Fine Art Photography
Creativity is like a muscle || Bay Area Photographer
Creativity is what helps me escape a lot of my inner demons.
Demi Lovato
I strongly believe that creativity is not a talent. I believe creativity is like a muscle. We have to exercise it in order to grow it.
We are all born with the same amount of creative potential. However, when we go through life we learn different ways of dealing with problems. In the process, we develop our creativity or we decrease it.
I believe some people are prone to be more creative than others. In other words, some people are born with specific talents and can use them without having to spend countless hours on practice. Still, talent without creativity and vision won’t take you far.
Not everybody is exposed to arts and creative ways of expressing themselves as they go through life.
I prefer when my kids spend their time painting with me than doing their homework, for example. However, I know many parents who rather send their kids to after school math classes.
I’d also prefer if there were more art in schools and less testing and scoring and chasing some kind of invisible standard or more defined ways of success in life – like being a doctor, a lawyer, a broker, or IT person.
I believe art is powerful. Participating in art making in particular. With today’s technology and easy access to art supplies, creativity is one of the best ways to invest in yourself and your potential.
This year, I’ll be investing a lot of time and effort into spreading the art. I’ll try to show you how to see this world around us in a more artistic way. I’ll give you some ideas how to express the heck out of yourself via photography, creative editing, and some mixed media techniques.
I tend to express myself a lot with self-portraits. Therefore, I’ll be using a lot of them in my tutorials and workshops. You can translate this knowledge into whatever you’re interested in. It could be nature or your kids or your pets or even architecture. Or all of it.
To create material that interests you I’d like your help. Please take a few minutes and let me know by filling out this survey. If you had the opportunity, what would you want to learn about photography wise?
Otherwise, I hope you stick around and help me develop the vision I have for using creativity in our lives. Because I have a big vision and I want to invite you to be a part of it.
To stay on top of all the events and specials I run through the year sign up for my newsletter. Some of them do not go public so it’s always great to be on that list and get all the exclusive offers. Plus I’m planning to release lots of tutorials and educational materials this year. If you on my list you’re going to be one of the very first ones to hear about them. Test them. Benefit from them and be inspired by them if you on that list!
Annie Leibovitz San Francisco, Women: New Portraits
Today my 4 year old and I drove to San Francisco to see Annie’s Leibovitz free exhibition, “Women: New Portraits”. After that we sat on the beach and had lunch. We also stopped by Palace of Fine Arts that’s right next to it. The weather was gorgeous, and the only thing that was missing was my 6 year old daughter. She would love it!
If you haven’t visited the exhibit yet, I highly recommend going. The walk-ins are welcome, and it’s totally free (beside the parking, of course). I wish I had more time to sit there comfortably and flip and read through all the books available inside.
But I had to deal with a serious case of very loud yawning every now and then, and even louder and more dramatic question “are we going now?” every 5 minutes.
Anyway, at least I was able to go through the huge book filled with Annie’s photographs. The experience of being able to touch it and be so close to her art was humbling.
San Jose Kids Portrait Photographer inspired by Gregory Heisler
Last week I blogged about my first assignment for the portrait workshop I’m taking. Last week I’ve created some portraits that were inspired by David Bailey.
My second assignment was to study work of Gregory Heisler. This was pretty challenging. My idea for some of the portraits went beyond my equipment, and I had to settle for what I had on hand. I’ll definitely revisit this assignment whenever I have what I need for it. 🙂
This time I focused only on creating portraits 0f my kids, and let one of the pups out it.
I wanted to include a little more personality into those portraits. We used last year’s Halloween costumes, and for the extra spark we added their favorite thing to ride on. I also couldn’t let my older daughter NOT to put some of the decorations she loves to wear each and every single day. However we limited it, because I didn’t want the neck full or necklaces to take away the viewers focus. And believe me, she can look like a christmas tree on some days.
This was the last portrait I took of her and for the assignment in general, and I think, it’s one of the most accurate pictures of her. She loves her choo-choo train, and she’s very proud of all her riding skills. This thing is not made for heavy riding, but she doesn’t care. She’s taken it everywhere with her, and she’s been riding it to and from the park on daily basis. She has fallen off of it, just to get up and laugh her bruises away. She’s normally not the toughest cookie, but when it comes to this vehicle of hers, she has her own superpowers.
