frazzled, burnt out and ready to chuck our cameras out the window. We are zapped of every last ounce of creativity we had and the future seems bleak in the possibility of ever being able to gain it back. We go through this every year…all of us. Famous, popular, and new alike. A fellow photographer Zack Arias, that I respect highly for his perspective on the industry and realism of the craft, posted this inspirational video tapping into the very depth of this topic nearly 2 years ago. It is real, honest and hits home with nearly all of us. If you know me, I have already shared this with you, if you just follow you may have not yet seen it. I watch/listen to it regularly to try to keep myself in perspective and save my camera from a horrible death to my front lawn. It is worth the few minutes of your time.
So how am I going to battle my own “funk”? How am I going to begin to inspire myself again, tap back into my creativity, open my eyes to the world around me and see it beyond what the average eye sees?
Step 1:
Hue & Texture. A simple little project in
Hue: a gradation or variety of a color; tint
Texture: the visual and esp. tactile quality of a surface.
Why hue and texture? It is the basis to almost all of my work. Tones of color, texture of backgrounds and how they intertwine with my subjects wardrobe, mood and theme are key elements to my photography. So I wanted to play with a simple assignment into finding more of those elements forcing myself to look for them and finding how they meld into the world around me. It helps to exercise the eye and mind and makes it easier to find these in the future when they are needed. If you wander onto a new location, need a specific color, tone or texture to work with, having the experience to see it and find it will make your job easier and more successful.
So, do you want to join me for Step 1 of an inspirational journey into our photography eye?
Its free…and its simple.
What: I will be posting a new color or texture or both each week. During your daily journeys in your very own front yard, around your house, and such start to look for the various shades of that color and/or texture. It is simpler than you think but still a bit challenging if you are not used to really “seeing” the world around you.
Make sure the images are at least 75% of that color as a whole. As the viewer we want to look at the image and know that this is “brown”, and not a brown thing in a green field. It does not have to be perfect, heavily processed, etc. Just whatever you have time for it to be. The object is to find it, and understand it, and see how it changes through your camera and lens. Even I had to ditch a few of my “browns” and throw them in the “grey” and “purple” folder, because once photographed they became more of those colors then the average eye that I saw.
How: Post the images on your blog, flickr, FB, or portal of choice and label it with the color or texture. Share it for the world to see. Why is this step important? It forces you to be sure that the viewer will really get the “story” behind the images. You have to be sure to shoot it so it is understandable. It does not have to be clear what the object is…just its hue or texture. I will be doing my story in macro.
Optional: Then if you can, please link back in the comments of my post of the week a link to your blog so I can see all your wonderful work and leave you a fabulous comment. In your post if you could link back to this post so your readers can join the journey with us.
When: Week starts every Friday
HAVE FUN and OPEN YOUR EYES!
Week 1: Hue . Brown . Texture . Unlimited
These images took all of 10 minutes to shoot in my very own yard. I even put my camera on jpeg so I could just dump them in Photoshop, tweak them and go to save time.
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