hey there, max here. i’ve been thinking a whole lot about craft and how often we, as photographers, shoot work that is just for us. not often, methinks. which is potentially why so many of us get stuck in a “style”. we get comfortable with one type of lighting, one type of subject, one genre, etc. and it’s a shame. not because i’m against having a style, in fact i think it’s one of the most important things for us, but because we aren’t evolving that style. this is part of the reasoning behind deciding t participate in 30 days of creativity. shooting everyday is hard. expecially when you are me, and very rarely enjoy shooting scenarios beyond my control, which translates to a full photographic production a day. needless to say, we came up a little short, but the lesson was learned. even if you can’t do it everyday, do it as often as possible (kind of like something else i can think of…). there’s a step further to take in this that i think is important - shoot differently as often as possible. even if the shots are terrible, you’ll be practicing your craft in the way it’s most benificial - far away from perfection. if you ever get to a place where you feel like you have perfected one thing (you’re probably lying to yourself), but none the less, you should move on. beating a dead horse and such…
and even more importantly than all that, the process you go through when you shoot landscape photography will impact your portraiture work, and vise versa, and if you are lucky the mistake you make along the way may just produce some images that are some of your best. that moment of panic, of anger, of frustration, that moment of almost giving up, that’s probably going to be one of our most common moments in this career, so we might as well get comfy with it. unfortunately, it will be way more common than moments of pure conifdence.
with all that being said, we went on vaca last weekend to a cottage in muskoka, which is gorgeous and inspiring and all that jazz, and we could have just sat there doing nothing for three days and been perfectly content. but thanks to interview magazine and some intentionally distorted wide angle shots by christain ferretti, we didn’t. we played around, we tried something a little different, we went back to taking a whole lot of photos we didn’t like and being in a sitution we didn’t feel good about. but we also reminded ourselves that we never feel like we’ve shot too much, tried too many things, or dont have a whole lot to learn. lucky for us (although i would argue this always happens if you are stubborn enough), we pulled it together and got some really great shots. and what’s even better? we’re shooting a fashion story today with a whole new perspective.
