I know it’s been a long time in coming from when I posted on fb that I was starting a year-long photography project, but here’s the proof! 🙂
It’s with the same goal I’ve had in mind from day one. There’s that urge inside of me to constantly be creating- creating new things. I need something outside of weddings and portrait sessions to really push myself to learn and grow. (and in turn, I know that this creative process will in turn flow over and affect my professional work as well!)
So, once again, the amazing Becky Earl has inspired me. She’s involved in an on-going project with other photographers to blog personal photos every few weeks on a new topic. I loved this idea! I have to admit that since college I’ve looked back and realized that all those ‘silly’ projects I poured endless hours into have really made me who I am as an artist. It’s all that practice behind the scenes that makes a great artist- probably the biggest lesson I learned. I thought every assignment I did just had to be a masterpiece, but over the years I’ve been maturing to understand they are necessary exercises. But the crazy thing is, it really is about the process and the journey; it’s those exercises that count- there is no ‘big final project’ that it all comes down to.
A bit of wisdom from my professors- make up your own assignments, set some parameters, have a vision but also see where instinct takes you. And that’s exactly what I want to do. Here’s the project and the parameters: one year, one assignment per month, assignments are each a single word to interpret freely, and (for my own growth) all in medium format film. I’ve asked a photographer friend of mine, Kami to join with me in this endeavor to shoot for personal growth and exploration. (I knew I’d need accountability to complete a year-long project!) Plus, it’s going to be great seeing a totally different perspective on each assignment!
Ok, so here we go…Assignment 1: Color. I had this great idea beginning since this was around Easter time that I needed to shoot the film- I thought doing something with dying eggs would be really cool…and it may have been, but we never got around to that. And when I first assigned ‘color’ to April, I was thinking flowers and nature…but most had bloomed in March. So I absolutely love that those doors closed, and I had to think outside the box. I was supposed to be fixing lunch- a Qdoba-style fare with pico de gallo, but I couldn’t pass up the gorgeous color of these vegetables! This was seriously such a fun project for me!
The creative juices were flowing…and as you can see I ended up outside. I thought I’d do the whole series with veggies, but the sunlight was pouring through our Japanese Maple and the wind blowing the branches up and down to expose the yellows and greens under all the red. Color was screaming at me, and I just thought it’d be dumb to be so stubborn as to pass it up.
