Baby break

And baby #2, Ruby, arrived on Mother's Day. Here she is... the little sweetie...

I hope to post some more photos from a workshop I took a couple of weekends ago... once the excitement of baby Grayson dies down. :)

I haven't been blogging but I've been taking photos and....

thinking about focus....  not camera focus, but the kind of focus that made me start the blog in the first place. 

Meantime, I hope you missed me because I missed you. We've been travelling in the South Eastern US and Washington DC, so I have been making pictures. (See below.)

I think I've finally reached some conclusions about my photographic work....

• It's OK to have different photographic interests as long as I don't get so scattered that nothing hangs together. A few concurrent projects is OK. 

• I need to spend more time sharing (some might call this marketing). 

• So from now on I'm going to be entering more competitions, submitting images for stock websites, updating my own website more often, creating small projects like photo cards and looking to have my work shown in more venues.

And now that I and you know where I'm headed.... I'd be happy to receive more ideas from you on how and where to share my work. Short of spending every weekend at a market stall, all ideas can be on the table. 

So, about the US trip. We visited some wonderful historic sites and of course, there's nothing like Washington, DC. The Americans seem to know how to do museums very well. I haven't finished ploughing through the 1500 +/- images that were left after the first cut, but these portraits from Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg seemed to emerge as a nice little grouping. 

After you've finished looking at the photos, I've posed a couple of questions for you.

I kind of think these are more interesting travel photos than just buildings or museums. Do you agree?

Aside from posting these pictures on this blog, or my website, what else could I do with them? These people genuinely work at their trades within this living museum and are happy to be photographed....BUT...  I don't have model releases for them, so I can't sell them to a stock photo site. (I don't think.) 

Would anyone be interested in or even care about these photos? Or are they just a more satisfying way to take travel photos?

OK.. folks, your turn!! If it works for you, you can use the Comments section at the end of this page. Otherwise, some of you have kindly sent me emails with your feedback. Let the discussion begin!! And thanks... 

Back from Calgary and its big skies and bright sunshine

If this arrived as an email I suggest viewing this post online. Click on judiclick.blogspot.com

I took a break from this blog while grand-parenting in Calgary over the last week. I wondered whether perhaps I was blogging too intensely anyway since I heard from so few people after my last post. Please know that I do really appreciate your comments and feedback and you can email me if you can't make the comments thingy work. (I'm trying not to sound too pathetic and desperate, here!)

To find an upside to Alberta's freezing cold and to take a more project-based approach to my picture-taking, I decided to focus on the winter prairies near Calgary. For three days, after dropping Emmy at daycare, Colin and I drove out of the city, seeking interesting landscapes. I certainly didn't need all the lenses, tripods, filters etc because I was more grateful for my gloves than any other piece of equipment. Just too cold to be fancy. 

Below is a small sampling of what I captured. I'm interested in whether you think this type of work might be appealing enough for a show or other type of commercial use (like stock). Or is it too much like everyone's prairie scenes? What suggestions do you have for how to use these types of images... and there are lots more where these came from. I had a busy three days! 

Of course this still doesn't answer the burning question about what kind of photographer I want to be, but at least it's a project and I may be getting closer. And I do like the simplicity of this type of image.....  Hello out there.... :) Please comment below, or email me. Thanks. 

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What is the end point?

If this arrived as an email I suggest viewing this post online. Click on judiclick.blogspot.com

Thanks to everyone who responded with feedback on the last post. The beige tree was unanimously the most unpopular. The other images sparked lots of interesting and thought-provoking comments... which is just what I hoped for!!  And from the technical side, I'm pretty sure the 'comments' section below each post should now work. 

What is the point of taking photos, anyway?

There is the actual pleasure of taking images (I love the click my camera makes), selecting and tweaking on the computer ... and then what? What do I do with the resulting images? Some of the more satisfying end products of my work have been...

Photo-a-day- FUN!

• My gallery show at Vancouver's Zack Gallery which also travelled to a Toronto gallery. See images on my photo blog
• Several books I've created. Sample books
• Submitting (and selling) stock images for use in hotels and public spaces. I actually earned money.Yay!
• Printing and framing images to use myself or give away. Creating canvas works. Greeting cards. 
• The photo-a-day app on my iPhone where I was forced to be post something daily. Relentless but fun! 
• Getting a photo printed in the Vancouver Sun a couple of weeks ago. 

Thankfully, I also know what I don't want to do. No weddings or events where people have expectations of me. That's when I'm most likely to fall over my tripod, accidentally delete the good ones, mess up the exposures or do something equally silly. 

Lessons learned 

Clearly, I like/need to share my work with other people. Creating something physical feels good (as opposed to just sharing online).  

