Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Settling Into Normal?

I am not the kind of guy that takes the easy way out of a situation and do not look for a fast solution. I love and can suspend myself in the process of things in which I become involved. I like to savor the experience of whatever it is I am doing and explore it from a multitude of different perspectives. Often times we only get to experience something once, so I like to linger and make it last. People are this way for me. Sometimes I will only get one opportunity to work with a person, yet I will fit a life time of experience into that moment. It feels like others around me are hurrying to get to the end. I guess I would be the tortoise in that race. I live in a world where nothing is normal and virtually everyday is filled with something extraordinary. When I do a shoot I am often concerned that my slow process of working will push my subjects away, which hasn’t happened yet. In fact it tends to draw them nearer. I believe my images and subjects should be as natural and organic as possible so the evolution of a shoot takes some time to explore and get to what I see in the core of my subject’s intensity. I tend to over shoot and look at all the options and possibilities, constantly adjusting lighting, exposure, and point of view. I had a kid come in yesterday who was an actor and a model, he had some experience, which is rare for me to get to work with. We hit it off and suddenly 3 hours had flown by within what felt like just a few moments for both of us. I rely on my education in theatre as a directing student and bring those skills into my studio and my way of working. I do love to work with actors, because of my admiration for their art and I my ability to communicate with them so well, to pull out what I see emerging from within them. The art of photography, as with theatre, for me is collaboration. Yes I may have a concept in mind, but it rarely becomes the path I follow, it merely becomes a jumping off point.

So I have this concept every day of my time, and how I envision my day will go. I keep thinking in my head that things will get back to normal and that I will settle in. There is a part of me that desperately craves that kind of normal, but my reality is it never ever happens. I can never seem to reach that state of normal I think I desire to settle into. This last week I have been working afternoons at UPS instead of evenings and this always throws my schedule a bit out of whack because my normal afternoon photo stuff gets misplaced to other time slots that I can try to cram things into. Yesterday I did a photo from start to finish in one day. It gave me a great sense of completion. When I first started the process of photography, it was my goal to do an art project from shooting to framing in one day and was so jacked when I hit the mark, but then I only did one thing. How times have changed. Then again what I do is really not normal!!!

VIEW FULL IMAGE: George #209

1 comment:

BDSpellman said...

To quote the girl in The Fantasticks, "Please, God, don't let me be normal." Personally, I've given up on whatever "normality" means. But maybe that's just me.

Love,

Bryan