Today, I’m working on a third assignment, studying work of Mary Ellen Mark, and I feel like my brain is burning because all of the thinking I’m doing… 😉
if you’d like to chat about your session, feel free to email to ewasamples(at)gmail.com also, to stay on top of all kinds of specials as well as photography tips subscribe to my newsletter :
David Bailey Inspired San Jose Kids and Pets Photography
I’ve been Natural Light Family Photographer for over 3 years now. For two years I’ve own a tiny set up for portable studio, and used it mostly for Smash Cake sessions in my clients’ homes. However, I’ve always felt like there are other ways to use the equipment I have, and I’m limiting myself by not learning about it. Whenever I tried something new, I did not know where to start from. I lacked inspiration and had great amount of excuses not do dig deeper.
And here I am, digging David Bailey and Gregory Heisler.
How did that happen?
Well, thanks to a friend I recently learned about a portrait workshop, and I instantly knew it’s something I’d love to do, but again, I was looking for excuses not to take it.
For a long time I’ve tried to convince myself that blasting a great amount of light on my subject to make it look flawless, is to know it all for my business, and I should be happy with knowing at least that much. However deep inside I knew it’s not how I want to do it, and that I want to do something more creative.
One of the excuses was that my equipment is not enough, and I should wait until I get something bigger and better. But the truth is, I didn’t even know what I need, because I’ve never practiced anything beyond my comfort zone which is required to know the limit of my equipment.
And here I am today. Taking the workshop and working on my second assignment. My equipment works just fine. Of course, I could have better and bigger stuff, but seriously, I don’t really need it for now.
In the workshop we have 2 weeks to study one great photographer and then be inspired by that person, and create work based on what we’ve learned about this photographer. It is awesome. Two weeks and I feel like I’ve learned a tone already.
Pictures for this post are inspired by David Bailey work, my first assignment for this workshop.
Each week we are inspired to create something. We’re pushed to get out there and work whatever we have and just learn. I’m loving it.
I’m not sure if my pups is loving it as much as I am, though 😉
Today, I’m working on the assignment for Gregory Heisler and I don’t remember the last time I was so frustrated with photography. I don’t remember when I was thinking so much about a concept for ONE portrait. Where to put what, and where bounce what to get the vision I have in my head. It’s a good frustration, though. It pushes me out of my comfort zone.
Can’t wait to see what’s ahead.
if you’d like to chat about your session, feel free to email to ewasamples(at)gmail.com also, to stay on top of all kinds of specials as well as photography tips subscribe to my newsletter :
Celebrate Yourself with Bay Area Portrait Photographer (or by yourself) ;)
I call this project “Celebrate Yourself”, and it’s a part of my creative portrait photography journey, which I plan to evolve into something fun, and a little different then ordinary portrait photography.
In this case, I think, it was more about celebrating myself and getting my idea out of my head, more then the subject celebrating herself. You can’t tell but she was freezing in there and all she wanted was a hot tea and a warm sweater.
Deep inside, my dear friend Iryna thinks, what I did to her on that day was a revenge for all the times I had to pose for her. Well, I didn’t have to but this is what friends are for, right?
For me, this project turned out to be a fun experiment. Not only artistically, but personally.
For me, this project was never meant to be in black and white, you know, like converting the whole picture into a black and white photograph.
I know that for most people it would make more sense. But it’s not about making sense, it’s about being true to oneself. Life doesn’t make sense most of the time. And things are never perfect, no matter how hard we try. And this was not about creating something perfect. It was about creating something that speaks me to myself (it that makes any sense).
Showcasing one of those pictures here and there I’ve already received some comments on how I could improve the image by converting it into black and white, or making the background less significant. Well, that’s not going to happen. Just saying.
In today’s society, people are very easy on giving you advices on how to improve anything in your life, even if they were not asked to do so. And that’s ok. Take it with a smile and move on. Say, “thank you, but, no, thank you” and do things your way. I think, the “super talent” of ignoring others opinion about oneself comes with age, though.
Whenever we get stuff out to the public we are judged, and people are very eager to give us their opinion (doesn’t matter if we asked them for it or not). We have few choices:
- we can do what we think people expect us to do, and not be criticized for doing something unexpected and different.
- we can stop doing anything from the fear of being intimidated by people and their opinions about our work.
- we can be ourselves and have this attitude: “world’s opinion of me is none of my business”
My own decision is to start carrying less about what people think of me, and more about what I think of myself and how I want to feel doing things I love.
It feels good, and I wish I had this ability earlier in my life.
How about you?
if you’d like to chat about your session, feel free to email to ewasamples(at)gmail.com also, to stay on top of all kinds of specials as well as photography tips subscribe to my newsletter :