What kind of things do I like to shoot? Well, let’s start off by taking a look at some of my favorite images on Flickr:

One of the things several people have suggested you do when trying to define your style is to go through magazines and pull out your favorite images and see what they have in common. Find things that inspire you. So I did that with Flickr since there are tens of thousands of images to choose from. After going through my favorites I noticed several things in common with a majority of the images that stood out to me:

• portraits
• interesting locations/environments
• interesting lighting, both natural and artificial
• strong contrast, both in colors and from light to dark
• medium to high amounts of post-processing

Now, not every image meets all of the above criteria, but a majority of the images meet a majority of the things I listed above. So now I know what images I find compelling, I can break that down into a statement about the work that I want to shoot and show:

I’m a portrait photographer that shoots people juxtaposed to interesting locations and environments by utilizing light, both natural and artificial, to create contrasts in both light and color. I use post-processing to enhance these contrasts and to help realize my vision for the images I create.

It’s a work in progress, but you get the idea. That statement is a fairly accurate representation of the images that excite me and of the images I want to create. Hopefully you see this theme throughout many of the images that I have shot and shared with you on Flickr:

It’s not perfect representation of what I said I want to shoot, especially at the beginning of the set, but I feel that my more recent images are all starting to lean towards that central vision I want to adopt for my work. And yes, there is some studio work in there as well, which negates the interesting locations/environments portion of my vision statement, but shooting in the studio can really allow me to bring out my other talents, especially in the lighting and post-production departments.

Time and time again you here that you cannot market yourself until you know exactly what it is you want to shoot and be known for. If you don’t shoot and promote that work then you’ll be known for shooting that type of work, which will keep you from reaching your goals. I know I don’t want to shoot weddings, kids, maternity shots, etc. I want to shoot interesting shots of people, in interesting or relevant environments, that can be used to tell a story, or create a story or interest in a particular subject. Ultimately I’d like to shoot higher-end commercial and editorial type work, stuff like Joe McNally or Douglas Sonders shoots.

While we are on that subject I want to mention some photographers that I really admire. Photographer’s work who inspires me and makes me want to reach their level of ability and success. I already mentioned two:

• Joe McNally
• Douglas Sonders

But there are several others who’s work I really admire (in no particular order):

• Joey Lawrence
• Jeremy Cowart
• Dustin Snipes
• Zack Arias
• David Hobby

And that’s just scratching the surface. There are so many photographers out there that have amazing work that inspire me. But each one of them has photos that share part or all of my vision of what I want to shoot that attracts me to them. McNally’s use of light, color, and the environment. Sonder’s and Joey L’s use of light and post-processing. Hobby’s use of light and the environment. Each one of them shoots in a way that I strive to shoot and just by studying their work I’m learning more and more about what I like and don’t like. And, if I ever had the chance, I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the ability to learn from them in person, to meet with them and pick their brains about the hows and whys of what they shoot. And, if I could ever be so lucky, I would drop just about anything I had going on for a chance to work with them, to be their assistant (or whatever they needed), whether it be for a day, month, year, or longer. They all inspire me and would love to be able to work with them.

What/who inspires you? What’s your vision for your photography? What do YOU want to shoot?

Name That Tune

This is one I’ve had for a while.  I want to take a song and create a photograph that expresses the ideas/themes/lyrics/title of the song.  It will be my interpretation of the song, so it will allow me to be fairly creative in my representation of the song.  One image per song.  And there can be some collaboration involved too.  If someone wants to help me by picking a specific song we can work together to come up with a good vision to follow for the execution of that song.  Should help me with my planning and creativity along with some post-production too.

Childhood Stories

I know lots of photographers like to recreate fairy tales and other great stories, but I want to do mine a little differently.  Most of the ones I see are a series – like Alice in Wonderland.  Several shots that recreate the story or key elements from the story.  What I want to do is have one shot per story. That’s it.  That way as the series progresses it will be more varied rather than have several shots from the same story.  It will be up to me and the people helping me to represent the story in a single frame.  Hopefully with a constraint like that I can be more deliberate and detailed in each shot. And for an added twist, I want each story to have modern elements to it.  A modern-day representation if you will – just to make it a little more challenging.  Doesn’t have to be just fairy tales.  Can also be books, movies, etc.

I’m not sure I like the name for this series, so if anyone else has some suggestions, please let me know!

So, those are my two personal projects to be working on in the future.  They also sound like great candidates from my weekly Project 52 shots as I get them done.  Watch for updates!

So, I’m going to be doing a 52 project instead.  One shot a week for a year.  Much more manageable for me.  And it will let me focus more on the things I want to improve over the course of the year.  They are (but not limited to):

• Planning
• Post
• Composition

Let me briefly go over each one and talk about them.

Planning

Most of my shoots are spontaneous, which isn’t a bad thing.  I like just going out and seeing what I can find, with or without a subject.  It usually works out pretty well and I get good shots from thinking through the moment.  But on the other hand, I’d really like to work on conceptualizing a shot, planning it out, and then executing it.  With a week per shot it will give me time to focus some time on planning, rather than rushing through a new shot each day.

Post

Post-production.  It’s important and I need to work on mine.  I’m pretty good at using Lightroom to give my photos the color and contrast I want, but aside from that I don’t do much.  Since I will be focusing on one shot each week I can take the time to adjust more and hop over to Photoshop to enhance even more.  I’m not talking about actions or quick-fixes.  I want to do some great compositing like Dave Hill or Justin Paguia.  I want to use Photoshop to finish telling the story I couldn’t capture with my camera.

Composition

I think my composition is pretty good most of the time.  The one thing I really want to force myself to do is shoot more landscape shots, especially portraits.  Most of my portraits are, well, portrait, which makes it difficult when setting up a portfolio for the web which is predominately viewed in a landscape mode.  Aside from that, just making sure distracting elements are out of the frame, not cutting off people at joints, etc.

So that’s it.  Three big things for me to work on over the course of the year.  My goal is to post the new pic every Sunday evening (or around then, depending on my schedule) along with a blog post talking about it and my goals.  The first one should be up this Sunday, July 19th, 2009, so watch for it here and over on my Flickr.  I’ll create a new Flickr set to track my progress as well.

Wish me luck!

Here is my goal: to take a creative and interesting picture with my iPhone every day and publish it for all to see (or at least the couple people who follow my blog/flickr/twitter).  Right now my goal is to snap the picture and email it to Flickr, which will automatically create a blog post here for the picture, which will then create a Tweet on my Twitter with a link back to the post.  Pretty sweet!

I’ll still keep up my usual posts, but this should provide some nice filler betwen big posts.  Plus I’m hoping it will spark my creativity some, which is always good.  So be watching for these iPhone Photo-A-Day’s from now on, starting either tonight or tomorrow!