Thanks for putting up with my extended silence this past week. Here's the low-down: I had bronchitis with a side of head cold. It was awesome. I learned a lot about myself, such as; I can remember to take antibiotics three times a day, I can go through several boxes of tissues by myself, and I am needy when I feel ill. Also, I had the most intense fever dream and couldn't feel my legs, which made it difficult to get to the bathroom to pee. All of these things will, no doubt, help to form me into a better person in time.
Or not. But I had to go through it anyway.
So I never got to do that Photobomb last week, and will do it this week instead. I also had to find a replacement to shoot a friend's high school reunion last minute when the head cold added to the misery of the bronchitis and I knew I wouldn't be able to smile and shake hands and take photos until midnight on Saturday after all. Fortunately, my friend is forgiving and my replacement worked out! This weekend is super busy for my business, as I have a shoot Friday evening and Saturday morning, and then we are headed back to Ren Fest with Bear's family to order the traditional handmade glass champagne flutes. Phew!
I am actually really excited about this weekend's shoots, though. Lately I have done nothing but weddings, and while they are fun and wonderful, I was beginning to feel mechanical. Sometimes you just need a little diversity, you know? So, this weekend I have a shoot for a cheesecake-esque session for a surprise product (and I can't really say more than that, but maybe the client will let me share after the surprise), and another pet portrait session with an adorable pug and terrier! The pet session is sort of REALLY exciting for me... and I am not sure why.
When I got into photography initially, I was interested in portraying people, finding all those facets of their personalities and creating an image of them that really exemplified who they were, more than what they looked like. Now, I have done a ton of portraiture and the prospect of pet portraiture is like a whole new frontier. Now, I photograph my own pets all the time (and there are a ton of them... I live on a farm with almost 40 cats alone, not counting the dogs, horses, goats, chickens...) but the idea of meeting a new animal and somehow managing to capture an image that not only looks like the pet itself, but reveals part of it's personality... that's really exciting for me. Maybe I'm just geeking out on you. It's possible. But I've felt so completely unable to help myself when I was sick that this little challenge is the best medicine.
So I have been doing what I always do when I have a new challenge to face. I research. Shocker: nerdy library working photog blogger researches. Yup. I do. And I love it. For this challenge I have been reading Pet Photography Now! by Paul Walker, and looking up images on Flickr, of course. Whenever I do anything I tend to end up on Flickr. Then I ran across Brighton Dog Photography and went through her entire Flickr stream, favoriting like a madman! Of course, where I live isn't NEARLY as picturesque, but seeing so many different angles and images of the same kinds of breeds I will be shooting is very helpful... like this one... love!
And, of course, Elsie of A Beautiful Mess has always had pug photos for inspiration! Cute!
Are there any challenges in your near or distant future that you are looking forward to?
How in the world can you afford to feed that many animals? Jeez that is so many! haha
ReplyDeleteMy boss (the manager of the library where I work!) used to do a 'Pet of the Week' picture for the newspaper until last year. He would take pictures of animals that needed to be adopted from the shelter and they'd put it in the paper. If your paper doesn't do it, see if you can start it up! Talk to you local shelter and see if they'd be interested. he'd always have patrons poking their heads in talking about the cute pictures. It'd be a great way to have practice in a 'real' setting AKA not you house!
haha, Steff, we live with Bear's whole family (we're not a commune, but a lot of people seem to think maybe we are at first... I swear we're not! We rent the upstairs, his sister rents the wing of the house. In this economy... why not?). All of us all animal people and it's a farm, hence all the animals.
ReplyDeleteI am 90% sure our shelters already do that, but that is not a bad idea. I'll definitely check into that!