Day One–Where I get Inspiration from

We all get inspiration for our photography from different places. I have several books on photography that I have collected over the years that have been the base of mine. My prime technical book is Kodak’s Complete Book of Photography. I also have books on photography from the early 1900’s where the black and whites photos are pasted into the pages, and newer ones that are rich in color like David Muench’s book of photos Nature’s America . While I have never been to the Southwest (Southern California is the exception) I long to visit the Badlands of Nebraska. I have relatives in the Southeastern part of the State, and have seen them a handful of times over the years, I have never had the time to make the trip to the Northwestern part while there. I vow to visit the family again AND also make this trip. I have been working on a tight to no budget for a while, so I find inspiration where I can. A local festival like a seafood fest, cranberry harvest, State Park, Landmarks, and what seems to be my fall back, Things that visit my backyard. So with that in mine here are three sources that I have been getting inspiration from lately that I feel will reach out to everyone at any level of photography.

1. What I see out my car’s windows as I seem to be in the car a majority of my life as of late. I am snapping, no other way to describe that point the camera in the general direction and try to grab the shot, of the landscape going by. If there is time I might even stop and get out of the car for a photo. This is more to share the sights I see each day there actual “good” photography, but maybe I will get lucky along the way.

2. Actively pushing myself to photograph friends and family. This is really hard fro me. While I was a teenager, I always was the guy with the camera taking candid shots while out. Then my focus moved to nature and somewhere along the line, people got dropped out of what I called photos. I have been using my nephew to help me draw myself back into shots with people. Though I have been asked not to post his pictures on the internet by his parents, so you will not be seeing those images here, I hope to have photos of others to document my efforts presented instead.

3. Podcasts. I listen currently to 2 podcasts. Formerly they where under one umbrella known as TWIP or This Week In Photography, it broke into two different shows called This Week in Photo and PhotoFocus. This Week In Photo features several professional photographers like Alex Lindsay, Frederick Van Johnson, Steve Simon, Ron Brinkmann, and others. Scott Bourne was also on TWIP, and still appears from time to time, but has left to do his own podcast. Scott is the host of Photofocus, a podcast that is about photography but in a different way then TWIP. His often guess on this show is Nicole S Young, and she is the reason I am working so hard on photographing people.

4. The Best Camera is the One That's With You™. This is the motto and Trademark of Chase Jarvis. And it has moved me to carry a camera with me all the time. DSLR, compact camera, or Cellphone. Getting the shot is the biggest part. A good shot full of pixels is always nice, but if you don’t take it because you didn’t have a “good” camera then the shot is lost forever. Take the chance and push the trigger.

Scott Bourne made me see that while I was growing up in Florida and spending my time chasing Red-tailed Hawks, Ospreys, and Bobcats,  I missed the beauty of of all the other birdlife that I wrote off as just too common. His photos of seabirds are inspiring and make me see that while I will always love big cats, the sandpipers deserve just as much attention. So now I try to view everything as a photograph when a camera is in my hand. A leaf deserves as much attention as a bear, a lighthouse as much as a person.  I just need to capture it in an interesting way that holds a moment in time and can express “a picture says a thousand words”.

BTW: I was a very active writer in my younger years and that is yet another reason for changing this blog. So HOPEFULLY my writing skills will be cleaned up and sharpened as part of this project. Thanks for reading far enough to see this