December — A Year in Photographs — Details

Boots — Day 337

I love details. Details are what makes things great—a heaping a small things come together to make the big things. So often there are small details around us that we dismiss or overlook—the mundane around us that makes the world but are still beautiful in their own right.

I’d argue that a photographer, or cinematographer, makes it their job, or even their duty, to see the world differently. My grandfather once said to me while looking as a photo of mine, “I don’t know how you see it. I see nothing, you see a photography.”

Letting my eyes wander is part of how I made it through #AYearinPhotographs. Seeing things that otherwise I would have overlooked and saying “that’s my photograph for today.” Creativity is intuitive, instinctual, visceral, but also architectural, madness, and cognitive.

“Creativity: Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge. In that order.”

— Adrian’s Life Rule #40

Many of these photos “took themselves” as I saw it and said in my mind, “take the photo.” And that’s perhaps the one thing that stands out to me. If you’re instincts tell you to photography something do it. It is the small voice that booms inside that if ignored, one will regret it.

November — A Year in Photographs — Night

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Night 20 — Day 324

Photography is, elementally, capturing light. Night is generally the lack thereof so finding light is a challenge. High ISO, wide apertures, long shutters make a challenging situation harder.

Building on prior months of People, Light and Shadow, and Long Exposure, it came naturally to make Night and November about bringing several ideas together.

While other months have been about styles and inspiration I’ve drawn on before, November I found a new and exciting style I’d had not ever photographed. I usually prefer sharp subjects, “proper” exposure, and other technical details being refined. In this instance, I embraced motion blur of the people in the photographs—sometimes ghostly and eerie additions to what would have been rather average scenes.

“A camera alone only captures light. Through skillful manipulation does that light become cinematography.”

— Adrian’s Life Rule #69

These average scenes became unique—places one has seen or past by a thousand time are an altered reality, frozen in time. I would contend that such a philosophy is one of the creative fundamentals of photography—to make the unremarkable, remarkable.

October — A Year in Photographs — Perspective

Illinois Center — Day 286

After nine months of photography, I found myself uncertain what theme to pursue but settled on perspective. It is an important yet broad topic in photography and thus I focused on a few perspectives on ‘perspective’—vanishing point, two-point perspective, and “look up”.

Oddly, it became a bit of a challenge. For such staple in photography, or perhaps because it is a staple, it was hard to find something new every day that both spoke to the ideals of perspective while including interesting subject matter.

Reflecting on the month, I can not give myself a “grade” for my work. Some photos I really love and some not. That isn’t really any different than any photography but compared to other months, I sometimes felt stagnant. On the other hand, some photographs I was indifferent too became follower favorites and others, that I did really like, got little adulation.

“The best part about creativity is that under no circumstances must you follow the rules.”

— Adrian’s Life Rule #17

In the end, October took me to through Italy and Chicago and the challenges were important to explore. I do not ascribe failure to the month because it help me understand myself as a photographer better but ‘inspired’ was also not a deep sentiment for the photographs to created.

When I’ve told some I was feel a bit uninspired, they seemed shocked. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this month. What stands out?