This is a personal shoot I recently put together.  Many of the ideas and sketches I have been putting in my journal lately are set in outdoor locations at night.  I seem to go through cycles of being inspired by different things in my personal work.  For example, there was a time last year, when all of my ideas were studio shots.  After spending more time than usual in the studio, I began to find inspiration in other things.  I am a very curious photographer, and I enjoy changing the situations and people I work with so I am always experiencing something new.  Each time I explore my curiosity through personal work, I not only fulfill my curiosity, but I also grow as a photographer, and learn things that will stay with me.  There is something inside of me that is constantly pushing me to try something different, and create something new.

What I have begun to notice this summer through my personal work is that each phase that I go through, it is becoming less about a technical aspect, such as a specific light, or studio vs. outdoor, and more about my vision or the story I want to tell.  Each phase I have gone through has really been more about exploration and my own curiosity than the actual technical detail I was focused on.  Through these periods of different inspirations I have learned a lot, and  I hope I will always be learning something new about light, and photography, no matter how long I work at it.  But now I am able to focus more on my vision and less on the tools required to make it happen.  Not that the tools aren’t important.  They are!  But the more you practice, the more you will understand the tools, and the more they become ingrained in you so you don’t have to spend as much time and effort thinking about them.

This picture is the first in a series I am working on in my spare time.  I felt excitement when I made this image, and it was a good reminder for me of how much I love photography.  Thanks for taking a look.