Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Taking pictures "just because"

I came across this post on the ASMP blog (American Society of Media Photographers).  It's a good explanation of what I hope this blog is to become....

"That’s how I started in photography. I think it’s how we all start. There’s no client, no place what we do has to fit in. If we have a project at all, it is vague, and if in the course of things a strong picture emerges that doesn’t seem to fit…we changed the project!

But when we develop as professionals we develop all kinds of parameters and strictures, some very insidious. Like, can I use a picture to  get work? Does it look like what others are doing, like want clients want? How can I monetize it?

They are all fair questions. But there are no good answers to them. So I think that it is really important that from time to time we should set them aside and walk out the door with the intention to take pictures that specifically don’t fit..

We’ve all had that moment of working through a bunch of files and coming across a picture that just stops us cold. It looks as though someone else took it, and we are just struck into silence. In fact, that “someone else” is us,  a version of us that is a better photographer than we are. And we really need to track that person down and get to know them. They are out on the front edge of our work, and they are what we can become."


Sounds so simple.... doesn't it?

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