{"id":2657,"date":"2016-05-18T16:15:52","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T16:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.devonshanorphotography.com\/?p=2657"},"modified":"2016-05-18T17:20:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T17:20:17","slug":"stretching-myself-as-a-photographer-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/stretching-myself-as-a-photographer-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Stretching Myself as a Photographer | Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"watermarked-1-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I just returned from The Mid-Atlantic Regional School of Professional Photography (MARS)\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0in New Jersey. \u00a0It is a school I have been attending for the last seven years to stretch and grow myself as a family and portrait photographer. \u00a0I love spending time with other professional photographers. \u00a0<\/strong>Often, we will talk about WHY we became photographers and I have found that my story into becoming a professional photographer is often different than others. \u00a0 Most of my peers fell in love with the ART of photography. \u00a0They began taking pictures at a young age and learned to develop film in a darkroom, excited by the process of photography. \u00a0They often began by taking pictures of flowers, sunsets, landscapes, etc. \u00a0Often that love of photography transferred into taking pictures of people. \u00a0They seem to all have a deep appreciation and love for art of all kinds. \u00a0They love visiting museums and often are skilled as artists with a pen, paper or paintbrush as well as behind a camera. \u00a0They are passionate about art.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My story is different. \u00a0 I didn’t have a camera in my hand growing up and I’ve never developed film in a darkroom. \u00a0I don’t often visit museums and I never did very well in art class. \u00a0If you ask me to draw a dog, it might end up looking more like a horse… or a bunny. \u00a0I fell in love with photography as a TOOL to capture love. \u00a0I LOVE people. \u00a0I am passionate about people and the connections between them. \u00a0I began photography because I wanted to capture the love of family, the strength and passion in a marriage, the love of parents for their children, the connections between siblings, the transition of a young man or woman as they graduate high school and the beauty of new life in a newborn. \u00a0THAT for me is the art I am passionate about. Photography for me is so exciting because it allows to to take those moments and preserve them forever.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

That being said, I don’t shoot landscapes, flowers, trees, inanimate objects very often.\u00a0I often will see a beautiful landscape and think “That is beautiful, I wish I had a family or couple here so I could create a beautiful portrait.”<\/em> \u00a0I notice the beauty, but to me, it would be made more beautiful if I could incorporate the love and connection of people into the scene. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recently, I reconnected with an old friend who is an amazing artist in multiple different mediums. \u00a0 We had some long discussions about art and the definition of an “artist.” \u00a0He inspired me to stretch myself and try to expand my view of art through my own photography. \u00a0Don’t get me wrong, I see so much beauty and talent in landscape photographers, I have some friends who are incredibly talented in that field! \u00a0I am in awe of what they capture! \u00a0I just have a hard time myself bringing that same beauty to life behind my own camera. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like I said, my friend encouraged me to try and stretch myself, and see beauty, vision and perspective in way that DON’T include people. \u00a0Since I was going to be at MARS in Cape May NJ, a gorgeous place to photograph landscapes, old Victorian homes, animals, boats, etc, I decided to take him up on the challenge.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

IT WAS HARD! \u00a0I am so used to having a vision of what I want to photograph before I start, a vision that ALWAYS includes people. \u00a0To just walk around and try to find inspiration in the objects around me… that was hard! \u00a0I only really had one day to work on this personal project, and that day, it was raining and foggy. So my go-to sunrise or sunset pictures were out. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m definitely not ready to start selling postcards, but thought I’d share a little piece of myself with you. \u00a0I feel like a brand new photographer again, as I definitely have a lot of room to grow here, but it’s important to stretch yourself and grow. \u00a0Here’s me growing…\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"watermarked-1-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"watermarked-2-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"watermarked-2-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"watermarked-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"watermarked-5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"watermarked-3-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"watermarked-1-4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just returned from The Mid-Atlantic Regional School of Professional Photography (MARS)\u00a0\u00a0in New Jersey. \u00a0It is a school I have been attending for the last seven years to stretch and grow myself as a family and portrait photographer. \u00a0I love spending time with other professional photographers. \u00a0Often, we will talk about WHY we became photographers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[56,21,5,46],"class_list":["post-2657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-personal","tag-devon-shanorphotography","tag-hampton-roads-photographer","tag-photography-business","tag-professional-portraits-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2657"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2721,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2657\/revisions\/2721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}