Goal Based Personal Work

It has been said over and over again that every photographer should engage in personal work. It keeps our minds and creative spirits active. It makes us feel good to create something that we solely have conceived. It satisfies the need to activate our shutters and play with our equipment. Recently I embarked on a personal shoot, and used it as a chance to set some goals for myself.

After organising everything that I needed for the shoot tools wise, I sat down to think about things that I need to improve in my photography. It is always good to look at yourself from the perspective of a third person when trying to improve something about yourself, so I took the perspective of a photo editor as I looked at a couple of my recent shoots.

One thing I noticed was that I tend to act like I have OCD when I get a camera in my hand. I take a single frame and hammer away at it until I get a lot of good frames, all very similar. As the photo editor, I wasn’t very happy with this. I needed a variety that I didn’t get. So that was my goal for this day out, to come back with a variety of shots for the ‘photo editor’.

The next step was to figure out what I could vary. The obvious one was composition, as I usually look in my composition at the beginning of a given shoot and don’t vary it too much. That was the first item on my list. A few other things I noticed where my use of flash, I tended to over do it a little, and not keep my ambient frames. There are two more items. Then there was adding a little more drama. It’s too easy to go for a pretty frame, especially when you have a pretty model and a beautiful dress. So in the end, my goals for the day were as follows. They were not lofty, so I knew I could achieve them all easily.

- Vary the composition on each and every shot

- Shoot ambient light as well

- Vary the amount of ambient light in the same composition

- Work with some dramatic light

- Make the flash part of the scene, like it was never flashed

 

The best part about this shoot was all the variety that I got back. We shot 5 different locations over two hours here, and every one of them involved flash being used or not used, the angles being varied, lenses being changed. This kind of variety keeps not only the shoot going well, but makes the editing session a lot more pleasant as well!

Believe in what you do

Myself and Mr. Scott Hemsey ran a little Strobist workshop a while back. It was a grand time and we had a few models come out to work with our participants. As part of the compensation we offered the models, we had promised to make some shots for them after the show wound down.

I had seen the location before and I knew I could pull off something really cool on the highway above where we held the seminar. I just had to convince the models that running into the middle of the highway, breaking the law in a foreign country just to get a photograph, was a good idea. It really didn’t take as much time as I expected. The immediate answer was, “Sure, let’s give it a go.”

So we jetted out into the middle of the road and shot our first couple of frames. These were rudely interrupted by approaching traffic determined to move us off the road one way or another. I knew I would have to keep the models in the concept. So, I got them seated on the side of the highway and made a few simpler, safer shots, all the while assuring them that this was going to lead to a great shot.

By this stage, even my partner in crime, Mr. Hemsey, was shaking his head at my determination and possible suicidal tendencies. But, I knew I could make the shot shine, and I had to keep my game face on to be sure my models were up for it. After a few consecutive runs trying to get the pair of them together out in the centre of the highway, we decided to just go for one, and Kyle was all for it. This is what we came back with:

Well worth the effort I think. The simplicity of this shot pops for me. I surrounded man with his creations and had him as the most powerful element. Kyle’s wonderful job at just being a pillar of confidence with buses whizzing buy really made this one a winner. I would love to have laid myself flat on the ground to lend some more perspective to Kyle, but there just wasn’t time  for that, unfortunately.

So, lesson learned from this. Believe in what you do and others will as well. I only met the guy a couple of hours before this, but I had him risking his welcome here, and his various limbs for a good shot. Believe, and others will as well.

Cheers to Nikelola and Kyle for making this possible!

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