I thought it might be a good time to tell you some of the things I have learned so far and to catch up a bit on what is happening.
For starters, I’m now in Santa Fe, at the workshop. We had our first meeting tonight-it’s the “typical” Sunday evening session, where we all get to meet each other, eat a bit, attend a brief chat with the workshop manager, and then see an inspirational video. Tonight’s “featured artist” for the inspirational video was Joe McNally-he’s a great photographer and I really loved his video.
For starters, something that really clicked with me was something the workshop manager said to us, as a group. “Cameras don’t take pictures, people take pictures.” If you leave them to their own devices, camera are just a hunk of metal that sit in the corner of a room. They don’t actually *do* anything, it’s the photographer that does all of the “doing.” So many people run out and buy tons of camera gear, they get so many bodies with so many lenses, and they get all caught up in the gear, having this lens or that lens.
I’ve found, over the course of shooting, especially this time out, I’m making the camera bag as light as possible. One body, one lens, not even a lot of junk at the bottom of the bag (like I always do.) It’s liberating. I really have to say, I’ve never felt more free and my work, especially the last stuff I did in Old Town and my hotel, really reflects that. I’m thinking more, focused more on the work, relaxed, working the angles, space, and compositions, more than the letting the lenses work me. Too much clutter in the brain yields cluttered images. Seriously. I’m going to take that home with me.
Keep it simple, we’re already stupid enough. It’s my new words to live by.
As for the rest of it, well, as I sat and watched that Joe McNally video, I could not help but think, “ok, yeah, so that’s all well and good but, just how many bed sheets were harmed in the making of that?”
I found out we’re going to the prison for a location shoot and also to a horse farm b&b type place. How freaking cool is that? I’ve wanted to shoot inside that prison for about 4 years now.
Yay!
Until next time…
