Years ago, Tony Corbell used to remind everybody who attended his programs to save the last frame “on the roll” and just shoot completely different from everything else they’d done.   Take the time to experiment.   Well, on a winter Saturday like today, during what is most photographer’s down time, how about thinking about mixing up the formula?

Time Magazine cover photographer, Gregory Heisler did my headshot last May, shown below, which I wrote about in a very early blog.   It wasn’t your average lighting set up for a portrait, but then again, Gregory is anything but average!

head shot 

 ”He photographed wide open with a Hasselblad H1 with the 100mm f2.2 lens.  A narrow vertical softbox with just the modeling light on was maybe 6 inches from my face and the camera maybe 18 inches away.  An assistant held in a black piece of card stock just to keep the flair off the lens.”

It’s at this point I need to apologize to my emerging professional photographer daughter, who I forgot to mention he only used the modeling light!  I guess she fried a couple of subjects trying to duplicate the lighting setup!  Oops – my bad.

 

For the most part, everyone, at least on the wedding/portrait side of life has some down time in the weeks ahead.  It’s the perfect time to experiment, but not just in the capture of your images.  How about looking at doing things differently in manipulation and workflow?  Maybe it’s time to test a new design on a direct mail piece?  How’s your website – is it time to update the images with a stronger look?

Whatever changes you make, keep focused on the fun of it!   If you let it become a chore, then you’ve lost perspective on what makes imaging so much fun!

From Scott Adams on Quoteland.com:  If you’re going to create, create a lot. Creativity is not like playing the slot machines, where failure to win means you go home broke. With creativity, if you don’t win, you’re usually no worse off than if you hadn’t played.