Finding Inspiration
What do you need to be a good photographer? A Sony A1, an Apple Mac Studio super computer, a few Aputure Studio lights and about $10k in professional lenses? Could not hurt, right? If you have all that stuff, you are probably going to be great - but in actual fact, it takes something else.
Seek others who inspire you to create
Starting photography is an intimidating thing. Maybe you have ideas of what you want to capture, maybe you can see the pose, the scene, the lens you want - but doing it, that is tough.
I did not start photography until last year, 2022, and it was simply for an elective class I was taking towards the end of earning my better-late-than-never BA degree from Washington State University. I did not even greatly enjoy the class for the most part! It was not until I was invited out to a photography group shoot that I ever felt true love for photography, and the reason was simple - inspiration.
Finding people who inspire you, is to me, one of the most important pieces of being a successful portrait photographer. The subject is the scenery, and the canvas simultaneously. It is our job to shape them, guide them, direct them, and work with them to produce the final image - but when you work with someone who truly works with you, who brings their own creativity, their own flair, a smirk mid-pose, a flip of their hair, a swish of the dress serendipitously, that can make the difference between the mundane, and the extraordinary.
What I find myself loving as a byproduct of photography is the people I get to meet along the way. The photos in this blog contain one such remarkable person. I met Nicole through Instagram, seeing her work with a far more talented and successful photographer than myself. On a whim, I send her a message and she actually responded, to my surprise. What followed was, to this day, one of my favorite shoots I have still ever executed. We just clicked, bouncing ideas off each other in the moment, laughing at dumb jokes, and not being afraid to try things that were not all successful. We found inspiration in each other.
Since that fateful shoot, which actually turned out to be my first publication too, I have worked with Nicole several other times, and each time has produced something different, but always, at the core, is a symbiotic relationship, a shared inspiration and trust in each other as we are creating.
You do not need the craziest, newest camera, or a masterful command of all Adobe programs to be a great photographer, you just need inspiration - whether that is a model, a building, a parked car, or just a sparsely covered hill top. Find someone or something that speaks to you, and explore why - you will be clicking away in no time.