If you follow my Facebook at all, I just recently posted a status at how I felt like a failure as a photographer because I don’t do many personal projects. I shoot so many weddings, seniors, families, and other portrait sessions for others, but very little for myself, and that doesn’t make much sense to me. And it’s funny because the same day I post that status on Facebook, I come across a blog about a form of photographer called free lensing. This type of photography, you actually hold the lens off of the camera and produce the shot you want. Doing this produces a sort of tilt-shift/lensbaby effect to the pictures, while at the same time, letting rays of lights or different lighting effects in. I started experimenting tonight, and I’m hooked. I’m seriously considering incorporating some of this into portrait shoots. It’s SUPER tricky to do and very sensitive (obviously) but it’s this challenge, I feel, that interests me so much. Plus, it’s something new, I love finding new techniques and something new I can bring to my photography. Sure, it may be trendy and it may not produce a clear image 100% of the time, but if you aren’t trying something new, what are you doing? I’ve always said that if I get in that rut of doing the same thing over and over, I’d quit. And I’m serious. Why on earth would I want to do a job that I run, I don’t have a boss, where I do the same thing over and over and over… that’s what the typical 9-5 job is for. But if I’m just doing the same thing repetitively in a job that I run, I seriously feel like that’s the point that you’ve lost it, and a day later you become a dinosaur. Photography is an ever growing industry and if you aren’t growing you’re falling behind and I will not let that be me!
So for today’s personal project I decided I would incorporate a little of the story of finishing our basement. It’s been long process, but it’s coming together and I had a lot of fun playing around a little bit with free lensing on some of the things we have laying around. So for now, the free lensing consists of things… but very soon, it will definitely consists of people.
