Inspiration

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a number of things heading into the summer season. I have a great deal of changes coming around over the next few months, but the one that has been in my head and heart lately is photography/personal-related.

This past year has been a lot of focus on practical things like creating a business model, developing marketing strategies, learning how to social network, accounting. All things that I am not terribly gifted at and sometimes just don’t enjoy doing. But photographers starting out (and some that are even well-established) have to do a lot of things they don’t really want to or don’t have a knack for. Such is the life of an entrepreneur.

In the beginning of this year, I wanted to make a point of taking more time to focus on personal work, whether that relates to things that my family is doing or otherwise. I have been very fortunate to have done a few creative shoots just for myself this year already and met a ton of wonderful people in the wedding industry in the process ~ some starting out themselves and some well-established. But I am still feeling like there needs to be more change. That I need to try something new and different, step out of what I am doing on regular basis, photography-related. I feel like I need to stretch my creativity wings, if you will.

I follow a lot of photographers to keep up on trends and style but there are a few out there right now that are really singing to me more on a personal level. Especially last night after browsing through Perspectiveye Photography’s blog and seeing Gabe’s latest film sessions. I have been seeing more and more film lately and I believe it’s fair to say that it’s making a bit of a renaissance in photography circles. I love the tones and raw quality of it, how it makes me feel like I am watching events as they unfold in front of me.

I’ve also included some links to a few of my favourite photographers right now (and have been for quite some time)~ Perspectiveye Photography, Nordica Photography, Jonas Peterson Photography and Sean Flannigan Photography. All from around the world. I believe (but I could also be wrong) that all of these fine folks have backgrounds in journalism and somehow found themselves in the wedding industry some way or another. There is always this buzzword of “photojournalistic” when it comes to wedding photography and you will not get any truer to that than these photographers. Their work is truly indescribable. There is something so alluring, so real, so raw, unique and disarming about the work each of these photographers create that it just makes me pause and consider what I am doing, where I am going and where I would like to be in the future. Today, I feel very hopeful of things to come.

I am looking forward to taking some time over the next few months to try some new things. Film. Different editing techniques. Different shooting styles. New locations. An afternoon of shooting just for the sake of it. Random stuff. People in love.

Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.
~ Mark Victor Hanson