It's particularly rewarding if someone pays me actual money for what I create, but not absolutely crucial. 

It's also fun and interesting to have a project on the go, like the photo-a-day. 
Meantime, I can't resist the visual stimulation of things I see around me.  This week, for instance, I went for one walk in the fog and another in the snow (see below). And still I love urban scenes. And let's not forget about people. 

In summary then, I'm starting to realize that there is some photography that I will always do because it's there for the taking and I'm stimulated to do so. But maybe I need to find a genre or a style or a subject matter that I can develop into a meaningful project with a physical end product - like a gallery show, or a book or ????? Based on what you know of my work, do you have any suggestions or ideas for such a project?

Here are four more images. Again please pick ONE and give your reasons. I'm hoping that presenting a range of what I shoot and getting feedback will help me develop a direction so please bring it on. I'm really interested in your comments. And thanks again! 

  

1. Boundary Bay in the fog

2. Lisbon street 'Lady in Red'

3. Snow crystals - a rare and gorgeous sight

4. A whimsical take on pregnancy

Smart editing might help

Welcome back to my journey. Thanks to all of you who've shown an interest. Much appreciated. Remembering that the point for me is to try to find a focus for my photography, I thought editing wasn't a bad place to start. 

Learning to keep the best....

Ever since I started taking photography classes I’ve been pushed and pushed to edit each group of photos down to a handful of the best. As I’m rather a prolific shooter (clicker), I try to follow this very good advice. Just as a simple example, I took these 106 shots of my grandsons on a climbing wall and ended up with SIX, and then selected the ONE below that I liked the best because it showed both boys and was a bit more creative. I'm now comfortable forcing myself to make these decisions within one set of images. 

 

Next step? Making decisions about which kinds of images I should select. 

Ah... well this part is harder. Why can’t I make editing decisions about different subjects and types of images? Some thoughts…

• Maybe I’m too attached to the works to reject them.  I think I’d be sad to leave some behind. I mostly like all the images I've kept.
• As I mentioned before, perhaps they’re just too diverse to even consider comparing them. Can you compare apples and oranges? 
• And then there’s a difference between the shots I take of my family, the assignments I do for a class or a competition, and the images I shoot because something inspires me visually. 
• I might be scared of rejecting something really good but what does that say about my judgement? Am I the only person who finds it hard to critique my own work? 

For now, I'll ignore the family photos and the snaps at golf tournaments etc. because I'll always want to be doing some of that for me and for others and for FUN! 

No, it's the more creative work that is at issue here. Well, I could go on musing and making excuses about my indecision, but it's time to get some feedback from you. If you can relate to my dilemma about how to choose your best work, and you've got some advice, PLEASE bring it on!

And here are 4 quite different photos. Tell me which ONE you like best and why. I'll try to put up some images with each post.  Just give me your comments below or send me an email. Many, many thanks. J

# 1 Portugal Church with birds layered into the image

# 2 Character on Main Street, Vancouver

#3 Intentional Camera Movement - Rose Hip

#4 Experiments with tree skeletons

Let's go exploring together...

I was with a small group of friends on New Year’s Eve musing about what 2014 might bring for us. I said that this was the year I was going to find some kind of focus for my photography. I was quickly reminded that I’ve said that before and then was challenged to actually do something about it.  I love a challenge!

See what I mean?

You may have heard me compare myself to a photographic hummingbird… moving quickly from one pretty flower (or interest) to another.  Am I into macro, portraits, landscapes, urban street, nature, long exposures, minimalist, architecture, abstract, travel or sports? Yes, yes and yes – all of the above and more. It seems I have a twitchy photographer’s eye – always roving and finding interesting stuff to click.

So here’s my idea. I’m going to write this blog as a way to organize and share my thoughts and images, as I figure out where I want to go photographically.  I realize that this is an extremely egotistical thing to do, but one thing I have discovered is that I work better with an audience and feedback. (I’m just being honest, here.) So I’m hoping that you might be interested enough to come along.

In return, I’ll try to make my posts interesting or educational or entertaining or all three. I will post images, of course. After all I am a photographer. And yes, I definitely do want feedback/comments/discussion because this is an important part of the journey. Oh, and I won't be one of those bloggers who bother you every day. I'll just post when I have something to say. And this project won't go beyond 2014, so you're not signing on for life.

Here’s how you can participate (or not). If you sign up by putting your email in the box labelled Follow by Email (right side, follow instructions) you’ll find out when I add a post to the blog. You are free to read it (or not) and comment (or not) or unsubscribe (or not). That's it!

And if you want to get started on the comment part, click on the pencil at the bottom of the page. Tell me:

• if you think this a good idea or kind of lame
• what would make the blog interesting for you

Well... thanks for reading this far, anyway. Hope to hear from you...

J