Tried something new...to me!
Zoom shoot on a Stay At Home Sunday!
Finding Inspiration
As I mentioned in an Instagram post last week, I had heard about a book on skate photography (skate ranks right up there for me with surf photography for a huge inspiration in my creative journey) and I immediately ordered it. The book is called Family Portraits, by Mike Blabac . Every page in this book left me slowly turning pages, and spent at least an hour or more devouring each and every image, multiple times. Being I shoot film (a lot of his early work shown in his book was shot on film) I wanted to recreate a contact sheet like he had as entry in his book. Why? Because, well, I think they look cool lol. Contact sheets are kind of a thing of the past, made in the darkroom, and was a way for photographers to go through their work in a more tangible form without having to print every single image out. These are beautiful compilations of what the photographer shot, and really fun to look back at what worked and what didn’t. Kind of like viewing your culled images side by side in digital editing.
My contact sheet shown here was not created in the darkroom (that is something on my list of things to learn this year) but instead I developed and scanned my negatives, and then created one digitally!
A bit about the photos.
Being we are all observing a shelter in place mandate, I miss seeing my kids, just like everyone else does who is not seeing their loved ones on a regular basis! After getting in my head that I wanted to create a contact sheet, I needed photos to do so. Photos that made sense. Not that I don’t have a binder full of negatives, but I wanted them to resemble the “head shot” style I saw in Family Portraits. There is something about that look and subject matter that I like the aesthetic of, a lot.
I got two girls on board to let me get them on video chat and shoot. This was a total experiment with no expectations, only hopes and ideas. I only needed a few images of each girl, and they needed to be a little specific, but not too specific lol. These images would be what they would be, analog images of a digital screen, and definitely have their unique qualities. It all tells a story, and let me have a tiny “session” with my girls, as well as make some fun images of them sheltering, and helped me try something new creatively! The look fits my taste right now anyway so I consider that in itself a win!
I wanted to start off the session with a Polaroid of each girl, something I also had seen done by a person I follow on Insta, and thought his results were so fun. No new ideas here, but loving how inspiration and creativity is being shared!!
I am picking out a few of my favorites as individual scans, but really what I most wanted to share and talk about is posted above!!
Have you been inspired or not inspired during this time of isolation? I don’t think that answer is the same for any one of us, nor do I think there is one answer is better than another. We are all having different experiences that are unique to us. I have sought inspiration because I’m looking at this time as a gift, one of time that I usually don’t have. I am welcoming what I am experience and will ride the wave since we all know, waves come and they go.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for staying home if you are non essential workforce. Thank you for caring about everyone, everyone who could be affected. We must be in this together for it to work.
<3 to you all….