Inspiration When You Least Expect It

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I have started work on a new project that was inspired by a comment made during a critique. The critique was not for my work. The comment was not directed at me, but to another photographer. That's the great thing about group critiques, you don't have to be the one being critiqued for it to be a valuable lesson, or for it to inspire you.

The photographs that were being critiqued that evening were images of trees in a forest setting. They were all done in a very traditional black and white style. This particular photographer has shown similar work many times over the past several years. When questioned about the validity of doing the same work over and over again, his response was about being familiar with the subject material and feeling comfortable working within a very traditional style.

Although this photographer may never change his approach to photographing the landscape, I found myself thinking about the possibilities of doing such a thing. I entered photography through the doorway that Ansel Adams opened many years ago. However, after working for many years under the blanket of a fine art black and white landscape photographer, I came to a crossroad in my work and decided then to make some big changes in my approach to photography. In order to keep evolving creatively, I have worked with intention to continually change my methods of photographing. I have many times changed my subject material, techniques and locations so that I might be influenced to create in a new way. I was once asked about how can we, as artists stay fresh and motivated about our work. The short answer is change. Tune in to the moments that inspire us towards creative exploration. Make changes, even when its not comfortable.

It has been awhile since I have photographed the landscape, but I am excited to start working. I want to see if I can challenge and motivate myself to approach a familiar subject and work towards a different conclusion than I have in the past. I have found a natural landscape environ-ment very close to home where I have easy access to work in. It is important to have the ability to work as often as we can and to jump in when we feel the inspiration. If I had to wait weeks, or months to make a trip up to Yosemite before taking out my camera, progress would be slow. Sometimes inspiration comes when you least expect it.

My new location is a grove of Eucalyptus trees within three miles of our home. I can easily go to the location as the light changes during the day, or when there are changes in the weather. After looking at my initial photographs of the Eucalyptus grove, I have decided to create the images as black and white photographs. In the past I would have used a 4x5 camera, but for this project I will use a digital camera and digital processing. I am drawn to the images that I shot that day that have a limited depth of field. I have used heavy processing techniques to help isolate the main trees from the background. Using focus and contrast controls I am able to push the obvious subjects into the foreground of interest. At this point, the images are printed with an intentional dark border, creating a visual framing devise to hold the viewer inside the image. The black and white images are printed with a warm tone process, another step outside of my usual way of working.

I have only just begun to shoot and process the images. I am not sure if my initial printing has pushed me far enough from my comfort zone, but the first prints are different from my Ansel Adams inspired photographs from many years ago. It will take many trips and several hours of experimentation to see where this takes me, but then that is the point....to work with new material and techniques seeking to be inspired towards a new creative expression.

If we just sit and wait for inspiration, it may never show up on its own, but if we seek it out and keep our minds open, it just may come from the places where we least expect it.