Hello, random internet strangers!
This summer has been chaotic so far, and I’ve neglected this blog. One of the events taking up my time turned out to be a chance to practice my event photography skills, as well as my slideshow-making skills. The once-a-week event (for a total of four weeks) led to hours of processing photos.
Enough to remind me why event photography isn’t at the top of my list of favorite genres. Nature, street, art, and animal photography? Sure. Even architectural photography, or maybe flower photography (or does that count as nature? Hmm.), but portraits or events? Nah.
Yet, this was fun. Probably because it involved kids, and kids are a joy to photograph. When you don’t need to pose them, you just have to capture their antics and smiles. In this case, it was all about candid shots.
Now that I’m at the other end of this event, with everything wrapped up and no more requirements, I don’t necessarily have more time; other things simply fill the gap. This morning, I was checking out at the pet store when the cashier commented on my shirt (“Photography is just being at the right place at the right time with the right lens, charged batteries, the right depth of field… etc.”). It turns out he was a photographer in high school. He even won a contest and shot in black and white. He let photography go, or at least that’s what I gathered from his wistful tone.
This sparked an idea, or rather built on one I’d already been having. Practice—real practice—is what improves your skills: more than reading about technique, more than looking at other people’s work, and more than just talking about photography. So, I’m challenging myself. Each week, I’ll have a theme, a requirement, or whatever you want to call it, that I must follow.
This coming week will be black and white; everything I shoot has to be in black and white. Pretty simple. I’ll announce my next theme or challenge on Thursday or Friday, along with the photos I took for the current one. The goal is practice, not perfection, so judge accordingly, random internet stranger.
