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Out of Focus

This post has been a long time coming now. Ever since I decided some months back that I wanted more from my gear than what the X100 was providing, I started researching my next camera purchase. As any one that knows me can tell you, I'm big on research. Big on reading up on anything I want to buy. Once I start, I can become obsessive with my need to know just about everything there is to know about whatever I'm researching. Maybe it's the engineering part of my brain. Whatever the reason, I have a tendency to get lost in the details. Long story short, my X100 now sits along side an X-Pro1 and a 35mm prime. One heck of a collection, but what gets me is that I'm still researching. Still unsure if I made the right decision to stick with Fuji. Still wondering if I should have gone back to a DSLR or given micro four thirds another try.

It didn't really hit me how lost in the weeds I was until I read this post on Patrick LaRoque's blog. Now granted, I have never obsessed about the sharpness of any lens I have ever owned, but I have and am obsessing far too much about the gear in my bag. I have completely lost focus of what I want to do with my photography and the fact that it's the photographs that matter. I know very well that no one really cares about what I'm shooting with. No one cares if a photograph was made using a full frame camera or an iPhone, with a super sharp 35mm lens or a cheap plastic 50. What they care about is the photographs I share and the fact that they make me want to go create more photographs. 

It's funny how many times I have been down this road in the past five years. As much as I enjoy the craft of photography, I'm also fascinated by the tools that I use to make the photographs. I really do love the technology behing it all. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm still very much a geeky engineer at heart. I know that I'll continue to obsess because it's just in my nature, but hopefully these words will serve as a small reminder of what it is that I should be obsessing about. 

Finding Inspiration

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Inspiration is one of the most discussed concepts amongst photographers, and artists in general. It is something that we say alludes us when we fail to create work we are proud of. It is something that we wait for to get us out of the creative ruts we fall into. And its absence is something that we use too often as an excuse not to go out and explore our creativity.

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The problem with this way of thinking is that inspiration becomes a crutch, rather than something uplifting. It becomes this mythical concept that we assume only the masters know how to find. And it becomes a reason not to aspire to the level of the photographers we admire. The truth, however, is that inspiration can be found all around us. It can be found at the park around the corner. It can be found at the museum a short drive away. And it can be found everyday in those that we care for. 

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The real secret to inspiration is that there is no secret. It comes from observing life around us. It comes from seeing the work of others. And most importantly, it comes from creating work. It’s true that often times the work we create is not as good as we’d like. But that’s natural when we’re working to bridge the gap between our taste and our work. The fact that we realize our work is not as good as our taste should be all the inspiration we need to make more, and better work.

Sunday Funday

Thanks to the DILO Community on Google+, I've been able to crawl out of the creative rut that left me silent between September and January. I'm still struggling with writer's block, but the act of documenting a particular day has helped to bring some of that creativity back up to the surface. Here's the set of photographs I shared for our second community DILO day yesterday.

Wandering through the Huntington Library

Photography is my creative outlet, but I sometimes get caught up with the how instead of the why. I get fixated on the technical aspects of photography like technique and gear and forget about the creative aspects like vision and style. Maybe it's because I'm a geek at heart, but I find that the fleeting joy of owning a new piece of technology can occasionally overshadow the satisfaction of creating an interesting photograph. Whenever this happens, I find that it helps to wander through a new place (or anyplace I haven't been for awhile) with my camera. As I wander, my curious nature surfaces and I start photographing everything that catches my eye. The point of wandering is not so much about the photographs, but the act of making them. Letting my curiosity take over reminds me how much I enjoy seeing the world through a lens and clicking the shutter just to see the result. Here are some of the results of that curiosity from our recent trip to the Huntington Library.

Photography is

Photography is many things to many people. For me, photography is my way of preserving and sharing moments. It allows me to capture all the little details in the world around me and to present them in my own way. I've heard many times that everything around us has already been photographed ad nauseam. While this may be true, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to photograph those same things in a way that best represents our own way of seeing the world.

I was reminded of exactly what photograph is for me recently while going through my pictures for the DILO Community on Google+. For the most part, my camera is now only by my side during trips. But being a part of this new community and having a photo project to work on really brought back the feelings I had when I first looked through a viewfinder. Here are the results of this great exercise in photography.