When we spend enough time working at anything, there comes a certain amount of comfort. We work on the same process in an attempt to master it and we create a habit. Once we have that habit, we have secured that comfort.
Walking through the shadows
Sometimes our work starts to suffer because of this comfort. It becomes routine and we just produce the same work over and over. Changing things up from time to time and learning new things can can improve our processes. Pushing ourselves to do things that we wouldn’t normally do and making ourselves uncomfortable on purpose, really pushes us to improve our craft.
A discomfort for me was pursuing street photography. I always liked the images that I saw others shooting but was terrified of the prospect of photographing strangers in that setting. I was worried about confrontation that might happen when taking pictures of people in public. At some point, the desire to be able to create this style of imagery overtook my fear of possible confrontation and I went out in pursuit of scenes. What I found was that people didn’t really care what I was doing. I am still cautious when making images. There are certain things that I don’t shoot when I am out. I want a creative scene that has a person interacting with that scene. I am not out to take advantage of anyone. The initial reason that scared me and kept me from doing it earlier, really wasn’t an issue.
Walking the dog between the trees
What this has done for me has allowed me to look more at scenes and be more aware of what people are doing and when there might be a moment that would be interesting to a viewer. I have also been able to adjust my vantage point better and understand that you cannot control all aspects of a shoot like I can in a studio. I have to be quick and ready to make the shot. There is still a lot of creative control to how you want the image to look and what part of the scene is more important than the other. The discomfort that I felt and the initial fear that I had was mostly due to my lack of experience with this style of photography. We should be open to try new things and embrace the unknown.
All the reflections
Ultimately something as simple as going out and doing some street shooting has improved and changed my view of photography. I have grown from that discomfort, I have learned that I feared something just because I was unfamiliar with it. It has expanded my technical vocabulary and creativity as to what might be interesting to a viewer and improved my photography in many ways.
Walking too fast for my camera