I’ve been to the National Portrait Gallery a few times. Its one of my favorites. Every time I go, I see something cool and I see something new. This past weekend I went with the instagram group, Walk with Locals and saw a whole new floor that I never knew existed. My mind was kinda blown.
I loved the series of images in the very back of this shot. A photographer took 30 years worth of images of these 4 sisters. So beautiful to see them grow and change. I wish I remembered to write down his name. I would of loved to look him up. I guess that’s an excuse to go back soon 🙂
This blog post is going to be a little different. Why? Because I just got back from a pretty awesome photo workshop. It wasn’t just any ol workshop, but it was one about expressive photography and mindfulness by the awesome Julie McCarter.
So what is mindfulness and what did I learn? To take time and really concentrate on how I feel. My first thought was, “oh man, when I wake up for sunrise, I usually just feel sleepy”. But that’s not it. Sometimes I feel like I’m dragging myself out to go take pictures and I don’t want to do it until I finally get to my location. Other times I’m SOOO excited to take pictures and theres nothing else in the world that I’d rather be doing. So that’s when the mindfulness will kick in. How can I use my own emotions and convey that in my images? Basics of photography come in handy but its also all about experimenting and trying new thing with exposure, composition and even post processing.
I always knew there had to be emotion in photography, but I kinda thought that sort of just happened all on it’s own. I never thought about how I feel and how I could portray that in my photography. When listening to Julie speak, I got really excited about the possibilities. But it also made me a little scared too. I wasn’t exactly sure why until I got home.
You see, I have a lot of exciting things that are about to happen. I mean REALLY exciting. And I can’t wait to share them with you all but at the same time these things scare me. What if I’m not good enough? or what if people start judging me?
I think the root of all these emotions and feelings have stemmed from the fact that I want to make you happy. Yes, I want to make you -my reader- happy. But the only way for me to do that is to be more honest. So from now on, I am going to try to be more mindful when I’m out shooting my photos but I’m also going to be more mindful in my blogging. I’d love to have a deeper connection with you and the only way to do that is to be myself.
So for now, love you lots! I can’t wait to see where this new way of thinking will take me and you know I’ll be back tomorrow with a brand new image 🙂
