Orem, Utah | Visiting the Colonial Heritage Festival is my favorite way to celebrate the Fourth of July. The festival is entirely run by volunteers -- which means when you meet somebody who's part of the festival, you know they want to be there. What they do is not easy. Some of them are on their feet in colonial-style shoes for hours at a time. Some wear full colonial garb like coats, petticoats, stockings, the works. July in Utah is sweltering hot. This year, we're even in the middle of a heat wave. And yet, there they all were with smiles on their faces and willing to let me take their picture. I have a lot of photographs from this festival at this point. Many of them are similar (still awesome, but similar). So this year I wanted to do something different: my portable studio on site. Bringing a portable flash is on location one thing. Bringing a backdrop that has to traverse a full size public park in the sun and wind is entirely another. The Portable Studio Off-Camera Fl...
Have you ever been stuck trying think of an idea, and then all of a sudden a tiny, fragile glimpse of something appears? In those moments I just want to grab it and hold on so it can't get away, but if you don't let it breathe, that poor little idea gets squished. I wanted this photo shoot with Kollene Snow to illustrate that idea. Like a lonely flower that blooms, sometimes unexpected ideas lead the way to the next one. Model: Kollene Snow Makeup: Kollene Snow Photography: Wendy Hurst Portrait
Most people aren't used to creating an image based on a theme they learned on the spot, so I started there. Three photographers with different experience, ideas and creative perceptions came together and out of their comfort zones to demonstrate one simple truth: there is more than one "right" answer to a creative question. For some that answer isn't as simple as it seems. Anyone who has ever had writer's block or the artistic equivalent knows what I mean. As one studies the works of others it can be easy to fall into the "right way" trap. An inability to exactly reproduce an image like someone else, or the concern that an idea has "already been done" can feel crippling. And to that I emphatically repeat: there is more than one "right answer" to a creative question. Here's how the exercise worked: The Challenge: Create at least one image interpreting a single theme with only one hour to prepare and one hour t...
Comments
Post a Comment