Maine 2005: Photos for Mom

Okay... I didn't take these today (but I sure wish I had! Work was not nearly as fun!). These are pictures I took on my family's trip to Maine in August of 2005. My mom asked me if I could find some of my best photos from that trip and show them to her, because she wants to print some for her living room summer decor. I am totally flattered, too! She could have bought some stock photos of lighthouses or some paintings at the starving artist sale or something, but she wants to frame and hang her daughter's creations. :) Anyway, I originally just put these on my blog because that was the easiest way to share them with her long-distance. However, looking through these photos reminded me of something I have started to lose lately, which is the excitement of making photographs for the pure joy of being an artist and finding beauty in the things around me. Ever since I set my sights on being a professional photographer someday, I have let myself become stressed over the challenges of learning all the technical stuff--camera functions, lighting, composition that follows certain principles--and I realized that all of that had created this gigantic creative block. Every time I do a walk for a photoshoot, I can't see anything creatively. Sometimes I'm even afraid to push the shutter button for fear of taking a bad photo. I'm still even quite shy about sharing my photography sometimes.

When I was taking these pictures in Maine, I had nothing but my Kodak point & shoot. It's easy to see in these photos that I was looking for ways to be creative and see things from different perspectives, and I wasn't hindered by anything but the size of my memory card. All of these photos resulted purely from the joy I found in the experience of making them.

As someone who is still wading through information, learning what questions to ask and what the answers mean, and fully immersed in the learning process, I find it all too easy to get bogged down by the things I don't know and lose my sense of wonder and creativity... letting my excitement and enjoyment of photography slip away, which is exactly the opposite of why I started doing this in the first place. So now I'm refocusing my efforts in the creative process and letting the learning process develop on its own. I've got a few photoshoots this month, which are all mostly for my benefit, so there's no reason I should not have fun!

All this to say, it's important to remember that you're doing what you want to because you love it! The knowledge will come (albeit, with lots of work), but don't let it get in the way of your creativity, because then why are you still doing this, and do you really love it?

Thanks for the reminder, Mom. :)

By the way, these photos are from Monhegan Island, Pemaquid Point, and Boothbay Harbor.

Portraits of a Juggler

Okay, so I shot these about a month ago; but, to be fair, for the last month I have been trying to figure out what to do with them, artistically. These are photos of my wonderful husband (and default photo model), Eric. He's a juggler. He actually made the white juggling balls specifically for this shoot, because I told him I wanted to do a B&W series and the white balls would stand out well and maintain the contrast. These photos clearly show that my initial vision didn't quite pan out like I expected it to, because I decided during editing that I like most of the photos better in color. I have learned from others, and from my own experiences, to be prepared for your initial vision to change. This first photo is one of the first I shot on this walk around downtown. My intent was to show the preparation--after the juggler has pulled out his equipment and is just hanging out on the sidewalk waiting for a good opportunity to put on a show.

The intent with this photo was pretty similar. I liked having the various sizes of his antique juggling clubs in the photo, along with him in his tux. The hat, untied bowtie, and sneakers give him a cool/casual look. I used a couple of layers on low-opacity overlay blend to pump up the contrast (especially the black tux, which can easily look blue in the light). This photo was also recently selected to appear in Lexington's Downtown Gallery Hop on Friday, June 18.

 

I think it's easy to tell what I was going for here--I wanted to capture the movement of the juggling balls. I think the photo turned out well for all my efforts. I was later reminded of the rear-sync flash mode that would have made Eric sharper and more in focus. Next time, I suppose...

 



























This is a composite I did of some rapid-fire shots that I took while I had Eric walk and juggle in front of this part of the building. I really wanted to composite these into one photo, so that you would see three images of Eric in just one shot, but I found out quickly that it's pretty difficult to do that, so this works. I used a curves adjustment and a 20% opacity overlay blend layer to pump up contrast in this photo, as well.

Working for tips on the steps in front of a bar on Short Street. 

Behind the back.

I saw this shot as we were wrapping up and walking back to the car. It was about 6:30, so the sunlight was casting some great shadows on the ground near the Opera House. I added contrast in Lightroom to give the shadow a little more depth and definition.

Another shot I saw on the walk back to the car. This was actually an idea I'd had to begin with, but I almost forgot about it before we went home. Just for fun, I tried this one with super high contrast and a dramatic vignette. Remnants of the street show.

And this last one is just a good shot of my handsome husband. :)

First Solo Wedding Shoot

I shot my first solo wedding on May 8, 2010! The bride was a good friend of mine from work, and the whole day was tons of fun! It was an awesome experience! I finally got the photos finished and have now found the time to post some on my blog. Here are some of my favorites. Hope you like them! A few more shoots coming up this month, so hopefully that means more blog posts soon! :)