Specializing as a photographer is tricky.
A year and a half ago, I was enthralled with all photographies. Food, Product, Portraits, Street, Night, Events, Walkaround; even some Landscape. And I’m as glad I played with them as that I let most of them go. Falling in love with photography for me was like taking a survey course. I learned a little of how to approach everything.
It seems obvious now I let most of them fall away. There’s not only what you’re good at, but what you’re drawn to. I love faces. I love composition. I love stories.
I’ve been thinking about how to present that.
Events give me a lot of latitude. With clients like Dig and Serve, I get to shoot faces and places, and have fun with food. At concerts, I get to work the peculiarities of the space into the story of the show.
Portraits are fairly straightforward. Someone’s aware of the photographer. Or not aware of the photographer. Or in that magical middle ground, when the photographer has cajoled something almost unaware from them.
The last one, composition, is tricky. I think of a lot of my “Walkaround” work as, well, exactly that. It’s meditation. Exercise. Practice. I meander and listen.
And I have no idea what to call it.
“Fine Art” is too big an umbrella, and “Intimate Landscape” implies, well, landscapes. And while I love me a good walk through the Bosque, or the hills, most landscape photography leaves me unsatisfied. I want to shake the artist and say, “Got it. That was a place where you were. But why?” I see something beautiful, but I want to see what you saw. Why did you have to share this?
I’m sure a good word will come. In the meantime, here are some moments from, and around, events I went to in June. I wasn’t contracted to shoot any of them. I was just there, right then, looking for things to see.