If you follow me on Instagram, then you’ll remember a week ago I spoke about writing a few posts regarding my passion for food photography, creative blocks and the need to keep switching things up. Yes, I get easily bored. And there is nothing worse to me than when things get stagnant—and that goes for all things in life.
It just so happens photography is my biggest passion outside of family and food. With that it plays a key role here. The other reasons for these upcoming postings about photography and creative blocks—I get a lot questions about the photography here.
My advice is pretty pragmatic—practice, practice, practice. Sure I could tell you to learn your settings, know your camera, but I’m not good at taking that advice. It’s a patience thing. I’m much more hands-on and prefer to experiment first then research later to pinpoint what works from there and apply it going forward.
As with any passion, I think that’s about right. Okay, at least it is for me. I push myself to grow and to be able to shoot in different styles and lighting. I’m not saying this is the best. There are many great works from people I admire that use the same palette, style and lighting and it’s great. It’s their signature.
My way may be one that doesn’t showcase a distinct style, but it feeds my passion. And that’s what should matter most to you if you are diving into photography and wanting to take it to the next level—find what feeds your passion and the rest will follow.
So how is this post suppose to help you guys who have photography questions? I can’t say it will. But I get enough emails that I thought I should write a post, so here’s what works for me:
- If photography is your passion, develop it. That means practice a lot, you need to actually do it, so this means shooting outside of just what you do for your blog.
- Know your influences, but find your voice and carve out your distinct style.
- Know your learning style. Don’t be like me and take the advice of someone else that is counterintuitive to your learning style – and this doesn’t mean being close-minded. Here’s what I mean – I took the advice of someone and read books, watched videos to learn and I spent so much time reading and watching, I wasn’t actually doing. This tripped me up to the point of handicapping my learning curve. If you are methodical, then by all means learn the technical aspects, read manuals, watch You Tube videos, etc. If you are anything like me, just go for it, then work backwards to pick apart and find the technical aspects you need to know. Whatever your learning style is—know it and you’ll find yourself more comfortable working towards where you want to be..
- Connect and ask questions. Sure you might not get an answer from everyone you query about what they do, but surprisingly, many people are very sharing. I certainly am, I have no big secrets. Full disclosure-if you have emailed me in the past and I haven’t answered, it’s from sheer oversight—I have way too many emails, some may have slipped through the cracks.
Of course, I can’t hit everything in one post, so tune-in next week (Part 2 | Let’s Talk Composition is here) where I drill down deeper about my process and share some points of inspiration (the latter being something I mentioned a while back in a one of the Weekend Editions that fell off the radar once I became pregnant—and soon to be revived). And of course, I’ll have some new pictures. The ones appearing in this post might be familiar to many of you, but they are ones I can say, I still like—and that isn’t the case for many photos I’ve shot. From there, I do a post about how I work through a creative block.
And most importantly, if you have any questions you want addressed from settings, lighting, styling or anything, leave a comment and I’ll answer them individually as a reply or if it’s a common theme, I will address it in a post.
***Food Photography Tips for Bloggers: Part 2 | Let’s Talk Composition can be found here.**
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