Brand Camp Blog

Visit any photography forum, and you’ll see tons of ‘what would you do’ questions.  How would you light this, how would you respond to this client, how would you react to this situation…but I want to go a bit bigger today.

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

What would you be shooting if money/success/fame/family worries were all taken care of?  You have everything you want in life, and a camera.  Where do you go?  What are you photographing?

Now go.  Begin.  Start shooting the work of your dreams.  Light that basketball while pretending Nike is your client; romp with the dog imagining Purina waiting on the line; shoot lifestyle as if Gap, Abercrombie, and J. Crew are fighting to have you.  Let your dreams fly right through your lens, and see what turns up.

For me, the dream is shooting pets and people with film.  I was literally jumping up and down when my shiny new (to me) F5 body arrived.  The tones and feeling film renders can’t be duplicated in Photoshop, and the easy workflow — shoot, drop off at lab, pick up at lab, done — is ideal for being able to continue my work with this blog and with the Totally Rad Actions.  For the reason I’m tiptoeing into the world of film, read this Totally Rad Actions blog post. (Hermione D. Granger and the ever-patient MattMatt pictured in these frames.)

But my dream isn’t your dream, so copying it would be silly.  Would you like to shoot with vintage cameras, or stay digital?  Shoot billboards?  Paint your photos using fancy software or actual paint?  Would you like to learn studio lighting or try out a new genre of photography?  Would you like to work on personal projects a bit more?

What’s stopping you?

If you can identify what’s holding you back — fear, lack of organization, timecrunches, more fear, resentment, boredom, overscheduling yourself — you’re on the way to making time for your vision to come through.  Pretty please, make time for it this week.