license to Still

Yesterday I celebrated the one-year anniversary of my blog by briefly stating seven goals to work on in 2010.  You can jump to any of these goals using the links below as they become available.

Today: Develop my Visual Language (the big one)

Sunday: Brand Identity

Monday: Hassie Set-up

Tuesday: Workflow: From Scanning to Printing

Wednesday: New Blog and Folio Sites

Thursday: Car 2 Sleep In

Friday: NYC 2011

I have no doubt that developing my visual language and best style will be a much longer journey than the whole of 2010.  The goal of consistently being able to communicate my ideas in a unique and identifiable way, no matter what the medium, is a process I’ve been working at since I realized I actually had ideas to share with the world.

That was a long time ago.

You can read this to say, “What my pictures will look like in one, five, ten, and twenty years.”  For me this is figuring out a way to succinctly transfer my thoughts and emotions from my brain to YOUR BRAIN.

For the most part, the photography presented on this blog has been wedding photography.  And I originally intended it to be that way as a means of keeping my business life separate from my personal life.

To keep the two separate no longer seems possible, and is disingenuous to you, my clients!  I’m coming to shoot your wedding, and I want you to know that you aren’t hiring a wedding robot!  You’re hiring everything that comes with me; my past experiences and my future dreams.

Wedding photography is a business and, just as in life, where this is someone out there for everyone, there is a wedding photographer out there for everyone too!  When my style changes subtly, I imagine I will have no trouble finding clients to fit it.

I love shooting weddings!  And I really hope that I can continue to shoot them.  As long as my personal style remains congruent with what people want for their wedding photography then so be it!  If my personal style shifts to a realm where no one who is getting married likes my work, well I imagine the market will speak!  I can’t help but smile as I write all this.  That’s why there are so many exclamation marks!

Example.  I began shooting with my Holgas in my personal photography.  I was mixing developing chemicals in my kitchen sink and developing film there.  Personally, this was a direction I wanted to explore.  I began to show my personal holga work here on the blog, and I decided to offer it up to my brides and grooms as a wedding-package option.

I couldn’t have imagined the response that I received from the many brides in grooms jumping for Holga options and Holga only TTDs. No one has splurged yet on the Holga-only wedding-day coverage.  I know you’re out there somewhere!

O.K. back to the visual language.  My one goal, in developing a visual language and personal style, is that you, the viewer, can find something in my work that you can identify with and ultimately, relate to.  My belief is that art makes you feel less alone.  It’s a comfort when you’re sad and a joy when you’re happy and art will always exist because of that.

My only hope in life is that my work, channeled through my own unique style and language, can have that effect on you.