Im in a writing mood this morning. Not sure why exactly, sick baby means no sleep for mommy last night so I am running a little empty. I was finishing up this client gallery this morning, selecting the images I was going to put into black and white for them, and I just started dying over some of these photos. Being an artist is awesome, but like anything it can be difficult at times. Probably the number one thing I struggle with is always finding the imperfections in my images and the things I did wrong, instead of looking at the things I love and think I did correctly and just enjoying the images. Some of this comes from the way I was trained, it was very “this is how it’s supposed to be, my way or the highway” and despite some of the positives that I learned, it engrained into me a little bit of a negative way of looking at myself as an artist. You learn that there are “rules” you’re supposed to follow to create the perfect photograph, or the perfect painting, or even the perfect cookie. I was taught those rules and I was pretty scared to bend them at all. Number two struggle… Comparing myself to other artists. It gets you nowhere. I actually read something the other day that someone wrote saying they compete with themselves and continually build on the good things they think they do. I like that. Look at the good things, build on the good things. I feel like I have really grown as an artist this past year. I think part of it is from having Elli. She makes me look at life so differently then I did before and I have started trying things I wouldn’t have before. I know I already posted some from this session. And I am sure I can find at least one flaw in each of them or technical thing I did wrong, but I am just in love with how real these photos are. Looking back on the past few months, I actually have loved some of the things I have been doing with client sessions this year. This session was a little different then my usual and I love some of the new things I tried.
