I’m banging my head against the wall with my photography

I just posted the BTS of the Jewel shoot I did a bit ago. Editing it, going through the photos, looking at the final product — it all made me think. But the thing that was confusing, the thing that made me feel like the Energizer Bunny butting that wall over and over again, was that I was already feeling the shift. And by the same token, I still needed to do this shoot.

It was all too familiar. Grab the camera. Grab the stand. Set it up. Put the model here. Put the light here. Light is over there so I go here. It started becoming too static. Too familiar. And dare I say it — too boring.

I certainly wasn't doing this shoot for my portfolio. It wasn't for an assignment. It wasn't for social media. My IG, my Glass Photo, hell, my website — all filled with content like this.

So what was I doing?

I got back to that idea, that question — who am I without my camera? What was I doing? Spinning my wheels.

But all you see in the video is me doing what I do. Happy. Interacting with the model. Creating. Because that's what we do — we put everything else aside and treat everyone with respect. It's like when I was in my college choir. We were so tired of singing one particular song — I won't say which one — but we always treated it like it was the first time. We were always proud of presenting it. That was the job.

But unlike the choir, I could control my photography. I could determine what I was creating, where I was doing it, and for whom.

That shift I talked about a few blogs ago — it doesn't happen overnight. It happens over the course of a few weeks, months even. It took a little bit for me to realize that I didn't want to quit. I needed to evolve.

I needed to remind myself that evolution meant going back to the basics. Creating for myself. Being myself. Being true to what I really and truly wanted. I needed to create the stories my way now — not for anyone else, but for me.