Believe it or not I am up late again waiting on something...not a television show this time though. I am actually waiting on my dishwasher to finish. No, not to dry them and put them away. I'd be warm in my sheets right now if that was the case. I need a certain dish to put my turkey/bean chili in for lunch tomorrow. I know what your thinking... why didn't I put on my 50's underpants and wash the dish by hand? That's actually a good question. A very good question. And to be honest I guess I didn't think about that until I started telling you that I'm waiting on my dishwasher. Maybe subconsciously I wanted to waste time on the web again. I did play with Pinterest, geesh! And now here I am blogging again. I'm seeing a trend.
So what's on the docket tonight? More regrets? No sir. Something totally different and yet I guess you could say it's still part of "figuring oneself out," which I am sure understanding your regrets falls into that category as well.
Style: "a particular kind, sort or type, as with reference to form, appearance or character."
Style and branding are the two things on my mind tonight. I have a feeling that I will use my personal blog to explore this so that I can apply it to my professional life and photography business. Let's face it- I can't discuss what type of photography style or what my "brand" is all about on my photo blog. My clients would wonder what in the world I'm doing. You're probably wondering what in the world I'm doing too. I mean if you know me at all you know that I've had a photography business for years now. So why would I concern myself with style and branding right now? Well basically because I did my photography business back-asswards! I had a photojournalism degree...skipped town and headed off to the West Coast and somehow got involved with wedding photography...which turned into portrait photography...which led shortly to sport photography (what?)... and then finally I landed with a business called "Capturing Grace Photography" where if you go to my website you'll see that I literally have 6 different portfolios (weddings, families, engagements, seniors, editorial, landscapes.)
So you're thinking that this is where I tell you that I have narrowed down my photography and that I will only be shooting ______________. Wrong.
I made my own quote up the other night (I hope it becomes famous one day- like where you'll see it painted on weird wood and then you'll see a photo of it and then people will pin it. ya.) ...Damn. I don't think I can remember it now. Okay... I don't remember the first quote, but I do remember what I ended up with (I geared it more towards my actual website/business.) "My passion is photography, my focus is you." In other words I don't want to JUST be a wedding photographer. But, at that moment, when I am shooting a wedding that's what I want to be focused on, you, my client. I don't want to JUST photograph families, but you better believe that when I am that I will be passionate about them.
I get why I am suppose to have a focus, a style, a brand. I get that if I focused on one genre of photography that I might have quicker success. (Who wants fast success? I love having two side jobs. That was an ironic joke, just in case you missed that.) But quite frankly, I don't care. Because my passion is truly photography. Photography is complex, it's involved, it has genres and each genre has a category and each category has a style and each style has different manipulations. I love it all. I love landscapes- like mountain photos that you say "wow" when you see it. I love black and white prints. I love "art" photography even if it's weird. I love Polaroids. I love people. Hell, I even like animal photography. I could do with out kittens and go more towards Polar Bears and Moose though. I don't stop into a lot of art galleries unless they have photographs. I don't buy books that have horrible images on the front covers. I can't handle seeing empty frames in people's houses. In fact when I do, I offer up one of my photographs to fill it until they print whatever was suppose to go in that frame. I love photography. So with all that said, I'm not going to fill in that blank.
I am however, going to narrow it down a little. So here is my large "focus." People & Places. I know, I know, that covers a lot. But- I did leave out Things. I will not do product or commercial photography. When I speak of "Editorial" photography, to me that does not include commercial. Although in the large scheme of things commercial could be listed under Editorial. I still am not going to do commercial photos or products. Editorial, to me, means that it's going to publish in something tangible that people read, like magazines.
People: engagements/weddings and families. Notice anything? I dropped senior portraits. I like doing them, but let's face it, I'm not a studio. I don't get a lot of business doing seniors and even though there are some cool kids out there that want unique shots from an on-site location session...their parents don't. lol. That might not really be the case. However I think weddings, engagements and families are enough to fill that love for people photography.
Places: I will never not photograph landscapes or "pretty pictures." It's what got me into photography and it's what I'll die doing.
Editorial is a combination of both people and places. (That's probably why it's my favorite.) So I am trying to focus a lot on the editorial side of photography right now. Keeping fingers crossed and knees to the ground that some more magazines (like 1859) ask me to photograph for them.
PHEW! I actually went off track a little. I thought I would talk more about my actual photography style- I even picked out words and phrases and all sorts of random crap to share. But atlas my dishwasher is done and I need to hit the sheets. I guess this was good because I finalized what type of photography I will focus on. My next blog post I can wrap my head around my actual "style" that I will do/use. Until next time...
Skipping,
Aubrie
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